lend the epithet of illusion to living beings here, it is only insofar as they become involved in the illusory structures and activities of the material world. In reality, there is nothing illusory in being covered by the veil of māyā if that is not his desire. The activities of living beings in the spiritual realm are not illusory; these are the true and eternal activities of the liberated souls.
The cosmic manifestation is formed by the interaction of the three gunas, the three modes of influence of material nature; virtue, passion and ignorance. The spiritual world, for its part, ignores these material influences, but does not remain less filled with an entirely spiritual variety. It is also inhabited by innumerable living beings, all souls eternally liberated, absorbed by the service of absolute love of Lord Kṛiṣhṇa. The service attitude of the beings who live in the spiritual world manifests itself in the five types of relationships they exchange with the Sovereign Lord, all centered on his pleasure. The attitude of service, friendship, parental affection, and loving feeling characterize the four forms of spiritual exchange, the exchange of feelings. These are the purely spiritual sentiments that animate the service of love offered to the Lord. The Lord Kṛiṣhṇa is conquered by the realized souls who cherish these sweet feelings.
The liberation of conditioned souls, trapped in the dense and ethereal envelopes formed by the material body, is God's vow to fallen souls. Once released from all material defilement, the soul, abandoning its bodies of dense and ethereal matter, can reach the spiritual world in its original spiritual body, and there in Vaikuṇṭhaloka (the spiritual planets) or Kṛiṣhṇaloka (the major Krishna planet) to be absorbed in the service of transcendental love offered to the Lord. And it is when the soul is thus in its natural, original and eternal position that it is called liberated. It is possible to access the transcendental love service offered to Lord Krishna, and thus become a liberated soul, even in the material body.
On each of the Vaikuṇṭha planets of the spiritual world, Nārāyaṇa (Krishna Plenary Emanation) is the Sovereign Master. There his devotees have identical body traits and their devotion is marked by a feeling of reverence. However, beyond all these Vaikuṇṭha planets, there is another planet named Goloka, also called Kṛiṣhṇaloka, where God, the Supreme Person in his original form of Kṛiṣhṇa, manifests in free love exchanges the fullness of his power of bliss. As the devotees who live in the material world know almost nothing about these exchanges, the Lord wishes to reveal them to them.
The loves of Krishna and gopis in Vrindavane are of a spiritual nature. (Gopis: Young villagers, companions of Krishna in Vrindavana, who embody, because of their pure love for Him, the highest devotion to the Lord.) Even if they resemble the love affair of the material universe, an abyss separates them . In the material world, concupiscence may be temporarily awakened, but it dissipates as soon as it is appeased. But in the spiritual world, the love Krishna exchanged and the gopis grew unceasingly. This is what distinguishes spiritual love from material concupiscence. Concupiscence, the so-called love from the body, is as ephemeral as the body itself,