What is the struggle for existence?

Changing Bodies: Reflections of Maya (Material Nature)

The moon shines in the sky, single and unperturbed, but when it is reflected on water or an oil slick, it appears to take on various forms due to the oscillations of the liquid caused by the wind. Similarly, the soul is the eternal servant of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but when it comes into contact with the gunas (the attributes of material nature: virtue, passion, and ignorance), it assumes different bodies—sometimes the bodies of devas (inhabitants of heavenly planets or virtuous beings), sometimes the bodies of men, dogs, trees, and so on. Under the influence of maya, the illusory energy of the Supreme Lord, the living being identifies with this or that person, believing himself to be American, Indian, a cat, a dog, a tree... or anything else. This is what we call maya.

When one is freed from this confusion and understands that the soul does not belong to any form in this material world, then one has reached the spiritual level. As soon as a living being regains their spiritual form and original understanding, they immediately surrender to the supreme form, that of God, the Sovereign Person.

Just as the air carries away odors, a living being in this world carries with them, from one body to another, the various ways in which they understand life. Here, a living being is called the master of their own body. They can, in fact, according to their desire, assume a more evolved body, or transmigrate, reincarnate in a lower body. They enjoy a certain independence, however slight, and thus become responsible for the body they will assume in their next life.

At the time of death, the state of consciousness they have forged throughout their life will determine their next bodily state. Let him create a consciousness similar to that of dogs or cats, and he will be reborn in the body of a dog or a cat; let his consciousness be of virtue, and he will take the body of an angel. And if he is established in Krishna consciousness, he will be taken to Krishnaloka, in the spiritual world, to live with Krishna. It is a mistake to believe that after death nothing exists. The separate soul transmigrates from one body to another, and its next body is based on its present body and actions.

According to the law of karma, it therefore acquires a new body, which at some point it will also have to shed. We see that the subtle body or ethereal body, which carries the concept of the next body, envelops itself, in the next life, in that very body.

It is this transmigration from one body to another, and the struggle the soul must wage in the body, that is called “the struggle for existence.”