In truth, the individual spiritual beings who have descended to this world of gross matter have themselves chosen to indulge in sense pleasures and to taste material pleasures. It was not Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who sent them here. The Lord, in His kindness, has rightly granted their desire.
God created the material world to satisfy all those who wish to abandon their eternal service to the Lord and who themselves wish to become the supreme masters and beneficiaries of all things. When a living being desires sense satisfaction and forgets the service of the Lord, he is immediately placed in the material world, where he acts freely according to his own desires, thus creating for himself the conditions of existence that will bring him happiness or unhappiness.
It is important to know that both the Lord and living beings are eternally conscious, and neither of them experiences birth or death.
Indeed, the creation of the material universe is part of the Lord's pastime, for He creates it for His own pleasure and because it takes place when He desires. This desire of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is also an extreme mercy on His part, for He thus gives the embodied souls, conditioned by matter and illusory energy, the opportunity to regain their original consciousness and return to Godhead. Therefore, no one can blame the Supreme Lord for the creation of this material world.
Truly, Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has placed us in this material world because we have become envious of Him.
The Lord says: By your intrinsic nature, you are a living soul of purely spiritual essence. The material body cannot be equated with your true identity, nor can the mind, intelligence, or false ego. Your true identity is to be the eternal servant of Krishna, the Supreme Lord. Your status is transcendental in nature. Krishna's higher energy is spiritual in essence, while the lower, external energy is material in essence. Situated between these two energies, you therefore belong to Krishna's marginal energy, which means that you are one with Him yet distinct from Him. Being spiritual in nature, you are identical with Krishna. But because you are only a tiny fragment of Him, you are at the same time different from Him.
The Lord adds: When an individual being, believing himself to be different from Me, forgets his spiritual identity, according to which he is qualitatively one with Me, both in eternity and in knowledge and bliss, his conditioned material existence then begins. In other words, instead of identifying his interests with Mine, he begins to be interested in extensions of his body, such as his wife, children, and material possessions. Thus, as a result of his actions, one birth is followed by another, and one death by another.