Material planets

Expressions researched:
"material planet" |"material planets"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is

BG Chapters 1 - 6

Impersonalists are not admitted into the spiritual planets, but they are again given a chance to act on the material planets.

BG 4.11, Purport: As for those who are impersonalists and who want to commit spiritual suicide by annihilating the individual existence of the living entity, Kṛṣṇa helps also by absorbing them into His effulgence. Such impersonalists do not agree to accept the eternal, blissful Personality of Godhead; consequently they cannot relish the bliss of transcendental personal service to the Lord, having extinguished their individuality. Some of them, who are not firmly situated even in the impersonal existence, return to this material field to exhibit their dormant desires for activities. They are not admitted into the spiritual planets, but they are again given a chance to act on the material planets. For those who are fruitive workers, the Lord awards the desired results of their prescribed duties, as the yajñeśvara; and those who are yogīs seeking mystic powers are awarded such powers.

BG Chapters 7 - 12

The mahātmās become so absorbed in transcendental service that they no longer desire elevation to any of the material planets, nor do they even want to be transferred to any spiritual planet.

BG 8.15, Purport: Since this temporary material world is full of the miseries of birth, old age, disease and death, naturally he who achieves the highest perfection and attains the supreme planet, Kṛṣṇaloka, Goloka Vṛndāvana, does not wish to return. The supreme planet is described in Vedic literature as avyakta and akṣara and paramā gati; in other words, that planet is beyond our material vision, and it is inexplicable, but it is the highest goal, the destination for the mahātmās (great souls). The mahātmās receive transcendental messages from the realized devotees and thus gradually develop devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and become so absorbed in transcendental service that they no longer desire elevation to any of the material planets, nor do they even want to be transferred to any spiritual planet. They only want Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa's association, and nothing else. That is the highest perfection of life. This verse specifically mentions the personalist devotees of the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. These devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness achieve the highest perfection of life. In other words, they are the supreme souls.

Those who attain the highest material planets, the planets of the demigods, are again subjected to repeated birth and death.

BG 8.16, Purport: All kinds of yogīs-karma, jñāna, haṭha, etc.—eventually have to attain devotional perfection in bhakti-yoga, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, before they can go to Kṛṣṇa's transcendental abode and never return. Those who attain the highest material planets, the planets of the demigods, are again subjected to repeated birth and death. As persons on earth are elevated to higher planets, people on higher planets such as Brahmaloka, Candraloka and Indraloka fall down to earth. The practice of sacrifice called pañcāgni-vidyā, recommended in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, enables one to achieve Brahmaloka, but if, on Brahmaloka, one does not cultivate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then he must return to earth. Those who progress in Kṛṣṇa consciousness on the higher planets are gradually elevated to higher and higher planets and at the time of universal devastation are transferred to the eternal spiritual kingdom.

Srimad-Bhagavatam

SB Canto 1

The happiness which the living beings are hankering for is not to be found within any corner of the innumerable universes and material planets

SB 1.2.34, Purport: The happiness which the living beings are hankering for is not to be found within any corner of the innumerable universes and material planets. The eternal happiness which the living being wants is obtainable in the kingdom of God, but the forgetful living beings under the influence of the material modes have no information of the kingdom of God. The Lord, therefore, comes to propagate the message of the kingdom of God, either personally as an incarnation or through His bona fide representative as the good son of God. Such incarnations or sons of God are not making propaganda for going back to Godhead only within the human society. Their work is also going on in all types of societies, amongst demigods and those other than human beings.

This earth is one of the innumerable material planets within the universe, and there are innumerable universes

SB 1.19.5, Purport: For a devotee like Mahäräja Parékñit, none of the material planets, even the topmost Brahmaloka, is as desirable as Goloka Våndävana, the abode of Lord Çré Kåñëa, the primeval Lord and original Personality of Godhead. This earth is one of the innumerable material planets within the universe, and there are innumerable universes also within the compass of the mahat-tattva. The devotees are told by the Lord and His representatives, the spiritual masters or äcäryas, that not one of the planets within all the innumerable universes is suitable for the residential purposes of a devotee. The devotee always desires to go back home, back to Godhead, just to become one of the associates of the Lord in the capacity of servitor, friend, parent or conjugal lover of the Lord, either in one of the innumerable Vaikuëöha planets or in Goloka Våndävana, the planet of Lord Çré Kåñëa. All these planets are eternally situated in the spiritual sky, the paravyoma, which is on the other side of the Causal Ocean within the mahat-tattva. Mahäräja Parékñit was already aware of all this information due to his accumulated piety and birth in a high family of devotees, Vaiñëavas, and thus he was not at all interested in the material planets. Modern scientists are very eager to reach the moon by material arrangements, but they cannot conceive of the highest planet of this universe. But a devotee like Mahäräja Parékñit does not care a fig for the moon or, for that matter, any of the material planets. So when he was assured of his death on a fixed date, he became more determined in the transcendental loving service of Lord Kåñëa by complete fasting on the bank of the transcendental River Yamunä, which flows down by the capital of Hastinäpura (in the Delhi state). Both the Ganges and the Yamunä are amartyä (transcendental) rivers, and Yamunä is still more sanctified for the following reasons.