Woman: Swamijī, would you say that the soul is locked in the third eye?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The soul is what?
Harikeśa: Locked in the third eye.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Locked in the third eye. She's asking if the soul is locked in the third eye.
Prabhupāda: Locked? What does it mean locked? Soul is not locked. Soul, for temporarily, is embodied according to the soul's desire. There are 8,400,000 forms of body, and as we are desiring, the material nature is supplying the body. It is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā,
- īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
- hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati
- bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni
- yantrārūḍhāni māyayā
- (BG 18.61)
Yantrārūḍhāni. Yantra means machine. So Kṛṣṇa is situated in everyone's heart. That is all-pervading. And He knows what the soul wants, so He is given the opportunity. As he wants to work, he is given a particular type of body, machine, yantra. Yantra means machine. And he is seated there, and in this way he is wandering in different species of life and different planets for different times. That is going on. Yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). So if we stop this business, if we hear Kṛṣṇa-sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66)—then our life is successful. Otherwise we shall continue to change this yantra, one yantra to another, another, another. This is going on. So practically the soul is not locked up, but intentionally he wants some position. And Kṛṣṇa is very kind. God is very kind. He is giving the opportunity: "All right, you want like this? Do it like that."