How the unseen guidance of Krishna wakes us up to real life

The individual souls in the material world engage in different activities

according to their past unfinished desires. After the dissolution of a

particular body, the individual soul forgets everything, but the allmerciful

Lord, who is situated in everyone’s heart as the witness, the

Supersoul, awakens him and reminds him of his past desires, and thus he

begins to act accordingly in his next life. This unseen guidance is

described as fate, and a sensible man can understand that this continues

his material bondage in the three modes of nature.

The unconscious sleeping stage of the living entity just after the

partial or total dissolution of the creation is wrongly accepted as the

final stage of life by some less intelligent philosophers. After the

dissolution of the partial material body, a living entity remains

unconscious for only a few months, and after the total dissolution of the

material creation, he remains unconscious for many millions of years. But

when the creation is again revived, he is awakened to his work by the

Lord. The living entity is eternal, and the wakeful state of his

consciousness, manifested by activities, is his natural condition of

life. He cannot stop acting while awake, and thus he acts according to

his diverse desires. When his desires are trained in the transcendental

service of the Lord, his life becomes perfect, and he is promoted to the

spiritual sky to enjoy eternal awakened life.

Srimad Bhagavatam 3.6.3 purport