The conditioned soul suffers endlessly through material nature until Krishna consciousness restores the lost relationship with the Supreme.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Prabhupāda: ...uṭhāya, kabhu narake òubāya daṇòya-jane rājā yena nadīte cubāya [Cc Madhya 20.118] [In the material condition, the living entity is sometimes raised to higher planetary systems and material prosperity and sometimes drowned in a hellish situation. His state is exactly like that of a criminal whom a king punishes by submerging him in water and then raising him again from the water.] So Lord Caitanya is explaining the positions of the conditioned soul. They are completely under the grip of this material nature. And just like one is seated on the car and the driver drives him—if the driver is not under control, he drives him anywhere, to any hell—similarly, we are sitting on this car of this body, supplied by the material nature, and she is driving anywhere—sometimes up, sometimes down.
In this way we are suffering life after life, birth after birth. This is our condition. We are not independent; completely under the stringent laws of material nature. So daṇòya-jane rājā yena nadīte cubāya.
The example is very nice, that a culprit is drowned in the water, again taken for some time to take breathing. He was suffocating. Nature... He's not meant to be killed, but he is to be given suffering in that way.
So material nature is giving us suffering, miseries like that. bhayaṃ dvitīyābhi... dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syād īśād apetasya viparyayo 'smṛtiḥ tan-māyayāto budha ābhajet taṃ bhaktyaikayeśaṃ guru-devatātmā [Cc Madhya 20.119] [When the living entity is attracted by the material energy, which is separate from Kṛṣṇa, he is overpowered by fear. Because he is separated from the Supreme Personality of Godhead by the material energy, his conception of life is reversed. In other words, instead of being the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, he becomes Kṛṣṇa’s competitor. This is called viparyayo ’smṛtiḥ. To nullify this mistake, one who is actually learned and advanced worships the Supreme Personality of Godhead as his spiritual master, worshipful Deity and source of life. He thus worships the Lord by the process of unalloyed devotional service.’] Therefore Bhāgavata, Śrīmad-Bhāgavata, is giving direction, bhayaṃ dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syāt. When we are forgetful of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, when you think that "There is no God. This matter is everything.
This material manifestation which we see, that is everything all in all, and there is no Lord, no, I mean to say, supreme controller," when we think like that, that begins, that is the point of our anxiety, beginning of anxiety: bhayam, fearfulness. We are all fearful because, as we have got these bodily necessities, we want to eat something, we want to sleep, similarly, we have fear, and we have demand for mating. These four principles are animal life. We are always fearful. And why we are fearful?
Because we have taken it that there is no God. There is no God; therefore we are fearful. Just like a forlorn child, when he thinks that "My... I am... My father and my mother, lost." You might have experienced.
A child lost, he cries. He thinks himself, "I am helpless. Where is my mother? Where is my...?" Similarly, when we are helpless, we are fearful.