The soul's suffering stems not from material nature, but from its own desire to reject God and falsely claim independence.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.26.8 — December 20, 1974, Bombay 741220SB-BOMBAY [35:45 Minutes] SB-03.26.08_741220SB-BOMBAY Nitāi: [leads chanting of verse, etc.] [devotees repeat] kārya-kāraṇa-kartṛtve kāraṇaṁ prakṛtiṁ viduḥ bhoktṛtve sukha-duḥkhānāṁ puruṣaṁ prakṛteḥ param [SB 3.26.8] [break] [01:32] "The cause of the conditioned soul's material body and senses, and the senses' presiding deities, the demigods, is the material nature. This is understood by learned men. The feelings of happiness and distress of the soul, who is transcendental by nature, are caused by the spirit soul himself." Prabhupāda: kārya-kāraṇa-kartṛtve kāraṇaṁ prakṛtiṁ viduḥ bhoktṛtve sukha-duḥkhānāṁ puruṣaṁ prakṛteḥ param [SB 3.26.8] Puruṣam. We are also prakṛti, but here it has been said, puruṣa.
Living entity is prakṛti. Original position is prakṛti. Prakṛti means subordinate. We have got experience in this material world also: prakṛti, strī, and puruṣa, husband and wife.
Natural position is that the wife is under or subordinate to the husband. At least that is the Vedic conception. Therefore woman places herself in the position of dāsī, dāsī, maidservant. Even the queens of Kṛṣṇa, when...
You will find in the Bhāgavata, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, when there was talking between the queens and Draupadī at Kurukṣetra on some festival, that women, mixing together, they talk about their marriage, about their family, about their husband, so they were also talking. So Draupadī was asking the queens of Kṛṣṇa how they were married. Because in each time Kṛṣṇa had to fight to get the wife. That is the kṣatriya principle.
Without fight, there is no marriage. There must be some fight. And after killing the opposing party, their blood is taken and smeared over it. This is red vermilion.
Now it can be purchased. [laughter] There is no fight. You can purchase, two paisa, that's all. But formerly a kṣatriya must fight, and there were many opposing princes, and the victorious prince must kill or at least get some blood from the body, and as victorious, the wife will be smeared. Anyway, so the point is that even the queens of Kṛṣṇa, they are not ordinary woman; very exalted.
So they were giving their acquaintances to Draupadī, "In this way I became a maidservant of Kṛṣṇa." You will find this in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Even the queens... Every queen possessed a big, palatial building, and all the palaces were made of first-class marble, and the furnitures were made of ivory, and the beddings, and the within the room, there was no need of electrical bulb; they are set up with jewels, and they would throw the focus of light. And there was garden, pārijāta flower.