By Hemarupa Caitanya Das
Determination is vital either in material or spiritual life. This determination exhibits a devotee’s hankering and sincere desire for attainment of the perfectional stage of devotional service. Lord Brahma, the original first living being was entrusted with the service of engineering the material world, based on the raw ingredients provided by the Lord, under His direction and empowerment. In the course of his creation, Lord Brahma faced five obstacles, from which we too can derive lessons that pertain to our own practice and execution of devotional service. Lord Brahma first created the five ajnana-vrittis of elements of nescience, such as self-deception, the sense of death, anger after frustration, the sense of false ownership, and the illusory bodily conception, or forgetfulness of one’s real identity [SB 3.12.2]. After which, the patriarch felt dissatisfied at having to perform the thankless task of further implicating the living entities into ignorance.