Hare and Krishna are Sanskrit words referring to the supreme absolute truth, the original spiritual entity. Beyond our own temporary physical identity we exist as individual persons on the platform of conscious. We are minute fragmental parts of the complete whole or the Supreme Personality. Krishna refers to the Supreme energetic and Hare to the Superior, spiritual energy. We are part and parcel of that spiritual energy; we’re like molecules of sunshine – emanating from the sun. But individual personality free from material mis-identification does not mean becoming void or impersonal for it is spirit which animates dead matter, compelling the composition of form and giving life to the body. The energetic principle of living consciousness is individual and personal, without it the physical frame is dead, lifeless and without character or movement.

As much as we have always been the same unique entity within, experiencing the body of a baby, a child, a youth, a middle-aged or an elderly vehicle as time goes on; similarly our existence does not cease upon the death of the mortal coil. It’s simply another change of body. We continue to live and our subtle karma and mentality move us on to a new birth, a new covering and set of bodies to carry out our desires, suffering and enjoying. The repeated cycle of birth, old age, disease and death – known as samsara – can be overcome if we become enlightened and spiritually awakened to our real identity; that is the path of bhakti yoga or Krishna consciousness.