The soul is contained within the ethereal body, and the latter is in turn contained within the physical body, with which man mistakenly identifies. Such is the corporeal conception of existence, a conception of existence that anchors man in the repetitive cycle of reincarnation.

Originally, as pure spiritual souls, we all possessed a spiritual body. This spiritual body is identical to our true self (in other words, there is no distinction between me and my spiritual body), while the current physical body is entirely distinct and different from our true identity. When we speak of the physical body, we are actually referring to two physical bodies: the gross physical body (made of dense, tangible matter) and the subtle physical body (ethereal). The former is composed of the gross material elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether), and the latter of the subtle material elements (mind, intelligence, and false ego).

It is this second body that, in fact, transports us from one physical form to another, constantly moving from one species to another, among the 8,400,000 species of physical bodies: plant species, animal species; terrestrial, flying, crawling, aquatic, and human.

Originally, our true spiritual identity was to be a tiny fragment of God, Krishna, an integral part of His divine person, and like the Lord, eternal, filled with knowledge and bliss, free from the defilement and yoke of material energy.

But for having rejected the service of the Lord, we had to fall immediately into the prison of this material world and accept a material body. That is why we had to don our prison garb, our garb of flesh and blood.

The cosmic manifestation is dissolved in two ways.

The first is actually a partial destruction and is called the “flood,” while the second is real and complete.

The flood, or partial annihilation, occurs every 4.32 billion solar years, at the time when Brahma, the first created being and ruler of our galaxy, the Milky Way, takes his nightly rest.

The other, also called the “end of the world,” where the entire galaxy is destroyed, occurs at the end of Brahma's life, which lasts one hundred of his years, that is, 311 trillion 40 billion solar years, or 4.32 billion x 2 (one day and one night) x 30 days x 12 months x 100 years.

At the moment of the final devastation of the entire galaxy, at the end of Brahma's life, a jet of fire erupts from the mouth of Ananta, the full emanation of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, from the depths of the galaxy. All the planets are then reduced to ashes.