Although Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī was situated in the order of renounced life of a sannyāsī, as Lord Śrī Caitanya was, none of them declared like the Māyāvādīs [those who think God is not a person] that this material world is a hallucination. Both of them preached that this material world is temporary, but is not unreal. There is much difference between a temporary and an unreal thing. A man in the railway compartment may be a temporary passenger, but neither the journey nor the railway compartment is unreal. Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī therefore wanted to emphasize on the fact that we must not be overwhelmed by our temporary travelling activities, that we must always keep in our view the destination of our journey and not misidentify ourselves as the perpetual passenger of a temporary railway compartment.
This planet of earth, moving as it is, is just like the moving railway compartment and we are placed here as first second or third class passenger according to our paying capacity. The paying capacity of each and every passenger is the results of his own work or karma. In accordance with our own karma we have become here different classes of passengers for which neither God or anyone else is responsible. But it should not be our aim of travelling life to become a first class passenger from the position of this [indistinct] life. It shall ways be the aim of all passengers to reach the destination by all means. All the passengers in whatever class or compartment they may be put into, according as the payment is made, can at the same time simultaneously reach the destination if they are not misled by some others that the railway compartments are their permanent abode. The same passenger is always cognizant of the fact that the railway compartments are never meant for their permanent home but they are meant for carrying the passenger to a desired destination equally available by all classes of passengers.
But the modern trend of civilization as mentioned before is misguided (indistinct) much as the leaders of the present age have misguided their followers that this earth which is compared with the railway compartment is the permanent abode of the living being. The leaders of human society have forgotten that the passengers are meant for a definite destination and they are carried by a temporary moving carriage. The leaders on the other hand misguide the passengers that they will have to travel by the moving carriage perpetually and as such they must all become first class passengers although some of them have no paying capacity. This misguidance of the leaders of society, has played a havoc in the progress of human knowledge and that is considered by the sane man as the ignorance of night.
Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja wanted to dissipate this darkness of ignorance or night. This ignorance of night is called Nescience. He wanted to bring in the Light of Godhead which is compared with the Sun. Before the Sun there cannot be any darkness. Similarly in the presence of Godhead there is no ignorance.
In the Bhagavad-gītā it is stated that this planet or any other planet up to the planet known as "Brahmaloka", or the topmost planet of this universe, are all temporary moving compartments like the railway carriage drawn by a machine under the influence of Maya or external energy of Godhead. They are all different carriages or changing abodes of living being. None of them are the perpetual abode of the human being. They are placed in those moving planets temporarily according to their different 'Karma' but they are perpetually life after life in a changing habit. The permanent abode of living entities is the Kingdom of God. When the living entity is placed in that permanent abode of God, he has no more to travel in the railway compartment of machines made by māyā or the External Energy of Godhead.
The Kingdom of God is therefore the destination of living being may it be encaged in any form of embodiment. The aquatic, the plants, the reptiles, the birds, the beasts or the man all are essentially spiritual entities and parts and parcels of Godhead but they have been differently encaged in different forms of embodiment and placed in different compartments of the moving planets according to different karmas. But in spite of this all the different embodied living entities are entitled to enter into the Kingdom of God by a transcendental process described in the Bhagavad-gītā as practically demonstrated by Lord Caitanya. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Gosvāmī Mahārāja inaugurated the transcendental movement spiritual progress for the benefit of all living being.
(Excerpt from page 4 of an Untitled Essay, unknown date, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada)
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