Prabhupāda: Now we are, I am becoming old, and generally, when this body will be useless, I will have to take another body. This is the way. Unfortunately, the people, they do not believe in the next life. Although in every day affair they are experiencing that "I am eternal. I can remember the days of my childhood. I can remember the days of my youthhood, my boyhood, and I am still working. That means I am continuously there although my body in different ways have changed." So it is a fact that even after changing this body, you will have another body. Just like you are sitting in this room. Now, if you vacate this room, that does not mean you are finished. You have gone in some other room. So this is a great science. And people are neglecting this science. They have no, I mean to say, information. There are so many departments in universities, technological, medical, engineering, but where is the department to know or understand what is this life, what is God, what is our relationship? So this is not very good civilization. So there is life after this life. Just like progressive life, a child is progressing to youthhood, the youth is aspiring to become a big man, important man.
Change of body (Conv. 1968 - 1975)
Expressions researched:
"bodies"
|"body"
|"change"
|"changed"
|"changes"
|"changing"
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Interviewer: Would you give me a background, the history and origin of Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
Prabhupāda: No history can trace out the origin of Kṛṣṇa consciousness because the living entities, they are eternal. The bodily concept of life is not correct. Nobody dies, nobody takes birth. Everyone is eternal. This change of body is considered a change of dress. Therefore nobody can say that "This is the beginning of life." So whenever there is life, there is consciousness also, and originally the consciousness is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But due to our long material association that consciousness is covered. Therefore we are out of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This movement is to revive that Kṛṣṇa consciousness again, so that he can be raised to his original position.
Reporter: Yeah. But according to the Vedic literature they cannot go there.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In this body we cannot go there. With this body we cannot go there. We shall have to change this body. Either you do it scientifically or spiritually or by any other method. With this body you cannot go there. You have to prepare a similar body which is suitable for living condition there.
Prabhupāda: Now that specific body, if you are able to make by your modern science, then it may be possible. But you have to change your body to that specific condition. But the spacedress which is now being used, that is not useful.
Reporter: The space uniform, you don't feel that is adequate?
Prabhupāda: Space uniform, that is not adequate.
Reporter: Now what about the beings that live on the moon planet?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Reporter: Do you feel that they would interfere with any experiments or persons from earth landing there or trying to land there? Say, even if they had some specific body change or came up with a spacesuit that would withstand any changes in temperature...
Prabhupāda: The first thing is that with this body you, neither you can land there nor interfere with their business. The first thing is. The scientists say that the temperature in moon planet is two hundred degree less than zero. Is it not?
Reporter: I think what... I think we have to carry it further enough so that we can tell whether, for one thing whether I have a story or not. If it's felt if you have doubts that it can be done, that's one thing. But if you have great confidence that it can never be done except by changing one's body...
Prabhupāda: No, I don't say that. I say that in order to enter into the... Just try to understand me clearly. In order to enter the moon planet you have got to prepare yourself for a suitable body. Is that clear? If you, by some way or other, you make that suitable body you can enter. But the present body which you have manufactured, the spacesuit, is not suitable.
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That I have explained, that changing our body, there are 8,400,000's of bodies. So after death, you enter in one of the bodies.
Student (4): And what happens?
Prabhupāda: As happens... As you enter the body, the happening is according to the body.
Student (4): But does this go on and on indefinitely or does it stop? Do you just keep changing bodies indefinitely or does it end?
Prabhupāda: Not indefinitely. If you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then you haven't got to change this material body. You are transferred to the spiritual world. There is eternal body.
Student (6): Could you tell us what you found.
Prabhupāda: Yes. I am prepared to tell you, and this center is open for telling you. Our books are there. It is not a paltry subject that you can understand immediately, but I can give you one instance. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
It is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, Second Chapter—those who have got Bhagavad-gītā, they will see to it—that "Within this body there is soul, and the body is changing every moment." That is a fact. We say, "The child is growing." Growing or changing-practically the same thing. Actually, it is changing because the former body is no longer to be found. It has accepted, the soul has accepted, another body. This is going on from babyhood to childhood, from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youth-hood, then old age. So, just like I am old man. I can remember my childhood body, my babyhood body, my boyhood body, my youth-hood body. So the body is no longer, but I am there. I am thinking that "I did do like this. I was playing like this with my body." But that body is gone, but still I am there. Therefore it is naturally surmised that when this body will not be existent, I will be existent. I will accept another body. This is very logical conclusion. As I am changing so many bodies, still I am there. I can understand that I changed my body. I was so little.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Why not?
Student (7): Tell me. You said (inaudible)... that I am the soul that enters the body... (inaudible)
Prabhupāda: Yes. I change my body. Just like if I change this apartment, does it mean I shall stop speaking? Similarly, if I change this apartment of body, does it mean that I shall stop speaking? That's right. (laughter) All right. Let us now chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. (The recording of the recording ends here-tape is turned off)
Prabhupāda: There is chanting? All right. There is chanting recorded?
Devotee: No.
Prabhupāda: Just see. (end)
Devotee: There's no value in keeping the body fit through exercise?
Prabhupāda: Yes, you can become very healthy. But does it mean that health is the perfection of life? Do you mean to say healthy life will not die, will not change his body? So health is required, but health is not the ultimate goal of life. Ultimate goal of life is here.
Guest (3): Buddha taught very similar things to what the Gītā taught also, didn't he? Are there agreeances there, agreement in certain places what Buddha taught and what the Gītā teaches?
Prabhupāda: Do you follow this Buddha?
Guest (3): Uh, no.
Prabhupāda: You simply talk of him? You practice Buddha if you appreciate him. You give up everything like Buddha and meditate. But that you will not do. Then what is the talking of, useless talking about this? Do something. Either you believe Buddha or Jesus Christ or Kṛṣṇa. Do something. Don't talk simply.
Prabhupāda:
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
Because I do not remember what I did in my mother's womb, that does not mean that I had no a little body. The body is change, I am there. Therefore, I change this body I will remain. This is common sense business. I am changing my body daily every moment. Your childhood body and this body is not the same. You have changed your body, but that does not mean you have, you are different person.
Prabhupāda: Of the father, mother sex life, it comes just like the pea many diverse. So from the pea you have come to this point. So body is changing. So what is the astonishment if you change this body, again become, take another pea form. What is the difficulty to understand?
Allen Ginsberg: Well, the difficulty to understand would be any permanent being; to understand that there is any permanent being or any continuity of any form of consciousness from one body to another.
Prabhupāda: Then you have to consult. Therefore you have to take, just like when you can not understand something, we consult some great authority. Is it not?
Prabhupāda: So now people do not wish to consider also this point, that "If I am eternal, if I am changing my place, my dress, my occupation every fifty years or ten years or twelve years according to the dress..." The cats and dogs, they live for ten years. The cows live for twenty years, and the man lives for, say, hundred years. Trees lives for thousands years. But everyone has to change. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). As we have to change our old dress, similarly, this body has to be changed. And we are changing. Changing every moment. That is a fact. This boy will grow also some day like you, like me. This body will not stay. I had a body like this, say, fifty years ago or sixty years ago, but that body is now missing. I have got a different body. So everyone is changing body in this way. We do not know where that body gone, but ultimately also, we shall change, and we shall enter another body, and again we have to begin new set of work, leaving all aside. Suppose this life I was President Kennedy; next life, even if I am born in America next door to President Kennedy's house, nobody will recognize me that "Here is your property.
Guest (1): But I don't think I'm thinking of myself as matter but I'm also not thinking of myself as...
Prabhupāda: No. You are not matter. You are spirit. Your body is matter. You are also one of the energies. You are spiritual energy and your body is material energy. And because you are spiritual energy, therefore your intimate relationship with the spirit soul or the Supreme Soul... That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness or God consciousness. The body will change, but you, as spirit soul, you will not change. You are eternal. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Body being changed, that is not changed. That is eternal. So we have to pick up our eternal relationship with God. That is missing.
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Guest (9): No, believe Him as a you are a servant and serve Him. Or you believe that you are mother to Him.
Prabhupāda: No, that is second. First of all surrender. Then what way you shall surrender, that is different thing, another stage, more confidential. First of all there is surrender. First of all you enter this house or this room. Then you ask, "How can I serve you?" That is different. First of all there is no surrender, or without surrender, full surrender, there is no entrance in Kṛṣṇa. No entry. Because those who revolted against Kṛṣṇa, those who wanted to become Kṛṣṇa by imitating Him, they are here in this material world. Icchā-dveṣa-samutthena sarge yānti parantapa (BG 7.27). (Hindi) Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19), creation, that all the living entities who have come into this created world, they have revolted. They wanted to become Kṛṣṇa, to imitate Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they have given the chance, "All right, you become Kṛṣṇa. You do whatever you like. I will give you facilities. You want to become Brahmā? All right, you become Brahmā. And you want to become the worm of stool? I will give you the facility." So these living entities are rotating. Sometimes he is becoming Brahmā, sometimes becoming the worm of stool, sometimes this, sometimes that. In this way he is changing body. This is material world.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Aparāṇi. Navāṇī vaśtrāni aparāṇi, gṛhṇāty aparāṇi.
Guest: Yes. According to that version, one, if the soul was there, soul was there before birth, and after death, soul is there, and again the soul is coming in a new shape. So the soul is going on always, changing one body to another body, then how the soul is liberated? How it will be...
Prabhupāda: Liberated means at the present moment under this material, in this material world, he is accepting material body, and when he is bona fide servant of Kṛṣṇa, he'll be offered a spiritual body. Just like a soldier. A person, so long he's not a soldier, he does not, he is not awarded the uniform. But as soon as he accepts the service as a soldier, immediately he is given the uniform. So you are accepting different bodies in the material world, and that is bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). You are accepting one type of body, it is becoming vāṇīshed, again you have to accept another. But as soon as you become perfectly Kṛṣṇa conscious, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9), then, after leaving this body, he does not come to this material world. He is immediately... Mam eti, he transfers. Similarly, he accepts spiritual body. Is it clear or not? You are accepting material body now, birth after birth. Is it not? That is transmigration. Sometimes you are accepting human body, sometimes you are accepting dog's body, sometimes you are accepting king's body, sometimes you are accepting somebody else. Is it not? Is it clear?
Prabhupāda: So Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna existed. You are existing. You are eternal. You are simply changing body. So Kṛṣṇa is existing; you are also existing. What is the difficulty to understand this fact? Kṛṣṇa is existing and you are also existing. You are simply changing body, but Kṛṣṇa is not changing body. That is the difference.
Guest: Soul will not merge into that light, Kṛṣṇa's light?
Prabhupāda: What is that merging? You have got that brain, merging.
Guest: I told that... You have told...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Soul is changing body. Why you are talking of merging? You are changing body, you are individual. I am changing body. I may change to a dog's body, you may change to a demigod's body. That is going on. According to one's karma, he is changing body. Now, when you are Kṛṣṇa conscious fully, this change of body will take place also, but that body will be spiritual. So long you get material body, you have to change, one after another, one after another, one after another. Just like if you have a cheap thing, it goes wrong, you have to purchase another new thing. But if you purchase a real, nice thing it will go, continue for good. Similarly, so long you are getting this cheap body, material body, you have to change. And as soon as you get the most valuable body, spiritual body, there will be no more change. Why don't you understand like that? So that you have to get. That is very simple. Kṛṣṇa says, janma karma me divyam yo jānāti tattvataḥ. One who does not know what is Kṛṣṇa, he thinks that somebody is greater than Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: One religion may accept. One may... That is not our purpose. We are talking on the point of that if the owner of the body is permanent in spite of different change of the body, then what is the difficulty to understand that when this body will be changed, the owner of the body will have another body?
Prof. Kotovsky: But another approach is that there is no separate own..., there is no separate..., no two phenomena, owner of the body and body.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: The body and owner of the body is the same.
Prabhupāda: No.
Prof. Kotovsky: When body dies, the owner also dies.
Prabhupāda: No.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: How the energy is diverted, how by different manipulation the energy is working differently. Just like electric energy, by different handling it is creating heater and it is creating cooler. Just opposite. But the same electric energy. So similarly, these energies, living energy, how it is being directed, which way it is going, how it is fructifying in the next life, so they do not know. They do not know. And in the Bhagavad-gītā it is very simplified. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). You are covered by this dress, by this shirt. When this shirt is not workable you change it. Similarly, this body is just like shirt and coat, when it is no longer workable, we have to change.
Prabhupāda: The whole human life is meant for purifying. Śuddhyed sattva. Sattva means existence. So if you don't purify your existence, then you'll have to change your body, from this body to that. Sometimes it may be higher, sometimes lower. Just like, if you don't cure your disease, it can take turn in so many ways to put you into trouble. Similarly, if you don't purify your existence, then you'll have to transmigrate from one body to another. And there is no guarantee what kind of body you'll get. Very subtle laws of nature. Now there is no guarantee that you will get a very comfortable body or American body, no. Therefore for human being it is essential that he should purify his existence. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena sattvaṁ śuddhyed yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ tv anantam (SB 5.5.1). Unless you purify your existence, you're hankering after happiness, you cannot get continued happiness. That is not possible.
Prabhupāda: So just you follow in their footsteps, my other students, and it will be fulfilled, your desire. We are training to that direction, how to become purified and happy. That is our mission. We want to see everyone happy. Sarve sukhino bhavantu. But people do not know how to become happy. They do not take the standard path to become happy. They manufacture their own way. That is the difficulty. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva yasmād brahma-saukhyam anantam (SB 5.5.1). This advice was given by Ṛṣabhadeva to his sons. "My dear boys, just undergo austerity," divyam, "for transcendental realization." Everyone is going austerity. This boy, I know, he had to go foreign countries to learn this commercial management. So many... So now he's good situated. But everyone has to undergo some austerity for future life. So why not take that austerity for permanent happiness? Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena satt... Permanent happiness, you have to purify your existential body. This body, so long you will accept this material body, you'll have to change it. And as soon as you get a spiritual body there is no question of change. Spiritual body you have already. Simply now, due to our material contamination, we are developing material body. But if we associate with spiritual life, then we shall develop spiritual body. The same example I have several times given, that you put the iron rod with fire, it will develop to be fire. Is it not?
Bob: Put the iron rod into fire...
Prabhupāda: Yes, and it will become fire.
Prabhupāda: Now, our simple philosophy is that we are spirit soul. We are eternal. You are eternal. I am eternal. Everyone is eternal. We are changing our body, transmigrating from one body to another. And that means repetition of birth and death, but we are eternal. Why we are in such botheration of repetition of birth and death? Not only that, sometimes in some species of life, may be very high position, sometimes in low position. Suppose somebody is American, and the next life, if he becomes a tree, if he becomes a dog... He may become a demigod also. There is possibility. Just like in future you may be a... (break) ...understand this movement thoroughly and take it seriously. It is for good welfare, for very good welfare. Now, in Europe, America, here also, so many frustrated young boys, they are coming to be practically of no value to the country. In America I see thousands of hippies, they are doing nothing.
Bhūrijana: South China Morning Paper.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. So the article is nice. So one thing is that we are simply interested for a temporary object, but we are eternal. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). We do not die. We simply change bodies. Just like these children, they are changing bodies from babyhood to childhood, from childhood to youthhood, the changing bodies. The final change is called death. That means, final change means, giving up this body, we accept again another babyhood body, again begin. This is going on. And this is called māyār bośe, jāccho bhese. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). We are being washed away by the waves of māyā. We are forced to accept a certain type of body, again give it up, again forced to, under 8,400,000 species of life. We do not know, next life what kind of body we are going to get. People should be careful about this. But they are simply interested with this short duration of life, say fifty years or hundred years. But they do not... There is no education, there is no university, that "Everyone is eternal. He should not be engaged only the changing phases of life.
Prabhupāda: Now, you are very intelligent boy. You can try to understand this philosophy. It is very important. And try to preach. For sense gratification people are wasting so much time, but they do not..., they're not responsible what is going to happen next life. But there is next life. Foolish people, they are ignorant, but there is next life, and this life is preparation for next life. That they do not know. The modern education, universities, they're completely in darkness about this simple knowledge. We are changing body every moment—that's a medical science—and after changing this body, we'll have to accept another body. How we are going to accept that body, what kind of body, this can be also known. Just like one is being educated, when he passes his examination, one can understand that he's going to be engineer or a medical practitioner. Similarly, in this life you can prepare yourself to become something next life.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they must. The State must be responsible. What the State reply?
Jayatīrtha: Well, they're having to litigate in court over it. The State doesn't want to do it. So this university there is one of the most famous universities in the whole country. They spend so many millions of dollars to maintain it nicely. (break) (dog barking) ...changing their bodies in particular ways to make them look (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: When you do not take care of God, you must take care of dog. (laughter) (end)
Prabhupāda: ...body, and the body is considered as the dress, and the person who is dressed, that is within.
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
Just like this child, this is a dress. Now, after some days this dress will be changed to another dress. After some time another dress, another dress. This body is dress, we should understand, but the person who is putting on the dress... Just like I remember my childhood state, dress and condition, my youthful condition. So many things I remember. So although the body has changed—either you say it has grown or changed—I am the same. Therefore conclusion should be that after giving up this dress, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), I must have another body. This is the proof of immortality of the soul and transmigration from one body to another. Now, there are 8,400,000's of different dresses. There are 900,000 dresses within the water, then plants and trees, then insects, then birds. This is evolution of different dresses. The spirit soul is passing through different dresses.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Translation.
Scholar: "After using this body, from childhood to youth and to old age and afterwards changes into another body. He who is wise, will not be, will not be disturbed."
Prabhupāda: Now, here is the indication that after death we have to accept another body. Is it not?
Scholar: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Now, what kind of body you are going to accept? There are 8,400,000 varieties of bodies. Is it not? Do you know that?
Scholar: No, we don't know that. (indistinct) varieties of bodies.
Prabhupāda: There are forms of body in the water, in the land, so many trees, plants and there are so many insects, reptiles. Then birds, then there are beasts, then there are human being. So there are 8,400,000 forms of body. Here it is indicated that after giving up this body, the soul is going to accept another body. Now the human civilization, is it not duty of the human society to know what kind of body I am going to accept?
Prabhupāda: What is your opinion? It is a fact. Just like you are a child, now you are a young man. So you have changed your body. Similarly, when you change this body, you get another body.
Scholar: Life after death.
Prabhupāda: That is life after death.
Guest: Is there any world...
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Guest: Any description of the worlds...
Prabhupāda: World is vast. So according to your karma... Just like you have got a particular type of body. You are young man, there is another young man also. Still, his body and your body is not exactly the same. His bodily feature, your bodily feature, his intelligence, your intelligence, they are all different. But a child grows to become young man, that's a fact. You are a child, another child was there. So they have got now different body. Just like you have got a different body from your childhood life. Is it not? But you know that you had a childhood body, although the body is not there. This is transmigration from one body to another. Just like a dream at night. You change this body. You accept another body. And although you're lying down on your bed, you've gone to some other place. Subtle body. Take for... This is a fact that we change our bodies so many ways, but I, the soul, I remain. So therefore, when this body will not exist I'll exist in another body. That is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā, na jāyate na mriyate vā, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). We can experience this, and it is confirmed in the śāstra. After destruction of this body we are not disturbed. I, as living entity, I remain, I accept another body.
Brahmānanda: Welfare work.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That you can do without taking Kṛṣṇa prasādam. Because you have got stool and urine within your body, and there are many germs. They're eating that. You need not make a separate endeavor to feed them. (pause) The individual soul is never lost. That is our philosophy. Dehino 'smin. He's simply changing different body under different circumstances. That's all. The soul, individual soul, is never lost. Neither he takes birth, neither he dies. He's simply changing the garments. This is perfect theory.
Brahmānanda: Nehru.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is possibility. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Change of body. So if... According to laws of nature, you have to change your body. You cannot dictate the laws of nature that: "Give me this body. Give me again American body." That is not possible. When you are dead, you have to accept another body. It may be cat's body, dog's body. It doesn't matter. You cannot dictate nature that: "Give me a body like this."
Brahmānanda: Just like when the magistrate gives you a sentence, you cannot say: "Oh, give me this sentence..." No, you must accept.
Prabhupāda: No.
Prabhupāda: So how they are thinking? He does not know, what is the use of thinking rascally? One can think properly if he knows things. If he does not know, then what is the use of thinking? The madman also thinks. What is the use of such thinking? Now our thinking begins from the Bhagavad-gītā. Kṛṣṇa says: dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). As the body's changing from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood, similarly the proprietor of the body will change this body. At the last moment. Death means changing of the body. This is the... Now we can think. When there is proper subject matter, then you can think, how it is, how the changes. You have no proper subject matter, nobody is to guide you. What is the value of your thinking? Like dogs and cats? You do not know how to think. That is possible. How to think, that is possible in human life. So if you don't take up opportunity, how to think, then what is the use of your thinking like cats and dogs? Simply wasting time. The valuable life, you are wasting. Making experiment in the laboratory, nonsensically, that from matter they'll create life. You see. How this nonsense...? What is the use of such thinking? Which is never possible. These rascals are thinking on that, in that way, that they'll in future produce life from matter which has never been possible in the history, past, present and they're thinking; "Oh, bright future." That potter's thinking. Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the, the background is not solid.
Prabhupāda: No. Just like the one strata is like that. After an hour, it will be different. So what is the use of your studying this strata? Therefore it is called jagat. Jagat means always changing. The material world is always changing. Your body. This body will stay, say, for fifty years, hundred years. Then you get another body. That's all. Another body. Jagat means changing. Now this color is there. Say, after one hour it will be white. You see. Then you study this black color. Again you study the white color. Again this black color. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Chewing the chewed. That is your business. Just like seasonal changes. Now it is cold. Any moment, you'll have to get out (of) these clothes. It is very warm. So these changes are going on. The whole material cosmic manifestation is subjected to different types of changes. Therefore it is called jagat. Jagat means going, changing. Your body's changing. Similarly everything is changing. What is the eternity behind these changes? That is knowledge. That, the eternity, they do not find. Therefore they are disappointed: "It is void, zero. Eternity is zero." That's all. And when they are asked wherefrom the zero, varieties come...? Zero means there is nothing. So how the varieties come? Therefore Vedic conclusion, the varieties, there is, eternity variety. And this is only shadow of that variety. It is not eternal because it is shadow. But the real variety spiritual world, is there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the modern science, they say when one becomes old, the memory becomes short and then they tend to...
Prabhupāda: Yes. The body has changed. Therefore you have to accept that body has changed. Therefore next conclusion is when this body is lost he gets another body. Change of body. Seasonal changes. That one verse in the Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). Dehāntara-prāptiḥ, acceptance of another body. Then these modern scientists, they do not know this. They sometimes explain medical science, that blood corpuscles are changing, do they not?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There are sometimes white, they say, suppose when I am injured, my external something hurts. They say the white blood corpuscles are responsible to protect the body. But when the white blood corpuscles is not enough, then infection normally occurs.
Prabhupāda: Anyway there is change of corpuscles. And with the change of corpuscles there is change of body. That is scientific. Therefore body is changing every moment, so why not after death? Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13).
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So consciousness is also subject to body's changes, change of body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Body's circumstances association. Saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ. According to association, atmosphere, circumstances, the desires changes. So that is, desire means consciousness. Just like our boys, they had different consciousness before coming to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like you are also scientist, there are other scientists. But your consciousness is different from theirs. Therefore you could challenge him like that. If you can create life by accumulation of these facts. He says that I do not know. He is not confident in his science.
Prabhupāda: That is the first lesson. You do not understand? You are a child, now you're a grown up boy. Where is your childhood? Where is that body? Ha? The dead body does not exist but you are existing. That means you're eternal. Body has changed, but you have not changed. Circumstances have changed, but you have not changed. This is the proof of (indistinct). What do you want more? You may remember that I did yesterday these things, today I remember yesterday's activities, but your body of yesterday is not this body. Do you admit or not? As a scientist, the body has changed already. He cannot say that 1973, twelfth May yesterday. He cannot say. It is already changed. But you remember everything of yesterday. That is eternity. The body has changed, but you remember everything. Therefore you are eternal, body's not eternal. This is the proof. Simple proof, even a child can understand. But they'll not understand. That is the difficulty.
Prabhupāda: What is that more? It is a simple fact. Just like yesterday, day before yesterday, day before that we saw that stool. We therefore criticize. You are seeing for the last three days the stool, it is not cleansed. But day before yesterday's body, yesterday's body is not this body. And my body has changed, but I remember. Therefore I'm eternal. This is the proof. Eternity means I'm so... my body's changing, but I'm not changing. Just like, I'm old man. I sometimes think, "Oh, I was jumping like this and now I cannot jump." So my body has changed. But I want to jump. But I cannot do it. So that jumping propensity is my eternal propensity. But due to this body, I cannot do it. This is (indistinct).
Karandhara: They would say that, according to their observations, that nature of eternity only lasts one body.
Prabhupāda: That is their foolishness because, as this body... That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā: tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). As this body's changing in my experience, similarly, there's another change.
Prabhupāda: You are accepting millions of bodies and then die. That you do not know. I say that your body of yesterday is not of this body. So, similarly, if we live for one hundred years, how many bodies you are changing every moment? Just calculate.
Karandhara: Thirteen.
Prabhupāda: Ha? Thirteen? Why thirteen?
Karandhara: Every seven years.
Prabhupāda: No, no, every seven years. I say every second. Every second the blood corpuscles are changing. Is it not?
Devotees: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Then you're chang... As soon as the blood corpuscle changes, you change your body. You do not know the science. So how many millions of birth you are changing even this experience?
Karandhara: That is their stumbling block. They say they want to be able to observe everything with their imperfect senses.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is their folly, foolishness.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: In the scientific terminology the eternality of the soul can be compared with the conservation of energy?
Prabhupāda: There is no question of conservation. It is energy. It is always existing. If you say that is conservation of energy then...
David Wynne: No.
Prabhupāda: That is our problem. Either you become rich man or poor man, but you have to undergo. (aside:) Make the light. There is switch. (pause) So our position is that we are in this material world. George has sung that "I am in the material world." Yes, very sensible song. (laughs) He's good boy, realizing, he also... So this material life is not good. Material life is not good in this sense, because you have to change your body. Sometimes good birth, sometimes not good birth. Sometimes Englishman, sometimes cats, dogs. Because after death you'll get a body that will be chosen not by you but by the material nature. You'll create your body by your present activities, and nature will simply award you that body. So, so long we have got this material body, the four kinds of miserable conditions, repetition of birth, death, old age and disease, you have to suffer. Therefore, this human life should be utilized in such a way that we do not become subject to these four tribulations, birth, death, old age and disease. That is perfection.
Prabhupāda: Dreams mean that is also change of body.
Guest (5): It has nothing to do with the human...?
Prabhupāda: No, dream... Just like you forget about this body. Just you have forgotten what body you had in your last birth, similarly, the same experience daily happening. When you dream, you forget that you have got this body. And again, when you give up your dreaming, you come to this body, you forget in what body you were dreaming. So this is the proof that you are living entity, but the body's changing daily. Therefore Bhagavad-gītā says, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). But these rascals, they do not understand that there is the dehāntara. They are experiencing daily that there is dehāntara, but they do not have any education about this dehāntara.
Prabhupāda: (chuckles.) Yes. So this education is wanting. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). As soon as one understands that "I'll have to change my, this body; then what kind of body I'm going to get next life." That next inquiry will be. Then he is intelligent. Then he is intelligent. Just like one man is working somewhere. Now, notice is given that "From such and such date, your work will not be required." Then you become anxious to know: "Then what shall I do next." I have to work. So similarly, if a person understands that he's going to change this body... Just like I'm an old man. I'll have to change in, say, immediately, or say five years, ten years. But the notice is already there because I am old man. So it is my duty to think: "Then what body I'm going to take next?" That is intelligence. And we have to prepare for that. So that is also described in the Bhagavad-gītā: yānti deva-vratā devān (BG 9.25). You can prepare yourself to go the higher planetary system, where demigods live. Pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ. You can go to the Pitṛloka.
Prabhupāda: That... Again I am quoting that Professor Kotofsky. He said, "Swamiji, after this body there is no life." That is their conviction. This is the primary teaching of spiritual life, that we have got next life. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. Dehāntaram. After giving up this body, you have to accept another body. This is the first lesson of spiritual education. But they do not understand the first lesson even. What is their spiritual understanding?
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
So dehāntara-prāptiḥ they do not understand. And it is very easy, that "I am, dehāntaram, I am changing my body. I was a baby, I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man. So I have changed so many bodies. But I remember, I was a child. I remember. I was a boy. I remember. Therefore I am existing. My body has changed." Simple truth. Similarly, when this body will be changed, I will exist. Where is the difficulty to understand? But this plain thing they cannot understand. And they are passing as educated, philosopher, scientist. This plain truth, they cannot understand. The brain is so dull. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). "As I have changed so many bodies..." I exist.
Prabhupāda: That means it proves less intelligence.
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes.
Prabhupāda: If they do not know the law of karma and the transmigration of the soul, change of body, that means no intellectual...
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Yes, yes, yes. (pause)
Prabhupāda: So let us...
Dr. Arnold Toynbee: Now, in India more people are living in the western way, though, living in cities, working in factories and offices. Does this make them have the western state of mind, the western point of view? Or can they resist it?
Prabhupāda: No, everything can be changed. If they take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The consciousness has to be changed.
Prabhupāda: And ignorance. If we give service in ignorance, without knowing what is what, that kind of service may lead us to become punished. So we must know what kind of service we shall give. So real suffering of the society, human society, or any society you take, real suffering is, because the living entity has forgotten God, so he is being punished in different way by the material nature. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). So many ways. But everyone is being punished. At least, the three kinds... Why three kinds? That is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, that this is also punishment, repetition of birth and death. This is also punishment. Because we are eternal. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). We are spirit soul, we are eternal. So our, this constant change of body, birth and death, that is also punishment. Because nobody wants to die. Because he is eternal. How he'll like to die? He wants to keep his eternal position, but he, because he's criminal... Just like one man is condemned to die, murderer.
Lord Brockway: I wouldn't say it has convinced me one has to think...
Prabhupāda: No... Yes, one has to think, one has to consider. But this is the fact, that I have changed so many bodies, I remember them, but the bodies are not existing, I am existing. This is very simple philosophy. And it is stated, confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā, and it is accepted by all the ācāryas, learned scholars. So there is change of body or transferring from one body to another. That's a fact. Under the circumstances, we should consider what kind of body will be nice next. That is also stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: Because there are eight million, four hundred thousand forms of life. The trees are also life, the cats and dogs, they are also life. And there are higher, intelligent persons in the higher planetary systems. They are also life. The worm in the stool, that is also life. So, calculating all of them, there are 8,400,000 species of life. So if I am going to have next life... Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). We have to change this body to another body. So our concern should be "What kind of body I am going to get next?"
Mother: I agree for some people to, you especially, to think of this because you are a leader of your Vedic religion. But for everybody to do that, where would we be? We couldn't all sit down and think all the time.
Prabhupāda: But where is that education?
Mother: But we... You can also work and think.
Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say, where is that education in the university to prepare the student for the next life?
Mother: Oh, but he must fit it in.
Prabhupāda: American, they cheated the Red Indians. They got the land. Now they are claiming, "It is my land." But where you got this land? You have cheated the Red Indians, and you claim now it is your land. "Nobody should come here." Everywhere that is there it belongs to... Napoleon, he thought, "France is mine." France is there. Where he has gone, the proprietor? Yes. And with this idea he fought so much. Now nobody knows what he has become, where he is living, either in France or in hell, maybe in heaven. But there are so many places and so many forms of life. And our Bhagavad-gītā says, tathā dehāntaraṁ prāptiḥ. Just like I am now in this body. Child is in this body. So all of us sometimes were in this body, childish. So where is that body? That body is not existing. But I am existing; you are existing. You know that you had such a body. You were also playing like this child. I also remember. So the body is not existing. I am existing. So I have got a different body now. So where is the difficulty to under-stand that when this body is also finished I get another body? Where is the difficulty? And Bhagavad-gītā says, tathā dehāntaraṁ prāptiḥ. As we are changing from one body to another, another, another, even within our experience, similarly, as soon as this body is finished, I get another body. Now I am working in this body as national, as Napoleon, as Gandhi, as you according to our own whims and ideas, and fighting in the UNESCO, everything, just like recently Pakistan representative, India... But as soon as the body is finished, just like Gandhi finished, Jinnah finished, now what kind of body he has got now? May not be Indian or Pakistani. Now in that body he is thinking according to his body, a dog is thinking according to the doggish body. A man is thinking according to the man's body. So thinking and everything is changed with the change of the body. Just like this child is. This child, she cannot concentrate because due to the body. Other gentlemen, ladies, they can concentrate. So she has to get a different body to have a different mentality. So in other words, with the change of the body the mentality changes. So in this body I am thinking of France, and if my next body, it is not in France or is not human, I will think otherwise. So the whole duration of my life which I thought in one way, that is simply wasted. Simply wasted.
Yogeśvara: She, she asks you for an explanation of an event that happened to her sister. Her sister died at the age of five and a half years. And just before her death she apparently was able to explain some of her past lifetimes to her mother, that she had formerly been a princess or of noble birth and that now she was being called. Is there some explanation for that?
Prabhupāda: Yes, she remembers of her last birth. That is quite possible. Because we are changing body. So one who can remember about his past life, they are called jāta-smaraṇa.
Yogeśvara: Jāta-smaraṇa?
Prabhupāda: One who can remember about his past life. (break) ...means forgetting everything of the past life. (break) ...times a person remembers.
Yogeśvara: She asks for a definition of the word "occult." What is something that is occult, something occult or mystic? What is it?
Prabhupāda: Mystic?
Yogeśvara: Mystic. What is mysticism?
Prabhupāda: I do not say anything on mysticism. Mystic, something. It is called rahasya.
Graham Hill: You believe then, in that we come back, rebirth again in another form.
Prabhupāda: Yes, transmigration. Just like you also were a boy like him, but where is that body? There is no... That body, that is finished. But you exist, you remember that you were a boy like him. You remember that boy's childhood body. So that body is finished but you are not finished. So therefore you, the soul, is eternal. You are simply changing body. This is called death. Death means changing the body. As soon as the body becomes old enough, no more youthful, then you die. Die means to change the body just like you change your garment. When the garment is no more useful, then you change to another garment. That is truth. vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). (aside:) You come here. Just like jīrṇāni, when old garment, no more youthful, you change it to a new garment. (aside:) Come here, find out vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya.
Prabhupāda: That is ultimate goal. So long we do not go back to home, back to Godhead, we have to, in our material existence, we have to change from one body to another. That is going on. And there are 8,400,000 forms of bodies. The cats and dogs, they are also living entities, but they have got a different type of body. Every one of us, different type body. Even they are children, their body is different from your body. Even the (indistinct). Although their body is obtained, there are some similarities. But if you analyze very scrutinizingly there will be some difference from your body, from your daughter's body, from your boy's body. So every body, every living entity is getting a certain type of body according to his desire. According to his desire. So that desire means material enjoyment. Just like you have got certain desire to become champion in racing. Another body has got desire to become something else.
Graham Hill: (indistinct) what sort of body we have been in in the past?
Prabhupāda: Yes, in the past. You forgot, but in the past you had life. Just like in the past I was young man. That's a fact. Similarly, but that young body is no more existing. Similarly, I had a past life but I have forgotten. That is the... Forgetfulness is our nature. Death means forgetting what was your first, past life. That is by nature you become forgetful because if you remember our past life and compare with this life... Suppose one was very rich man and if he becomes a poor, a cat and dog, then if he remembers, then it is very unbearable for him. Therefore nature helps him to forget. Forget. Otherwise he cannot do it. But the real problem is that we are eternal soul, we are changing our body one after another, birth and death. Apart from worldly happiness and distress, this birth and death, that is not very good process. At death time we have to suffer so much that we give up this body.
Graham Hill: Are all spiritual bodies the same? I mean, is your spiritual body exactly the same as...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Spiritually you are all the same. Just like as human beings you are all the same but you may have a black dress, I may have a saffron dress, he may have white dress. This is outward covering. This is not myself. Similarly, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Within this body the spirit soul is there and he is changing different types of bodies. So when he accepts a process, this going back to home, back to Godhead, to Kṛṣṇa, then he hasn't got to accept any more material body. He remains in his own spiritual body. And spiritual body by original constitution it is eternal. Eternal. Nityaṁ śāśvato 'yam, na hanyate hanyamāne (BG 2.20). na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin. This is a description of it.
Guest (1): Right, I will do something about it.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So... We... This is the first step of spiritual understanding. That one must know that he's not this body. Actually anyone can understand. It is a very simple thing. I'm not this body because I had many types of body, in this life also, a child's body, a baby's body, boy's body, youth's body. Now we have got different body. So the body's changing. That's a fact. The child, you do not possess any more that, your childhood body. It is gone. Your boyhood body—gone, your youth-hood body—gone. Now you have got a different body. So although the bodies are not existing, you are existing. That's a fact.
Guest (1): Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Therefore, the conclusion should be that body may change or may not remain, but the soul is eternal. Therefore, the next body means when this body will be useless... I am old man, you are also getting old. What is your age now? What is your age now?
Guest (1): My age? I'm fifty-six.
Prabhupāda: Fifty-six. I am seventy-eight. I may be of your father's age.
Guest (1): I see.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we are preaching. That is spiritual life. That you act in such a way that you haven't got to change any more apartment. Suppose, take for example, we were living in rented house. Now George has given us this house. Now we haven't got to change. It is a crude example. We can live until our death. Similarly, so long you are in material existence, you have to change this body, different types of body. But if you become fit for spiritual existence, you get rid or get out of this entanglement of changing bodies. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We are teaching our people that "you become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Live like that." (someone comes in) Come on. "Then you get permanent life."
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say that these universities, educational institution, all over the world, they are simply concerned with this body. According to our Vedic culture, to remain satisfied with the bodily necessities of life is the business of animals. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13).
- yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke
- sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma-ijya-dhīḥ
- yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij
- janeṣv abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ
- (SB 10.84.13)
These are animal conceptions. So anyone who is accepting this body as the self, he is sa eva go-kharaḥ. Go means cows and kharaḥ means asses. So this civilization based on the bodily necessities of life is animal civilization. Because we are not this body, we are spirit soul, as it is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā: dehino 'smin dehe. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). The soul is within the body and it is transmigrating from one type of body to another. Even in this life. Just like I was in the baby's body, I was in a child's body, I was in a boy's body. Those bodies are gone. But I remember that I was in such and such bodies. But I am now in a different body. Therefore, although my bodies have changed so many times, I am cognizant, I know that I had such and such body.
Guest (2): Why, is it a faith or belief?
Prabhupāda: No, it is not faith, belief. It is a fact. Just like, I have already given you the example. You were a child. That body's no longer existing, but you know that you were a child. Therefore the conclusion is that although the body has changed, but you the soul, the knower, is still there. Therefore, when this body will be changed, you'll exist in another body.
Guest (2): In what form?
Prabhupāda: That is another thing. First of all you have to accept this fact, that you have to change this body. As you have already changed so many times. Tathā... Kṛṣṇa first of all says tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Antara, another body you have to accept.
Guest (2): Coming back to your own question of the present world and to what we are in...
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest (2): Coming back to your first question when you asked that what do you think about this present world or the present trend of present civilization...?
Prabhupāda: Yes. They do not know. Even big, big professors. I talked with Professor Kotofsky in Moscow. He said, "Swamiji, after annihilation of this body, there is nothing."
Prabhupāda: That is our Vedic evidence. Whenever we speak something, immediately quote from Vedas. This is our process. If it is accepted by the Vedic process, then it is perfect. Just like in the law court. You are lawyer. You are arguing. When you quote from a judgement, previous judgement, it is accepted. Similarly, when you give authoritative statement support of your talking, then it is perfect. That is the way. Otherwise, what for these books are there? If it is mental speculation what is the use of these books? But as soon as we speak something, we immediately support by quoting from Vedic literature. And that is perfect. And now you have to possess little knowledge. Just like Kṛṣṇa says, how Kṛṣṇa is perfect. Kṛṣṇa is giving example side, by side. Yathā, dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13). Asmin dehe, as there is the soul, there is the soul, asmin dehe, and he's having different types of bodies, kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā. He's changing body from childhood, boyhood, boyhood to youth-hood, youth-hood to another state. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. Where is the illogical presentation? This is scientific. For an intelligent man, this is scientific. And if he's still dull-headed, then what can be done? Kṛṣṇa gives example. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. As the soul is changing body, from babyhood to childhood, childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youth-hood, like that. Similarly, after finishing this body, it may be invisible to you, but the subtle body is there. We have got two kinds of bodies. Bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca (BG 7.4). This material, eight kinds of materials—earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence, ego.
Prabhupāda: Does it mean they like that some congregation of fools and rascals? Such a big professor, he does not know, he cannot understand even that there is life after death. He has to accept another body. As we are accepting different bodies. I was a child. You were a child. Then I became a boy. That is different body. Different consciousness also. A child, three-four years, he talks in a different way. A boy, ten-twelve years, he talks in a different way, and a young man, educated young man, he talks in a different way. So with the change of the body, the consciousness is changing. Is it not?
Ambassador: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Children, small children, they're just like animals. The cats and dogs, just they are playing, they're also playing like that. But he, he does not belong to that category because when he'll get..., he'll get another body in which he'll be intelligent. Another body, he'll be highly educated. Another body, he'll be doctorate. The cats and dogs, they'll have to wait to get that body. So with the body, we are changing our consciousness. So different body, different consciousness. Similarly, why not after death a different body, different consciousness? If you make progress. Yes. This is progressive. So that is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā: tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13).
Haṁsadūta: Uh, four de... Every conditioned soul, you or I, anyone, born in this material world, he's defective by four things. He has got imperfect senses. Just like you don't see what's happening beyond the wall. So this is imperfection of the senses. There are so many examples. The next thing is you're subjected to be illusioned. You may accept a thing for real which is not real. Just like we accept the body as self, but we are not the body. The body is a lump of matter. We are simply witnessing the changes of the body, but we are not the... So this is illusion. Then...
Prabhupāda: Mistakes.
Haṁsadūta: He's subjected to make mistakes. He'll make a mistake. Everybody knows. To err is human, right? And he...
Prabhupāda: Cheating.
Haṁsadūta: Has a propensity for cheating. Propensity for cheating means that although he's imperfect senses, subject to make mistake and he's illusioned, he will write books giving...
Prabhupāda: Instructions.
Prabhupāda: He does not know. The apartment does not change. The owner of the apartment goes from one apartment to another. That he does not know. Therefore he's cheating. He does not, he has no perfect knowledge, and he's cheating. Cheater. He does not know. The soul, from the monkey's body is coming to human body. That is nice. Not that the monkey's body is changing into human body.
Dr. Hauser: But some of this cheating, as you call it, must have, have still been a great use to mankind because it has not been proven at the time when this theory has been evoked by some scientist, it has not been proven that he's right, but he works according to this principle that he has got, and then later...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That, that is explained in Bhāgavatam that in the jungle one big animal is the leader of other animals. That's all. But they're animals. Is it not?
Dr. Hauser: But I don't really understand.
Prabhupāda: In the jungle, in the forest,...
Dr. Hauser: Yes.
Bali Mardana: None of them have lived very long.
Prabhupāda: No, they cannot be. Because by karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1), by superior arrangement, karmaṇā, you have got this body. So you have to live within this body certain age. So if you change the body, new, that doesn't mean you prolong your life. That is not possible. It is the duration of life, that is considered. They are thinking by changing the heart they will increase the duration of life. That is not possible.
Prabhupāda: So what...? There is no benefit.
Karandhara: But that does not mean that the soul from the old heart, or the new heart is being changed into the new body.
Bali Mardana: The soul has already left. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...the soul is individual. As I told yesterday that dead body has got the ingredients to produce life. But that the man who has left his body, you cannot produce him. That is the proof of individuality. That is the proof of individuality. Huh?
Prabhupāda: Medical science has given the chance of committing sinful activities. That's all. And the medical man and the man who is committing such sinful activities, they will suffer. This is the advantage of their so-called medical science. They do not know. They have, they have sanctioned this abortion, medical science. Means they have given chance to commit sinful activities. That's all. So so many rascaldom is going on all over the world, and we, our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, wants to stop all this nonsense, and save the humanity from going down to the animal kingdom. That is our program. They are... They have become just like animals, and next life they are going to be animals. That law they do not know. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). They do not believe in dehāntara-prāptiḥ. That is their nonsense. And now, what kind of dehāntara, change of body? That also they do not know. That is also going to happen. If you become like cats and dogs, you get cats and dogs life. There is nature's law. But they do not know. They're misguiding simply. And if it is so that I have got now nice, human form of body, and next life I'm going to be a dog, is that advancement of civilization? Simply cheating. Everyone is cheating.
Prabhupāda: That is God. God is always existing. Not "come from." That is God. Nityo nityānām. You are also existing. This knowledge, they are lacking. Just like I am, you are, we are eternal. We are eternal. We are changing body. Because they do not believe or do not try to understand that I am not this body, therefore the whole mistake is there.
Devotee: The scientists would use the same argument. The scientists would say, "Well, since I have not experienced that I am eternal, therefore how can I accept that I am eternal?"
Prabhupāda: Yes, you are eternal. Because you were a child and now you are grown up, but you know that you were a child. Therefore you are eternal. You were a child, but you have no that child's body. Now you have got a different body. So although you have got different body, you know that you had a body like a child. Therefore body has changed. You have not changed. That is eternity.
Girirāja: If the soul is not eternal, where has that desire...
Prabhupāda: No. This is eternity. This is practical eternity. You have changed so many times your body, but you are the same person. Therefore you are eternal, in spite of changing body. This is simple argument.
Prajāpati: I used that argument once, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and the scientists said to me, "It is the chromosomes, the tiny chromosomes that do that change."
Prabhupāda: That is their jugglery of words, these rascals. (laughter) "Chromosome, promosome." He will manufacture some word. But where is your chromosome of child body? What is that child body? Where it has gone? If you know, "chromosome, promosome," where has your child's body gone? That is the difficulty. These rascals, they do not know anything. Still, they are teachers and manufacture some jugglery of words. That's all. That is the difficulty. "Chromosome." What is that chromosome? What does it mean, chromosome?
Prajāpati: It is a tiny structure of organic matter that can constantly reproduce...
Prabhupāda: That's all right. When reproduce, the last body is gone.
Devotee: They can accept that our bodies are changing now, but in the next life they have no experience of this.
Prabhupāda: No, next life, this is experience. You were a child, this is your next life.
Devotee: They can see this body change, but the next life, they cannot see.
Prabhupāda: That means you have no... You cannot see so many things. Does it mean that it does not exist? What is the value of your eyes? That I already explained. You cannot see. Now it is a misty. You cannot see anything. Does it mean your eyes are perfect. How you can see? Your eyes are not perfect. What you cannot see, you have to hear. Suppose in a distant place I cannot see. "What is that light?" I say. But if somebody knows, "Oh, that light is from..., there is a skyscraper building like this, and the light is coming." So I know what I cannot see, I can hear. Therefore what you do not see, next life, you have to hear from authority. That is stated in the Bhāgavata, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) "As you have changed so many times in this life, this body, similarly, after death, you will change your body." That is authority.
Prabhupāda: So these rascals will change every year their theology. So what is the value of their words? Childish. (break) ...changes, he is a rascal. That is our... We say, "Kṛṣṇa the Supreme." We never change it. And "Surrender is the only process." We shall never change it. In any circumstance we will not change it. That is the difference. And these rascals will change every year their opinion. They are rascals. (break) ...They are rascals. (break) Kṛṣṇa said that "I am the Supreme." So Arjuna accepted, the Supreme. All the ācāryas accepted the Supreme. Caitanya Mahāprabhu accepted, Supreme. My Guru Mahārāja accepted, Supreme. I am accepting, Supreme. I am teaching the same thing. So there is no change. Not that after a few years it will be changed. That never be. That is our position. (break) Changing means material. Anything material is susceptible to change. Like this material body. I am changing my body, but I am the spirit soul. I am not changing. That is the difference. So all these so-called theologicians, they have no idea what is spiritual knowledge. All rascals. They cannot understand what is God. That I have explained. Simply speculating. It will not help. (break) (Hindi) (some Indian people have joined the walk) Now we are talking of one theologician. Some years ago just... Narrate the... Yes.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: (chuckles) This is material life. We are rounding sometimes this way, sometimes that way, and we are thinking "new." (devotees laugh) Ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona (CC Madhya 19.151). In this way you are wandering all over the universe. Find out something new. But there is nothing new. Everything is old. (break) ...a living entity is offered change of the body. You see? When he becomes fatigued of this life, "It's so troublesome"—old men generally think like that. So he has to change another, another new body, child. Since born he is taken care, he thinks "Now, I have got so comfortable life." And again becomes old, disgusted, so he cannot live disgusting, therefore Kṛṣṇa is so kind: "All right, change body again." Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). Chewing the chewed. The business is the same, but changing body gives some relief. Just like these men, the business is they're wasting time by changing, wasting time at home, come to the golf club. That's all. The business is the same—wasting time, either here or there. Kṛṣṇa is giving so much facilities. Sometimes, "All right, you become tree." "All right, some, become a serpent," "All right, you become a demigod," "All right, you become a human being," "All right, you become king," "You become a cobbler," "You go to the heavenly planets," "Go to the hellish planets." Varieties is there.
Prabhupāda: They are so good Christian that at the time of danger, they're all going away to Canada. Just see-afraid of death, even though they are preaching themselves, priest, they are also the same common man, afraid of death. And if we people keep to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we are not afraid of death. For going from one place to another, that's all. Going home, nobody becomes afraid going back to home. He becomes pleased. (break) You avoid death, there is no death. Viṣaya.(?) If we simply practice this, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma... No more death. Finished death. This is a fact. (break) ...or do something for Kṛṣṇa. Don't waste time, single moment. Then your... No more death. Because this is deathless condition. And the changing of the body, that is momentary, that is all.
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Siddha-svarūpānanda: Some scientists, they want to make all the different body parts. They want to give artificial arm, then artificial feet, and they're, they're spending all kinds of money and time making these complicated machinery to do the same thing that the body is doing. And the ultimate goal, these scientists were stating, their ultimate goal was to make a complete human body so that the person never has to die, but he can always change his body just before it breaks.
Prabhupāda: But the maker of that machine will die.
Siddha-svarūpānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: He cannot save himself. He can make a machine which will not die, but he will die. Is that all right?
Devotee: Yes.
Prabhupāda: How much perfect he is, that you can consider, that he's making something perfect which will not die, but he will die. So he's imperfect. So how his machine is perfect? This is common argument. He's imperfect. But he cannot make such machine that he will not die.
Devotee: The Vaiṣṇavas before...
Prabhupāda: No, other Vaiṣṇavas. But... The on... This Vaiṣṇava party, they stress on Bāla-Kṛṣṇa, Gopāla. We also, we have got our Gopāla, as Mādhavendra Purī installed a Gopāla. That Gopāla is now worshiped, Nāthavara (?), by the Vallabha-sampradāya. That is Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Deity. It is admitted in the court. (break) ...the modern civilization is that they do not know that this, there is transmigration of the soul, and this constant change of body is not very good. They do not know anything. Neither they do know that there is change of body. Neither they feel that "The constant change of body is not very good. If there is any remedy?" These rascals, they do not find the final remedy. They are busy with the temporary problems. Real problem they set aside. (break) ...simply being bewildered by the three guṇas, sattva-rajo-tamo-guṇa, they do not know the ultimate goal is Kṛṣṇa. They do not know it. That is stated in Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: "...both you and Me, we have changed so many times, taken birth. But you have forgotten. I have not forgotten." Why this difference?
Dr. Patel: Because God has got the same body throughout in all the avatāras, while you change your body. Icchā-dveṣa samutthena dvandva-mohena bhārata (BG 7.27). By, at that time... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...if God does not change His body, why these rascals consider Kṛṣṇa as human being?
Dr. Patel: Who considers?
Prabhupāda: Mūḍhas.
Chandobhai: ...gṛhītvaitāni saṁyāti vāyur gandhān ivāśayāt. How the body goes away?
Prabhupāda: Yes. According, according to the quality or the modes of nature, he has to change his body. This Māyāvāda philosophy has made the whole world atheist. They don't believe in God.
Dr. Patel: I think this, what do you call Māyāvāda philosophy is not... (break)
Prabhupāda: Māyāvādī was introduced...
Chandobhai: By Buddha.
Prabhupāda: ...by Śaṅkara.
Prabhupāda: Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ (BG 9.11). That Kṛṣṇa is so powerful that He can come in a spiritual body. Otherwise how He remembers millions of years. If His body's changing, it is material, then how He can remember?
Mr. Sar: Nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā... (BG 7.25).
Prabhupāda: Ah. Yogamāyā-samāvṛtaḥ... Therefore He's not manifest except to the devotee.
Mr. Sar: Mūḍho 'yaṁ nābhijānāti loko mām ajam avyayam (BG 7.25).
Prabhupāda: Again, mūḍha and mūḍha comes. (laughter)
Mr. Sar: Vedāhaṁ samatītāni vartamānāni cār... (BG 7.26)
Prabhupāda: This is Kṛṣṇa. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni.
Dr. Patel: Kālātītaḥ.
Prabhupāda: Kāla āti... Yes.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...win's theory is that from that lower animals to go to the higher animals, but in the creation we find Brahmā is the first creation. So he is the topmost intelligent man.
Bhāgavata: Is there anything in the Vedic literature which supports Darwin's theory?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not Darwin's theory. Darwin's theory is no explanation that whose evolution? Evolution is of the soul. The soul is changing in different bodies, one body better than the other. That kind of evolution.
Prabhupāda: This example is given. Suppose we are walking. This step, when I assure that "This is all right, it is not, it will not go down," then I take up this. Then again this. This example is given. Similarly, change of body like that. As soon as it is settled up what kind of body he is going to accept or which is being offered to him, daiva-netreṇa, by higher authority, then this man leaves this body and again enters in the womb of the body which he is destined to get. This is the process of death.
Prabhupāda: What do they know? They know something, but everyone knows. Even the birds and beasts, they also know something.
Girirāja: "In this way, one after another the body changes and the soul transmigrates. See how the plant worms change from one twig to another so carefully. Similarly the living entity changes his body as soon as the higher authorities decide on his next body." (break)
Prabhupāda: ...the modern civlization is that they have no knowledge about the change of body. Almost 99 percent people, they do not know.
Satsvarūpa: To imagine that God has a form. Man imagines God, not that God exists originally, but man imagines God based on his own form.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Anthropomorphism it is called. They create a form, but that is not the fact. God has His eternal form. That I explained. Sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). Vigraha means form. And it is sac-cid-ānanda, means eternal, full of knowledge and... Just like Kṛṣṇa is speaking Bhagavad-gītā. People are accepting, because that is real knowledge. And nobody reads other books so carefully. And this Bhagavad-gītā is read all over the world. All big, big scholars, big, big philosophers, theologists, they read. Because that is real knowledge. That is the proof. It is real knowledge. Cit. Sac-cid. And one who is giving real knowledge, it is natural conclusion, he has got eternal body. We cannot give real knowledge because we forget. As we change our body, we forget. Just like at night we dream, but we forget the body, this body. In another body we go to some dreamland. So because we change body therefore we forget. And because Kṛṣṇa is giving knowledge perfect, past, present and future, therefore it means that He has got eternal body. This is the proof. One should understand everything with logic. Is it not? We forget because we have no eternal body. Last birth, what I was, what you were, we have forgotten, because changed body. Death means forgetting.
Prabhupāda: The body is changed.
Dr. Patel: It's not icchā-dveṣa samutthena dvandva-mohena? (break)
Prabhupāda: That past life, because the body is changed, you forget.
Dr. Patel: Some of the people...
Prabhupāda: Some of the...
Dr. Patel: I don't know how it is, it is difficult to explain.
Prabhupāda: That is special. That is special.
Guest (2): What is the ultimate aim of this Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
Prabhupāda: Yes, ultimate aim is that there is spirit and matter. As there is material world, there is spiritual world also. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvaḥ anyaḥ avyaktaḥ avyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). The spiritual world is eternal. The material world is temporary. We are spirit soul. We are eternal. Therefore our business is to go back to the spiritual world, not that we remain in the material world and change body from bad to worse or worse to bad, er, good. That is not our business. That is a disease. Our healthy life is to enjoy eternal life. Yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama (BG 15.6). So our human life should be utilized for attaining that perfectional stage—not to get any more this material body which we have to change. This is the aim of life.
Guest (3): Is that perfection possible in one life?
Prabhupāda: Yes, in one moment, if you agree. Kṛṣṇa says that
- sarva-dharmān parityajya
- mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
- ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
- mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
- (BG 18.66)
We change our body on account of sinful activities, but if we surrender to Kṛṣṇa and take Kṛṣṇa consciousness, immediately you are on the spiritual platform.
Guest (2): What exactly is guru's role in your system?
Prabhupāda: To teach how to get rid of this disease of birth, death and old age. That is guru's business. That is also father's business, that is also guru's business, or the caretaker's business, the government's business. Because this human life is meant for getting out of these clutches of māyā, constantly, repeatedly changing body. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), bhūtvā pralīyate. This business should be stopped. Na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyuṁ gurur na sa syāt. Śāstra says, "One should not be guru if he cannot deliver the disciple from the chain of birth, death, old age and disease."
Prabhupāda: Let us see. (break) Just like children, they are given some facilities. They must work according to that plan. Otherwise sometimes there is slap, "Huh, why you are doing like that?" like that. (break) ...your country. Yasyātmā-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrā-bhaumya idya-dhīḥ (SB 10.84.13). Bhaumya means bhūmi. Bhūmi, the land, idya-dhīḥ: "This is my duty: to serve my country, to serve my land." This is māyā. The rascal, he is engaged to "Do your duty to your country," and what is the country? Suppose if I do my duty and I may be driven away from my country next life, because there is no guarantee that I will have to take my birth... Just like one astrologer has explained that Jawaharlal Nehru has become a dog in Scandinavia. (laughs) There is chance. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). You will have to change your body. Now, where it will be changed, how it will be changed, what kind of body you will get—that is not in your hands. That is not in your hands. You cannot say, "Oh, I am Prime Minister. I must get such and such body." That is not going to be accepted. But these foolish rascal people, they do not understand it. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). I am acting under certain infection. So I am infecting, say, some venereal disease. So I must suffer for it.
Prabhupāda: And that is absolute. When he goes back to home, back to Godhead, that is absolute. So long he is in the material world, changing body, transmigrating from one body to another, that is not absolute plane. That is the duality plane, dualism. When we go back to home, back to..., in the spiritual world, that is absolute.
O'Grady: When he goes back to his original.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Thank you very much. That is the position. That is absolute.
O'Grady: So you don't find it possible to achieve any absolute condition in our time?
Prabhupāda: No. In the material world it is not possible. This is the world of duality. Therefore so many different varieties of unity is suggested, but they are all failure. Just like when we were students in 1917, so there was League of Nations. And after that again there was war. (chuckles)
Prabhupāda: (break) ...devotees, they do not want any opulence of this material world. They are, what is called, pessimistic. They do not give any value to the opulence of this material world. And it is very good philosophy. But fools and rascals, they are attracted. Now, these buildings were constructed, very highly intellectual men undoubtedly, but they enjoyed, say, for hundred years. That's all. Then their bodies changed, and nobody knows what kind of body he has got. This is materialism. Suppose if you are offered some very nice comfortable life, and if you know that "Next life I am going to become a dog," would you be happy? But they have no information that what next body... Body, he has to take another body. He cannot enjoy. Whatever he has created, he cannot enjoy for good. That is not possible. He has to leave it. Just like these Romans. They have left. They constructed so big, big building just to enjoy, but they had to leave it by nature's force and accept another body. That they do not know.
Satsvarūpa: The pure devotee gives the chance to everyone, but only a few approach. So still the question is how can they become interested in the pure devotee?
Prabhupāda: No, this is the..., that you do it. If they do not do it, then who will come? This declaration is there, that "If you do this, then you can be interested." But if you do not, then you go on with your own business. A similar... The same things Kṛṣṇa, sarva-dharmān parit... mām ekam. Kṛṣṇa is demanding that you do it, "Surrender unto Me." The śāstra also says, "Surrender unto the representative of Kṛṣṇa," mahīyasām. But if they do not do, what can be done? Just see this sparrow. The sex is always accompanying, any time ready. The pigeons, any time ready. Viṣayaḥ khalu sarvataḥ syāt. That is the only attachment for this material world, viṣaya. Whole world is fighting for this viṣaya. "I must have nice eating, I must have nice sleeping, I must have very good sex, and I should be defended by bank balance, by military soldiers, by police force, by atomic weapons." This is going on. Defense. Rascal does not understand that "In spite of all these things, I will have to change the body, and the same thing will be available again, in a different way." This intoxication, cigarettes. The ant, the small ant, they are very fond of intoxication. You know that? As soon as there is information, "On the top of the skyscraper building, there is a grain of sugar," they will go. (laughing) Because sugar contains intoxication. The wine is made from sugar, molasses. It has got the intoxication. You keep a grain of sugar there, and there will be hundreds and thousands... (laughter) Gold rush. Study. You see what is the difference of this civilization and the ant civilization, dog civilization, cat civilization. No difference. It is in the simply formation only.
Prabhupāda: That you may think, but you do not know the nature's law. You have to accept. Just like this apartment, either you accept or somebody accept. Similarly, these bodies are apartment. You have to accept or your brother has to accept. Somebody must accept. They are also living entities. Wherefrom they are coming? As I am a living entity, they are also living entity. So changing body, I may change to that body, he may change to this body. Where is the unreasonableness? We are all living entities. These are different types of bodies. So we have to accept some body. Similarly, he has to accept some body. So he may accept my body, I may accept his body. This apartment change. I may go to this apartment, he may go to another apartment. But there are so many apartments, gṛha. Therefore it is called gṛhamedhī. If you say, "No, no, I am not going to accept that apartment." "No, no, it is not your judgement." Daiva-netreṇa. "What money you have got, sir, to occupy?" "I have no money." "All right, then go this apartment." You must accept. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1). By your work it will be ascertained what kind of apartment you will get. It is not upon your decision. There are so many, many rascals.
Prabhupāda: Therefore the real inconvenience is that I am eternal. I am now put into such condition that I have to change my body, and there is risk of getting degraded body. Therefore my problem is that—I am put into this condition, repetition of change of body—to get out of it—that is spiritual life—and transfer myself there. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyaḥ (BG 8.20). Just like we are in this material nature. If we transfer to that spiritual nature, then there is no more this problem, getting this body, again annihilate, again get another body, again annihilate. This problem is solved. And that is spiritual life.
Prabhupāda: That he does not know. He is a fool. He does not know what is a good result. He will change again. He is a rascal. He is putting himself in this condition; again he'll desire another condition. That is the change of body. That is his wanting. Sometimes he's taking the body of a dog, sometimes he is taking the body of a demigod. Bhramatam upary adhaḥ (1.5.18). Down, just like, what is that? Merry-go-round.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Ferris wheel, ferris wheel goes up and down.
Prabhupāda: Sometimes "I am so up," and again come down. This is going on. Ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān. Therefore, in this way, going round, one who is very, very fortunate, he, guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja (CC Madhya 19.151), he comes to the devotional life by the mercy of guru and Kṛṣṇa. This is the beginning of Caitanya Mahāprabhu's instruction. They are under the myth, under the spell of māyā. This is going on.
Prabhupāda: You know or do not know, the transformation will take place. Take, for example, the ship. The ship is combination of these five material things, earth, water, air, fire and... And when it is destroyed, it again turns into earth, water, fire... So the conservation of energy is there. You simply give a shape, temporary, and it goes again to the same place, original physical elements. This is going on. But you are... You do not know that you are eternal. That is ignorance. So therefore the sense is that "If I am eternal, then why I am busy with these temporary things?" That knowledge is lacking. I am eternal. So now, as human being, I am busy in temporary things, to construct a big ship or aeroplane. But as soon as I change this body, I become a bird, I have no power. Then I manufacture a nest on the top of the tree. That is my business. Or... Because the body will change. That is lack of knowledge. I am eternal. In this particular body I am busy with some temporary things. And as soon as I change my body, then another temporary thing. Eh? The... Suppose the big Romans. When they were Romans, they constructed all these big, big buildings. But if the Romans have changed into birds, they're no more interested in this body. They're interested in making some complicated nest on the top of the tree. This is going on, life after li... This knowledge is lacking. Therefore it is said, manaḥ ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni... They are struggling on this mat... (break) ...physical world by concocted mental speculation. That's all. As soon as the body is changed, then everything is changed.
Prabhupāda: That they do not know, that "I am changing this body, and I am getting temporary engagement and wasting my time. And... But my problem, the change of body, death, is there. The death is there. Therefore my real problem is how to stop this death." That we want also. We do not wish to die. That is our propensity.
Robert Gouiran: Are you interested to know how we produce anti-matter in our laboratories from...?
Prabhupāda: Anti-matter, I have explained that, this... So our anti-matter is different. Anti-matter means spirit. But your anti-matter is different.
Satsvarūpa: Yesterday you said when one becomes initiated by a bona fide spiritual master, his body changes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Satsvarūpa: Even if he was mleccha, he can become brāhmaṇa.
Yogeśvara: Actually, the chemists also say that there are four types of blood, A, AB, O, and something like that. They give it four names.
Prabhupāda: And according to Hindu system, the marriage was taking place finding, examining the girl's constitution and the boy's constitution so that there may not be disruption. Everything was there.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: So if they have information that this is not the only life, then won't they automatically become more austere?
Prabhupāda: Yes. (indistinct) consider what kind of life I'm going to get. (indistinct) They have made their own rascal philosophy that there is no life after death. Although they're experiencing that I am changing my body in this duration of life. I know that I have a child's body, child's body. That body's finished. Still I'm existing. So why I shall not exist after this body's finished? Where is the logic? Where is the... The simple logic they cannot understand. So dull brain. And they're advanced in civilization, big, big professor, big, big Indologist, this logic. The simple reason they cannot understand. What did they say? You have talked to many men about this logic?
Guru-gaurāṅga: About life after death?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: What is the other logic? If you have changed your body so many times, why not change this body? What is your reason? Natural course it should be that I have changed so many bodies so this body I shall change. This is natural logic. And what is his logic?
Satsvarūpa: So he said... They say it may be or it may not be.
Prabhupāda: But that is your rascaldom. But this is the real logic.
Guru-gaurāṅga: They also say that it is not... It is the same body, more or less...
Prabhupāda: Same body...
Guru-gaurāṅga: But it is just developed, but it is not a different body.
Prabhupāda: No. Developed means different body. Development means different body. They cannot say it is not different body. Then if it is not different, then go to childhood again. That means they're not human being. Human being means with logic. According to their definition, man is rational animal. They're not even rational. Like cats and dogs. There is no rationality. Cats and dogs also they have got rationality. Logic plus authority, Kṛṣṇa says. How you can deny? That means they don't agree with Kṛṣṇa's instruction. You see? This logic, I am not giving this logic. This logic is given by Kṛṣṇa. So unless... The difficulty is that unless they accept the authority, it is very difficult. Logic is there. The authority is there.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Would you like this blanket also, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: No, that's all right. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa...
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: So as soon as the modes of nature are no longer working on the spirit soul, then he experiences that he's no longer changing his body?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā dura... mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te (BG 7.14).
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: By taking shelter of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The thing is that if I am so much susceptible to the contamination of māyā, the modes of material nature, then if I waste my time in material advancement of life, is it not risky?
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Very risky.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: This is the point. Just like I've already changed. I was a child, so small. Where is that body? That is no longer existing, But still I remember that I had the body. So I changed that body so many times. Similarly, when this body will be useless, I change to another body. This is conclusion. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā.
Prabhupāda: So, not only the animals. The trees, the plants, the insects, the birds, the bees, the aquatic animal: fish. Everyone has got soul. So anything, which has got life symptom, it is due to soul and so long the soul is there the change of body takes place. A child born, if it is dead, the change of body does not take place. You cannot understand?
Lady (2): No.
Prabhupāda: You have got now a different body, but you had a body like a child, so you cannot understand this? Why is that? Even a child can understand. You were also sometimes a body like this young girl. You do not believe that?
Yogeśvara: (French)
Lady (2): (French)
Yogeśvara: She says she can recollect.
Prabhupāda: No, but who recollects? The soul. The body is changed. The body is changed, but the soul is the same and therefore she can recollect.
Yogeśvara: She says there is an example of the worm that turns into a butterfly. It changes body.
Prabhupāda: Yes, she is right.
Lady (2): (French)
Yogeśvara: (French) Do you have any questions?
Guest (3): (French)
Yogeśvara: He says there is an example that a flower grows, and when it dies it gives its perfume to God.
Prabhupāda: Yes, very good idea. Therefore, everyone can dedicate his energy to God. And that is called bhakti.
Satsvarūpa: Because he can't perceive. He can perceive that he has changed from child to old man, but he can't perceive what is going to happen after death. So who knows?
Prabhupāda: But he cannot perceive that we, at night we change this body and go to another body when we dream? He cannot perceive? Your body, this body, is laid down on the bed, and you go away, and you are thinking that you are in Europe and America or in the sky or so many things. So what is that?
Satsvarūpa: Yes, while its happening he can't perceive it.
Prabhupāda: But that is happening. He is seeing. He is a man. He is seeing. Why he cannot perceive? What is the difficulty? What is the answer, anyone?
Mādhavānanda: He is in illusion.
Prabhupāda: It is very simple thing. Just like a body is moving, and body is not moving. So there is an active principle which makes the body moving, and when it is absent, it is not moving. Now, the question will be: "What is that active principle?" Athāto brahma jijñāsā. First of all let him distinguish what is the difference between this dead body and living body. If a student is unaware of it, he can see that on account of the active principle, the body is changing, the body is moving, and in the absence of the active principle, neither the body changes, neither moves. Just like in our childhood we used to think that the gramophone box, there is a man, and he is speaking from the box. This is a childish suggestion only, but similarly, anyone can think that within this body there is something which is making the body moving. It is not very big philosophy.
Professor Durckheim: Yes, but this is a very good example because the dream of the tiger comes very often. And it always means that you are pursued by some of your inner instincts, yourself. So you discover in the image of the tiger something which is not right in yourself.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that experience is also material. That is not spiritual experience. That experience is going on continually so long we are materially attached. Because in the material world we are constantly changing our body. Your experience in childhood is different from the experience at this time. So as we are changing our body, we are getting different experiences, and all those experiences are photographed within the mind. And they sometimes come out and make an intermixture, and we see dreams and so many contradictory things. This is going on, mental speculation. That is hovering on the mental plane. That is not spiritual plane.
Professor Durckheim: And this understanding has to be an experience.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is experienced, but on account of his foolishness he is thinking otherwise. He knows that "I am not this body. I am now in this body of old man, but I was not in this body, say, fifty years ago. Therefore I am not this body, that body or this body. I am different from the body." This is very easy experience. I am existing. I understand that I existed in a baby's body. I existed in a child's body, boy's body. So I have now changed so many bodies. Therefore I am not this body. Just like you dress. You are now in black coat, and next moment you can be in other color. But you are not this coat. You have changed the coat. Similarly, I have changed the body, but I am not this body. This is self-realization. First of all let me know that "I am not this body; I am living within this body." You are not this coat. If I ask you, "Mr. Blackcoat," that is my foolishness. You are neither black coat or white coat. And that is self-realization.
Prof. Pater Porsch: Either through death or destiny.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is called death. You separate from this body; you accept another body. This period is called death. (German) So the body which you occupied previously, that is false now. Now the body which you have occupied now, that is important now. So you are giving stress on the body which I am changing after few years. That is the problem, misunderstanding.
Guest: Contaminated?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like if you contaminate some disease, then you must develop that disease. Similarly, if your mind is contaminated with some material designation, then you have to.... By nature's law. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). Because mind associated with a particular type of the modes of material nature, (indistinct). There are three qualities—sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa and mixed up. At first mixing it becomes nine and again mixing up it becomes 81. Each quality there are thousands and thousands of varieties and that means by mixing up these qualities there are 8,400,000 species of life. So, it is by the God's law, nature's law, they take account of the particular color and award the quality. It is not man-made law. That there may some mistake. There is no mistake. If you have contaminated this disease, whether small pox or whatever or (indistinct), you must develop. Therefore desireless. Desireless means material desires. Material desires begins with this designation. Just like the child, he has got a childish body and he plays like a child. The same child when he'll get a youthful body (indistinct). The soul is the same but on account of the type of the body, he is acting. This is material. Small child in the childhood talks like nonsense, people enjoy it. But the same child when he is grown up, if he talks like a nonsense, people will call him nonsense, rascal. Why? The body has changed, the circumstances have changed. This is (indistinct) that we have changed this body and on account of the bodily situation we are acting different. That they do not understand. There is not school or college, they do not know about the soul and soul changing different positions, different bodies. In this way he remains materially entangled and the real relief is to get out of this bodily consciousness and advance in spiritual life.
Madhudviṣa: That they say, this body.
Prabhupāda: That is their foolishness. This body, you can say, this is material body; that is also material body. But not this body. Just like you change your cloth. The other cloth also made of cotton, and this is also made of cotton. In the same way, you can say, "the same body," cotton body or dress. But you cannot say that this cloth or this dhoti is going with you. How they can say? This body is lying here. This body means this material body.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Guest (5): Suppose he is reincarnated?
Prabhupāda: No, no, "dies" means the body dies. The soul does not die. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). When the body annihilates... Body becomes old. Just like this cloth. I am using it, but when it will be old, no more useful, then I throw it away. I get another dress. This body is like that. Soul is eternal. Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit. It does not die, it does not take birth, but because he is in material condition, therefore he has to change the material body because no material thing is permanent. Therefore the aim of life should be how to avoid this material body. That is real business. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. That is called athāto brahma jijñāsā. This is only business, how to stop acceptance of this material body. And that is very clearly and simply stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, janma karma me divyaṁ yo janāti tattvataḥ, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). We can do that. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, that you try to understand Kṛṣṇa, then you are not going to accept any more material body. That means there is no more birth, no more death, no more disease, no more, and what is called, old age.
Prabhupāda: He could not finish. You see? There are so many things. We are thinking, "By finishing this, we shall be happy," but that is sometimes hampered. So ānanda is checked. So this is the position. So higher means where ānanda is not checked. That is higher position. The purpose is ānanda, but in this material world we are experiencing ānanda being checked. Just like nobody wants to die. That's a fact. Why you shall die? I already discussed that I know that I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man, and now I have got this body, old man's body. It is now going to finish. So I am little anxious. Now, whatever ānanda I was drawing in my living condition, now it is going to be finished. But if we think properly that "I am eternal, so although the body will be finished, I'll not be finished..." This is very natural, that "I was not finished. Because my childhood body was finished, so I was not finished. My boyhood body was not finished; I was not finished. My youthhood was finished, but I was not finished." Similarly, the conclusion should be: "Even though this body will be finished, I'll not be finished." That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). Dhīra, one who is intelligent, he is not disturbed. Dhīras tatra na muhyati. So dhīra, one who is dhīra, sober, philosopher, he knows that "I am not going to be finished. I shall have to accept another body." Now, whether that body will be ānanda? That is the consideration. I'll get another body, just like I have got this body, after changing so many bodies. Moment after moment, we are changing body. That is the medical science, changing of blood corpuscles. So this body will be changed again. Then I will have to enter the mother's womb and packed up for at least ten months in suffocated condition. This is scientific, all. Then again I'll come out when the body is prepared nicely to come out and exist. So that period of formation of body is not ānanda. To remain compact in this way for ten months, it is not ānanda. It is not ānanda, just opposite ānanda. Then when we die... Die, death, means the miserable condition is so great that we cannot live. We have to go out. There is no ānanda. Then, when we have got this body, changing, there is no ānanda because we are sometimes diseased, and to become old man, that is also not ānanda.
Prabhupāda: That's it. Now, this is a fact. Everyone knows that body is changing. Now, how the last body's changed? That you make experiment, how it is passing. Yes. To make experiment means you have to know the science how to make experiment. That is knowledge. You take the basic principle of knowledge, and then you make your experiment and you will know this is perfect.
Hṛdayānanda: (translating) If there's a certain criteria of proof or a certain evidence that we can know for certain that there actually is such transmigration of the soul?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like the baby is, the soul is, transmigrated from baby's body to child's body, child's body to boy's body, boy's body to youthful body, so the body vanishes, and because the soul remains, he gets another body. Now I am old man. I remember I had a child's body, I was lying down. I quite remember it. But that body is not existing. So this is the example. Everyone has experience. This is transmigration of the soul from one body to another. And at the time of death, the psychological condition of the mind will carry me to a suitable body, and I shall enter into the womb of my mother through the semina of the father, and the mother will give that a particular type of body, and when it is completely manufactured, then I come out and begin my again. Therefore we find varieties of forms, but in each and every form there is the soul. Now, in the human form of life, we should utilize our intelligence that "This constant change of body, how it can be stopped?" And we should remain in our eternal body because I am eternal, but psychologically I am simply changing different forms of body, and at the time of change of body I have to undergo so many sufferings. To remain within the womb of the mother for ten months in packed up condition, it is a very terrible punishment. But for each new birth, we have to undertake this terrible suffering. Sometimes nowadays they're being killed. So to avoid all these dangers, one should try to remain in his spiritual body so that there will be no more chance of accepting material... Find out this, janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya (BG 4.9).
Professor (Hṛdayānanda): Then he's asking, he's humbly asking you to give him a little bit of the clue.
Prabhupāda: Yes, just like... It is very common sense clue. Kṛṣṇa says the proprietor of the body is within the body. Now, you were a child. So in your child body, you were present there, and in your boyhood body, you were present there. In your youthhood body, you were present there. Now you are middle-aged. You are there. I am old man. I am there. So body, the childhood body, the boyhood body, the youthhood body, they are no more existing, but I am existing. Therefore I am eternal; the body is temporary. This is the clue. Therefore the conclusion is that as I have changed so many body but still I am existing, therefore, when I shall change this body, I will exist. Now, I have transmigrated from babyhood body to childhood, childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood. Similarly, I shall transmigrate to another body. A you..., young man can say, "No, no, I don't believe in the old body," but that does not mean he will not get the old body. He will get it by laws of nature. That is compulsory. Similarly, if somebody says, "I don't believe in the next life," that does not mean he is authority. Nature will give him. Nature will not agree or obey the imperfect person. The same example: if the young man says, "I don't want old body," nature will not hear him. Nature will give him, force him: "You must accept old body." Everyone does not want to die, but nature puts him forcibly: "Yes, you must die." So after all, we are perfectly under the control of superior authority. We cannot become independent, and our independent thoughts has no value.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Proof is under investigation. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Eh? That is nonsense. That is nonsense. This proof, that from life, life is coming, there is proof, so many proof. A man, animal, trees—everything is coming from life. Up till now, nobody has seen that a man is born from a stone. Nobody has seen. Sometimes it is called vṛścika-taṇdūla-nyāya. You know that? Vṛścika-taṇdūla-nyāya. Vṛścika means scorpion, and taṇdūla means rice. Sometimes we see some heaps of rice, the scorpion is coming. But that is not that the rice has given birth to the scorpion. You have not seen in your country? We have seen it. From the rice, heaps of rice, one scorpion, small scorpion, is coming. The fact is that the parent of the scorpion, they put their eggs within the rice and, being fermented, the scorpion comes out, not that from rice the scorpion is coming out. Therefore it is called vṛścika-taṇdūla-nyāya. Vṛścika means scorpion, and taṇdūla means rice. So "Life is coming from matter"—this is called vṛścika-taṇdūla-nyāya. Life cannot come from matter. Besides that... Just like when there is life, living entity, the body grows, body changes or grows, as you say. But if the child is dead or come out dead, then the body does not grow. Then matter is growing on life. Why, a dead child born, it does not grow? What is the reason? What is your scientists' reason?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Are these living entities constant? They don't change any.
Prabhupāda: Yes, nitya, nitya. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Why don't you see these references? It is never created. It is ever-existing, eternal. Only it appears to be temporary on account of accepting different material bodies. Therefore, paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). One who knows, he knows that he has changed his body, the same person. Just like father, mother knows. When a son becomes very stout and strong, the mother sees that same child. Others may be bewildered. One who has seen the child very long ago, now he has become robust build. He cannot say. And the mother says, "He is my child, that child." So paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18).
Prabhupāda: Otherwise there is no certainty. You can become demigod also. You can become higher planetary... But you have to change your body. Either you become dog or you can become demigod, but change your body, that is fact.
Reporter: You mean it always comes back as some form of animal?
Prabhupāda: Hmm? What is that?
Haṁsadūta: Whether you always return as an animal?
Prabhupāda: No, not always. There are 8,400,000 forms of life.
Reporter: A hundred thousand.
Prabhupāda: Eight million.
Prabhupāda: So why don't you know yourself? Why you are in darkness? Kṛṣṇa says everything in the Bhagavad-gītā. In the beginning He says, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanam (BG 2.13). In this body there is the occupier of the body. So if you think yourself that you are this body, that is your wrong. You try to understand that "I am not this body; I am spirit soul, ahaṁ brahmāsmi." That's the fact. So this human life is meant for that purpose. So why should you not do it? Why should you keep yourself in darkness? That is very risky. If I keep myself in the darkness like cats and dogs, that "I am this body," then my life is very risky. By nature's way we are given this opportunity, human form of life. If we do not understand our position, if we remain in the same category, bodily concept of life, then we are missing the chance. After all, you have to change this body. It is not permanent settlement that you shall remain Indian, you shall remain American. No. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). You have to change. Now what kind of body you are going to get, that you have to understand. That is responsibility.
Ambassador: Contaminated.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like if you contaminate some disease, then you must develop that disease. Similarly, if your mind is contaminated with some material designation, then you have to accept similar body, by nature's way. Kāranaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). Because the mind associated with a particular type of the modes of material nature, he got this body. There are three qualities: sattva-guṇa, raja-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. Now you mix up. By first mixing it becomes nine, and again mixing up, it becomes eighty-one. And each quality, there are thousands and thousands of variety. And that means by mixing up these qualities there are 8,400,000 species of forms of life. So it is very... God's law, nature's law, they take account of the particular color and awards the body accordingly. It is not man-made law, that there may be some mistake. There is no mistake. If you have contaminated this disease, either smallpox or cholera or this or that, you must develop that disease. Therefore we should be desireless. Desireless means material desire. That material desire begins with the designation. That... The child, he has got a childish body, and he plays like a child. The same child, when he will get a youthful body, he will do like that. The soul is the same. But on account of different type of body he is acting differently. That is practical. A small child, in the childhood he will talk like nonsense. People will enjoy it. But the same child, when he is grown up and he talks like nonsense, people will call him nonsense, rascal. Why? The body has changed. The circumstance has changed. This is the real education, that we are changing body, and according to our bodily situation we are acting differently. That they do not understand. There is no school, college or education about the soul and the soul's changing different position of different body, and in this way he remains materially entangled.
Atreya Ṛṣi: When the body changes, Śrīla Prabhupāda, how is it...? When our coat, size of the coat changes because our body grows bigger, the size of the coat is bigger. Shirt is bigger.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is spiritual form. It can take... It can become bigger, smaller, like that.
Atreya Ṛṣi: But the form is the same. (break)
Prabhupāda: This has been... Body has been described as the dress. So the form of the dress cannot be there unless there is form of the person who puts on the dress. How can you deny it? Because the dress has got form, the person who puts on the dress must have form. How can you deny this argument? You cannot say "formless." It may be, you cannot see it. That is different thing. But it must be form and individual. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, that Kṛṣṇa says, "Arjuna, you and Me and all these persons who are here, they were existing like that in the past, they are now existing, and they will exist in the same way." Therefore all are individual.
Prabhupāda: It is not very highly intellectual. One has to understand first of all that he is not this body. That anyone can understand, that "I am changing my body, but I am there. Therefore I am not this body." Just like a child's coat, when he is young man, that coat does not fit him. So that young man means he has got another body. But the young man knows, he remembers, that he was a child. He was on the lap of his parents or his relatives. So that body is no longer existing. I have got a different body, but I who had the childhood body, I am existing. Is it very difficult to understand, any one of you? The body has changed. That's a fact. But I am the same. (break) What is that?
Devotee: The demands of the body makes it...
Atreya Ṛṣi: The attachment to the body...
Prabhupāda: No, attachment to the body is not bad. Just like you have got a nice car. So you have got attachment for it. But you must know that you are not the car. That everyone can... A child can understand. But because I have got attachment for something, it does not mean I am that thing. I have got attachment for so many things. That is natural. Anything I possess, I have got attachment. But that does not mean I am that thing. But here the mistake is that because we have got attachment for the body, I am identifying myself as the body. That is ignorance, illusion.
Prabhupāda: Oh. So these things has to be learned first, that "I am not this body, I am spirit soul. I am changing my body, and this is botheration." So if there is any way to stop this changing, that is required. That... That is possible to be done in this human form of life.
Young man: Is there any chance to understand how the Absolute think?
Prabhupāda: Yes, this is the chance, human body. If you want to know, you can know. Here is the chance.
Young man: Is there a way of knowing that the body you inhabited before was of a inferior quality than the one you're inhabiting now, or...
Prabhupāda: Inferior quality, just like cats and dog. That is inferior quality.
Devotee: When the body changes, Śrīla Prabhupāda, does that mean that also that the real form changes?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Devotee: Because the body...
Prabhupāda: No, body changes but the spiritual form is the same.
Devotee: He is always the same. How is it that when our coat, size of the coat, changes because the body grows bigger the size of the coat is bigger?
Prabhupāda: That is spiritual form. You can take.... It can become bigger, smaller, like that.
Prabhupāda: Is it not a fact?
Girl: I must change my body.
Prabhupāda: Change. So the body has changed. But I remember that I had such a body. Therefore I am different from the body. I wish to possess again that body, to jump, but I cannot. This is the condition of my life. By nature's law I am getting one body and I am changing to another body. This is going on. So as in this life I have got this experience, that I have changed my body, similarly, the greatest authority, Kṛṣṇa, says that "When this body will be finished, you'll get another body," very simple thing. But these rascals do not understand. All these rascals, they do not understand. There is practical experience, and there is authoritative statement, and still, they do not know, and still, they are big, big professors, big, big learned scholars, doctor, scientist, philosophers. What is this?
Girl: No knowledge.
Prabhupāda: It is very simple thing, that "I am changing my body, and similarly, I'll change this body." This should be understood by my present circumstances of life, and it is confirmed by the greatest authority, Kṛṣṇa. Knowledge by authority and knowledge by experience, both things are there. And still, the rascals do not understand. Knowledge is gathered by experience, and knowledge is gathered from the authority. Just like I ask my father, "What is this?" Father says, "This is bell." So this is knowledge. I get it from my father. And by experience, when I push it, it is ringing. So understand, "This is bell." So two sources of knowledge: by practical experience and by authority.
Prabhupāda: That's it. That is authority. That is not experiment. That is authority. Therefore knowledge by authority and knowledge by experience... So I am changing my body. You experience "I was child, I was boy, I was young man. I was middle-aged. Now I am old man." This is experience. And the authority says, "As you have changed this body, similarly, you change this body and get another body." This is authority. Then where is the lack of knowledge? So knowledge is already there in two ways: by experience and by authority.
Prabhupāda: First of all, we have to understand that we... There are many sources of knowledge, but the summary is that knowledge gathered by experience and knowledge gathered by, through authority. So both knowledge is helping me about the change of body. So how can you deny it? And still, if you remain ignorant, then you are foolish. How you can say there is no life after death? I am giving you evidence by experience and by authority. Then mostly, perhaps you have got experience of the... In the, especially in the Western countries... Here, if you ask ordinary cultivator, he'll believe: "Yes, there is life." They they are philosopher. "Yes, in my past life I did something wrong. Therefore I am suffering. And if I do wrong, I'll suffer in my next life." You'll get this knowledge even from the cultivator. This is India.
Prabhupāda: But only for furniture and apartment, if you forget yourself and act in such a way, then next life you become a dog and lie on the street, then what is the use of your furniture? You are getting next life. First of all, you understand that, that "This is not the end of my life. I am eternal. I am changing my body." So it is described as dress. Now you may be dressed like a royal king. And next dress may be different. "May be" means it must be. And for the examples of the dresses—so many living entities. So you must be cautious that "What kind of dress I am going to have next?" (break) Where is that science? Where is that school, college? If you remain only confident that "I'll go on with this dress perpetually," that is not the fact. You'll have to change your dress. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). But we have no knowledge that "What kind of dress I am going to have?" It is a fact. I have already changed dress.
Prabhupāda: That's all right, because you have got this body. And after giving up this body, completely, blissful life. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). You are not going to get another body of suffering, that is your advantage. And these rascals, they are going to continue one body after another simply suffering. And for the devotees, although they do not suffer, it is just like, the fan is moving, you make the switch off. It is actually not moving, it is by the last force it is moving, but the switch is off. And it will stop, suffering. But you have no such chance, you will simply go on suffering, moving, moving, moving, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). You shall have to accept one body, suffer, and again give up this body. Another body suffer, because so long as you accept material body, this body or that body, you will have to suffer. Material body means suffering. So those who are not Kṛṣṇa conscious, they will change bodies one after another, and continue to suffer threefold miseries. And devotees, actually they are not suffering, but even if you say they are suffering, so after giving up this body, they are no more accepting material body. They will remain in spiritual body.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So this body is temporary anyway, so aren't these senses temporary also?
Prabhupāda: No. Senses are there. The dog has senses, you have got also senses. Body may change, the senses will continue.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But when the body is finally finished, aren't the senses also finished?
Prabhupāda: No. Body will have finished when you are liberated. Otherwise, one after another, another body, that's all. Childhood body is finished, you have got another body. But in a childhood body there were senses, and still you have got senses. The body may change, but the senses will continue. Even in the small ant, for sense gratification, they gather as soon as there will be grain of sugar immediately. They have got the same senses. Just like you run after something according to your estimation very big, for them that one grain of sugar is very big. So they are also running after sense gratification. So anybody, viṣaya karuṇa sarva dakṣaya, whatever body you may get, the senses will be there, and you'll enjoy, according to your capacity.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: You have to judge by the fruits.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You cannot teach your own people, and you are going to teach others. "Physician heal thyself." Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Greets someone.) You have failed to teach your own children, they are disappointed, and you are going to teach others. This is another cheating. It is not the question of... That is another fault—"our," "your." There is no question of "our," "your." Any culture, actually if it is culture, it is meant for the whole human society. Why do you say, "our," "your." We never say, "The Kṛṣṇa consciousness is meant for Indians," or "for the Europeans." It is meant for everyone. That is our proposition. You have made this "our," "your," and bring another controversy. That is not the fact. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is meant both for the Indians and the Westerners. That is the fact. When Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), "You have to change your body," Kṛṣṇa never meant that it is meant for the Indians. It is meant for everyone. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ is not meant that Indians only change and they become vanished, European. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ is everyone. So try to understand this philosophy.
Prabhupāda: Ātmā's nature. One question should be understood, thoroughly. You have asked what is the nature of ātmā. The ātmā's nature is that he is eternal. He never dies. Never takes birth. He is already existing. Just like, you were a child, you were a baby. The body is no longer existing. Your childhood body is no longer existing, but you know that you were a child. You remember your childhood days. Therefore, you are different from the body. The body is passed away, but you remember that you had a body like that. Therefore you exist. You know that you'll become an old man. So this body will not exist. Another body you will get, old age body. Therefore you will exist; the body will change. Now try to understand this fact first of all, and if you cannot understand, ask questions.
Prabhupāda: You are a person and I am a person. You are changing bodies and I am changing bodies.
Kim: And through all the changes there is the ātman that continues.
Prabhupāda: Who is here first of all? You are a person. I am a person. You are hearing, I am speaking. We are two persons. So why you say one?
Kim: Two bodies.
Prabhupāda: Yes, two bodies, just like two dresses. You are differently dressed, I am differently dressed, but that does not mean that we are one. We are one as ātmā. Just like you are Australian, I am Indian, but as human being we are one. But as Australian, as Indian, we are different. Therefore we are one and different at the same time.
Devotee (2): So, Śrīla Prabhupāda, isn't Lord Brahmā the original spiritual master in our sampradāya?
Prabhupāda: Yes. But we should take that it was his līlā to show that "Even I am subjected. How much you should take risk here." We should take like that because he's our guru. We should not take him that he was subjected to lusty desires, but he made a show that "Even I am also subjected." And he gave up this, changed the body for that. Therefore we should not observe if there is a show of fault of the guru. We should take a different way. Tejīyasāṁ na doṣāya (SB 10.33.29). Just like the sun is soaking water from urine, but we should not imitate that, that "We also, let us take urine." Then you'll die. He can do so. Tejīyasāṁ na doṣāya. The sun can do that. Still he is not affected. Everyone knows the sun soaks water from the urine. But should you imitate that: "Oh, let me take urine"? No. It is not for you. That is advised. Īśvaranam, those who are īśvaras, the controllers, there is no fault. You should not imitate them; simply you should imitate their instruction. Not that their activities which we may not understand, why he is doing that.
Justin Murphy: But I'm less interested in what...
Prabhupāda: No, no. First of all think that you have changed your body. The other man says, "Oh, you have grown up?" Or... Generally they take it as grown up. But the actual position is the body has changed.
Justin Murphy: But they're the same bones. It's the same skin. My face looks just about the same.
Prabhupāda: Not it is same. Medically, it is not the same.
Justin Murphy: The functions are different, but it's the same heart that's beating, the same veins...
Prabhupāda: No, no, no, it is not the same body. Just like in your childhood, when you were a boy, you had no sex impulse. Now you have got sex impulse. The body of a child, the body of a boy, they cannot understand sex life because the body is different. And now, because you have got different body, you can feel what is sex life. So it is imperceptibly changing. Therefore we think that it is growing. But it is changing. It is changing swiftly. Just like in the cinema spool. The picture is changing, but because it is changing so swiftly, you are seeing that one man is moving. That is the fact. There are hundreds and thousands of pictures passed on. When you see that "This man is taking the stick and bringing this way," this means there are many pictures. So similarly, it is like a spool. Your body is changing every moment. That is medical science.
Prabhupāda: So changing. So you are changing your body. That's a fact. But because you are seeing all in one spool, you are thinking, "It is growing; it is moving." That's all. But it is changing. This is the science. So body is changing. And you remember that you had such-and-such body. Therefore you are different from the body. This is the science. So unless we understand that "I am not this body. I am different from the body. I am changing bodies. Therefore I will have to change this body and accept another body..." This is the science, beginning of scientific knowledge. Without understanding this fact his advancement of knowledge is simply for eating, sleeping, sex, and defense. That's all. There is no advancement. According to Vedic literature, he remains animal. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13).
Prabhupāda: Then he will suffer. He will constantly change his body one after another, sometimes good body, sometimes bad body, and he will suffer. So as soon as you accept a material body, you will suffer. It may be good body or bad body. It doesn't matter. Suffering is there. When a dog is taking birth, he has to take the suffering within the womb of his mother, and when a human man, human body is coming out, he has also to take the... It is not joke to remain ten months within the packed-up abdomen of the mother. Is it very pleasant, do you think? If you are kept in that way now, you will die within three seconds. In that condition you have to live ten months. So how much suffering it was!
Prabhupāda: Nobody is independent. And still, everyone is thinking independent, "I can do anything I like." Yesterday morning we were talking. You are independent. That is, means, misuse of independence. Just like in a state every citizen is independent but dependent on the state laws. If he forgets that, that "I am not dependent on the state laws," then he is foolish. Similarly, if one does not know that "The nature's law is the God's law, state laws; I cannot violate it," (sic:) then he is sober. Dhīras tatra na muhyati (BG 2.13). One man is dying. A dhīra knows that he is changing his body; he is not dying. He will get another body. Dhīra, sober. And one who is not sober, he says, "No, life is finished." Or he can imagine he is going to heaven or hell. But a dhīra knows what is going to happen to him. If he was in the material modes of nature, goodness, then he is going to higher planetary system. Ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti. From śāstra we can understand. If he is in passion, then he will stay in this material world.
Prabhupāda: Eh, yes. Do you think that solving the problem of birth, death and old age and disease is very easy task? (chuckles) You have to very, very strongly... Those who do not care, that is another thing. They are under these laws, going on. Life after life, they are changing body, again birth, again death, again in the womb of mother. They do not take it seriously, how risky life is that. They do not take it. "Oh, what is that?" Now, in Kali-yuga, the mother is killing the child. Even within the womb of mother is not safe. This is going on. So they do not take that how this way of life is risky and uncomfortable. They do not take it seriously. To enter again into the womb of mother, how difficult job and troublesome it is, they do not understand it. For want of education.
Śrutakīrti: Just like that man who wrote the letter yesterday. He's prepared to spend the rest of his life understanding the transfer, the transmigration of the soul instead of just accepting it in the Gītā. He's going to spend his whole life.
Prabhupāda: No, no. His non-acceptance means he's a rascal. He's a rascal. He may waste his time in that way. What can be done? His non-acceptance means he's a rascal. It's evident. Anyone knows that "After this, I will get another body." You are all young men. You know that you will get after some years a body like me. So what is the difficulty to understand that we are changing body?
Paramahaṁsa: So actually it's useless to try to give any more proof other than that.
Prabhupāda: That is sufficient for an intelligent man. That is sufficient.
Dr. John Mize: I'm still puzzled about the relationship of the soul to God. If the soul is eternal, as God is, and yet some souls have the tendency to fall and others don't have that tendency...
Prabhupāda: No, no, eternal does not mean not fall. Suppose you are now professor. So you can fall down from your position. But that does not mean you are not eternal. If you are fall down from your position, you do not lose your eternity. You simply fall down. You can become a professor; you can become an ordinary man. But you are eternal in all circumstance. Eternal... Fall down does not mean that he loses his eternal. That is stated that na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Find out. Ajo nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit. The living entity is never born or it never dies. This is eternity. You change your body, but you eternal.
Prabhupāda: So I have changed so many machines. So death means another machine. Where is the difficulty?
Ambarīṣa: When the spirit soul leaves the body, the body continues to change, it deteriorates?
Prabhupāda: No, no. Spirit soul is changing machine. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. So when this machine is finished, and another machine.
Ambarīṣa: The old machine continues to change after the spirit soul leaves, it deteriorates? The old machine deterior..., it breaks down.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. You give up one machine and you take another machine.
Prabhupāda: They will say so many nonsense. Who is going to take it? They are rejected as nonsense. Anyone who is a speculator, he is a nonsense because he has no standard knowledge. Next day they will say, "Oh, no, this is not. This is." They are doing that. That is not knowledge. (break)
Devotee (1): We were discussing in Bhagavad-gītā class last night that during our life we are changing our bodies so many different times, and at the time of death we are also changing our body to another body.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you get another body.
Devotee (1): What is the difference of changing our body during our lifetime and at death?
Prabhupāda: This is... I have said many times. Just like you are using this shirt, and it is not usable, you throw it and again accept another. (break) ...understand this is a difficult problem. (laughs) (break)
Ambarīṣa: ...second we are dying.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Dying means changing body, that's all.
Ambarīṣa: So we're changing bodies all the time.
Kuruśreṣṭha: ...the same body, but just the parts are changing. They say that it's not actually the whole body that's changing, but just you're changing parts like...
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. "Parts are changing, the body is not changing." Just see. (laughter) Just rascaldom. "Parts are changing, body is not changing."
Suraśreṣṭha: Just like a car—you take spark plugs and put new spark plugs in, but still, it's the same car.
Prabhupāda: When the whole parts are changing, then where is the original body? When the whole parts are changed, then it is to be concluded the body is changed. There are so many parts. If this is changed, this is changed, this is changed, then where is the original body? (laughter) Just see their rascaldom.
Yadubara: Parts make up the whole.
Prabhupāda: Yes. "The parts are changing, the whole is not changing." Just see. Therefore we say rascals only.
Brahmānanda: In other words, that, what is considered scientific fact, that changes according to the social ideas that are prevalent in a particular time.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Social ideas, there is no standard social idea. That is another thing. You can change in any way. But so far physiological conditions, that has not changed. The feature of the woman's body has not changed. So how the brain will change? The bodily feature of woman as it was in 1920, it is still going on. Outwardly we see. So how inwardly it is changed? In 1920 the woman was becoming pregnant; there is no change now that man is pregnant. So how you say there is change?
Brahmānanda: I don't know, but she said that they have spoken to scientists and that scientists say that the woman's brain... Now a scientist says a woman's brain and a man's brain is not different.
Nitāi: No, no. She said that even though the woman's brain may be smaller, that that doesn't make a difference in intelligence.
Harikeśa: No, they think it is the creases in the brain. Just like Einstein had a very small brain, but there were many creases, so they say that's why he was very intelligent, because there were creases.
Prabhupāda: But since 1920 to up to date in the history, there have been many great personalities or very prominent personalities, but where is the history that women are greater than the man or are equal to the man in the history?
Sandy Nixon: What are the methods used in attaining Kṛṣṇa consciousness? How does one get to...
Prabhupāda: Yes, by Kṛṣṇa consciousness you achieve the goal of life. In the present condition we are accepting one body, and we are dying after a few days. Then accept another body. And that body is according to your activity. There are 8,400,000 different types of body. You can get any one of them. You'll have to accept one body. That is called transmigration of the soul. So if one is under this consciousness that "I am eternal. Why I am changing body? How to solve it?" that is intelligence. And not to work like cats and dogs and die, that is not intelligence. One who makes solution of this problem, he is intelligent. So therefore this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is the ultimate solution of all problems of life.
Bernard Manischewitz: No, my body is different from a child's body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So different body means you are changing body every moment, imperceptibly. That is the medical science.
Bernard Manischewitz: Can it sometimes be perceptibly? Can a person...?
Prabhupāda: Perceptibly we can understand that the body is being changed so long you are within this body. Because if the person, the soul, is not in the body, the body does not change. Body changes so long the soul is there. And as soon as the soul goes out of the body, there is no more change. Is it not perceptible?
Bernard Manischewitz: If the soul goes out of the body...
Prabhupāda: There is no more change. It remains the same. Same status. Why? That means so long the soul is there, changes take place.
Bernard Manischewitz: I see. Thank you very much. I understand.
Prabhupāda: Yes, every intelligent man will understand this very simple thing, that so long as the body..., the soul is within the body, the body is changing. And as soon as this body... Just like you are old man, I am old man, the body is no more possible to be changed; somehow or other then I'll have to accept another body. That is called transmigration. The modern so-called scientists, philosophers, they do not understand this plain truth, and they are passing on as big scientists, big philosopher, misleading public.
Prabhupāda: Every living entity has a particular type of intelligence which is greater than the other.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, in the evolutionary cycle. Talking about the...
Prabhupāda: No, evolutionary, cycle, the body may change, but every living entity has got a special advantage upon the others.
Ravīndra-svarūpa: What is the advantage of a tree, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: You see how they are standing there for five thousand years. You cannot do it. You cannot do it even for five minutes.
Prabhupāda: Complicated. The experiment is there. Observation is there. Everything is there. And the eternity is there. Kṛṣṇa begins like reasonable gentleman, not humbug. He says, tathā-dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), very good example, that "As in this, body is changing from this stage to this stage, this stage, this stage, step by step, similarly," tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ, "similarly another body." So where is the difficulty to understand? So if this is accepted, then immediately you can accept that the soul which is changing body, he is eternal. Na jāyate na mriyate. Therefore he was never born, never died.
Prabhupāda: That is good. (break)
Yadubara: ...that theory is correct, isn't it, in a sense, that the bodies are always changing? The bodies are always changing, so from the outward appearance it seems that the evolutionary theory is correct.
Prabhupāda: No, that is... We, accepting evolution. But their evolution is that there is no soul who is the proprietor of the body. That they do not know.
Yadubara: So there is no meaning to their theory then.
Prabhupāda: Because in beginning is mistaken. (break) ...your education from wrong platform, then whole thing is wrong. (break)...study means that "I am this dress," then do you study me properly? So that is their intelligence. They are studying, Darwin studying, this body and no knowledge of the proprietor of the body. (break)
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is truth. Without Kṛṣṇa, everything is untruth. Truth is one. Just like zero is zero. And it is added with one, then it is ten. It is truth. So zero is zero always. Hundred million times zero—it is zero. But when there is one, immediately value increases. So without Kṛṣṇa, all this material advancement, they are all zeros. But if you bring Kṛṣṇa, then it... that increases value-ten, hundred, thousand, tens of thousands, like that, million, billions. Because the one is there. So bring Kṛṣṇa, and then everything will be value. Otherwise, all zero. You may be proud of so-called material advancement. It is zero, because it will not save you, because tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ: (BG 2.13) you have to change your body. So you have earned so much millions and billions of money. That's all right. But you have to go empty-handed. The money will remain here. You cannot take that money within the tomb. That is not possible. Then it is zero. You are going empty-handed. You came empty-handed and going empty-handed. You came with zero and you are going with zero. So whatever you have earned, that is zero. But if you have attempted to serve Kṛṣṇa with all these zeros, then you have taken some value. Then Kṛṣṇa will see: "Oh, he has done so much for Me. Let him come." Otherwise zero.
Prabhupāda: But the size of the body has changed.
Brahmānanda: The size has changed. It has grown, increased.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It looks different, completely... It looks different. There is no similarity.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no similarity. Why the child... There was no mustaches. Why you have mustaches? How you can say "The same body"? You shall have to give your own argument. Child had no mustaches; you have got now mustaches. How you can say the same body? The child had no sex desire; now you have got sex desire.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They have to admit that it's a different body because if the body is simply made of food and they are eating so much and evacuating so much, then it has to be a different body.
Prabhupāda: No, it is different body, undoubtedly. If they foolishly argue, that is different thing. Therefore rascal. Their argument has no value. How you can be the same body? So many changes. The body is changed. (to Indian man:) What is that? It was not garam?
Indian man (1): No, garam not.
Prabhupāda: So this argument, how he can refute, that he has died twenty-two years?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Well, he can also say that he has lived twenty-two years, because he has no perception of any life before that time. He can't remember living before.
Brahmānanda: "Before, I was not alive. Now I am alive, so I have lived for twenty-two years. Before, I was dead; I was not alive. Now I am alive, so I've been alive for twenty-two years."
Prabhupāda: So before, you were not alive. Then how your life came?
Prabhupāda: Then?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The same chemical is there. Two minutes before death and two minutes after death, the body chemistry has not changed so much.
Prabhupāda: No. What is that missing that it is dead?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They can't answer.
Prabhupāda: Therefore they are fool. You cannot answer.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Because it's not a question of chemical. Actually they don't know what life is.
Prabhupāda: Therefore they are foolish. Therefore he has to take knowledge from Kṛṣṇa: dehino 'smin yathā... "Within this body there is soul."
Faill: The spark.
Prabhupāda: Spark. Yes. Fire, big fire and spark fire—both of them fire, but one is big and one is very small. So our relationship with God is eternal. At the present moment, on account of contact with this material energy, we have forgotten our relationship with God. Therefore our life is problematic. We are facing so many problems. So again, if we revive our original consciousness, then we shall become happy. So this is the sum and substance of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now, the process how to revive our original consciousness. There are different processes, but at the present moment people are very, very fallen. This is called the age of Kali—means most fallen. Most fallen. The so-called material advancement is not the solution because God is eternal, we are eternal, and in the material condition we are changing our body. On account of our ignorance we are thinking "I am this body," but I am not this body. I am that spark, spirit, part and parcel of God.
Faill: Do we get a second chance if we don't make the most of this life? In other words, is reincarnation part of your...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Second chance means you have to change your body. Now, according to your desire you get another body. That body is not guaranteed that you shall get a human body. It may be...
Faill: If you've been bad enough, you might finish...
Prabhupāda: No, that... This I have already told you. There are 8,400,000 different forms of life. So you can enter any one of them according to your mental condition. We are under the control of the material nature. The material nature is being conducted in three modes: goodness, passion and ignorance. So just like three colors: yellow, red, and blue. Now you mix-three into three equal to nine, nine into nine equal to eighty-one. So these modes of material nature is being mixed up.
Prabhupāda: That is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, scientific reality. Therefore I raised that question. But nobody could reply properly. They thought it a kind of Hindu conception. No. That is not Hindu conception. That is the basic principle of living condition. We are changing body, and there are so many varieties of body. We may enter in any one of them after death. That is the real problem. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). Nature's work is going on. This body is a machine. This machine, just like a car, has been offered to us by material nature, by the order of God, Kṛṣṇa. And we are moving, transmigration. So the real purpose of life is to stop this migration, transmigration, perpetually from one body to another, one body to another, and revive our original, spiritual position so that we can live eternally, blissful life of knowledge. That is the aim of life. The whole Vedic conception is based on this principle.
Prabhupāda: It is not the question of religion. This is the, I mean to say, our position, real position. Religion develops. Religion is a kind of faith. That develops according to time, circumstances, people. But reality is this, that we are spirit soul. We are now conditioned by the laws of material nature, and we are carried away by the laws of material nature and transmigrating from one body to another, sometimes happy, sometimes distressed, or sometimes heavenly planet, sometimes lower planet. This is going on. And human life is meant for stopping this process of transmigration and revive our original consciousness, and go back to home, back to Godhead, and live eternally, blissful life of knowledge. This is the whole scheme of Vedic literature. And Bhagavad-gītā is the synopsis how to attain this life. Therefore, the teachings of Bhagavad-gītā begins to understand the constitutional position of the soul. Then other things. First of all we have to understand what we are, whether I am this body or something else. This is the first understanding. So I was trying to explain this, but that Mr. Chadda, he would bring that "You want to introduce Hindu conception." It is not Hindu conception. It is the scientific conception. I am a child for some time. Then I become a boy for some time. Then I become a young man, some time. Then I become old man. In this way I am changing body. This is not Hindu conception or Vedic conception. This is a fact. But he would not hear that. He would simply say, "You are trying to push Hindu conception of..." And what is this Hindu conception? It is equally applicable to everyone.
Indian man (1): There is no special significance in it?
Prabhupāda: Yes. You get material profit. (break) Bhagavad-gītā it is said, (sic:) alpavat tu phalaṁ teṣām: "The result of material profit is for a short duration of time," tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām, "and these things are desired by less intelligent class of men." His real need is how to gain his spiritual life. That is his real need. But he does not want that. He wants some material profit for the time being. This is less intelligent. Suppose if somebody gives you some money and he says, "Tomorrow I shall take it away," will you... (laughs) So tad bhavaty alpa-medhasā. (break) ...kāmais tais tair hṛta-jñānāḥ yajanty anya-devatāḥ: (BG 7.20) "They worship demigods, bewildered by lusty desires." And so long we have got lusty desires, we have to change our body, and that we do not know, what kind of body we are going to get next birth. Therefore, without knowing this, if we become mad after material profit, then less intelligent.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Just sitting on the beach.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not only sitting, they have no other engagement. They do not know how human life should be utilized. They do not know. They are simply taking consideration of the body, running or skating or this or that, but they have no other engagement. They do not believe that there is soul and that soul's business is first business. They do not know that, neither they do accept it. They are under nature's law, very simply explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, dehino ’smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā. By nature's law you have to change your body. It is evident. Still, they will not believe. We’re changing body every moment, and they will say, big, big professors, that after the body is finished, everything is finished. This is ajñāna. And that is going on as education, whole world. "It is folly to be wise where ignorance is bliss." The whole world is in ignorance, so we are giving them wise instruction. They are thinking, "These people are crazy men." That's all.
Prabhupāda: Syphilis. In Ayur-Vedic it is called phairanga, means this disease is imported from Western countries. Every dog has syphilis, and they contaminate the woman, and that is distributed to man. According to Vedic civilization, dog is untouchable. Now in India also, to keep a dog is aristocracy. Yes. Especially the tail cut. Now half-cut tail, that is aristocratic dog. Now they are making dog show in New Delhi. (break) Adjust. Kleṣada asa deha. Material body means different ways of giving trouble. I have got one trouble. He has got one trouble. He has got another trouble. He has got another. But nobody is coming to the senses that it is troublesome. And troublesome, at the same time you'll not be allowed to continue. It has to be ended. Then another change of body, and what kind of body you are going to get? That you do not know.
Prabhupāda: That is the first education, first instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā, beginning of Bhagavad-gītā-dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). Unless one understands that "There is change of body and I am spirit soul within this body," he remains a cat and dog, and that's all. Dehātmā-buddhiḥ. Yasyātmā-buddhiḥ kunape tri-dhātuke sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). So we are keeping this civilization—animals. How there can be peace? You cannot make several dogs, bring them together as nation, and they will live peacefully. It is not possible that "You all dogs come here and feel nationally and be peaceful." Will the dogs will be able to do that? Because you are dog, it is not possible.
Prabhupāda: But sādhu... They are sādhu because they are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ (BG 9.30). Api cet sudurācaraḥ. Their case is different. But others, they are all asādha, asādhu. Kuto mahad-guṇāḥ. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāh. A man may be materially, academically very advanced, but Bhāgavata says, kuto mahad-guṇāh. Because he is not devotee, harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāh. "Why? They have got so many qualifications; still, they are not great personality?" No. "Why?" Mano-rathena asato dhāvato bahiḥ: "They will only act on their mental platform, speculate." No fact. The fact is that he is soul. He has to change this body. That they have forgotten, and making big, big plan. This is... Prahlāda Mahārāja regrets, śoce tato vimukha-cetasaḥ māyā-sukhāya bharam udvahato vimūḍhān: (SB 7.9.43) "I am thinking of these rascals, fools." māyā-sukhāya: "For māyā-sukha," means the false or illusory happiness, "they are making some huge, gorgeous arrangement."
Dr. Patel: That is all because of the body consciousness of a man thinking himself the body and...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Somebody has constructed big, big, big building but he does not think that how long he will be able to enjoy it. After this body he has to change.
Dr. Patel: That is... In Mahābhārata there is one śloka. I don't remember the exact Sanskrit wording, but Yudhiṣṭhira said that he so much... I mean, he cannot understand why people see every day people dying outside but they don't think about that they are going to die...
Prabhupāda: Kim āścāryam ataḥ param. Kim āścāryam ataḥ param.
Dr. Patel: Ah, that's right.
Hari-śauri: Pup.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They follow, some gentleman. And because at that time it is good living, somebody takes charge, "Alright let me take this pup." And the children also like, so he gets some shelter. So similarly, according to different body the activities begins. Therefore body is the field of activities. A snake, because he has got the field of activity of a snake's body, from the very beginning he is very, very envious. The same, trying to bite others. In this way our activities begin according to the body. And this change of bodies take place in the lower animal life automatically, by nature's law. Prakṛte kriyamānāni guṇai karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ. But when comes to the form of a human being, on account of developed consciousness, he has got responsibility. He has to make his choice. He is suffering in this material world changing different types of bodies, one after another, and the propensity to lord it over the material world is going on.
Prabhupāda: He can say: "Here is gold. You dig here. Here is the gold mine." Then you get gold mine. And one who is not expert, simply he has understood that "In this area, there is gold mine," and they are simply fighting; everyone has come to take the gold. But without expert knowledge, they're simply fighting. They do not find gold. That is the position. So expert knowledge is Kṛṣṇa. He therefore begins: dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Within this body, the living force, that is the soul. Because that soul is there, it is changing body, different. Try to understand that active principle. And where is that understanding? They simply putting different theses. They do not, neither do they know antithesis or synthesis. So our.... We know the thesis, antithesis and synthesis, that this soul, living entity, is within this body. Now the body is important so long the soul is there. Otherwise, body is a lump of matter. So the soul is suffering. He's seeking after enjoyment, but he's suffering. So therefore.... The most prominent suffering is death. That he cannot avoid. Or he's not.... The so-called materialistic scientists, they have not been able, neither they do know, who is the sufferer or enjoyer. They take this body. The same fiber platform. So actually they are rascals. What is the value of the thesis, antithesis?
| Page Title: | Change of body (Conv. 1968 - 1975) |
| Compiler: | Mayapur |
| Created: | 09 of Oct, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=176, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 176 |