Allen Ginsberg: Do you take rebirth in human form literally?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Allen Ginsberg: As a...
Prabhupāda: What is the difficulty?
Allen Ginsberg: I just don't remember having been born before.
Prabhupāda: You don't remember your childhood that does not mean you had no childhood. Do you remember when you were so small boy, what did you did?
Allen Ginsberg: Certain things. Not very small, but there.
Prabhupāda: Or when you were in your womb of your mother. Do you remember?
Allen Ginsberg: No.
Prabhupāda: Then, does it mean that you are not.
Allen Ginsberg: No, it doesn't mean that I am not.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You do not remember, that is not reason. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah.
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.
Allen Ginsberg: Yes, but I have really never seen or heard any, anything but what I see in here now. What I see in here is what I can remember is what I can remember. I don't, I've never heard any reasonable or, or even drawing description of previous incarnations, or previous births.
Prabhupāda: You have never heard?
Allen Ginsberg: Of, I've never heard anything sensible sounding about it, anything that actually makes me think, "Ah, that must be."
Prabhupāda: Is it not sensible?
Allen Ginsberg: Not really, no. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Why not?
Allen Ginsberg: Sensible, touchable.
Prabhupāda: Now, suppose, not suppose, it's a fact: your body in the mother's womb in the first day.
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah.
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.