We are thinking. Just like a man is fighting; he has got his soldiers. He thinks himself quite protected by his soldiers; therefore he is fighting. Similarly we are also fighting in this world, struggle for existence, and we are thinking they are our soldiers, dehāpatya-kalatrādiṣv ātma-sainyeṣv. We are thinking my nation, my community, my country, my society, my friend, my children, my wife, my body, they will give me protection.
But śāstra says that,
- teṣāṁ pramatto nidhanaṁ
- paśyann api na paśyati
- (SB 2.1.4)
This person, he is so mad that he is thinking that these things will give him protection. He does not see that everything will be finished, annihilated. Teṣāṁ nidhanaṁ. Nidhanaṁ means "annihilation." Paśyann api na paśyati. He is seeing actually that "So many friends—my father, my uncle, my mother, my teachers—they are all died, and they will also die." So these people, everyone will die. How they will give me protection? Because he is thinking of protection of this body, but he has no knowledge of the soul. How to give protection to the soul, he does not know. He is thinking giving protection to the body, however, and, "Others may give me protection." It will be destroyed. Teṣāṁ nidhanaṁ.
So where is the protection? Even if there is nice state, even if there is nice family, even if there is nice, good wife and children, everything, but they cannot give me protection. When I shall die, nobody can give protection. Just like dozens of airplanes flying in the sky. Sometimes military planes, they fly all together, almost—not together; almost in a bunch. But if there is danger, the other plane cannot give me protection. When there is danger in one of the planes—there are, say, dozens of planes around—none of them can give protection. You have to fly on your own strength. Similarly, in this material world I have to protect myself. Nobody can give me protection. Therefore how I can take protection? That is ātma-tattvaṁ. That is understanding Kṛṣṇa. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Kṛṣṇa is suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ (BG 5.29). He is friend of all living entities. So if I want to protect myself from the onslaught of the stringent laws of material nature, then I will have to take protection from the supreme friend, God, Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise these things will not give me protection.