Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for your coming here and participating with this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So you have already some understanding about this movement. Still, as you have kindly come here, I shall try to explain what is this movement.
This movement means that to awaken the original consciousness of the living entity. Living being, or living entity, there are varieties, 8,400,000 varieties. There are nine hundred thousand varieties in the water, and two million varieties as trees and plants. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati (Padma Purāṇa). And then insects, reptiles, there are eleven hundred thousand varieties.
Then there are one million varieties of birds. Pakṣiṇāṁ daśa-lakṣaṇam. Then beasts, three million. Three million varieties of animals, beasts, four-legged beasts, and then there are four hundred thousand forms of the human being, out of which the civilized men, they are taken into consideration. All other varieties, they are in the lower grade of life. They cannot understand Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is not possible. It is in the human form of body when the consciousness is developed.
In the tree also, there is consciousness. It is now scientifically proved. When you cut tree or take its leaves, it feels, and that is recorded in the machine. This machine was discovered by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, a great physicist in Calcutta. So everyone has got consciousness, there is no doubt about it. But the developed consciousness is found in the human being. And the topmost development of consciousness is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore we are appealing to the people in general all over the world that "Now you have got developed consciousness than the lower animals, birds, trees, beasts. Now you develop further so that you can awaken your original consciousness, which is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then your life is successful." This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
You have got already consciousness. Just like a child, a boy, has got consciousness. He's sent to school, colleges. He develops his consciousness. He can understand scientific truths, and then he becomes a very big man, or successful man. As there are such consideration in the material world, similarly, the development highest consciousness is spiritual consciousness. That is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Spiritual consciousness should be cultivated, first of all understanding that we are all spiritual being; we are not this material body.
That we have to first of all understand. The material . . . within this material body there is the spirit soul, and that spirit soul, out of ignorance it is desiring material sense gratification; therefore he has to transmigrate into different types of bodies. And as soon as we accept one material body—it doesn't matter whether it is king's body or dog's body, it doesn't matter—because the spirit soul has accepted this material body, he has to undergo the threefold miserable conditions of material existence. This is the problem.
Therefore Kṛṣṇa advises that mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ (BG 2.14). Our material understanding of pains and pleasure—on account of this body. When the body feels cold, we cover. When the body feels very warm, we uncover. The covering and uncovering is due to seasonal changes. Therefore this material world means changing always. It is called jagat. Jagat means always changing. On account of the material world's changing, we feel pains and pleasure on this material body. Kṛṣṇa advises, therefore, that mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ. The material pains and pleasures, they are on account of this body. But we are not this body; we are spirit soul. Our main business is how to elevate the soul to its original position of eternity. That is our problem.
These things are very nicely explained in the book known as Bhagavad-gītā. We are presenting this Bhagavad-gītā as it is, and we hold our class also in this hall daily in the morning. So we invite all ladies and gentlemen to come here and try to understand Bhagavad-gītā. We have got this opportunity of human form of life. We can understand what I am, what you are. We are not this body; we are spirit soul. As spirit soul we are all eternal, blissful and cognizant.
But on account of this material covering we are suffering the material conditions, threefold kinds of miserable life. It is very difficult, little, but this is the problem. We have to understand this; otherwise we are missing the opportunity of this human life. If we neglect, then we are just like animals. The animals have no concern to understand this philosophy of life that, "I am not this body; I am spirit soul. I am encaged. Somehow or other I have to get out of this entanglement and be again reinstalled in my original consciousness and be happy, having eternal life, blissful life and full of knowledge." This is the problem.
But people have become so dull and rascal that they do not even care to understand this philosophy of life that, "I am not this body; I am spirit soul." Actually, even one's daily life, one can understand that he is different from this body. Just like every one of us, we had a child's body, a boy's body, a youth's body. Now I am old man, but I can remember that I had a body, a small body, baby's body. I remember personally when I was six months old I was lying down on my eldest sister's lap. She was knitting. I still remember. So then I got another body, another body, another body, and according to development of body I had different consciousness, just like child's consciousness is different from the father's consciousness.