Prabhupāda: So suppose if you say: "Perhaps I'll be able to keep my young age continually," is it possible?
Carol Jarvis: I don't know.
Prabhupāda: Then? You don't know. Then learn it. It is not possible. You must become an old lady. (laughter)
Carol Jarvis: How do you know?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I know. You know also. You are denying only. You know that you shall become . . .
Carol Jarvis: No, but I don't know anything. I'm prepared not to know anything. I'm prepared to wait and see . . .
Prabhupāda: Then you can know from the experience that every . . . your grandmother was young lady some years ago. Now she's old man . . . old woman.
Carol Jarvis: Yes.
Prabhupāda: How do you know?
Carol Jarvis: But, you know, you could use that argument and say: "Yes, but I also know that they weren't able to cure a single disease."
Prabhupāda: Now, if you say that, "My grandmother has become old lady. I'll not become," that is lunacy.
Carol Jarvis: No, no, no. I'm not suggesting that I'm not going to become old. I'm simply saying that I don't know . . .
Prabhupāda: So therefore, therefore you cannot stop the nature's process. You are dependent. You should first of all understand that you are dependent on nature's process. That is intelligence. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi . . . (BG 3.27). If you extravagantly say that "I shall stop this nature's process," that is lunacy, craziness. It is not possible. You have to accept that you are under the stringent laws of nature.
Carol Jarvis: Oh, I couldn't . . . I agree with everything that you're saying about the laws of nature.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So, but therefore how you can make a plan of happiness? Nature is baffling your plan. That you have to understand, "Why nature is baffling me?" That is real knowledge.
Carol Jarvis: So your answer . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Carol Jarvis: . . . is to work with nature.
Prabhupāda: We can do that. We can do that, that . . .
- daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī
- mama māyā duratyayā
- mām eva ye prapadyante
- māyām etāṁ taranti te
- (BG 7.14)
You cannot combat with the nature's law, but Kṛṣṇa says that if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, you can do that. You can stop nature's law acting upon you. And that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.