We are bound up by nature's law in such a way . . . why nature's law? Even in your state laws, we are bound up by so many laws. So this is our position. This is called conditioned stage of life. There is no freedom. The so-called freedom . . . we declare that "I belong to the free nation. I am free." These are all simply mental speculation. There is no freedom. So long I am bound up by the conditions of nature, there is no freedom. Now, here is a chance . . . Lord Kṛṣṇa says that karma-jaṁ buddhi-yuktā. Now, here is an opportunity for you. In human form of your life, you have got sufficient intelligence, and the Lord Himself is before you to enlighten your intelligence more and more. Here is the book. This book, what is spoken by Lord Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa is not different. Because Kṛṣṇa, or the Lord, is on the absolute plane. Don't think that Kṛṣṇa is absent. Kṛṣṇa is present here.
There is a verse in Bhāgavata, tatra tiṣṭhāmi nārada yatra gāyanti mad-bhaktāḥ (Padma Purāna), that "I . . . my dear Nārada . . ." Nārada is a great devotee. Perhaps you who are accustomed with Vedic literatures, you have heard the name of Nārada. So Nārada is a great devotee, and the Lord assures him that, "Don't think that I am living in the kingdom of God or I am living in the heart of a great mystic, or somewhere else, somewhere else . . . people may think. But I am living in that place where My sincere devotees assemble and discuss about Myself."
So here we should always understand that if we sincerely and seriously take up the message of the Bhagavad-gītā as it is, without any, I mean to say, adulteration . . . sometimes it is adulterated by . . . because Bhagavad-gītā is a very authoritative book, and it is popular all over the world, sometimes people take advantage of this book and present their own theory in a adulterated way. Not to speak of others . . . I may tell you frankly that even in our country, the greatest, I mean to . . . saintly politician, Mahatma Gandhi, he propounded a philosophy of nonviolence. Perhaps you know, every one of you, that he propounded nonviolence, and he wanted to prove nonviolence from Bhagavad-gītā. He has got an annotation of Bhagavad-gītā, and he has tried to prove that Bhagavad-gītā, there is proof, nonviolence.
But actually, Bhagavad-gītā is being spoken in the battlefield, where everyone is prepared to start violence. Simply for a moment, when Arjuna was disturbed in his mind, that "How can I fight with my relatives and friends and sons and grandsons and so, so many things?" Bodily relations. And the Bhagavad-gītā was spoken. So that is a practical thing that Bhagavad-gītā was practically spoken to induce Arjuna to adopt violence. Now, Mahatma Gandhi, his philosophy was nonviolence. How could he prove that Bhagavad-gītā gives evidence of nonviolence? No.
Therefore, anyone, Mahatma Gandhi or anyone who has got his own ulterior motive, to prove it from the topics of Bhagavad-gītā, he must adulterate it. But that is not the process of reading Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā, how to read Bhagavad-gītā, that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. When we come to the Fourth Chapter, we'll know. So anyway, apart from the process of . . . but rest assured, we are speaking here of the Bhagavad-gītā as it is. We are not going to add it, add in it something for fulfilling our own philosophy, our own points of view.
Now here Lord Kṛṣṇa says that if you want to get rid of this entanglement of . . . what is that entanglement? Now, janma-bandha. Janma-bandha. Oh, it is a great entanglement. People do not take it very seriously. Birth. Birth means, as soon as birth . . . only the one word has been used here, janma. Janma means birth. Birth means other things. Birth means death. Birth means old age. Birth means disease. Whenever there is birth, the other things are corollary. They'll follow.
Your birth means . . . a son is born. Oh, you are very glad, "I have got a son." But if you study it philosophically, no, birth is not . . . he is not born, death is born. Because the growing of the child means he is dying. It is dying. The dying process. The very day, the very moment the child is born, the dying process begins. So we do not know that it is not birth, it is death. This is called māyā. This is called illusion, that death is born and we are jolly that there is birth of a child. This is called māyā.