Karma means fruitive activities. I am doing something now, so I am creating another body. If I am acting like a dog, then I am creating another body, dog's body, hog's body, tree's body, or even demigod's body. If you act piously, then you create demigod's body. Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrī (SB 1.8.26). But that is also knot; that is not freedom. Just like you are American boys and girls. You are supposed to be born of rich nation, rich father, than us Indians. We are born of poor father. So . . . but that does not mean that you are free from this knot. That is there.
To become . . . people are trying that "We shall be happy by becoming materially advanced." That is called durāśayā. That is hope against hope. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum (SB 7.5.31). They do not know that destination of life is to attain Kṛṣṇa consciousness. No. They do not know. They think, "By increasing motorcars, we shall be happy." This is called māyā. That will not help. This motorcar civilization will be finished within another hundred years. It has begun, say, for the last hundred years, and after a hundred years, when . . . the scientists say the petroleum will be finished within fifty years or like that, so, say hundred years, this motorcar will be finished.
So anything we manufacture, the so-called empire, so-called material civilization; it is finished, it will be finished. That is another knot only, that we become captivated. So, "What is this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement? We must have three dozen motorcar and three dozen wine bottles and this . . ." This is their civilization. So this is karma-bandhana. Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura sings therefore:
- sat-saṅga chāḍi' kainu asate vilāsa
- te-kāraṇe lāgila ye karma-bandha-phāṅsa
- (Prārthanā)
This knot, karma-bandha-phāṅsa. Sat-saṅga, this is sat-saṅga. This is sat-saṅga. You are hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the front of Kṛṣṇa and practicing how to become pure. This is called sat-saṅga. And asat-saṅga means this intoxication, illicit sex and drinking, so many things, asat-saṅga. The advertisement, "Come on, here is cigarette, 'Kool,' make your brain cool." (laughter) "By smoking." (laughter) Rascal.