Professor Durckheim: May I say that way, that you say, if you, for instance, or I want to go out of this body, it doesn't mean that I will have to kill my body, but to realize that my spirit is independent from my body.
Prabhupāda: No, no. There is no question of killing. You be killed or not killed, you have to go out of this body and accept another body. That is nature's law. That you cannot avoid. It is not necessarily that first of all you have to be killed. No.
Professor Durckheim: No. Certainly not. But I have tried to become independent from my body.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you can become. (German)
Lady: Have you got some points in common with the Christians?
Professor Durckheim: Lady says that there are some common points with the Christians who also certainly want to become independent from this body which wants material life only.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It doesn't matter whether it is Christianity or Hinduism or Muslim or... Knowledge is knowledge. Wherever knowledge is available, you must pick up. So knowledge... Now let us explain, that knowledge has no color. Knowledge is knowledge. It doesn't matter whether Christianism or Hinduism or Mohammedan. Now, this is a knowledge, that every living entity is imprisoned within this body. This knowledge is equally good for Hindus, Muslim, Christian or everyone. There is no question of Christianism or Hinduism. The soul is imprisoned within this body, and the problem is birth, death, old age and disease on account of this body. But we want to live eternally, we want full knowledge; we want full blissfulness. To attain that goal of life, we must get out of this body. This is the process. (German) (break)
Vedavyāsa: (translating) ...stress on this point that we are existing in a body but we should accept our existence as human being.
Prabhupāda: Existence as human being, you want. So do you think human being is existing in this body is perfect? (German)
Dr. P. J. Saher: No, I don't say it is perfect. (German)
Vedavyāsa: So he says yes, he accepts our life now is not perfect, that we are conditioned. But he says we shouldn't construct an ideal human being, but we should accept our life as it is now.
Prabhupāda: No, no. The thing is that you are not perfect. Therefore the idea should be how to become perfect. (German)
Vedavyāsa: (Vedavyāsa is translating from here on) So he asks, "How to become perfect, as human being or as spirit?" Because he sees now only human beings. So this is the problem how to become perfect as human being, not as spirit.
Prabhupāda: Why you are sticking to human being although it is imperfect? Why you are sticking to human being? (German) You are accepting this human being is not perfect, and still, why you are sticking to this imperfect life? Now, in what way you like this human form of body? What is the purpose? (German)
Vedavyāsa: So he says his body is just an instrument of communication, and through this body he can communicate with other people.
Prabhupāda: So this is also possible by the birds and beasts. They also talk: "Kichu, kichu, kichu, kichu." (German)
Vedavyāsa: He thinks there's a great difference between the talking of birds and bees and our talking.
Prabhupāda: Why difference? They are talking in their community, you are talking in your community. (German)
Haṁsadūta: No, he has said a very good point. He said there is a difference because an animal has no self-consciousness. He does not understand what he is in essence.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the real point. That is the real point, that you can try to understand what you are. The birds and beasts, they cannot understand. That is the difference. So our human effort should be utilized for that realization, not to act like birds and beasts. (German) Therefore the Brahma-sūtra, Vedānta-sūtra, instructs in the beginning, athāto brahma jijñāsā: "This life is meant for inquiring about the supreme spirit or Absolute Truth." That is the aim of this life, not like birds and beasts, simply talking and eating and sleeping, but extra responsibility, extra intelligence is there to understand the Absolute Truth. You take the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, First Canto, first part, yes. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. Jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā nārtho yaś ceha karmabhiḥ.