Again I am quoting that Professor Kotovsky. He said: "Swāmījī, after this body there is no life." That is their conviction. This is the primary teaching of spiritual life, that we have got next life. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. Dehāntaram. After giving up this body, you have to accept another body. This is the first lesson of spiritual education. But they do not understand the first lesson even. What is their spiritual understanding?
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
So dehāntara-prāptiḥ they do not understand. And it is very easy that, "I am, dehāntaram, I am changing my body. I was a baby, I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man. So I have changed so many bodies. But I remember I was a child. I remember I was a boy. I remember. Therefore I am existing. My body has changed." Simple truth. Similarly, when this body will be changed, I will exist. Where is the difficulty to understand?
But this plain thing they cannot understand. And they are passing as educated, philosopher, scientist. This plain truth is they cannot understand. The brain is so dull. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). "As I have changed so many bodies . . ." I exist. I remember, I had this body. So I may forget. Suppose in my babyhood, what was the feature of my body I do not know. But there was. My mother knows.
He can . . . she can explain, "My dear child, you were like this, you were like this." So forgetfulness is also not that I did not exist. I may not remember my last birth. That does not mean I did not exist. So forgetfulness is my nature. I cannot remember even what I was doing exactly this time yesterday, if somebody asks me. I can generally speak that "I was sitting," but actually what I was doing, I'll have to remember.
So the forgetfulness is our nature. Because I have forgotten . . . death means forgetting. Just like in dream, at night, when we get another body and dream and hover, we go somewhere and talk with somebody, we forget about this body. And again, when I come to this body, I awaken, I forget the dreaming body.
So I . . . every day I am forgetting. At night I am forgetting this body, and daytime I am forgetting my night body. So forgetfulness is not the basic principle of knowledge. The things as they are we have to study. That body we change, but we are, as living entity, we are existing. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). This is confirmed by authorities. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre. After destruction of this body, the soul is not destroyed. The soul continues. He accepts another body. Now, what sort of body we have to accept, that is responsibility.