The soul is eternal by nature but it is travelling from one body to another, therefore a sober person should question, “If I am eternal, why am I journeying from one body to the next? Why can I not live in my eternal body?”
Transcript:
Bhaktivedanta Swami: So past, present, future, you exist, the body changes. Is it not clear?
Audience member: Yes, that’s clear.
Bhaktivedanta Swami: Yes. Therefore the conclusion is that when you do not have this body, you will have another body. You are sitting here, if you don’t sit here, you go, that does not mean your sitting opportunity is lost. You are sitting here, you will sit somewhere else. Similarly, the change of body is going on therefore the conclusion is that after you give up this body you will have another body. As you have already done. What is the difficulty to understand?
Audience member: The seeming difficulty is that while the body different from that of a boy…
Bhaktivedanta Swami: Different body must be required, therefore that is called change of body. Unless there is a different body where is the change?
Audience member: The memory is there in the boy and or the spirit is there.
Bhaktivedanta Swami: The memory, sometimes we may not remember. Just like this child, he may not have memory of when he was very small but you have got memory. When he was a small child he was doing something, he was playing with some cats and dogs but he does not remember that, but you remember it. So simply because he has forgotten does not mean that the incidents were not present.
This argument is not very strong, “Because I cannot remember.” We do not remember so many things. But the fact is this: that you are changing from this body to this body to this body therefore the conclusion should be that after this body I will accept another body. That is a fact. As you have accepted in this life from one body to another body, there is a process how to accept. Similarly, under the same process, you accept another body when this body is no longer useful. Just like at night you give up this body, you take your subtle body and you go somewhere. You are sleeping in your room but you are working in a different place. Don’t you do that? So because this body is still useful, therefore you come to work again this body and in the morning you wake up with this body.
So death means when this body is useless you do not come to this body, you accept another body. This is called death. That subtle body takes you from this body to the womb of another mother by nature’s direction. That this soul shall get this kind of body so the soul enters in the womb of another mother’s body and then the body is prepared by the mother’s blood and flesh and when the body is sufficiently capable of working itself then it comes out, comes again and begins to grow. This is birth and death.
The soul is eternal, therefore a sober man should think, “Why should I change my body? Why the struggle I shall take?” That is human sense. If I am eternal, why not my eternal body, eternal existence? Why shall I die? This is human sense. Unless one comes to this understanding, he is animal, because animal by nature’s law is going on. He does not know. Then a human form of body he may understand that I have to change this body, I will have to get another body, then the question is: what kind of body I shall get? That is human intelligence.
By nature’s way we are getting a body but that is on the selection of nature according to my work. If I work like animal, I get animal body. If I work as demigod, I get demigod body. If I act as trees then I get tree body. If you acted like dog you get a dog’s body. Nature’s way. Therefore you find so many varieties of bodies.
