Beyond the Cage

Dr.Singh: But doesn't the living entity need matter as long as he is in material nature? Srila Prabhupada: No, the living entity is purely spiritual; therefore, he doesn't require matter.

Because his thinking is diseased, however, he believes he does.

The conditioned living entity is like a drunkard who doesn't require drinking, but who nevertheless thinks, "Without drinking, I shall die." This is called maya, or illusion.

is it true that if a drunkard doesn't get his drink, he will die? Dr.Singh: No, but if a man doesn't eat, he will die.

Srila Prabhupada: That's also not a fact.

Last night we were discussing Raghunatha dasa Gosvami.

[11] In his later life, he almost completely abstained from eating and sleeping.

He would drink only a little buttermilk every three or four days, and he worked twenty-two hours a day, sleeping two or three.

And some days he did not sleep at all.

So you may ask, "How could he survive?" Actually, he lived for one hundred years.

Eating, sleeping, mating and defending were not problems for Raghunatha dasa Gosvami, but still he lived.

Because he was a pure devotee of Krsna, he was fully aware that the soul is eternal and independent, although it has been put into this bodily cage, which it actually does not require.

Suppose a bird is encaged.

Is he living simply because he is in the cage? Without the cage he is free.

People are thinking that by being encaged within the body they are happy.

That is nonsense.

Actually, our encagement within this body makes us fearful.

But as soon as we purify our existence--we do not even have to come out of our bodies--we will immediately be abhaya, fearless.

brahma-bhutah prasannatma na socati na kanksati samah sarvesu bhutesu mad-bhaktim labhate param[12] We can immediately awaken to our original, spiritual existence, in which there is no more fear, no more lamentation, and no more material desire.

Dr.Singh: But the scientist would still want some more explanations as to how the living entity can be independent of matter.

Srila Prabhupada: As long as you are conditioned, you are dependent on matter.

For example, a man from Africa is conditioned because he cannot tolerate this cold weather.

Therefore he feels discomfort.

But there are many people here [gesturing toward children playing on the beach] who are not affected by the cold.

The ability to tolerate is simply a question of conditioning.

When you are conditioned, you think in terms of dualities like hot and cold, pain and pleasure.

But when you are liberated, you have no such conditioned thoughts.

Spiritual life means to become unconditioned--to come to the brahma-bhuta stage.

That is the perfection of life.

Being conditioned means that although the living entity is eternal, due to his conditioning he thinks that he is born, he is dying, he is diseased and he is old.

But an unconditioned person is not even old.

Krsna is described in the Brahma-samhita as advaitam acyutam anadim ananta rupam adyam puranapurusam nava-yauvanam ca.

This means that He is the oldest person, the first person, but that He has no old age.

He always appears just like a young man of twenty because He is fully spiritual.

The Eighth Morning Walk: May 11, 1973 Recorded on May 11, 1973, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles Srila Prabhupada:is accompanied by Dr.Singh and other students.