We Are Not These Bodies

Srila Prabhupada: Do you see this flower? It has come back to consciousness, and soon it will dry up and die.

This is material life.

But spiritual life means to flower only--no dissolution.

That is the difference between matter and spirit.

I have achieved this body according to my consciousness in my last life.

And I will receive my next body according to my consciousness in this life.

This is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (8.6): yam yam vapi smaran bhavam tyajaty ante kalevaram tam tam evaiti kaunteya sada tad-bhava-bhavitah "Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail." Dr.Singh: Srila Prabhupada, if our next body is always achieved by our consciousness in this life, how is it that I cannot remember my previous life? Srila Prabhupada: Do you remember everything you did last year, or even yesterday? Dr.Singh: No, I don't.

Srila Prabhupada: That is your nature: you forget.

Dr.Singh: Some things.

Srila Prabhupada: And somebody forgets more than others.

But we all forget.

Dr.Singh: Is that a principle of material nature? Srila Prabhupada: Yes.

It is something like stealing.

Somebody is a pickpocket and somebody is a bank robber, but both of them are stealing.

Dr.Singh: When we dream, are we being carried away by the subtle elements? Srila Prabhupada: You are being carried away by nature.

Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita (3.27): prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah ahankara-vimudhatma kartaham iti manyate "The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by nature." We forget our real identity because we are under the grip of material nature.

The first lesson in spiritual life is that we are not these bodies, but eternal spirit souls.

Once you were a child.

Now you are a grown man.

Where is your childhood body? That body does not exist, but you still exist because you are eternal.

The circumstantial body has changed, but you have not changed.

This is the proof of eternality.

You remember that you did certain things yesterday and certain things today, but you forget other things.

Your body of yesterday is not today's body.

Do you admit it or not? You cannot say that today is the thirteenth of May, 1973.

You cannot say that today is yesterday.

The thirteenth was yesterday.

The day has changed.

But you remember yesterday; and that remembrance is evidence of your eternality.

The body has changed, but you remember it; therefore you are eternal, although the body is temporary.

This proof is very simple.

Even a child can understand it.

Is it difficult to understand?