Prabhupada, Calcutta, January 31, 1973: […] The living entity, after the annihilation of this body, does not die. How it transmigrates? How the living entity transmigrates from one body to another? By the subtle body. There is a subtle body. This is gross body. The subtle body works when you are asleep. We go outside my bedroom and we see so many things, we work in so many ways.
That is subtle body. So after the destruction of this gross body, this subtle body carries me to another gross body. It is a great science. Great science. That is explained very nicely in the Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic literatures. So why the scientists of the Western country do not take this matter seriously? I was invited to speak in Boston, the Massachusetts Technical Institute.
So I first inquired all the students: “Where is your technological department, when the body stops, you can again give him vitality and he may work? Where is that technology?” So the students liked it. And we had very nice discussion. So we are very much advanced in technology. But we do not know what is the technology of the soul transmigrating from one body to another. That is ignorance. That is ignorance.
And this ignorance prevails in animals also. The animals do not know. Because they are not advanced in knowledge. But they have got also soul. Their soul is evolving or transmigrating from one body to another. There is a system. Jalaja nava-laksani sthavara laksa vimsati.
From the aquatics. Because the whole world was merged into water, devastation. Therefore the beginning of living entities, is the aquatics. From the aquatics, they come to the plants, trees. Then from plants, trees, to insect. From insect to birds. Then bird to beast. From beast to human being. Asitim caturas caiva laksams tan jiva-jatisu.
They’re all mentioned. The evolutionary theory, it is not new thing, as it is stated by Darwin. It is there in the Padma Purana. But it is very perfectly explained there. Darwin has not very perfectly explained. There are so many defects. But real thing is that the living entity, soul, is transmigrating from one body to another and the chance of developed consciousness is human form of life. In this human form of life, if we do not understand “What I am, wherefrom I have come, where I am going next, why I have taken this body, subjected to so much miserable tribulations of life which I do not want?”
Ultimately, all our miserable conditions have been summarized into four, birth, death, old age and disease. Janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi- duhkha-dosanudarsanam. We are trying to have, become happy by our scientific knowledge, by advancement of knowledge, but Krsna says that you cannot make any solution of these four problems. What is that?
Birth, death, old age and disease. That is not possible. So we are happy by false happiness. This is called maya. This is culture, this Indian culture. They agree, there is a maya. This is Eastern culture. Maya. Maya means we are falsely happy. We are thinking that “Now I am well situated.” But I am not thinking any moment, next moment, I may be kicked out of the situation and everything finished. Why I am being kicked out?
I want to stay here permanently. Nobody wants to die. Why he dies? Where is the solution? This is lack of knowledge. But there is solution. There is solution. That is Eastern culture. The Eastern culture knows how to make the solution. Therefore, you’ll find so many parties, the karmis, the jnanis, the yogis, the bhaktas, they are all trying to make solution of these four problems, birth, death, old age and disease.
That is Eastern gift. So now it is very happy moment that Indo- American Society. I wish that the Indo-American society should give a special stress to know why these four miserable conditions of life cannot be solved. And there is a solution. We can give you the solution. In the Bhagavad-gita there is solution:
janma karma me divyam yo janati tattvatah tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti kaunteya [Bg. 4.9] Full Lecture
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