Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for kindly coming here to participate in this meeting for spreading Krishna consciousness. The Krishna consciousness movement is trying to bring human society to the point where everyone’s life can become successful. The subject today is the real meaning of human life. We are trying to instruct the entire world about this meaning.
Human life is attained after many, many millions of years species of life according to the Padma Purana. Life began with the aquatics, for we can understand from Vedic literature that at the beginning of creation the entire planet was merged in water. This material world is composed of five gross elements—earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Besides these there are three subtle elements—mind, intelligence, and ego. Behind these curtains is the spirit soul, which is covered by these eight elements. This information is given in the Bhagavad-gita.
Human beings are not the only living entities to have a spirit soul. We are all spirit souls—beasts, birds, reptiles, insects, trees, plants, aquatics, and so on. The spirit soul is simply covered by different dresses, just as some of you are dressed in white clothes, some in green, some in red, etc. But we are not concerned with the dress; we are concerned with you as spirit soul. Thus it is said in the Bhagavad-gita (5.18):
vidya-vinaya-sampanne
brahmane ga vi hastini
suni caiva svapake ca
panditah sama-darsinah
“The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a dog-eater.”
The sage does not make any distinction on the basis of color, intelligence, or species. He sees every living entity as a small particle of spirit soul. It is stated:
kesagra-sata-bhagasya
satamsah sadrsatmakah
jivah suksma-svarupo ’yam
sankhyatito hi cit-kanah
[Cc. Madya 19.140]
“There are innumerable particles of spiritual atoms, which are measured as one ten-thousandth of the upper portion of a hair.” Because we have no instrument to measure the dimensions of the spirit soul, the small particle of spirit soul is measured in this way. In other words, the soul is so small that it is smaller than an atom. That small particle is within you, within me, within the elephant, within gigantic animals, in all men, in the ant, in the tree, everywhere. However, scientific knowledge cannot estimate the dimensions of the soul, nor can a doctor locate the soul within the body. Consequently material scientists conclude that there is no soul, but that is not a fact. There is a soul. The presence of the soul makes a difference between a living body and a dead body. As soon as the soul departs from the body, the body dies. It has no value. However great a scientist or a philosopher one may be, he must admit that as soon as the soul departs from the body, the body dies. It then has no value and has to be thrown away. We should try to understand this; the soul is valuable, not the body. The fact that the soul is transmigrating is explained in the Bhagavad-gita (2.22):
vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya
navani grhnati naro ’parani
tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany
anyani samyati navani dehi
“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.”
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