According to Vedic conception, any living entity, in any form of life, they are all part and parcel of God. (someone yells out "No" and yells some things in French) Your Bible says that in the beginning there was word only, and the word is God. So before the creation, the God was there. Then all the created creatures, wherefrom they came? They came from God. It is clearly stated in this verse, "All things were made by Him." So original creator of everything was God. "Everything" means including all, not only a certain person or certain thing. "Everything" means everything, all. So all things were made by God means . . . "made by Him" means that all these creatures . . . there are different creatures, 8,400,000. They were created by God. One who creates, He is the father, just like in the material sense also, a father creates his children. So how can you say "No"? Because here in the Bible it is said that, "All things were made by Him, created by Him." Therefore He is the father of everything. (more yelling) "And without Him was not anything made that was made."
So you cannot deny the authoritative statement of Vedas or Bible by your whimsical way. When you go to your church, you ask, "Father, give us our daily bread." That means He is father of everyone. This is perfect knowledge, that God is father of everything that is made. Here it is clearly stated, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." That is also statement of the Vedānta-sūtra, the most perfect philosophy of Vedic language. In the Vedānta-sūtra it is said, athāto brahma jijñāsā, means "This human life is meant for inquiring about God." So the first understanding of God is that He is the creator of everything.
So the present Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is meant for understanding God. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is started not now, say, in your country, Western countries say, for the last six or seven years, but the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is on this planet for the last five thousand years. When I say: "Kṛṣṇa consciousness," it means God consciousness. So human being, human life, is meant for understanding God and become God conscious. In the animal life there is no possibility of understanding God. When we invite by advertisement, "Please come here in this meeting. We shall discuss something about God," the human being comes, not the cats and dogs. This is . . . (loud applause) So human being is the chance given by nature to understand about God. If we do not take chance, if we do not fulfill this chance—that means we have got this chance to understand God—then our next life may not be human being. The soul is within your body. The soul is the part and parcel of God. If you try to understand what is the soul, then partially you understand what is God. If you study yourself, then you study to some extent what is God, because you are the sample of God. It is also stated in the Bible that human being is made under the image of God. So if you study yourself—that is called meditation—then you can understand what is God.
Therefore the yoga system is recommended. Those who are in bodily consciousness of life, for them, this meditation yoga, or to understand oneself, that is very important thing. If you try to understand yourself . . . very simple method: You take your finger; you ask yourself whether you are finger. The answer will be "No, I am not finger. It is my finger." Everyone will say, even a child will say: "This is my finger, my hand, my leg, my head." Nobody will say that, "I leg," "I finger," "I head." Nobody will say. Therefore the conclusion should be I, the soul, is different from this material body. The material body changes on account of presence of the soul. Just like a child gets a different body like a boy, a boy gets a different body like a young man—similarly, young man gets another body as an old man. Every one of us can consider that, "I had a small body of child. I had a small body of boy. I had a youthful body. Now I have got this old body." By this simple study I can understand that I am different from the body. And because I am eternal, in all forms of body I was existing. That I can understand also.
Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20): "After the destruction of this body, I, the soul, I am not destroyed. I continue to live." The soul is eternal. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre: eternal, very old, still, after the destruction of the body, the soul is never destroyed. Death means destruction of this outer, gross material body. Every day, every night we have got experience—the body lies down on the bed, but with my subtle body—mind, intelligence and ego—I dream and I go somewhere else from my bedroom. So this is going on daily in our experience, that I leave this gross body, I take my subtle body, and I do something else, although my body is here. The conclusion is therefore that I, the soul, am changing my body from the gross to the subtle, from the subtle to the gross. In our daily life we have got experience that I accept this subtle body—the subtle body is there; there is no question of acceptance—but with the subtle body I dream, and again when the dream is over, then I come to this gross body. So death means when the subtle body carries the soul to another gross body, not this gross body, that is called death.
So this subtle body—means mind, intelligence and ego—that carries me to another body according to the nature of my mind. At the time of death, as the mind is absorbed, I mean to say, full of thoughts, according to that full of thoughts, we are given another gross body. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, that anta-kale . . . yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram (BG 8.6). Bhāvam, the attitude, the modes of the mind at the time of death, will carry me to the next gross body. Therefore it is necessary to prepare ourself what kind of body we are going to get after death. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, "After death, the soul," tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), "gets another body." Now we can see in our experience, there are so many different types of bodies. There are 900,000 species of bodies in the water. There are two million different types of bodies in the vegetable kingdom, means the trees and plants. There are eleven hundred thousand species of life in the insect kingdom. There are one million types of bodies in the birds kingdom. And there are three million types of bodies in the beast life. And there are 400,000 species of body in the human society. Out of them, the civilized man is considered to be perfectly in bodily situation.
So this human form of body is given to us by nature to understand God. In other forms of life there is no chance of understanding God. Therefore it is our duty, everyone's duty, before the next death comes we must understand what is God. If we simply misuse this body like cats and dogs, then we are missing the chance. We cannot say that we are free. That is not possible. We are completely under the control of the material nature.