Jñānam means to know the kṣetrajña, the owner of the body. Just like in ordinary sense if you understand that the . . . this is a house, and the proprietor of the house is such-and-such gentleman, then that knowledge is perfect. So similarly, if we understand what is this body and who is the proprietor of this body, then our knowledge is perfect. So Kṛṣṇa says that the . . . this body, there is the proprietor, the soul, but there is another kṣetrajña. Just like a house, there is an occupier and there is an owner. These are very easy to understand. Any house you take in Bombay, there are so many tenants or occupier, but there is a proprietor also. Similarly, in this body we are not actually the proprietor, we are simply occupier.
Just like if I give my motorcar to you for use, you are not proprietor; you are occupier or driver. But the owner is different. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa says that kṣetrajñaṁ ca api māṁ viddhi: "I am also kṣetrajña. I am the proprietor indirectly of this body." Therefore Kṛṣṇa's name is Hṛṣīkeśa. Hṛṣīka means senses, and this body is full of senses. So actual proprietor is Kṛṣṇa, Hṛṣīkeśa. We are given for use. Therefore we are using this hand, but if the hand is paralyzed for some reason or other, we cannot repair it. This is not possible. Because the proprietor has withdrawn the power of this hand for activity, therefore it is no more working, although I am claiming, "This is my hand." This is not "I hand"; this is my hand.
Actually, it is not my hand. It is Kṛṣṇa's hand. That is knowledge. So long we are thinking that, "I am this body" or "my body," that is not perfect knowledge. When you understand that it is Kṛṣṇa's body, then it is perfect knowledge. Kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarva-kṣetreṣu. Not that Kṛṣṇa is the proprietor or kṣetrajña only of the human form of body. Sarva-kṣetreṣu. There are 8,400,000 different types of body. Kṛṣṇa is present there. That is also explained in the Fourteenth Chapter:
- sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya
- mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
- tāsāṁ mahad-yonir brahma
- aham bīja-pradaḥ pitā
- (BG 14.4)
Just like father makes the body, father gives the seed and mother gives the body, similarly, Kṛṣṇa is the supreme father. He has given the seed. Just like the father impregnates within the womb of the mother, the seed is given by the father, the mother develops the body, similarly, in this material world we have come from Kṛṣṇa. He is the seed-giving father, and the material nature has given us this body. This is compared with a yantra, or a machine.
- īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
- hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati
- bhrāmayaṁ sarva-bhūtāni
- yantrārūḍhāni māyayā
- (BG 18.61)
Yantrārūḍhāni māyayā. So Kṛṣṇa has given us this body through the agency of material nature. So this is a body. This body is just like yantra.
So we are seated in this yantra, and we are traveling, yantrārūḍhāni māyayā, under the influence of māyā, seated on this car, this yantra. Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni (BG 18.61): we are wandering throughout the whole creation. Sometimes we are getting this body of human form, sometimes we are getting the body of a demigod. Sometimes we are getting the body of a rich man, sometimes we are getting the body of a poor man. Sometimes we are getting the body of a cat, sometimes of a dog. Sometimes so many things—trees, plants, aquatics. There are eight million four hundred . . . this is our position. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). As we are changing our body every moment, from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood, similarly, by changing this body we get another body. Dehāntara-prāptiḥ. But we do not know what kind of body we are going to get next life. We are blind. This is called ignorance.
Generally, they are thinking this body is all in all; there is no rebirth. No. The example is given here in the Bhagavad-gītā: Just like a child has his future, another body, boyhood body. The boy has got his future, another body, young man's body. The young man has got another future, old man's body. Similarly, the old man has got another body after death. Tatha dehāntara-praptiḥ. But people have become so irresponsible that they do not know what kind of body he's going to get next life. He's blind. Therefore this knowledge is required, how I am getting this body, how I can get better body or lower body. This is knowledge, not that how to eat, how to sleep and how to have sex life. This is not knowledge. This knowledge there in the animals. Āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca (Hitopadeśa 25). Where to find out one's food, where to sleep, how to have sex life, how to defend, these animals also, they know how to do it. So if we devote our time only for these four principles of bodily wants, then we are no better than the cats and dogs.
The real knowledge is to know, "What I am? What is this body? Why I am suffering? I want to be happy, but why sufferings are there, always some kind of suffering is always there?" These are the questions. But people have become so foolish they do not inquire how to make solution of these sufferings, how to make solution of the problems of the life. They are blindly being led.