There are 8,400,000's of different kinds of bodies, species of bodies. And by our activities, as we prepare our mentality at the last moment of our death, then we get the similar body. We carry the mind. Mind is the subtle body. So the mentality carries me to a certain position in the womb of a mother where I get this gross material supplies, and again I develop a certain kind of body and come out from the mother's womb and begin to work according to that body. This is the process.
So one has to learn this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement very carefully. It is very nice and very scientific. And if we simply try to understand my position, try to understand God and what is my relation with God, janma karma me divyam, simply by understanding this, I become qualified to enter into the spiritual kingdom.
And as soon as I enter into the spiritual kingdom, then, as it is stated in this verse, that tyaktvā deham, after giving up this body, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma (BG 4.9)—punar janma means again taking birth in this material world—na eti, na, no more. This continued repetition of accepting different kinds of body is finished simply by understanding what is God, how He appears, how He disappears, what are His activities. Simply this understanding. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti kaunteya, or so 'rjuna. "He comes to Me."
And in another place it is stated the same thing, mām upetya tu kaunteya, "One who comes to Me," mām upetya kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam, nāpnuvanti (BG 8.15). "One who comes back to Me, goes back to home, goes back to Godhead, he never comes back again to this miserable conditional life of materialistic status." Mām upetya tu kaunteya duḥkhālayam . . . and this material existence is duḥkhālayam: it is a place of misery. This is māyā. We are living in this condition, conditional life of material existence, which is full of misery, but by the spell of māyā, illusion, we are thinking, we are planning that we are happy. This is called māyā.
Māyā means . . . I have several times explained what is meant by māyā. Māyā means "what is not." I am thinking I am making progress. I am thinking that I am happy. I am thinking I am civilized, I am advanced. But the māyā means this thinking, in the positive way, is no.
No, you are not advanced. You are not civilized. You are not actually wise, because you do not know what you are. You are thinking that you are this body. Therefore everything, whatever you are thinking, that is all null and void. Māyā. This is called māyā.
So this māyā is very strong. It is very difficult to overcome this māyā. But the formula is very simple. That is also stated in the Seventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, that daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). This māyā, this illusion, is very strong to overcome, or to surpass. It is not easy. Māyā is capturing you in so many ways. Just like the last moment, at the last moment, when you are very wise, you understand your spiritual position, ahaṁ brahmāsmi, "I am Brahman, I am not matter. I am not matter, I am spirit soul."
But even at this stage that, "I am Brahman," there is action of māyā. What is that action of māyā? By realizing himself "I am Brahman," he is thinking that "I am the Supreme Brahman." That means he's still in ignorance. Still in ignorance. He's not the Supreme Brahman.
Therefore Bhagavad-gītā, it is explaining very nicely, brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). First thing is when you are actually Brahman realized, or you have realized your identification that you are not matter, you are spirit, the first symptom is prasannātmā: you become immediately joyful, without any anxiety. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati. There is no lamentation, there is no hankering. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu, and seeing every living entities on equal level, because he has spiritual vision.