View source for If I am eternal as God is eternal, then why I am subjected to birth and death? This is real question

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[[Category:I Am]]
[[Category:Eternal]]
[[Category:As God]]
[[Category:God Is Eternal]]
[[Category:Subjected to Birth and Death]]
[[Category:That Is]]
[[Category:This Is Real Question]]
[[Category:Pages Needing Audio - BHAV]]
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<h2>Lectures</h2>
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<h3>Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures</h3>
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Our business is more business that, "If I am eternal as God is eternal, then why I am subjected to birth and death?" This is real question. This is called brahma-jijñāsā.
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[[Vanisource:751019 - Lecture BG 04.13 - Johannesburg|751019 - Lecture BG 04.13 - Johannesburg]]
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Because you are human being, you have got advanced intelligence than the cats and dog. You should know analytically what are the miserable condition of life and try to solve. That is intelligence. That is intelligence. And if we remain satisfied like cats and dogs—"So I have got something to eat, I have got some nice place to sleep, and I have also got some other sex for enjoying sex life, and I defend with so many weapons, latest nuclear weapon"—no. Śāstra says: "These things are manufactured . . . these things are maintained by the cats and dogs." Āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca sāmānyam etat paśubhir narāṇām. This is common formula between the animals and the man. But you have got another problem: how to solve this material position. That is required by you. If you do not try to understand what is your problem and if you do not try to solve them, then you are no better than the cats and dogs. This is the śāstric injunction.

So how to organize the human society so that we may not be called the cats' and dog society? That we must know. If we keep our society only for the purpose of better eating, better sleeping, better sex life and better defense, then we don't improve. That is the business of cats and dogs. Even ants, they also know how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex and how to defend. So our business does not finish there. Our business is more business that, "If I am eternal as God is eternal, then why I am subjected to birth and death?" This is real question. This is called brahma-jijñāsā. The Vedānta-sūtra, the Vedānta philosophy, begins from this inquiry, athāto brahma jijñāsā: "This human life is meant for inquiring for the Absolute Truth, what is the ultimate truth of life." Janmādy asya yataḥ ([[Vanisource:SB 1.1.1|SB 1.1.1]]).

So when we forget completely our real problems of life, that is animalism. So that animalism . . . when the human society, the animalism is prominent, simply living like animals, that is called dharmasya glāniḥ, "Deficiency in the matter of dharma." Therefore, in human society there is some sort of religious system. It does not matter what is that religion—may be Hinduism or Christianism or Muhammadanism or Buddhism—in the civilized human society there is some conception of religious principle. Without religious principle, we are cats and dogs, because in the cat society, dog society there is no such thing as church, mosque or temple or synagogue. They live naked and bark, that's all. So if we simply live and try to become naked like the cats and dogs and bark, then where is the difference? Where is the difference? No difference.
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