View source for Today you are Muslim. Tomorrow you can become Christian. You can change your faith. But that is not religion. Change of faith or accepting some faith, that is not religion. Religion means which you cannot change

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{{terms|"today you are Muslim. Tomorrow you can become Christian. You can change your faith. But that is not religion. Change of faith or accepting some faith, that is not religion. Religion means which you cannot change"}}
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<div id="Lectures" class="section" sec_index="4" parent="compilation" text="Lectures"><h2>Lectures</h2>
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<div id="Srimad-Bhagavatam_Lectures" class="sub_section" sec_index="1" parent="Lectures" text="Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures"><h3>Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures</h3>
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<div id="LectureonSB126DelhiNovember111973_0" class="quote" parent="Srimad-Bhagavatam_Lectures" book="Lec" index="31" link="Lecture on SB 1.2.6 -- Delhi, November 11, 1973" link_text="Lecture on SB 1.2.6 -- Delhi, November 11, 1973">
<div class="heading">Faith we can change. Today you are Hindu. Tomorrow you can become Muslim. Or today you are Muslim. Tomorrow you can become Christian. You can change your faith. But that is not religion. Change of faith or accepting some faith, that is not religion. Religion means which you cannot change.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Lecture on SB 1.2.6 -- Delhi, November 11, 1973|Lecture on SB 1.2.6 -- Delhi, November 11, 1973]]: </span><div style="display: inline;" class="text"><p style="display: inline;">There are aquatics, there are insects, there are birds, beasts, trees, plants, then human being, by evolution process. So they have no problem. You can see, in the early morning, these parrots, they are dancing, chirping, and they have no problem. Immediately they will go to some tree and they will find out some little fruit. They will eat. Their eating problem... There is no eating problem. There is no sleeping problem, and there is no sex life problem also. Along with them, there is opposite sex. And they defend in their own way. So these are not actually problems. These are already settled up according to your body. That is the verdict of the śāstra. Tal labhyate duḥkhavad anyataḥ sukhaṁ kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā. According to your body, your eating problem, your sleeping problem, your sense gratification problem and defending problem are already settled. That is the verdict of the śāstra. Your real problem is, as our Pañca-draviḍa Mahārāja explained, how to solve the problem of repetition of birth, death, old age and disease. That is your problem.</p>
<p>Therefore in the human society, there is some system of religion, how to solve these problems. But people in this age, they have become so misled, misguided, that they are not taking care of the real problem, but they are very much engaged in the temporary problems which are already solved. We are simply mismanaging them. So how to make solution of the problems of life, that means is called dharma. Dharma means the regulative principle which is given to the human society by God. I have already explained many times. Just as the law is given by the state for regulative principles of life, similarly dharma is also regulative principle to the human society. And just to make his life successful. What is that successful life? Successful life means a human being has come to this human form of life through the evolutionary process. Now he should make such arrangement that next life he may be free from this repetition of birth and death, at least, or he may go to other planets, higher standard of life. As it is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā,</p>
:yānti deva-vratā devān
:pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ
:bhūtāni yānti bhūtejyā
:yānti mad-yājino 'pi mām
:([[Vanisource:BG 9.25|BG 9.25]])
<p>That is the human life. You prepare yourself for higher standard of life or to make a permanent solution of your miserable condition of life, namely birth, death, old age and disease. This is required. This is human business, or dharma.</p>
<p>So how you can attain that dharma? Dharma means the occupational duty. Dharma is not a sentiment. Practically, nowadays people have taken dharma, religious means..., "religion" means a kind of faith. But that is not the description of the Vedic śāstra. Faith we can change. Today you are Hindu. Tomorrow you can become Muslim. Or today you are Muslim. Tomorrow you can become Christian. You can change your faith. But that is not religion. Change of faith or accepting some faith, that is not religion. Religion means which you cannot change. Even if you become from Hindu to Muslim or from Muslim to Christian, that your occupational duty, you cannot change. Take, for example, suppose you are a government servant. You are serving in the secretariat. But tomorrow you become Hindu or Muslim or Christian. But do you mean to say that your service in the government will be changed also? No. That will continue.</p>
<p>So real business means we have to serve somebody. That is explained by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Jīvera svarūpa haya nitya-kṛṣṇa-dāsa (Cc. Madhya 20.108-109). Our real business, our real occupation, is to serve Kṛṣṇa, God. That is our... That service spirit, because we have forgotten God, or Kṛṣṇa, we are serving somebody else. That is called māyā. We have to serve. Nobody can say... In this meeting there are so many ladies and gentlemen. Nobody can say that "I do not serve anyone. I am free." That is not possible. You must have to serve. And that service is called dharma. Just like salt is salty taste, sugar is sweet taste. The sweet taste is the dharma of sugar. The pungent taste of chili, that is the dharma. It cannot change. If sugar is salty, you do not accept. "Oh, this is not sugar." Similarly, living entity has got a permanent occupational duty. That is service. That service is being carried on in different names: "service of the family," "service of the country," "service of the community," "service of the nation," "service of the humanity," so many names. But there is service. But this service cannot be complete unless the service goes up to the transcendental loving service of Kṛṣṇa. That is perfection of service. And that is called dharma. Try to understand what is dharma.</p>
<p>So here Sūta Gosvāmī was answering the question of Śaunakādi Muni in Naimiṣāraṇya. They inquired that after the departure of Kṛṣṇa... Kṛṣṇa came-paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām, dharma-saṁsthāpanārthāya ([[Vanisource:BG 4.8|BG 4.8]]). So their inquiry was that "After departure of Kṛṣṇa, the protection of dharma, how it is being maintained, or under whom, where it has gone?" So... "And what is actually dharma?" So here it is explained, sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmaḥ. Para means superior. Not this religion, Hindu religion, Muslim religion, Christian religion, or there are so many other religions. That is also dharma. That is temporary. But paro dharma means permanent dharma, eternal dharma, or sanātana-dharma. That is called para. Para means superior. So sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje ([[Vanisource:SB 1.2.6|SB 1.2.6]]). Adhokṣaja. Adhokṣaja means God. Adhaḥ. Adhaḥ means cut (curbed?) down. Akṣaja means direct perception. Adhokṣaja. You cannot understand God by direct perception. You have got your eyes, but if you want to see, "Where is God? Show me," that is not immediately possible. You have to prepare your eyes to see God. So therefore God's another name is Adhokṣaja. Adhah-kṛta-akṣajan jñānaṁ yatra(?). Not by direct perception you can understand God.</p>
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