Prabhupāda: A human being, if he does not come on the spiritual platform, he remains animal. That is the difference. Therefore Bhagavad-gītā, you will find the first beginning of teaching—dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā. Find out.
Satsvarūpa:
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
"As the embodied soul continually passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change."
Prabhupāda: This is the beginning of spiritual life, to distinguish between the soul and the body. One who does not understand that there is soul, there is no spiritual education, because he is animal. The animal does not know that there is soul. A dog thinks, "I am this body." So this is the beginning of spiritual education. Therefore Kṛṣṇa instructs first this thing. Everyone is acting on the conception of body as self. (to Bhūrijana) She has also gone, your wife?
Bhūrijana: No, she will come back.
Prabhupāda: That is, we . . . our work is on that platform, dehino 'smin yatha dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanam jara tatha dehāntaram (BG 2.13). Dehina, not the deha; dehi. (break) We are not working on deha. Deha means body, and dehi means the owner of the body. So our this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is about the activities of the owner of the body, not the body. But the whole world is going on on acting on the body. That is the defect. Therefore it takes very, very long time to understand. Those who are thinking, "I am this body . . ." One who knows that "I am not this body; I am soul, spirit soul," then his spiritual education. They do not know what is spiritual education.