Prabhupāda: Good bondage, but it is bondage, after all. If you are prisoner, first-class prisoner or third-class prisoner, you are prisoner.
Guest (2): But doesn't bondage give the incentive to live?
Prabhupāda: No, bondage gives bondage. If you do not know how to get out of the bondage, then you will be more and more in bondage.
Guest (2): But if you don't have any bondage, then...
Prabhupāda: No, everyone is in bondage.
Guest (2): No, I mean, suppose idealistically...
Prabhupāda: What idealistic?
Guest (2): Hypothetical case that...
Prabhupāda: No, nothing hypothetical. Your bondage... Bondage means that birth, death, old age and disease. This is bondage. We are all living entities, part and parcel of God. We are spirit soul. So this is not our business, birth, death, old age and disease. So bondage means so long you'll get this material body you are under this bondage: birth, death, old age, and disease. Because you are very rich man, getting good salary, it does not mean that you will not die, or disease will not attack you. This is bondage. First of all try to understand what is bondage. Bondage and freedom. Bondage means to be subjected to the condition of this material body. That is called bondage. The body may be elephant's body or tiger's body or Brahmā's body or ant's body, but that is bondage. Because as soon as you get a material body you are under this bondage of birth, death, old age and disease. So your problem is how to get out of this bondage, not that to accept the bondage—just like I am bound up by iron shackles—"Let me be bound up by golden shackles." So that is bondage. The people do not know. They are satisfied when they are bound up with golden shackles. That is called ignorance. He feels satisfied when he is locked up with golden shackles. That is called ignorance.
Guest (2): Nonmaterial bondage.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Bondage means material. In spiritual life there is no bondage.