Pradyumna: I should do oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Pradyumna: (leads chanting)
Prabhupāda: That's all. Give me my spectacles.
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
This is the problem at the present moment. People are not educated about the vital force of this body. Here in the Bhagavad-gītā, it is explained, dehī. Dehī means the proprietor of this body. Both we all, not only we human being, but also lower than human being, all living entities... There are 8,400,000 forms of living entities. They are called dehī. Dehī means the proprietor of the body. The dog, the cat, the human being, the president, or higher or lower, there are different species of life. Everyone is the proprietor of the body. That we can experience. You know everything about the pains and pleasures of your body. I know what are the pains and pleasures of the body. So this body has been given to us by material nature as our field of activities. With different bodies, we are acting differently. Not that your activities and my activities are the same. The dog's activities and the man's activities are different because the dog has got a different type of body and I have got a different type of body. Every one of us. So dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13). The dehī, the living entity or the vital force, is within this body.
So the body is changing. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). Kaumāram means boyhood. Yauvanam means youthhood, and jarā means old age, aged body. So I can remember, I am an old man, I can remember, I had a boy's body, I had a young man's body. Now I have got this aged body. So although the boyhood body, the youthhood body are no longer existing, but I am existing. That's a fact. Everyone can understand. He has got past, present, and future. You are all young boys and girls present here. So you had your past body as boyhood, childhood. Similarly, you have got your future body. That is awaiting. I have got it, you are awaiting. So past, future, past, present, and future, relatively we can understand in any condition of life. Therefore the conclusion is that when this aged body as I have got now... I am seventy-seven years old. So when this body will be finished, I'll get another body. As I have got consecutively from boyhood to childhood, childhood, I have, from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood, aged body, so why not next body? This is simple truth, that the living entity, or the soul, is transmigrating from one body to another. This is the basic principle of spiritual understanding. The vital force of the body is the spirit soul. It is not a mechanical arrangement of matter. The modern so-called scientists, they think that the body is combination of matter and, at a certain stage, these combination of matter develop living symptoms. But that is not a fact. If it is a fact, then the scientists can manufacture with chemicals a living body. But a scientist even up to date is unable to manufacture even a body like an ant, and what to speak of other, bigger animals.
So we have to take this knowledge from authority. Here is Kṛṣṇa speaking. He's authority. We accept Kṛṣṇa: the Supreme Personality of Godhead. His knowledge is perfect. He knows past, present, and future. Therefore, He is teaching Arjuna, "My dear Arjuna, the spirit soul within this body is eternal." That's a fact. Just like I can understand, I was in the past, I am in present, so I must be in the future. These are three phases of time, past, present, and future. In another place, we read in this Bhagavad-gītā, na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācit. The living entity is never born; neither it dies. Na jāyate means he never takes birth. Na jāyate na mriyate, it never dies. Nityaṁ śāśvato 'yam, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). It is eternal, śāśvata, existing forever. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). By annihilation of this body, the soul does not die. Because... This is also confirmed in the Upaniṣads, Vedas: nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. The God is also eternal, and we are also eternal. We are part and parcels of God. Just like gold and fragments of gold; both of them are gold. Although I am fragment, a particle of gold or the spirit, still, I am spirit. So we get this information that both God and we, living entities, we are eternal. Nityo nityānām, nitya means eternal.
So two words are there. One is singular number, nitya, eternal, and the other is plural number, nityānām. So we are plural number. Plural number eternals. We do not know what is the numerical strength of the living entities. They are described as asaṅkhya. Asaṅkhya means without any counting capacity. Millions and trillions. Then what is the difference between this singular number and the plural number? The plural number is dependent on the singular number. Eko bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. The singular number eternal is giving all the necessities of life to the plural number, we living entities. That's a fact, we can examine by our intelligence. Out of 8,400,000 different forms of life, we civilized human beings are very few. But others, their number is very great. Just like in the water. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. There are 900,000 species of life within the water. Sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati; and 2,000,000 different forms of life in the vegetable kingdom, plants and trees. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati, kṛmayo rudra-saṅkhyayaḥ. And the insects, they are 110,000 different species of form. Kṛmayo rudra-saṅkhyayaḥ pakṣīṇāṁ daśa-lakṣaṇam. And birds, they are 1,000,000 species of forms. Then beasts, paśavas triṁśa-lakṣāṇi, 3,000,000 types of animals, four-legged. And catur-lakṣāṇi mānuṣaḥ, and the human being the forms are 400,000. Out of them, most of them are uncivilized.