Devotee (1): During the time when the living entity is transferred from one body to another, is he always fully conscious of the subtle facts?
Prabhupāda: Are you not conscious of your childhood?
Devotee (1): Am I conscious of... My body's being constantly changing?
Prabhupāda: You are conscious, but you do not perceive it.
Devotee (1): Can the living entity perceive the situation at this time, when he's being transferred from one body to another?
Prabhupāda: So why you are thinking... Are you not assured that you are not transferred? You are not sure? When there is practically it is happening, what is the reason of your being doubtful?
Devotee (1): There's no doubtful. It's just here. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: So many things happening in your body; are you aware of all these things?
Devotee (1): No.
Prabhupāda: Then, similarly, it is happening. Why do you ask such question? So many things are happening in your body. You do not know how it is happening. Therefore it is called prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). The nature is doing. You are completely in the hands of the nature. How, after shaving, how your hairs are growing, do you know?
Devotee (1): No.
Prabhupāda: Then? It is completely under the hands of the nature. Similarly, everything is. As you cannot explain, cannot know how the hairs are growing, similarly, you cannot know how you are changing. It is, by nature, it is being done so nicely. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala... (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). It is taking place. A flower is fructified. Can you explain how it is fructified? It is taking place. The foolish persons, they say "Automatically." No. The machine is so expert that it is taking... The machine is working. The nature is working, but we are not so expert to understand. Svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca. We are thinking it is taking automatically. No. It is not. It is taking very perfectly, and we are so ignorant that we cannot understand. We should always know our position, how much we are ignorant. I am claiming I am the... "It is my body." How your nails are growing, can you explain? Why there is no sensation in the nail? So many things you are unaware, even of your body. So how you can be aware that how your body is changing? You have to learn, therefore, from authorities, "It is being done." Just like Kṛṣṇa says, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāra... (BG 2.13). That is the process of knowledge. You have to know from the authorities how things are there. The person who is actually enacting, you have to know from Him. Otherwise, there is no possibility of knowledge.
- prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni
- guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ
- ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā
- kartāham iti manyate
- (BG 3.27)
Prakṛti. You are walking, you are walking, and immediately you become paralyzed. But while walking you think, "I am walking. I am walking." You are not walking. You are walking under some mechanical arrangement with the help of the material nature, but you are thinking, "I am walking." In every step, in every action, you are completely dependent. Don't you think that "I am walking"? Now when there is some trouble or if the hands or leg become paralyzed, now if you are walking, then you repair it. Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā. Why do don't you read this Bhagavad-gītā?
- īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
- hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati
- bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni
- yantrārūḍhāni māyayā
- (BG 18.61)
What is the meaning of this? Yantrārūḍhāni. Just like you are sitting on a carriage, and the driver is taking you anywhere he likes. You are just like that. There is no control how you are being taken. Yantrārūḍhāni. Yantra means just like carriage, a machine. You are sitting on a machine, and under the direction of the Lord, Īśvara... He is sitting in your heart. So māyā is driver, and Kṛṣṇa is dictating, "Drive this person in such and such body," and māyā is there, offering the body. Kṛṣṇa is seeing you, that you are doing, you require such and such body, and He's ordering māyā that "You give him such and such body." So māyā is offering you. You are simply under the control. You are simply thinking, "I shall do that, I shall do that," and everything is there by Kṛṣṇa's order. So you think of Kṛṣṇa; then Kṛṣṇa will give you another body, spiritual body.
Devotee (2): Every moment we are changing our body.
Prabhupāda: That is, the medical science says. Even medical science, they say the blood corpuscles are changing.
Devotee (2): But we don't feel it so much.
Prabhupāda: You don't feel so many things. That I have explained. That does not mean it is not taking place.
Devotee (2): No, I want to say, like at the point of death we are also changing to another body. Do we feel that then?
Prabhupāda: That I explained. You don't feel, even the change takes place. Yes.
Devotee (2): Even in death...
Prabhupāda: Yes.