Prabhupāda:
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
So this is a statement by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, bhagavān uvāca, that you are not this body. The first instruction for spiritual understanding is to know that I am not this body. This is the beginning. The so-called yogīs, they are exercising the body, studying the psychology of the mind by charts, by so many humbugs. But our philosophy (is) that we are not this body. Then where is the question of exercising the body and spiritual realization? If I am not this body, then how I can realize myself simply by some gymnastic process? So this is the mistake-the karmīs, jnanīs and the yogīs. The karmīs, fruitive workers, materialistic persons, they want bodily comforts. Their only idea is how to get the best comfort of this body. This body means the senses. We have got eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, hands, genital-so many senses we have got.
So as soon as we are in the bodily concept of life, immediately the necessity is for sense gratification. But Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna that "You are not this body." So therefore my self-interest does not depend on my bodily comforts. They do not know this. Everyone, at the present moment, in this age, their only business is how to gratify the senses. Atheistic principle. Just like there was a great atheist, Cārvāka Muni, all classes of philosophers there were in India. The Western countries, they have got little information, but in India, there was cultivation of all kinds of philosophy. So atheist philosophy was there. Cārvāka Muni is the chief of the atheist class of philosophers. So he said, hedonism. The Western philosophy is hedonism, that eat, drink, be merry and enjoy. This philosophy. So long you have got this body, eat, drink, be merry and enjoy. The Cārvāka Muni also said like that: ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet.