You will find in animal kingdom, in birds' kingdom, everyone knows how to protect. It is said—we learn from Bhāgavata that also—that fish within the water, they have got so sensitive power that miles away if some enemy is coming, they can understand and they take shelter. Just like dog can smell from distant place that somebody unknown is coming. So every animal has got a special qualification. Don't think that human being is only intelligent. No. The intelligence for these four things, how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex intercourse and how to defend, these intelligence are there in every animal. Don't think simply human being has got this intelligence.
So vimukti . . . therefore they do not know what is the ultimate goal of vimukti, or getting out of the inconveniences of life. Na te viduḥ, they do not know. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā (SB 7.5.31). They are trying to adjust things by material adjustment. That is not possible. They do not know that. Adānta-gobhir. Andhā yathāndair upanīyamānāḥ. But they are being misled by blind leaders. They are themselves blind, and some blind leaders. Therefore we should not accept blind leaders. We should accept a leader who is not blind. We therefore accept Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Person, who knows everything, past, present and future. We take His leadership or we take the leadership of His representative. That is our process.
So here some of our leaders, Sūta Gosvāmī, says, sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmaḥ. Because ultimate goal is how to get out of the entanglement of material inconvention . . . inconveniences. So he says, sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmaḥ. Dharma means, I have already explained, dharma means occupational duty. So everyone has got occupation, and he is trying to get out of the inconveniences of material existence. So here it is suggested . . . because the question was dharma, dharmaḥ kaṁ śaraṇaṁ gataḥ, "Under whose protection is dharma now existing?"
So he is coming to that point. First of all he's explaining what is dharma, what is occupational duty. Actually dharma means occupational duty. Religion, I have already said, it is a kind of faith. Faith can be changed, but our constitutional position, occupational duty, that cannot be changed. We are eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, but without serving Kṛṣṇa we are serving māyā. We have accepted a false occupational duty; therefore it is called māyā. Māyā means false.
Just like if I have got a body of American, American body, then my occupational duty is different from the body of an Indian or from the body of a dog or a cat. So according to the body, our occupational duties change. But real occupational duty is of the soul. When you come to that platform—the occupational duty of the soul—that is the highest class of religion. That is explained here, sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmaḥ.
Dharma, occupational duty, there are two kinds of occupational duties according to Vedic system: pravṛtti and nivṛtti. Pravṛtti means propensities, material propensities. We have come here within this material world to enjoy material resources. That is called pravṛtti. And when we come to the platform of understanding that "I am not this body; I am soul," then my occupational duty changes. At the present moment we are all working on the platform of bodily concept of life, but when you come to the platform of understanding that ahaṁ brahmāsmi, "I am not this matter; I am spirit soul," then my occupational duty changes.