Prabhupāda: Birth and death is a sort of disease for the living entity. It is not the normal condition. Due to our this abnormal encagement in the material body, we are put into the birth and death. Otherwise, I am not subjected to birth and death. I am eternal. I am eternal.
So he is requested that, "Don't waste your time, my dear mind." Because mind is taking me here and there. So he's requesting mind. It is very philosophical. This is concentration, requesting the mind, "Don't put me into the ocean of birth and death. Please save me, and just make your life successful in the association of saints and sages. That is my request."
Bhajahū re mana śrī-nanda-nandana. So worship, worship of Lord Kṛṣṇa or the Supreme Lord and, at the same time, association of saints and sages, that makes our life successful. Association of good persons and, at the same time, simultaneously, devotional service to the Lord. These two things combinedly can make our life successful.
Woman: How do you call devotion to the Lord?
Prabhupāda: Eh? Yes. Lord . . . we worship Kṛṣṇa, the symbol of supreme consciousness. Because in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that kleśa adhikataras teṣām avyaktāsakta-cetasām (BG 12.5).
If you take up impersonal, simply consciousness, then you have to pass through difficult process. But if you accept the symbol, Kṛṣṇa, the symbol of supreme consciousness, that will be easier for you. Yes. It is said. So Kṛṣṇa . . . I can concentrate my mind. I can focus my mental activities in the service of the Lord, Kṛṣṇa. Because He is supreme consciousness, therefore automatically I concentrate on the supreme consciousness. So:
- bhajahū re mana śrī-nanda-nandana-
- abhaya-caraṇāravinda re
- durlabha mānava-janama sat-saṅge
- taroho e bhava-sindhu re
Then he says that, "What I am doing? What is my present occupation?" The present occupation is:
- śīta ātapa bāta bariṣaṇa
- e dina jāminī jāgi re
- biphale sevinu kṛpaṇa durajana
- capala sukha-laba lāgi' re
He says that, "I am working hard, day and night. And there is no question of winter or summer or rainy season. I have to work hard, day and night. If there is night duty in the winter season, I have to join my office at twelve o'clock at night. So I must go. There is snowfall. If I don't go, then I'll be absent. So I am working so hard, very hard. Śīta ātapa bāta bariṣaṇa, jāminī jāgi re.
"And what for I am working? Now, biphale sevinu kṛpaṇa durajana: "Just to serve persons who cannot protect me." "Who cannot protect me." We think that my wife or my husband or my children or my relatives or my friends and, oh, so many we have got, relationship with this material world . . . and everyone is working to satisfy his relatives. A family man is working so hard because he has to satisfy his wife, children, friends and so many other person. But one should be conscious that "These friends and relatives, they cannot protect me ultimately. They are . . . neither I can protect them, nor they can protect me. You see?
Everyone responsible. Everyone is responsible for his own activity. Besides that . . . now, suppose if I am constructing a high building, skyscrapers—just like you have got very good experience in this country—if somebody asks me that, "Why you are building so high building? What is the reason?" and if I answer, "Just to set fire in it, then the . . . the man will laugh, "You, simply for setting fire, you are spending so much money and building this high building for setting fire? "Yes.
So this sort of answer is just like in our present activities. Now, of course, you take the dead bodies to the crematorium and, I mean to say, put into the grave. But India . . . in India, of course, there is graveyard for the Muhammadans and the Christians, but the Hindus, they burn the dead body. They burn the dead body. You see? In the Bhāgavata also, these three system are recorded, that the ultimate transformation of this body will be either ashes, stool or earth.
Woman: Earth . . .
Prabhupāda: Earth . . .
Woman: . . . stool . . .
Prabhupāda: . . . stool or ashes. How it is? Now, because after death, persons who burn the dead body, that is turned into ashes. This body, this beautiful body, will be turned into ashes. And those who bury in the graveyard, that will turn into . . .
(aside) Oh, that is air. Don't disturb yourself. That is the air.
If we bury in the ground, gradually the body will turn into earth. And according to Iranian system, the body is thrown to the vultures. They eat it. So that will be turned into animal stool. You see? So that is the last stage of this body.
So everyone knows that everyone will die. Still, we are working so hard. We are making our bank balance, we are just making will and papers just to give protection to our family or to our children, and there is no time. Everyone is very busy in this. But he does not see that, "All these, what I am doing, all these body ultimately become either ash or animal stool or turn into earth. So why I am taking so much trouble?"
Therefore the revealed scripture advises that, "You have to maintain your body. That's all right. But for simply material comforts you should not devote time more than it is absolutely required." That means don't increase your bodily necessities. Don't increase your bodily necessities.
That was the standard of Indian civilization. They did not, the sages and saints, they did not advise to increase the necessities of the body. They, I mean to say, planned the social system in such a way that people should be satisfied only for . . . by the bare necessities of life. We require some eating, we require some sleeping, or shelter place, and we require some sense gratification and we require some protection from enemies.