Devotee (2): Material life is great suffering. Totally insensitive that they take such suffering to be enjoyment.
Prabhupāda: This is their punishment. They are being punished, but if you think that "I am punished," they will die. You must take it "I'm enjoying." This is māyā's energy. They are being punished, but punishment they are taking as enjoyment. Illusion. The conditioned soul is illusioned. This is illusion. He is being punished, and he's thinking "I am enjoying." That is a concession. When he's punished, he may not be woke up with the unhappiness. Therefore he's thinking "I'm enjoying." Actually he's being punished.
Devotee (3): (break) ...saying though you have to laugh to keep from crying.
Prabhupāda: Ha?
Devotee (3): There's an old saying that things sometimes become so miserable that you have to laugh to keep from crying. So in the material world they have to keep laughing because everything is very miserable.
Prabhupāda: Just like a criminal is put into the prison house for being punished, he will say, "Just see, I am living happily. I haven't got to work. I'm getting my food." (laughing) Such shameless. He does not know that "I am put here for suffering." But he's thinking "I'm so living happily.... I haven't got to work. Other men, they're going to the office, to the factory. I'm eating." (laughing) He forgets actually he's put into the prison house to suffer. He doesn't come to his senses. Therefore again when he's released, again he comes. He thinks that it is.... In Bengal they call social beggars (indistinct) Social beggars (indistinct) just like son-in-law goes to father-in-law's, and he's well received. So they think that prison house is social beggar (indistinct), another in-law's house.
Hari-śauri: In the West they experience that. That many of the men that go out of prison, they immediately commit some crime so that they can go straight back in...
Prabhupāda: Yes. They think it is very nice. Yes. This is called māyā. He's into suffering, but he thinks this is very nice. It is called prakri badni dasuni (indistinct). (Sanskrit) It is covered. Stool, worm. You take the stool worm from the stool and kick it aside, again it will go.... (laughing) "This is enjoyment. Why you are taking from me?" (laughing)
Hari-śauri: Like the cockroaches. If you make everything clean, they go away.
Devotee (3): In Washington all of the drunks, they go in there and stay in the prison, and it was costing the government a great amount of money. So they passed the law that they were not going to put the drunks in jail any more because it was costing them such a big expense. They all want to go to jail.
Hari-śauri: What about when someone goes to the hellish regions though? He actually suffers there?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Of course. But he thinks that "I am enjoying."
Hari-śauri: Oh. 'Cause after reading the descriptions in the Bhāgavatam, it seems it's pretty horrific.
Prabhupāda: Well, when one is accustomed, then he thinks it is enjoyment.
Hari-śauri: Oh, and then he goes into another body to enjoy.
Prabhupāda: They're going to become fish. Now they are being trained up how to become fish. So after this body is finished, they'll take a body of fish. When one becomes fish he doesn't know that this is punishment. He says that it is very nice. Concession by māyā, that he's put into suffering, but he'll think that "I am enjoying." This is mercy of māyā. (break)...anesthetic in surgical operation. Surgical operation, that is suffering, but if you apply some anesthetic, you do not perceive. It is like that.
Devotee (2): ...solution for this?
Prabhupāda: Sufficient chanting. That's all. Kirtanad eva kṛṣṇaśya mukta sanga param vrajet (SB 12.3.51).
Devotee (4): In the fish body will he have to suffer for all his other sinful activities also?
Prabhupāda: That is the beginning of suffering, to become fish, and then millions and millions of years he has to evolve himself to different life. (end)