Really, originally, the, I mean to say, regulator of religious principles is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is sometimes addressed as dharma-setu. Setu means bridge. We have to cross over. The whole plan is that we have to cross over the ocean of nescience in which we are now fallen. The material existence means it is ocean of ignorance and nescience, and one has to cross over it. Then he gets his real life.
This is not real life. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). We are . . . na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). People are so foolish, they do not take it very seriously, because they do not know that they are eternal. That is another ignorance. Bhagavad-gītā begins from this knowledge that living soul is eternal, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre. But they are in ignorance. They take it as a matter of fact that: "This life, this body, is all in all, and after death there is no more any body, so who cares for sinful activities?" That is another ignorance. And in order to give them direction there are so many religious scriptures in human society.
Therefore it is said, dharmeṇa hīnāḥ paśubhiḥ samānāḥ (Hitopadeśa): if one is not following the principles of religious scriptures . . . it doesn't matter whether it is Hindu religion or Christian religion or Muslim religion. It doesn't matter. But human civilization, a civilized human being must follow some religious principles. That is the aim of human life. And anyone who does not follow any religious scripture, he is simply animal. That is the position of the present world. We may claim to be Hindu or Muslim or Christian, but nobody cares for religion. They are simply karmīs. Therefore they are all sinful.
Na niṣkṛtair uditair brahma-vādibhiḥ (SB 6.2.11). Now here the Viṣṇudūta says that: "The direction given in the religious principles, to get out of reaction of the sinful activities, they are not sufficient." Just like in Christian religion there is the direction that if anyone is sinful he should go to a priest and confess that "I have committed these things." And if the priest or the father who is supposed to be representative of God or Christ, if he excuses for his confession, then his sinful activities become null and void.