Professor Durckheim: May I put a question, master? On the way there should be progress, inner progress. How to realize that there is a progress? I would say one thing is very important. There are three sufferings in the world of mankind: fear of annihilation, despair if you are taken by something which is absurd, and loneliness, if you are alone. These three sufferings in the world for the natural being. I realize that you make a decisive step on your inner way when you feel life in the very moment when you have to die, when you feel the great meaning in the very moment when you are just having despair, and when you feel the great love of the person God exactly while you are a lonely in the world. And I have realized that we are now in a very decisive moment in the western world because for the first time in the history of mankind, the western people, in Europe and the States, start to take seriously certain experiences, inner experiences, where this truth is revealed. In all times, as far as I see, the great condition of the east, they knew about those experiences where death loses its terrifying character and becomes the threshold to some bigger life. And I always see with also my disciples, as soon as they learn to go through some kind of death, they awake on a new level. So I will say if people are in my place and after a week, they still sleep very well, then I have made a mistake. About that sleep, just to realize something in overcoming their usual needs, their usual fears, their usual habits, in order to touch inwardly another level, and then suddenly they realize there is some quite different principle at work as they see usually in their natural mind.
Prabhupāda: So that different principle, for a devotee is already realized. Because a devotee never thinks of this body, that "I am this body." He thinks "I am...," ahaṁ brahmāsmi: "I am spirit soul." So without that realization, there is no question of devotional life. So that is first understood. That instruction is being given by Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna, that "You are considering very seriously on this body, but a learned man does not take this body very seriously, either dead or alive." That is the first realization. So everyone in this world, they are concerned with this body, dead or alive. When alive, they take care of the body in so many ways, and when dead they erect big statue upon it. So that realization is this body. When it is alive, very nicely dressed, nicely groomed, nicely everything on account of this body, and when dead, then again the statue, the tomb, that's all, but missing the active principle. He is taking care of this body even after death by erecting very nice memorial, but he has no knowledge where the active principle has lost. That is ignorance.