In the human society, it is a prerogative to know God. In the animal society, there is no such question. The human society is meant for understanding what is God. That is the privilege of human being. We come to this form of human being after many, many births. There are 8,400,000 species of life, beginning from water. Then on the land . . . in the water there are nine lakhs species of life, different aquatics. So in the beginning of creation the whole planet was merged into water. That is also scientifically . . . modern science. And from śāstras also, we understand, pralaya-payodhi-jale dhṛtavān asi vedam, keśava dhṛta-mīna-śarīra jaya jagadīśa hare. So in the beginning there was water. So there must be living entities, because living entities are everywhere—in the water, in the air, on the land, within the land, within the water, everywhere. Therefore the living entities are called sarva-ga. Sarva-ga means the living entity can go anywhere. As we are now trying to go to the moon planet, so we may go or not go, but there are living entities in all the planets, in different positions. There are innumerable planets and innumerable universes also. And beyond this material world, there is another nature. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvaḥ anyaḥ avyaktaḥ avyaktāt sanātanaḥ (BG 8.20). That nature is permanent.
This material nature is not permanent. It is bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). Everything here, in the material world, everything comes into existence, takes birth, janma, then stays for sometimes, grows the body, then produces some by-products, then dwindles and then finished. This is the material nature.