Prabhupāda: So, āyur harati vai puṁsām. The sunshine, sunrise and sunset, means decreasing our life. It is very nice example. The sun's business is to take away a portion of your span of life. That is business. But he cannot take away the portion of the life of a devotee. Because a devotee is going to live. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to give a living entity a permanent span of life. Uttama-śloka-vārtayā. Uttama-śloka is Kṛṣṇa. Uttama-śloke . . .
Bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī uttama-ślo . . . bhagavaty uttama-śloke. In another place it is stated, tadā . . . naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu. Naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā (SB 1.2.18). Nityam . . . just like we are holding class daily, nityam, regularly. Nityam means regularly, daily, always. So nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā. The beginning . . . just like when a man is infected with a disease, he is subjected to death. Crude example. So when a man falls diseased, the physician tries to get him relieved from that infection.
So our material body is an infection. Actually, we spiritual soul, we have no death. It is due to this infection. This infection is called dirty things. Actually it is dirt. "Dust thou art, dust thou be-ist," that's a fact. Because as soon as I, the soul, will leave this body, it will be immediately decomposed, and after a few days it will be earth, dust. So actually it is dirt. So we have to cleanse this dirt from my real identity, spiritual life.
This is the process. And this cleansing process is very nicely done simply by hearing the message of Uttama-śloka, or Kṛṣṇa. You haven't got to scratch it with some machine. No. It will be automatically cleansed if you simply give aural reception to the message of the Uttama-śloka, which is, in other word, it is called kṛṣṇa-kathā. Kṛṣṇa-kathā means words of Kṛṣṇa. Kathā means words, and kṛṣṇa, you understand. So kṛṣṇa-kathā, Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa personally giving you words of instruction. So if we simply read Bhagavad-gītā, then the sun cannot take away the, my duration of life.
How? What is the proof? The proof is the Bhagavad-gītā. In the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says, janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ (BG 4.9): "Anyone who understands about My birth and appearance . . ." Lord does not take birth. Aja. Aja means who never takes birth. Ever-existing. Ajo 'pi sann avyayātmā bhūtānām īśvaro 'pi san (BG 4.6), sambhavāmi yuge yuge (BG 4.8). So aja, one who does not take birth, but still we see that Kṛṣṇa is taking birth. We are observing the birth anniversary of Lord Kṛṣṇa. So therefore what is the mystery? He does not take birth. Still, we are observing the birth anniversary of Kṛṣṇa, Janmāṣṭamī. So this is to be understood tattvataḥ, in truth. Yo jānāti tattvataḥ.
Kṛṣṇa says, Veda says that na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. "The Supreme Lord God has nothing to do." Why He shall do? So . . . and again, we see that Kṛṣṇa, since the day of His appearance at His maternal uncle's prison till to His going back to His own home, He was always active. Active means especially in killing the demons. But such demons could be killed without the presence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If there is little earthquake, millions of demons can be killed. It is not very difficult job. If the Pacific Ocean overfloods this city, millions of people can be killed. If there is a war, millions of people can be killed. If there is epidemic, millions of men can be killed. So killing the demons, for that purpose He does not come, Kṛṣṇa. Rather, Kṛṣṇa's many agents, they can kill such demons without any difficulty.
But He comes, paritrāṇāya sādhūnām (BG 4.8). Just like Lord Nṛsiṁha appeared not to kill the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu—he could be killed otherwise—but He appeared for Prahlāda. Prahlāda Mahārāja, he was being so much teased and so much tortured, He could not tolerate it. So He wanted to show His devotee that, "I shall kill your torturer before you." That is the purpose. So He did not appear for killing Hiraṇyakaśipu; He appeared to give encouragement to Prahlāda Mahārāja. As He says, kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati (BG 9.31). He asked Arjuna to declare, "My dear Arjuna, you declare that My devotee will never be vanquished." So therefore He comes.
So these are the understanding of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in toto. So if we discuss about kṛṣṇa-kathā, the words of Kṛṣṇa . . . there are two books, words of Kṛṣṇa. One, Bhagavad-gītā. Every Vedic literature is kṛṣṇa-kathā, but these two books especially, kṛṣṇa-kathā. Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa is directly speaking, and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, directly speaking about Kṛṣṇa. Both of them are kṛṣṇa-kathā. So therefore here it is said that uttama-śloka-vārtayā. Vārtā means message, words. So if we pass our time simply by reading and talking about Kṛṣṇa, then the sun will not be able to take away our life. This is the secret. If you want to become immortal, then you always be engaged in kṛṣṇa-kathā. Always, twenty-four hours, always think of Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
So everyone is dying, but those who are engaged in kṛṣṇa-kathā, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, those who are busy in Kṛṣṇa's business, they are not dying. They are living. How? Because ordinary man, his duration of life, span of life, is being taken away by the sun rising and sunset every day. If a man is fifty years old, that means . . . he has to live for eighty years. So fifty years duration has already been taken away by the sun. Fifty years old means that fifty years of time has already been taken away by the sun. It will never come back. "But what about the devotees? He is also the same. His, also, life is being taken away?" No. His life is not being taken away, because he is going to live. Superficially we see that the body of a devotee is also taken away. But this is not the real body. Real body is the spiritual body.