Actually, we living entities, we are within the body. The bodily pains and pleasure are not the pains and pleasure of the soul within. It is simply abhiniveśa. It is called abhiniveśa, absorption or misidentify. The example I have given many times, just like you are sitting in a nice motorcar; another man is sitting on a rickshaw. I have seen in India.
So the rickshaw has come in front of the nice motorcar, and the driver is asking that man who is drawing the rickshaw, "You rickshaw!" Means he is thinking he is sitting in a nice motorcar, so he has become a motor, and the man who is drawing the rickshaw, he has become rickshaw. This is the position. Actually, the man who is drawing that rickshaw, he is also human being.
And the man who is sitting in a nice Rolls-Royce car, he is also human being. But the rascal, because he is sitting on a Rolls-Royce car, he is thinking, "I am a Rolls-Royce and he is rickshaw." This is material conception of life, that according to the body, we are becoming designated, not as the soul. Just try to understand this very good example. Because that poor fellow is drawing rickshaw, he has been taken as rickshaw. And because I am sitting in a Rolls-Royce car, I am thinking, "I am Rolls-Royce."
So this bodily conception of life, when we get out of it, that is real knowledge, paṇḍita. Paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ.
- vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
- brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
- śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
- paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
- (BG 5.18)
Paṇḍita means those who are learned. Learned means brāhmaṇa, not śūdra. Śūdras, they are not learned. Mlecchas, yavanas, śūdras, kirāta-hūṇāndhra-pulinda-pulkaśā ābhīra (SB 2.4.18), so many. Learned means brāhmaṇa. Learned means that one who knows that Brahman, Brahman, the spirit soul, is part and parcel of the Supreme Brahman. So one who has come to that knowledge, that "I am not this body; I am spirit soul, ahaṁ brahmāsmi," that is knowledge. Knowledge begins from there. If one does not reach to that point, ahaṁ brahmāsmi, then he is animal.
The animal thinking like that, "I am rickshaw," "I am motorcar," "I am cat," "I am dog," "I am this," "I am that." That is animal thinking. But a person . . . learned thinking is that, "I am not this body; I am part and parcel of the Supreme Brahman, ahaṁ brahmāsmi." And when you are farther advanced from Brahman knowledge . . . the knowledge begins from there. When you make further advancement, then you can understand that "I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa." This is perfect knowledge.