Even if you go to the highest planetary system, Brahmaloka, then there also punar āvartinaḥ, means the four principles of material existence, namely birth, death, old age and disease, they will accompany you. Wherever you go. You may have a long duration of life, but you have to meet death. That is compulsory. And as soon as you meet death, you have to enter into the womb of a certain type of mother and develop another body and come out again and begin another life. This is going on.
So Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, ā-bhrama-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna: Even if you go to the highest planetary system, Brahmaloka, within this material world, that process will go on, repetition of birth, death, old age and disease. Because this material body, wherever you get it, either you are American or Englishman or Indian or moon planet or sun planet or Brahmā planet, Brahmaloka planet, anywhere you go, you'll get a certain type of body, but that material body is subjected to these four principles: birth, death, disease and old age.
That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā in the Thirteenth Chapter, that janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). This prescription is given for the man who is cultivating knowledge. For fools, everything is all right. That is a different thing. For a child, if you give the child a little poison, oh, it will eat, because it does not know—whatever he gets. If you'll give fire, oh, it will try to eat it. So . . . but those who are in knowledge, cultivating knowledge, for them there are twenty items in the Bhagavad-gītā. Amānitvam adambhitvam ahiṁsā kṣāntir ārjavam ācāryopāsanam (BG 13.8).
Ācāryopāsanam, accepting spiritual master, this is also one of the items, twenty items, for advancing in knowledge. So this initiation process is ācāryopāsanam, beginning of worshiping the spiritual master. So in that, I mean to say, list of how to progress in knowledge, so these four principles, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam . . . one should always put in his front that, "However expert I may be, I'll have to meet death, I'll have to take birth, I'll have to become old man and I'll have to suffer the pangs of diseases." Then what is advancement? Either you become very rich man or become a Brahmā or become a small ant, you have to die.
Just like when Hiraṇyakaśipu worshiped Lord Brahmā and asked him the benediction that, "Sir, make me immortal." And Brahmā said: "I, myself, is not immortal. How can I make you immortal?" So immortality is not possible. Then how it is possible? We want immortality. Now we are sitting here. If there is some siren, then immediately on the roof of this house, atom bomb will be dropped. Then immediately we shall flee away from this place. Why? Because we are not prepared to meet death. We do not wish to die. That's a fact. But death is forced.
This is knowledge, that "I do not wish to die. Why death is forced upon me? Or if there is any means to avoid death?" The śāstra says, "Yes, there is." Bhagavad-gītā says, Kṛṣṇa says that . . . Kṛṣṇa says, yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama (BG 15.6), that if you . . . mad-dhāma gatvā punar janma na vidyate: "If you come to my planet, dhāma," dhāma means planet, place, "then you'll never come back to take birth again in this material world."
So any intelligent man, if he's actually has got sense, he should try for this. And especially in this human form of life, it is possible to achieve this benediction, that I can become immortal, I can become blissful, I can become full of knowledge—sac-cid-ānanda. Kṛṣṇa is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1), and if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then ultimately you also become exactly like Him, sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. Vigraha means form, body, and sat means eternal, and cit means knowledge. Sat, cit, ānanda. Ānanda means blissfulness.
So this body, however you may be . . . you may be American, you may be Englishman, you may be very rich man, you may be very poor man, you may be white man, you may be black man, whatever you may be, but this body is not sac-cid-ānanda. It is not eternal; it will end. It is full of ignorance. We do not know what will happen if I go just out of this door. Full of ignorance. We do not know what is happening beyond this wall. So . . . and always full of anxieties. Where is ānanda? There is no ānanda. So this body is not sac-cid-ānanda vigraha. But if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious and act accordingly, then you will, at the end, you'll get sac-cid-ānanda form.