The Soul and Karma

Srila Prabhupada: Those who are blind about atma-tattva, the spiritual science, the knowledge of spirit soul." So these persons, those who are blind, those who are accepting this body as the self like cats and dogs, their description is given here again that deha... They are bodily, beginning from bodily cons... "I am this body." "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am this," "I am that." Deha and then apatya, children, and kalatra, wife. First of all, one deha, one body. Just like this child. His only one conception, "Yes, I am everything, this body." Gradually, when one grows, becomes youthful, there is sex desire. Therefore finding out the opposite sex, kalatra, wife, or girlfriend or boyfriend. So kalatra adi, making the center kalatra, then atma-sainyesu, we increase our attraction to this material world.  ato grha-ksetra-sutapta-vittair janasya moho 'yam. Moha means illusion. What is that illusion? "I am this body, and I belong to this material world. This is my society. This is my country. This is my wife. This my children." This is illusion. Why illusion? Because these are false things. Nobody is your wife, nobody is your children. They have simply assembled together by the waves of time. Just like we have seen in the waves of the river, so many straws assembled together. And again, on the waves, they are separated. One straw goes this way, another straw goes... Finished. You see? So this is position. We, by our karma-phala, by the action, reaction of our karma, we artificially assemble here in a family, in a society, in a country, in a community, in a nation, like that. And after few years, by the waves of time, everything is separated. You go somewhere, you go, you go somewhere, you go somewhere, this way... Therefore here it is said that dehapatya-kalatra, those who are blind to understand the self, those who are not realized, self-realized, such person, apasyatam atma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2], those who are... Because human being, human life is meant for understanding atma-tattva. Athato brahma jijnasa. This life is meant for understanding "What I am." But they have lost their all intelligence. They are thinking like cats and dogs: "I am this body," "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am brahmana," "I am sudra." And they are busy with that business. Just like cats and dogs, they are busy: "I am dog," "I am cat," "I am tiger," "I am bull," "I am this," "I am that," so human society has also become like cats and dogs, the same conception, bodily conception of life. Because apasyatam atma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2]. They..., he has no knowledge of self.

The Bhagavad-gita begins, therefore, this self-realization. Dehino 'smin yatha dehe [Bg. 2.13]. Asmin dehe, this body, contains the dehi, really the proprietor. So such person, apasyatam atma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2], they are simply busy with all these things: body and children and wife and relationships. Dehapatya-kalatradisu. Because, through kalatra we increase. Stri means "which expands," stri. Stri, one accepts stri, wife, means to expand his relationship. As soon as I get one stri, one family becomes my father-in-law, and in relation to, I have got my family, and she has got her family. We combine together. Then boys, children. Then get them married. Increase. Increase relationship: "He is my brother-in-law, he is my father-in-law, he is my father, he is my brother, he is brother's brother-in-law, father's father-in-law..." Just like Arjuna was seeing. Oh, Arjuna was seeing like that: "How can I kill them? They are all my... " The same. As ordinary man has got, so Arjuna was playing the ordinary man, just like. He was thinking, "Here is my brother-in-law, here is my brother, here's my nephew, here's my father-in-law, here's my grandfather. How can I kill them?" So... But they will be killed. Nobody can protect. But we are pasyann api na pasyati, that "I have my father; he was killed. He is gone, dead and gone. So I will be also dead and gone, and my son will be also dead and gone." So why we are depending on these things which will be dead and gone? Nobody will live. Nobody will live. Take big big leaders in our country or any country. They are absorbed in nationalism, cannot give up the post of prime ministership, presidentship or leadership. Even great leader like Gandhi. He was always... He got sva-rajya. I wrote him letter: "Mahatma Gandhi, you have got respect as a religious personality. If you..." (aside:) Don't bother, don't... "If you take preaching these things, what I am doing, preach Bhagavad-gita... You are also lover of Bhagavad-gita." No. Even after getting sva-rajya, he was implicated. Unless he was killed he would not leave it. Everyone has to leave it, voluntarily or by force, but they will not leave it voluntarily.

Srila Prabhupada's lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.1.4, New Delhi, India, November 7, 1973