Mantra Eleven
55
death, old age or disease. The advancement of material knowledge has not solved these problems of life. Material science can discover the nuclear bomb to accelerate the process of death, but it cannot discover anything which can protect man from the cruel hands of death, disease and old age.
From the  Purāṇas  we learn of the activities of Hiraṇyakaśipu: This king was materially very much advanced, and by his material acquisitions, by the strength of his nescience, he wanted to conquer death. He underwent a type of meditation so severe that all the planetary systems became disturbed by his mystic powers. He forced the creator of the universe, the demigod named Brahmā, to come down to him, and then he asked him for the benediction of becoming an  amara , one who does not die. Brahmā refused to award this, however, because even he, the material creator, who has command over all the planets, is not himself an  amara . He has a long duration of life, as is confirmed in the  Bhagavad-gītā , but that does not mean that he doesn't have to die.
Hiraṇya  means gold, and  kaśipu  means soft bed. This gentleman was interested in these two things, money and women, and he wanted to enjoy this sort of life by becoming artificially immortal. He asked Brahmā many things indirectly in hopes of fulfilling his desire to become an  amara . He asked benediction that he might not be killed by any man, animal, god, or any living being within the categories of the 8,400,000 species. He also asked that he might not die on the land, in the air, in the water or by any weapon whatsoever. So on and on, Hiraṇyakaśipu thought foolishly that this would guarantee him against death. But in the end, although Brahmā granted him all these benedictions, he was killed by the Personality of Godhead in the Form of a half-man, half-lion. And no weapon was used to kill him except the nails of the Lord. He was killed on the lap of the wonderful Living Being Who was beyond his conception.
The whole point here is that even Hiraṇyakaśipu, the most powerful of materialists, could not become deathless by his