Mantra Seventeen
89
body of a demigod. There are different bodies according to the pious and vicious activities of the living entity. The human body is highly developed, with full consciousness of the constitution of the body; and the most perfect man, according to the Vedic scriptures, surrenders unto the Lord after many, many births of culturing knowledge. The culture of knowledge reaches perfection only when the knower comes to the point of surrendering unto the Supreme Lord, called Vāsudeva. But even after attaining knowledge in the matter of one's spiritual identity, unless he comes to the point of knowing that the living entities are eternal parts and parcels of the Whole, and that they can never become the Whole, one has to fall down again into the material atmosphere, even after having become one with the  Brahma-jyoti .
The  Brahma-jyoti  emanating from the transcendental body of the Lord is full of spiritual sparks. The spiritual sparks being individual identities with the full sense of existence, sometimes desire to become the enjoyers of the senses, and thus they are given places in the material world to become false lords, under the dictation of the senses. This sense of over-lordship is the material disease of the living being, and under the spell of such sense enjoyment he transmigrates through the different shapes of body manifested in the material world. The sense of becoming one with the  Brahma-jyoti  is not, therefore, mature knowledge. The sense of surrendering unto the Lord completely, and developing the sense of spiritual service is the highest perfectional stage.
In this  mantra  the living entity prays to enter into the spiritual Kingdom of God after relinquishing the material body and the material air. The devotee prays to the Lord to remember his activities and the sacrifices he has performed, now before his material body is turned into ashes. This prayer is made at the time of death, with full consciousness of his past deeds and of the ultimate goal. One who is completely under the rules of material law remembers the heinous activities performed during the existence of his material body, and therefore he gets another