26
On the Way to Krsna
similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.” (Bg. 2.13)
Although the body is changing, the dweller within the body remains the same. Although the boy grows into manhood, the living entity within the body is not changed. It is not that the self who was there as a boy has gone away. Medical science agrees that at every moment the material body is changing. Just as living entities are not bewildered by this, an enlightened man is not bewildered when the body undergoes its ultimate change at death. But a person who does not understand things as they are laments. In the material condition we are simply changing bodies all the time; that is our disease. It is not that we always change to a human body. We may change to an animal body or a demigod body depending on our activities. According to the  Padma Purāṇa  there are 8,400,000 species of life. We can take on any of them at death. But Kṛṣṇa promises that one who knows His birth and activities in truth is freed from this cycle of transmigration.
How does one understand Kṛṣṇa’s birth and activities in truth? This is explained in the Eighteenth Chapter of  Bhagavad-gītā :
bhaktyā mām abhijānāti 
    yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ 
    tato māṁ tattvato jñātvā 
    viśate tad-anantaram
“One can understand the Supreme Personality as He is only by devotional service. And when one is in full