Deciding for the Future
89
you have not prepared your life, so accidentally, at the time of death, your mentality will create another body, and nature will supply it.
BARBARA:  And chanting—what does chanting do?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  That you can ask these boys [the devotees]. They will explain.
BOB:  If Kṛṣṇa controls everything, how does Kṛṣṇa control a nondevotee?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  By  māyā . Just as the government controls everything. A kingdom is controlled by the king's departments.
BOB:  And how does Kṛṣṇa control a devotee?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  Just as you control your beloved. For example, if you have a beloved child, you control him for his benefit. If he is going to touch fire, you will immediately tell him, "No, no, my dear child. Don't touch it." So a Kṛṣṇa conscious person,* a devotee, is never misled, because Kṛṣṇa is always guiding him, whereas those who are not Kṛṣṇa conscious are in the charge of  māyā , and  māyā  will do the needful, as you have seen.
BOB:  Is it preset, when we're born, the time that we'll die?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  What?
BOB:  Is the time that I'm going to die, and others are going to die, preset before we are born? When I'm born, do I have a certain given life span?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  Yes.
A DEVOTEE:  And he cannot change that?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  No, he cannot change it, but Kṛṣṇa can change it.
DEVOTEE:  If he commits suicide, is that also preset?
ŚRĪLA PRABHUPĀDA:  Not preset. That you can do because you have a little independence. It is not natural to commit