4 Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

and was just about to kill her with his sword. Vasudeva was astonished at
Kamsa’s behavior, and in order to pacify the cruel, shameless brother-in-
law, he began to speak as follows, with great reason and evidence. He said,
“My dear brother-in-law Kamsa, you are the most famous king of the
Bhoja dynasty, and people know that you are the greatest warrior and a
valiant king. How is it that you are so infuriated that you are prepared to
kill a woman who is your own sister at this auspicious time of her marriage?
Why should you be so much afraid of death? Death is already born along
with your birth. From the very day you took your birth, you began to die.
Suppose you are twenty-five years old; that means you have already died
twenty-five years. Every moment, every second, you are dying. Why then
should you be so much afraid of death? Final death is inevitable. You
may die either today or in a hundred years; you cannot avoid death. Why
should you be so much afraid? Actually, death means annihilation of the
present body. As soon as the present body stops functioning and mixes
with the five elements of material nature, the living entity within the body
accepts another body, according to his present action and reaction. It is
just as when a man walks on the street; he puts forward his foot, and when
he is confident that his foot is situated on sound ground, he lifts the other
foot. In this way, one after another, the body changes and the soul
transmigrates. See how the plantworms change from one twig to another
so carefully! Similarly, the living entity changes his body as soon as the
higher authorities decide on his next body. As long as a living entity is
conditioned within this material world, he must take material bodies one
after another. His next particular body is offered by the laws of nature,
according to the actions and reactions of this life.

“This body is exactly like one of the bodies which we always see in
dreams. During our dream of sleep, we create so many bodies according to
mental creation. We have seen gold and we have also seen a mountain, so
in a dream we can see a golden mountain by combining the two ideas.
Sometimes in dreams, we see that we have a body which is flying in the
sky, and at that time we completely forget our present body. Similarly,
these bodies are changing. When you have one body, you forget the past
body. During a dream, we may make contact with so many new kinds of
bodies, but when we are awake we forget them all. And actually these
material bodies are the creations of our mental activities. But at the present
moment we do not recollect our past bodies.

“The nature of the mind is flickering. Sometimes it accepts something,
and immediately it rejects the same thing. Accepting and rejecting is the
process of the mind in contact with the five objects of sense gratification:
