38 Raja-vidya: The King of Knowledge

many, many times. The difference between the Su-
preme Personality of Godhead and a living entity is,
tany aham veda sarvani: Krsna remembers the events
of His past incarnations, whereas the living entity can-
not remember. That is one of the differences be-
tween God and man. God is eternal, and we are also
eternal, but the difference is that we are always
changing our bodies. At death we forget the events
of our lifetime; death means forgetfulness, that’s all.
At night, when we go to sleep, we forget that we are
the husband of such and such a wife and the father
of such and such children. We forget ourselves in
sleep, but when we wake up, we remember, “Oh, I
am so and so, and I must do such and such.” It isa
fact that in our previous lives we had other bodies
with other families, fathers, mothers and so on in
other countries, but we have forgotten all of these.
We might have been dogs or cats or men or gods—
whatever we were we have now forgotten.

Despite all these changes, as living entities, we are
eternal. Just as in previous lives we have prepared
for this body, in this lifetime we are preparing for
another body. We get our bodies according to our
karma, or activities. Those who are in the mode of
goodness are promoted to higher planets, in a higher
status of life (Bg. 14.14). Those who die in the mode
of passion remain on earth, and those who die in the
mode of ignorance may fall into the animal species
of life or may be transferred to a lower planet (Bg.
14.15). This is the process that has been going on,
but we forget it.
