62 Raja-vidya: The King of Knowledge

and in the verse quoted above, His omnipotence is
explained. Krsna has no birth, and He is eternal.
Similarly, the living entity has no birth, and he is also
eternal. It is only the body with which the living
entity identifies that takes birth.

In the very beginning of Bhagavad-gita, in the
Second Chapter, Krsna explains that what we accept
as birth and death is due to the body, and as soon as
we regain our spiritual body and get out of the con-
tamination of birth and death, we should be qualita-
tively as good as Krsna. That is the whole process of
Krsna consciousness—the revival of our original sac-
cid-ananda spiritual body. That body is eternal (sat),
full of knowledge (cit), and blissful (ananda). This
material body is neither sat, cit, nor ananda. It is
perishable, whereas the person who is occupying the
body is imperishable. It is also full of ignorance, and
because it is ignorant and temporary, it is fuli of
misery. We feel severe hot or severe cold due to the
material body, but as soon as we revive our spiritual
body, we become unaffected by dualities. Even while
within the material bodies there are yogis who are
impervious to dualities such as heat and cold. As we
begin to make spiritual advancement while in the
material body, we begin to take on the qualities of a
spiritual body. If we put iron into a fire, it becomes
hot, and then it becomes red-hot, and finally it is no
longer iron, but fire—whatever it touches bursts into
flames. As we become advanced in Krsna conscious-
ness, our material body will become spiritualized
and will no longer be affected by material contami-
nation.
