104 ~—‘Raja-vidya: The King of Knowledge

and take a good birth, we will still be subject to the
stringent laws of action and reaction. Our principal
aim should be to escape the laws of this material
world. If we don’t understand this, we will become
attracted by aristocratic families, wealth, or a good
education or a beautiful body. We should come to
understand that despite having all these facilities for
material life, we are not free from birth, old age,
disease and death. To caution us of this, Sri Krsna
warns in Bhagavad-gita:

abrahma-bhuvanal lokah
punar avartino ’rjuna

mam upetya tu kaunteya
punar janma na vid yate

‘From the highest planet in the material world down
to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein re-
peated birth and death take place.” (Bg. 8.16)

Even on Brahmaloka, the highest planet in the
material universe, repetition of birth and death are
also present. We have to go to Krsna’s planet in
order to be free from this. It may be very nice to be
a rich man or a beautiful man, but how long shall
we remain such? That is not our permanent life.
We may remain learned, rich and beautiful for
fifty, sixty or at most a hundred years, but real life
is not for fifty or a hundred years, nor a thousand
years nor even a million years. We are eternal, and
we have to attain our eternal life. That we have not
attained it is our whole problem. That problem can
be solved when we are Krsna conscious.
