26 THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
Bhagavad-gita [2.20]: na jayate mriyate va kadacin...na hanyate hanya-
mane Sarire.
Mike Robinson: Do you often quote references?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes, we quote many references. Krsna consciousness
is a Serious education, not an ordinary religion. [To a devotee:] Find that
verse in the Bhagavaa-gita.
Disciple:
na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhiitva bhavita va na bhityah
ajo nityah Sasvato 'yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane Sarire
“For the soul, there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been,
does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying,
and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.”

- Mike Robinson: Thank you very much for reading that. So can you ex-
plain to me just a bit more? If the soul is undying, does everybody’s soul
go to be with God when they die?

Srila Prabhupada: Not necessarily. If one is qualified—if he qualifies
himself in this life to go back home, back to Godhead—then he can go. If
he does not qualify himself, then he gets another material body. And
there are 8,400,000 different bodily forms. According to his desires and
karma, the laws of nature give him a suitable body. It is just like when a
man contracts some disease and then develops that disease. Is that
difficult to understand?

Mike Robinson: It’s very difficult to understand all of it.

Srila Prabhupada: Suppose somebody has contracted smallpox. So,
after seven days he develops the symptoms. What is that period called?

Mike Robinson: Incubation?

Srila Prabhupada: Incubation. So you cannot avoid it. If you have con-
tracted some disease it will develop, by nature’s law. Similarly, during
this life you associate with various modes of material nature, and that as-
sociation will decide what kind of body you are going to get in the next
life. That is strictly under the laws of nature. Everyone is controlled by
the laws of nature—they’re completely dependent—but out of ignorance
people think that they are free. They’re not free; they’re imagining that
they’re free, but they are completely under the laws of nature. So, your
next birth will be decided according to your activities—sinful or pious, as
the case may be.
