Text 19] The Payo-vrata Process of Worship 225
met his wife, Aditi, in the heavenly planets, but the same misconception
extends throughout the entire universe and is also here on earth. There
are different grades of living entities, but all of them are more or less
under the impression of the bodily conception of life. In other words, all
living entities in this material world are more or less devoid of spiritual
education. The Vedic civilization, however, is based on spiritual educa-
tion, and spiritual education is the special basis on which Bhagavad-gita
was spoken to Arjuna. In the beginning of Bhagavad-gita, Krsna in-
structed Arjuna to understand that the spirit soul is different from the
body.
dehino ’smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptir
dhiras tatra na muhyati

‘*As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to
youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The
self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.”’ (Bg. 2.13) Unfor-
tunately, this spiritual education is completely absent from modern
human civilization. No one understands his real self-interest, which lies
with the spirit soul, not with the material body. Education means spiri-
tual education. To work hard in the bodily conception of life, without
spiritual education, is to live like an animal. Nayar deho deha-bhajam
nr-loke kastan kémén arhate vid-bhujar ye (Bhag. 5.5.1). People are
working so hard simply for bodily comforts, without education regarding
the spirit soul. Thus they are living in a very risky civilization, for it is a
fact that the spirit soul has to transmigrate from one body to another
(tatha dehantara-praptih). Without spiritual education, people are kept
in dark ignorance and do not know what will happen to them after the
annihilation of the present body. They are working blindly, and blind
leaders are directing them. Andhda yathandhair upaniyamanas te "pisa-
tantryaém uru-démni baddhah (Bhag. 7.5.31). A foolish person does not
know that he is completely under the bondage of material nature and
that after death material nature will impose upon him a certain type of
body, which he will have to accept. He does not know that although in his
present body he may be a very important man, he may next get the body
