18 Krsna Consciousness: the Topmost Yoga System

and be situated in the spiritual body. This is a foreign atmos-
phere. The soul is free spiritually, but it has been conditioned
by this material atmosphere. And the body is of this matter.

A human being is fit to inquire as to whether he is this body
or something else. This can be understood very easily. I am not
this body, because at the time of death the body remains—al-
though everyone cries, “Oh, the poor man is gone!” The man is
lying there. Why do you say he is gone? He is lying there! At
that time, we can come to our senses: the body is not the
man. The real man is gone. The childhood body is changed to
the youthful body, and the childhood body is gone. Similarly,
when the boyhood body is gone, you'll have to accept a body
like mine, an old man’s body. The body is changing. Not only
year after year, but at every second the body is changing. Still,
you are situated there. This is very simple to understand. And
because the body is there, we are suffering. Everyone is trying
to get out of suffering, in any field of action; in the economic
field, in the political field, or any field of activity, social or
national, everyone js trying to get out of misery. There is no
other activity. Either nationally or socially, individually or
collectively, we are all suffering; and this suffering is due to
the body.

Yoga means to inquire. What am I? If | am not this body,
then what am I? I am pure soul. Now, if my bodily activities
or sensual activities are incorrect, I will not be able to under-
stand myself—what I am—and the Bhagavad-gita says that we
are all grand fools. Why fools? Since we have this body, we are
fools. If somebody invites you to come to his apartment but
you know it is full of danger, do you think you would like to
go there? “Oh no,” you will say, “I am not going there. If it is
full of danger, why shall I go?” Similarly, don’t you think that
the body is full of danger? Then, why are you going there,
taking repeated birth? When you are flying in a plane, you are
always fearful that there may be a crash. And what is this
