20 Krsna Consciousness: the Topmost Yoga System

The Bhagavad-gita says that just as our outer garments are
changed, so this body is changed. Yoga means the process of
getting out of this material embodiment. Just as you are re-
peating changes of dress, so you are repeating birth and death,
and this is the cause of your miseries. [f you do not understand
this, then all your activities end in defeat.

Yoga means to get out of this embodiment, and it means to
know oneself. This body is born of the parents. Similarly, as
pure soul, you are also the source of its birth. We do not mean
birth beginning historically from a certain day and ending on a
certain day. No; the soul is not like that—it has no beginning,
and it has no end. But in the Bhagavad-gita it is said that the
soul is part and parcel of God. God is eternal, God is full of
joy and bliss. The position of the Absolute Person, the God-
head, is that He is full of bliss, eternal, and full of knowledge.
And, because we are also part and parcel of the Supreme, we
have partial blissfulness and eternality, and we are full of know-
ledge, according to our infinitesimal size.

The human beings are understood to be the most intelligent
of all living creatures, but they are misusing their intelligence.
How? They are misusing their intelligence by devoting it to the
animal propensities. These animal propensities are eating,
sleeping, mating and fearing. You can analyze the trend of
modern civilization: everyone is busy with these four principles
of animal life. They are sleeping and creating some cushions
for comfortable sleep. They are creating palatable dishes for
the eating propensity. They are exciting sex very nicely, for the
mating necessity. And they are defending their country with
so many atom bombs—that is the fear propensity.

But these symptoms you will find among the animals. They
are also sleeping according to their own ways, and they are
defending. They may not have the atom bomb, but they have
some way of defending. You can kill your enemy, or he can
kill you, but there is actually no defense You cannot defend
