Hearing Krishna's messages cleanses the heart and frees the soul from the endless cycle of material birth and death.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.2.17 — March 29, 1967, San Francisco 670329SB-SAN FRANCISCO [68:25 Minutes] Prabhupāda: śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ hṛdy antaḥ stho hy abhadrāṇi vidhunoti suhṛt-satām [SB 1.2.17] [Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, who is the Paramātmā [Supersoul] in everyone's heart and the benefactor of the truthful devotee, cleanses desire for material enjoyment from the heart of the devotee who has developed the urge to hear His messages, which are in themselves virtuous when properly heard and chanted.] Kṛṣṇa, this sound, transcendental sound. Kṛṣṇa means the highest pleasure. Highest pleasure. Everyone, every living being, is seeking after pleasure, but he does not know how to seek pleasure.
Therefore in this material conception of life we are being frustrated in every step for satisfying our pleasure, because we have no information that from which platform we can have pleasure. That we are discussing for the last few weeks, that we are not this body; we are consciousness. Not exactly consciousness. Consciousness is the symptom of my real identity. I am pure soul.
I am merged within this material body. And the modern material science, they have no trace[?] of it. Therefore they are sometimes misled about this understanding of the spirit soul. But the spirit soul is a fact.
And everyone can understand by the presence of consciousness. Any child can understand. The consciousness is the symptom of the spirit soul. So the whole process now we are trying from the Bhagavad-gītā is to bring one to get him on the platform of consciousness. And if we act from the platform of consciousness, then we may not be pushed again into the platform of this bodily conception. And if we can continue that platform, if we continue to act on that platform of consciousness, then, at the end of this body—not even at the end of this body; even in the presence of this body—we shall be free.
We shall be free from material contamination. Our spiritual life will be revived, and the result will be that in our next life, next life, after leaving this body, we shall have our full spiritual life, eternally. Spirit is described... We have already discussed on this point that the spirit is eternal. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre [Bg. 2.20]: [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.] "Even after the destruction of this body, the consciousness is not destroyed." That continues. Rather, consciousness transferred to another type of body makes me again alive to the material conception of life.
And that is also described in the Bhagavad-gītā: yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram [Bg. 8.6]. [Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.] At the time of death, if our consciousness is pure, then it is sure that next life is not material. Next life is pure spiritual life. But if our consciousness is not pure at the point of the verge of death, just leaving this body, then we have to take again this material body. That is the process going on by nature's law. We have got our finer body.
This is gross body. The body which you are seeing, which I am seeing, this is gross body. Just like shirt and coat. Within your coat, there is shirt, and within your shirt, there is a body.