The soul is eternal and changes bodies; realize you are not this body, and engage your tongue in Krishna's service.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 2.13 — April 11, 1973, New York 730411BG-NEW YORK [31:02 Minutes] Bg-02.13_730411BG-NEW YORK Prabhupāda: tathā dehāntaraṁ-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13] So this is a statement by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, bhagavān uvāca, that you are not this body. The first instruction for spiritual understanding is to know that "I am not this body." This is the beginning. The so-called yogīs, they are exercising the body, studying the psychology of the mind by charts, by so many humbugs. But our philosophy: that we are not this body.
Then where is the question of exercising the body and spiritual realization? If I am not this body, then how I can realize myself simply by some gymnastic process? So this is the mistake—the karmīs, jñānīs and the yogīs. The karmīs, fruitive worker, materialistic person, they want bodily comforts.
Their only idea is how to get the best comfort of this body. This body means the senses. We have got eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, hands, genital—so many senses we have got. So as soon as we are in the bodily concept of life, immediately the necessity is for sense gratification.
But Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna that "You are not this body." So therefore my self-interest does not depend on my bodily comforts. They do not know this. Everyone at the present moment, in this age, their only business is how to gratify the senses. The Western countries, they have got little information, but in India, there was cultivation of all kinds of philosophy. So atheist philosophy was there.
Cārvāka Muni is the chief of the atheist class of philosophers. So he said hedonism. The Western philosophy is hedonism, that "Eat, drink, be merry and enjoy." This philosophy. So long you have got this body, eat, drink, be merry and enjoy.
The Cārvāka Muni also said like that. Ṛṇaṁ kṛtvā ghṛtaṁ pibet. In India, bodily enjoyment means first, tongue, tongue's enjoyment. Everywhere; here also. Tongue's enjoyment.
So if we want to control our senses... Therefore Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, following the footsteps of previous ācārya, he says that "Control your tongue." Control your tongue. And in the Bhāgavata also it is said, ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ [Brs. 1.2.234]. With our these blunt senses, we cannot understand Kṛṣṇa. It is not possible.