Lecture at Hotel de Ville Paris

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Lecture at Hotel de Ville — August 9, 1973, Paris 730809LE-PARIS [17:10 Minutes] Lecture_730809LE-PARIS [translated simultaneously into French by Jyotirmayī]

Prabhupāda: Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for your kind invitation and reception. Spiritual value…, he has have spoken very nicely about the spiritual value of living entity. Actually, we are all spiritual entities. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā tathā dehāntaraṁ-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13] This is, in Sanskrit, it is said that within the body there is the proprietor of the body.

The proprietor of the body is there within the body, but the body is changing from babyhood to childhood, to childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood, similarly aged man. The body is changing. As we are experiencing different changes of the body, similarly, when this body will no longer exist, I or you, every one of us, will accept another body. I can remember, you can remember your childhood body, your boyhood body—but those bodies are no longer existing.

But I remember; you remember. Similarly, when I give up this body, I accept another body. It may not be I remembering it, but that’s a fact. But the spirit soul, the proprietor of the body, is described, nityaḥśāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre [Bg. 2.20].

The spirit soul is eternal. It does not annihilate after the destruction of the body. So we have got two bodies, just like coat and shirt. The coating body is made of five elements—earth, water, air, fire, sky; and the subtle body is made of mind, intelligence and ego. So when the gross body is finished, we remain within the subtle body: mind, intelligence and ego.

So as the air carries the flavor, similarly the mind, intelligence, carries the soul to another gross body. There are 8,400,000's forms of bodies. Some of them are aquatics, some of them are trees, some of them are plants, some of them are insects, some of them are birds, some of them are beasts—and at last the human body is obtained. Therefore human form of body is the nature’s best gift to the living entity entangled in repetition of birth and death. So in the human form of body we can understand our real, constitutional position.

So if the leaders of the human society do not give education to the human society, how the spirit soul can get out of the clutches of birth, death, old age and disease? You have rightly said that Indian sages and great personalities, they specifically cultivated this knowledge, how the living entity encaged in this material body can be liberated. Therefore, to give education to the human society how he can get out of this entanglement of birth, death, old and disease is the best welfare activity. We can remember the history in your country: there was great Napoleon.

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