The spiritual master is mercy's messenger, extinguishing material suffering's blazing fire through Krishna's divine grace.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Lecture on Gurvaṣṭakam at Uppsala University — September 9, 1973, Stockholm 730909LE-STOCKHOLM [36:57 Minutes] Lecture_730909LE-STOCKHOLM Prabhupāda: So in order to enter into spiritual life, two things are required, as enunciated by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. ei rūpe brahmāṇḍo bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva guru-kṛṣṇa-kṛpāya pāya bhakti-latā-bīja [Cc. Madhya 19.151] The living entities, they are wandering throughout the universe, changing body, transmigrating from one body to another, one place to another, one planet to another, but they are rotating within this universe, material universe, brahmāṇḍo bhramite. This science is unknown to the modern education department, how the spirit soul is transmigrating from one body to another and how he's being transferred from one planet to another. We have got our book, Easy Journey to Other Planets.
So guru can help you to transmigrate from this planet directly to the spiritual sky, where there are innumerable spiritual planets. They are known as Vaikuṇṭhaloka. And the topmost planet in the spiritual sky, that is called Goloka Vṛndāvana. That is Kṛṣṇa's planet.
By Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we are trying to give information how one can be transferred directly to the Goloka Vṛndāvana planet, Kṛṣṇaloka. That is our mission. So what is the difference between this material world and the spiritual world? The difference is that in the material world you have to change your body, although you are eternal.
Nityaḥ śāśvato na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre [Bg. 2.20]. You are not destroyed after the annihilation of this body, material body, but you transmigrate to another body. And that body may be one of the 8,400,000's of forms. There are 8,400,000's of forms.
Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi [Padma Purāṇa]. There are 900,000 forms in the water, two millions forms of trees and plants, eleven hundred thousand forms of the insect, and then one million forms of the birds. And then three million forms of the beasts. And then we come to this human form of life. Now it is our choice, whether you are going to be transferred again through the cycle of this transmigration of the soul from the one body to another in the lower species of life, or you want to be transferred to the spiritual sky.
And you can transfer yourself to the highest spiritual platform, which is known as Goloka Vṛndāvana. That is your choice. You have been given the chance of this human form of body to make your choice. You are completely under the control of material nature, but the material nature gives you a chance to get this human form of body.
Whatever you like, you can do. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā: yānti deva-vratā devān pitèn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ bhūtāni yānti bhūtejyā mad-yājino 'pi yānti mām [Bg. 9.25] The purport is that those who are going..., trying to be elevated to the higher planetary system, which is called Devaloka, or the planets of the demigods... There the standard of living, duration of life, is very, very large. Or if you want to be transferred to the Pitṛlokas, or in the lokas of the ghosts, bhūtejyā, or if you want to be transferred to the loka where Kṛṣṇa lives—mad-yājino 'pi mām—now it depends on your practice. But the rotating, wandering within this material world from one body to another or from one planet to another, that is not advised.