Understanding oneself as spirit soul beyond the body leads to ultimate surrender to Krishna and liberation from material bondage.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 13.5 — September 28, 1973, Bombay 730928BG-BOMBAY [33:31 Minutes] Bg-13.05_730928BG-BOMBAY Prabhupāda: ...bahudhā gītaṁ chandobhir vividhaiḥ pṛthak brahma-sūtra-padaiś caiva hetumadbhir viniścitaiḥ [Bg. 13.5] Yesterday we were discussing tat kṣetram, kṣetram, this body, how we enter into different types of bodies, how it is obtained. There are 8,400,000 forms of body according to the qualities. Three qualities: three multiplied by three, it becomes nine; nine multiplied by nine, it becomes eighty-one. So at least, in the lower grades of forms, there are eighty-one lakhs, or 8,100,000, and above that, about 400,000 forms of human being.
So one has to understand. Unfortunately, people are so foolish at the present moment that they do not believe even in the next life. Mūḍha. What to speak of understanding God and Kṛṣṇa, they have no even the basic principle of spiritual knowledge.
Basic principle of spiritual knowledge is to understand that "I am not this body. I am spirit soul. I am now fallen in this material condition, and therefore, according to my different desires, I am accepting different types of bodies and wandering throughout the whole universe—sometimes this body, sometimes that body, sometimes in this planet, sometimes in other planet. This has become my unfortunate condition of life." Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu therefore says, ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kono bhāgyavān jīva [Cc. Madhya 19.151]. We are wandering in this cycle of birth and death and wandering in the universe. In this way, in the process of our wandering, some way or other, if we become fortunate by association of devotees, by understanding the Vedic knowledge... Jñāna-vairāgya-yuktāya [SB 1.2.12].
Human life is meant for achieving knowledge and vairāgya, not that to increase the animal propensities even up to the point of death. That is not human life. Human life is meant for tapasya. Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyet sattvam [SB 5.5.1]. Unfortunately, the modern civilization does not care for all these things, and...
It is very risky civilization. Because nature's process is that as you create your mentality, you get next life a similar body. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa jantor dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1]. You, in this body, you have to work, because this material world means one has to work.
So by your karmaṇā, if your karma is not adjusted, if you do not work as a human being to be promoted to the qualification of a brāhmaṇa and then surpass the brāhmaṇa qualification and become a Vaiṣṇava, then your life is not perfect. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum [SB 7.5.31]. When our aim of life will be to understand our relationship with Viṣṇu... Na te viduḥ. But we do not know it.
We are so much captivated by the external energy, māyā, that the whole program is how to forget Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But our real aim of life is to know our relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā [SB 7.5.31]. They are trying to become happy within this material world.