The soul is eternal; only bodies change, and human life offers the choice to transcend material existence.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 2.13, "Life after Death" — June 22, 1974, Bad Homburg, Germany 740622BG-GERMANY [55:52 Minutes] Bg-02.13_740622BG-GERMANY [translated into German throughout]
Prabhupāda: kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13] Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for your kindly participating in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and today's subject matter is life after death. So we shall try to speak something on this subject. The sound is not... [to translator:] So describe the meaning of this verse from our German edition. [German translator reads German translation] So life after death is not very difficult to understand.
We have got different grades of life. Just like the child is crying, that is also life. Then the child body vanquished, then gets another body, boy's body. Then this body also vanquishes.
Another body, youthful body. This body also vanquishes. And then an old man's body like me, this will also vanquish. So the logic is as the other bodies vanquish and I get a next body, similarly, when this old body will be vanquished, I'll get another body.
So here it is stated by the supreme authority, Kṛṣṇa, that as these bodies are changing in this duration of life... It is changing. The old body, the child's body, boy's body of me, they are no longer existing, but I am existing. I know that I had a small body like this.
I had a boy's body, youthful body. I can remember. Therefore I am eternal. The bodies are temporary. So this is evolution.
This evolution theory... It is not theory; it is fact, stated in the Vedic literature, Padma Purāṇa, how we have passed through so many bodies, and ultimately we have got this civilized civilized human form of body. We have to pass through 900,000 forms of aquatic body within the water. Then gradually we come to the form of trees and plants.