Accept spiritual instruction from whoever knows Krishna, regardless of birth, caste, or social position.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.25.7 — November 7, 1974, Bombay 741107SB-BOMBAY [34:45 Minutes] SB-03.25.07_741107SB-BOMBAY Nitāi: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. [devotees repeat] [break] [Prabhupāda and devotees chant verse] [break] nirviṇṇā nitarāṁ bhūmann asad-indriya-tarṣaṇāt yena sambhāvyamānena prapannāndhaṁ tamaḥ prabho [SB 3.25.7] [00:58] "Devahūti said: I am very sick of the disturbance of my material senses, for because of this sense disturbance, my Lord, I have fallen into the abyss of ignorance." Prabhupāda: nirviṇṇā nitarāṁ bhūmann asad-indriya-tarṣaṇāt yena sambhāvyamānena prapannāndhaṁ tamaḥ prabho [SB 3.25.7] So this material world is described in the Vedic literature as darkness. And actually it is darkness. Therefore we require the sunlight, the moonlight, the electric light.
If it had not been darkness, then why so many light arrangement? Actually, it is darkness. Artificially, we made it light. Therefore Vedic injunction is that "Don't keep yourself in the darkness." Tamasi mā jyotir gama.
"Go to the light." That light is the spiritual world. That is directly the effulgence, or bodily rays, of Kṛṣṇa. yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭikoṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi [Bs. 5.40] So real business of..., especially of human being... The animals, they do not know. They have no capacity to know that we are in the darkness—darkness of knowledge and actually darkness.
So one has to be..., become nirviṇṇā, disgusted. One, intelligent man, should be disgusted. One must be intelligent to know that "I am eternal." Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre. It is the preliminary study of Bhagavad-gītā.
Kṛṣṇa is instructing about the constitutional position of the soul: na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre, na jāyate na mriyate kadācit [Bg. 2.20]. Kadācit, at any time, the soul does not take birth, does not die. And more explicitly it is said, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre. The covering..., the body is the covering.
So after destruction of this body, the soul is not destroyed. Just like if I change my shirt and coat or somehow or other the shirt and coat is destroyed, I, the person who put on this dress, I am not destroyed. This simple knowledge is instructed in the beginning of the Bhagavad-gītā. There are so many big, big scholars, big, big leaders, and still, they cannot understand that "I am not this body." This is the result, because they do not study Bhagavad-gītā in the proper way.
We have got so many leaders, big, big leaders, they are teaching Bhagavad-gītā. But nobody is fully aware or convinced that "I am not this body." This is called darkness. This is called darkness. And when one becomes disgusted with this darkness, or this position in the darkness, that is human life.