Different bodies reflect different desires; spiritual knowledge reveals all souls are eternally equal.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 13.4 — February 27, 1975, Miami 750227BG-MIAMI [52:43 Minutes] BG-13.04_750227BG-MIAMI Nitāi: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. [Prabhupāda and devotees repeat] [leads chanting of verse, etc.] tat kṣetraṁ yac ca yādṛk ca yad vikāri yataś ca yat sa ca yo yat prabhāvaś ca tat samāsena me śṛṇu [Bg. 13.4] [break] [01:51] "Now please hear My brief description of this field of activity and how it is constituted, what its changes are, whence it is produced, who that knower of the field of activities is, and what his influences are." [break]
Prabhupāda: tat kṣetraṁ yac ca yādṛk ca yad vikāri yataś ca yat sa ca yo yat prabhāvaś ca tat samāsena me śṛṇu [Bg. 13.4] We have discussed that this body is the field of activity. We are acting according to the body. I am the same person, but when I had my boyhood body or childhood body, I was acting differently. This child, they are acting now some way, but when they will get another body, they will act in a different way.
Similarly, not only this human form of body, but there are 8,400,000 different types of bodies. We have explained several times, jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi [Padma Purāṇa]: "In the water there are 900,000 different forms of body." How many do we know? We do not know all the details. We know there are different types of fishes, and say 100,000 we have seen or experimented, the zoologist.
But from the Vedic literature we understand that there are 900,000 forms of body within the water. So this is called Vedic knowledge. Perfect information is given there. Doesn't say 901 or 950. Exactly, 900,000.
Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. Then next, sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. Then, after aquatic, when the water dries, the vegetation comes out, and that vegetation grow gradually into plants, trees, herbs and so many, big, big trees. Here we have got big, big trees.
So from aquatic life they have come to this vegetable life. And one tree standing for thousands of years. They cannot move an inch. This is also life.
There is life. The trees, these banyan trees, they are making their arrangement how to stand fixed-up very strong. Nobody can move. The same struggle for existence is going on.