Atone for sin before death, or suffer its exponential consequences; true Vaishnava grieves for others' spiritual blindness.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.8 — June 21, 1975, Los Angeles 750621SB-LOS ANGELES [26:44 Minutes] SB-06.01.08_750621SB-LOS ANGELES Prabhupāda: Oṁ namo bhagavat... Santoṣa: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya.
[devotees repeat] [leads chanting of verse and synonyms] tasmāt puraivāśv iha pāpa-niṣkṛtau yateta mṛtyor avipadyatātmanā doṣasya dṛṣṭvā guru-lāghavaṁ yathā bhiṣak cikitseta rujāṁ nidānavit [SB 6.1.8] [break] [02:03]
Prabhupāda: tasmāt puraivāśv iha pāpa-niṣkṛtau yateta mṛtyor avipadyatātmanā doṣasya dṛṣṭvā guru-lāghavaṁ yathā bhiṣak cikitseta rujāṁ nidānavit [SB 6.1.8] So the discussion is going on between Parīkṣit Mahārāja and Śukadeva Gosvāmī. In the last portion of the Fifth Chapter, Fifth Canto, Śukadeva Gosvāmī has given description of different hellish planets down this universe. There are many hellish planets. As there are heavenly planets, similarly there are hellish planets.
Those who are pious, in the modes of goodness, they are promoted to the higher planetary system, and those who are very much abominable, condemned, they are degraded to the lower planetary system. There are different planets, and our modern scientists, they say that "Except this earthly planet, there is no life." This is their knowledge. But actually that is not the fact. Everywhere there is life—but the life of different grades.
Just like here also we see, in this planet some of them are very well situated, and some of them are very much degraded in every respect—by birth, janma aiṣvarya, by opulence, and by education, by beauty. So there is such arrangement by nature's law that you are promoted or degraded. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ [Bg. 3.27]. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that prakṛti, we are under the guidance or rulings of material nature.
That is... It is not a fact that "We are independent," "There is no life after death." These are all foolish man's theory. We are eternal, there is life after death, and that life also has got different gradation. So this has been described, and this is the fact. Now, Parīkṣit Mahārāja, being Vaiṣṇava, he became very much sympathetic with the persons who are degraded in the hellish planet.
So his question was, "My dear sir," Śukadeva Gosvāmī his spiritual master, that "how these people could be saved from this hellish condition of life?" This is Vaiṣṇava's concern. Vaiṣṇava is not a pickpocket, that he will exploit others for his benefit. No. Para-duḥkha-duḥkhī.