Human life is a rare opportunity for spiritual purification through tapasya, not mere survival like animals.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Pradyumna: ...vāsudevāya, oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. [Chants verse] [devotees repeat] ṛṣabha uvāca nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena sattvaṁ śuddhyed yasmād brahma-saukhyaṁ tv anantam [SB 5.5.1] [03:22] Translation: "Lord Ṛṣabhadeva told His sons: My dear boys, of all the living entities who have accepted material bodies in this world, one who has been awarded this human form should not work hard day and night simply for sense gratification, which is available even for dogs and hogs that eat stool. One should engage in penance and austerity to attain the divine position of devotional service. By such activity, one's heart is purified, and when one attains this position, he attains eternal, blissful life, which is transcendental to material happiness and which continues forever." [break] Prabhupāda: So we have discussed this verse yesterday.
It is very essential that this human form of body is meant for rectifying, or purifying, our existence. That they do not know, especially in the modern age, that this body is temporary, and we living entities, we are eternal, and this is our bondage. So long we are within this material body, it is our bondage. Real life is eternal life, without any birth, death, old age and disease.
Where is that science? There is no such department of knowledge that how one can live eternally, without any disease, without any old age and without any death and without any birth. If there is birth, there is death. And between the two, birth and death, there is old age and disease.
Where is that scientist who are trying to solve this problem? And Kṛṣṇa put this problem before us: janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam [Bg 13.9]. This is knowledge. They are making plans for so many things, but where is that plan to stop janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha? That is not so easy.
Therefore they have avoided it. They do not touch this point. They are making arrangement for temporary, so-called happiness. That attempt is done even by cats and dogs.
That is not successful life. I have several times told you... This is Vedic civilization. When Viśvāmitra came to see Mahārāja Daśaratha...
It is etiquette, suppose a friend comes, we ask, "How are you, my friend? How things are going on?" So similarly, when Daśaratha Mahārāja inquired Viśvāmitra, "How are you?" that "How are you" was not ordinary question. He inquired, aihiṣṭaṁ yat punar janma jayāya [Rāmayana]. The great great saintly persons, sages, they are engaged in devotional service.