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Srila Prabhupada explain why the Buddhist definition of compassion remains incomplete in his commentary on the Caitanya Caritamrta. It is stated that mercy is one of the qualities of a Buddhist, but mercy is a relative thing. We show our mercy to a subordinate or to one who is suffering more than ourselves. However, if there is a superior person present, the superior person cannot be the object of our mercy. Rather, we are objects for the mercy of the superior person. Therefore showing compassion and mercy is a relative activity. It is not the Absolute Truth. Apart from this, we also must know what actual mercy is. To give a sick man something forbidden for him to eat is not mercy. Rather, it is cruelty. Unless we know what mercy really is, we may create an undesirable situation. If we wish to show real mercy, we will preach Krsna consciousness in order to revive the lost consciousness of human beings, the living entity's original consciousness. Since the Buddhist philosophy does not admit the existence of the spirit soul, the so-called mercy of the Buddhists is defective. (Madhya 9.50 purport)

The essential questions of life.

Hell isn't such a far fetched thing when you look at it scientifically. Animals are beautiful creatures right? Beautiful, conscious creatures of almost innumerable varieties of colors, shapes and sizes. There's not so much difference between us and animals. It's actually only a question of the body. But we are not the body, we are the consciousness, the living force within the body. That consciousness is the same in every living thing, so how come one consciousness is in an animal body and another is in a human body? Although some animals may seem majestic, their life is actually rather hellish. The consciousness inside those beautiful bodies of animals is actually alarming. How can the consciousness be comfortable in such a condition of life? When human beings don't have access to clean facilities, or they begin to fight and hunt each other, or they are uneducated, these are considered distressful conditions of life. It naturally follows that the consciousness must undergo some kind of trans-formative process at death to be reincarnated in such a hellish body of an animal. For example, a tiger may seem at first glance like an attractive creature. It's powerful and beautifully designed with stripes unique abilities of strength and agility, it's mysterious and sly. But try to imagine if you yourself took it's position in your present level of awareness for one day. You'd be practically unable to handle such a disposition, as you'd find yourself running around on all fours naked, eating raw meat, licking yourself all day and killing opposing tigers for your mate. Would it be a very nice proposal if i forced you to enter into such a life from your present one? I don't think you could say with any confidence you'd be very eager. But this is actually our position. We are forced, at the end of this body, to enter into a new body based on our present activities. There are varieties of material enjoyments in this life, which are founded upon four principle facilities; eating, mating, sleeping and defending. depending on the ways in which we attempt to enjoy our present bodies and the world around us, nature arranges another material body just suitable for one's desire in the next life. The consciousness is eternal, it's lasting throughout all the changes of bodies in life, from childhood to youth-hood till old age, so what is the difficulty in understanding that at the end of the body, the consciousness will take yet another body. This is a very logical conclusion, and it is a plain truth. Even in this life, we are forced to enter a different body every day based on previous activities and desires. Besides the day-today process of foodstuffs replenishing the skin cells, the desires of a person create bodies for him to enjoy in the future. Let's say a young man wants to study and become a martial artist. When he first desires to become such a practitioner of the martial arts, he'll have the body of a young man. But as he grows and tries to fulfill that desire, his mind and body change through strict discipline. His strength will increase and his mind will become more agile as it becomes accustomed to the maneuvers and strikes. The mind carries the desire of the person like the wind carries the flavor of a flower. If we see that a desire carries one through changing bodies even within our present experience, it is undoubtable that a desire will carry a person to the next form of body. In the Bhagavad-Gita, the process of that transmigration is explained by Sri Krishna, the personality of Godhead, Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O son of Kunti, that state he will attain without fail. [BG 8.6] For example, one may have enjoyed surplus foodstuffs without discrimination, like meats, intoxicants and other abominable things, instead of the foodstuffs that were intended for mankind to eat, such as fruits, grains, vegetables and milk. Throughout his whole life, he was indulging in gluttonous activities, meditating about those activities, hankering for food, and molding his life in such a way that he could eat unlimitedly. Such a person would find his existence even easier and more fulfilling in the body of a hog, because a hog can eat even stool or rubber tires and be satisfied, and a pig enjoys eating large portions all day. Those desires and thoughts that the consciousness spent it's duration in a certain body meditating on will create another body by the arrangement of material nature just according to how that soul has earned and deserves. Yet a hog's body is full of suffering. It's practically forced by nature to live in an unclean place, eat unclean things, and be subject to the limited consciousness that is innate in any animal. It may have been the soul's desire, but that doesn't mean that such an existence is at all pleasant. How is it that the consciousness, which we can see presides at one point in a human form, is forced into such an animalistic and crude body? It takes a trip to hell. Hell is not some fairy-tale that is whimsically imagined for the purpose of scaring youngsters to accept some dogma or a place for people to send their enemies with a curse, but hell is a factual and unavoidable reality. Hell is the natural byproduct of the spirit soul's desire to enjoy material nature. When we want to enjoy material life, we must take a material body, which takes the form of a demigod all the way down to the lowest forms of germs and worms, according to one's respective karma. In hell, the advanced human consciousness is tortured, according to one's karma, in such a way that his consciousness will not mind being forced in the body of a lower creature like a dog or a hog. A dog is very happy with his condition of life, although we see that such a condition is deplorable. This is because that condition is far better than the hell he had just been in. We can see that consciousness is affected by the circumstances it finds itself in in this very life. The consciousness of a person can shrink if it is shocked or tortured. The law of conservation of energy is the final proof that the energy of consciousness is transferred to another body at the destruction of the present body. The question is, how can such an advanced consciousness become so animalisticly simple and limited? That same energy that was working in such a complex way, experiencing a palette of emotions, pains, pleasures and finer sentiments becomes so basic it communicates by simply barking or snorting. Hell becomes a natural explanation. The consciousness must undergo some kind of transformation in order to exist in such a low body like that of an animal. So when the Hare Krishna's warn you about hell, don't take it as fanaticism, take it as a scientific and logical fact.

Is there a hell? Isn't our present situation in the world full of wars, crime, abuse, torture already a hell on earth? In this article Purujit Dasa explains why the hellish punishment is a necessity in the creation of the Lord. Lord Krsna says: asurim yonim apanna mudha janmani janmani mam aprapyaiva kaunteya tato yanty adhamam gatim (Bg 16.20) "Attaining repeated birth amongst the species of demoniac life, such persons can never approach Me. Gradually they sink down to the most abominable type of existence." One may question, if God is all merciful, why does He subject the sinners to such punishment? What is a sin? These are undoubtedly important questions people might ask when faced with the concept of hell as a place where sinners go after death to suffer for their disobedience of God's laws. It is said that man is the architect of his own fortune. Man proposes, God disposes. Whatever state of mind we achieve at the time of death, that state of being we will get in our next life. The soul is carried in a subtle body to acquire a new body according to his various desires he has accumulated in life. It is just like in school. If a student studies throughout the year, he will pass an exam and then he finds a nice job to live happily in this world. If he slacks, he fails the exam and must struggle. The human form is awarded to us for one singular reason and that is to pass the exam of life. The exam of life will test how much we have developed our dormant Krsna consciousness. If one does not reach perfection in this life, he must again transmigrate to a material body and suffer the consequences of his actions. Those degraded conditioned souls who miss the opportunity to utilise the human vessel for this purpose and instead waste it by engaging in sophisticated animalism will degrade to lower life forms such as hog, dogs, cats, or even worse plants, trees or microbes. Indeed, there can be no bigger failure in life than this. Therefore everyone should very seriously and diligently control his senses and practise devotional service under the guidance of the spiritual master or his representatives and thus take advantage of this great benediction. If one is unwilling to do this, or opposes the Krsna consciousness movement in any way, he must take birth in one of the 4 800 000 species of life and undergo tremendous painful reactions. We may observe that compared to humans, animal or plant species have a reduced consciousness. Although the spirit souls are in quality one and they possess the same potential of going back to Godhead, the material conditioning does not allow the lower species than human to develop their consciousness in their precarious position. The soul is trapped in such body simply following gross material instincts without any chance to understand higher principles that govern this universe. This reduction of consciousness is the direct result of their prior life of hellish punishments in the planets of Yama, the lord of death as we are informed in the Vedic scriptures. It is a fact that one's consciousness becomes reduced when we undergo painful situations. For example, if one suffers from a toothache, he has a lack of concentration, lack of enthusiasm to work and he cannot think properly. By reading in the Vedas we get to know about various types of suffering the sinful living entities undergo to repent for the sins they have commited in their previous life. For example, the superintendents of the lord of death pour hot iron into the mouths of those who waste time by drinking alcoholic beverages or force those who indulge in the act of illicit sex to embrace a hot iron form of a woman or man. These hellish punishments are meant to reduce any sort of human level of consciousness of the sinful entity so he can then assume the animal or plant form in his upcoming life. Without such "training" the living entity would have a human consciousness in the animal or plant life and that would make his suffering even more severe. It is a facility for those who refuse to act in their human capacity to forget their potential and fully devote themselves to purely sensual life of animalism. For this tremendous painful sufferings are needed until the consciousness is reduced and one can lose any sort of human consideration. The Lord sends his representatives to preach to the conditioned souls to use their spiritual potential and fully utilise the human form of life for self realisation and liberation from the cycle of death, which is ever spinning by the material desires of the confused living beings who are searching for that which is not (maya). If the living entities try to control their envious nature and thus surrender to such representatives and with folded hands bow down to their feet with the express desire to purify their demonic tendencies, they make spiritual advancement by hearing transcendental instructions from such pure spiritual masters and executing their instructions. However, if they offend such representatives or do not execute their instructions to the best of their capacities, they are punished and must learn their lessons by undergoing horrible sufferings in their future lives. The one and only reason for being envious of such representatives is the desire to be the Lord and the enjoyer of one's work. One must give up sense gratification as the senses will drag one to enjoy on the animal platform. Such mentality leads downward only. Those who are intelligent will hear and follow, those who are foolish must first of all taste the bitter slaps of illusion before they can learn. Thus hellish worlds are just another form of the Lord's mercy upon the living entity. The Lord is ever-eager for His parts and parcels to come back home, back to Him to enjoy an eternal life full of knowledge and bliss. We should not be angry at the Lord for manifesting such punishments and understand that it is we who perversely desire such punishments by indulging in sense gratification in this world which is devoid of devotional service. One should not be foolish by voluntarily gliding towards hell in order to taste the bitter medicine. Quite the opposite, he should enthusiastically meet the challenge of human life and make the best of the bad bargain of the material existence by dedicating his life 24 hours to the service of the Lord. Thus he will achieve perfection in this very life without any need to suffer in the hellish worlds.

Purujit Dasa, the Founder of The B.L.I.S.S, gives a class about the powerful nature of the mind.

This podcast gets really spicy.

This is a testimony from a devotee of the name Subhangi Devi Dasi about how she assisted her father at the time of death. Chilling and touching at the same time. Please have a read: Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupad! All glories to all of the Vaishnavas, especially the preachers who are saving the world from hell! All glories to your service! Have you ever heard of terminal restlessness? Probably not, unless you are a doctor or a nurse. But although the name is new, the condition is described in Srimad Bhagavatam. Srila Prabhupada says: "And similarly, miserable condition of death. When one is lying in coma, so many sufferings is going on, so many dreaming, the Yamaduta is coming. Sometimes the man on the deathbed cries, he's so much suffering but there is no remedy. Everyone is helpless. So that is the miserable condition of death..." Srila Prabhupad, Gorakhpur Feb 18, 1971 I will tell you how I found out about it, and this story is a classic example of the dreadful reality faced by all the suffering souls of this material world. It also shows clearly what Srila Prabhupad has saved us from and why we should feel eternally indebted to him.It all started when I received a phone call from my parents saying that Dad was sick with cancer. I believe in omens, and my right eye started twitching profusely, so I knew that the outcome wouldn't be good. That was in the beginning of November.But Dad was optimistic. He was sure he could overcome everything, as he had always been the controller in every situation and had faced many trials in life and overcome them all. Until now he seemed to be a lucky guy, enjoying good facilities and good karma in every respect. Little did he know that his good karma had come to a grinding halt. If Krsna wants to save you no one can kill you, but if Krsna wants to kill you no one can save you. Dad had prostate cancer, and it had spread into his bones. He was having chemotherapy, but it failed twice. I rang one day, and he literally wept. "I'm dying," he said. I felt compassion for him. He was helpless in the hands of cruel fate. I tried to help. "Well don't worry," I said. "There is reincarnation. You will be okay. Just pray. God is kind." But it was little comfort to someone who was bewildered and didn't know God. After that I felt that I was somehow connected to his suffering. I could feel all of his fear and anxiety. I would pray all the time. I didn't want to experience any of it, but I guess I was karmically connected to him, so there was no escape no matter how far away I was. The physical suffering was nothing compared to the mental torture he was experiencing. He became humble, and I dropped everything a couple of times and flew from Vrindavan to be with him. In the past he had never wanted to hear anything about Krishna, so I had given up trying years ago. We never discussed the subject. I would just feed him prasad (he loved my cooking) and talk about other things. I had Vrindavan dust with me and some Yamuna water mixed with Ganga. There were also some small Jagannatha Deities. I deposited all these things in the house, hoping they would have an effect and using them whenever possible, in Dad's food and so on. I kept praying and hoping that somehow I could convince him about Krishna before he died. He was so bewildered and humbled by his lack of control over the situation that he was willing to listen to some degree. He was clutching at straws. I read him some Bhagavad Gita, and he said that it was comforting. I also read to him from Coming Back. He liked that because the idea of reincarnation was something positive to look for in the future, and he was desperate for that. I saw in there the chapter about Ajamila and felt I should read it to him, but thought maybe it was too much to thrust upon him. Besides, I was there, and because I was chanting everything it would be okay, or so I thought. I really believed you could just chant Hare Krishna and all bad things would go away. I guess this is a superficial and neophyte viewpoint. The material world is such a heavy place, and with my great ego I, was overestimating my own purity. I realized later that I'm really not even a devotee. If you are incapable of saving yourself, how can you possibly save anyone else? I had to fly back to Vrindavan several times, as I had family and business commitments, but the whole time I could feel him pulling me. I had zero mental peace during this time. I think he really wanted me there and was emotionally dependant on me, as I was the only one offering any tangible solutions. People are basically not sympathetic either, and he needed a lot of understanding. I am not good at handling suffering, so this was difficult to bear seeing someone you care for suffering so much anxiety. I left my Jagannatha Deities there and asked them to forgive any offense but to please protect my father while I went back to India on business just for a couple of weeks. Then my mother rang. She was at her wits' end. "Please come," she said. "He is in hospital now, and we need you here." I jumped on the first flight, and as soon as I arrived, I moved into the hospital with Dad. It was incredible how Krishna seemed to arrange it. They gave us a private room and let me sleep there and care for him. Nobody questioned my authority, and my mother just backed off and let me do anything. She is a Roman Catholic and doesn't usually allow me to speak about Krishna. I realized that the karmis are so far into denial that they try to avoid the reality of death as much as possible, so it was a way out for her if I took the burden. She could go home and pretend nothing was happening, yet still know that Dad was being taken care of by me. Or maybe deep down she also felt desperate for his spiritual welfare, and I was the best solution they had. I'm not really sure. Once it all goes beyond their material perception and control, they become completely bewildered. I only know that I was able to fully take over the care of my father. Many people must suffer and die alone in hospitals going through what I am about to tell…I slept next to Dad and tended to his every need. I managed to get Tulasi beads on him, which one demoniac nurse kept taking off. I got mental about it. Oh no, I thought, he is so sinful, he can't wear Tulasi. Then I just got in this mindset that I was going to be aggressive and keep those beads on him no matter what. She would take them off, and I would just smile sweetly and put them right back on.I read some Bhagavad Gita to him. He didn't eat at all for the twelve days leading up to his death. For eight of those days he had only Ganga and Yamuna water and nothing else. I controlled everything that went into his mouth. I even started sprinkling Vrindavan dust in his water as well. Toward the end, he was on another level, not of this world. He seemed to be perceiving things that other people couldn't. For example, every night I would put on a Shiva T-Shirt to wear to bed. There was a large picture of Lord Shiva on the front of it. My habit was to wait till he was asleep and in a subtle manner, sprinkle a little bit of Vrindavan dust on his head in case he died while I was asleep. One night I had just sprinkled the dust, and he sprang up with a wide-eyed look of amazement. "Oh, you're all surrounded by dust," he said. Another night, in the same way, he sprang awake and looked at my Lord Shiva shirt. "Careful!" he said. "There's fire coming out of your shirt." The day before he died, he said there were big dogs in the room and an ugly person floating outside the window. The evening before his death he began to feel disturbed. "Untie my legs," he was saying to I don't know whom, and he was visibly distressed. My mother and my daughter decided to stay overnight at the hospital, which they didn't normally do. I drifted off to sleep and so did Mum. At about 9.30 pm my daughter woke me up. "Mum," she said, "come quickly! Something's happening to Grand-dad." I raced over to the bed and Dad was moaning. "Please, please," he was saying, "I beg you, let me loose, please let me loose." His tone was humble and terrified, and his eyes were lowered. He was to say these words many, many times over the next six hours. He was trying to jump off the bed and hide under his pillow. You have to understand that he was skin and bones. He couldn't even urinate without help, and here he was suddenly trying to get up and run off. He was thrashing around like a mad man. This is really inauspicious, I thought. I grabbed him by the shoulders. "Dad," I said, "what's happening? You okay?" He was terrified. "Oh Sue," he cried out, "I tried to get away, I really did, but they got me." His voice went up to a shout. "She's got me!" he yelled out. At that time I should have realized what was happening, but the fact that he said, "She's got me" put me off, and somehow I got covered over, and for the next six hours I just tried to comfort him. He cried out again and again. "Oh, for God's sake," he would shout, "just let me rest, just ten minutes. Please, I beg you." His tone of voice was terrified and all the while humble and begging. I would chant and he would relax a little. Then a nurse would come and distract me, and he would start again, thrashing and begging. "What's wrong?" I asked. He seemed exasperated. "I'm trying to tell you," he said, "but I just can't." Then at 3 am it suddenly dawned on me that the Yamadutas had him. It was so obvious, and I felt so foolish for not realizing it until now. I turned to my 13-year-old daughter and told her I thought the Yamadutas had him. "Yes," she said. "I know. I woke you up because I saw three of them floating above his bed, and he was cowering and looking up." She had actually seen them. She described later how they looked, with boar-like tusks coming upward out of their mouths and glaring eyes. She had thought they were some kind of ghosts trying to steal his soul from his body. Of course, by Krishna's arrangement, my mother was sleeping, oblivious the whole time. What to do? I thought. I started to pray to Krishna: "Oh, please let him go, Krishna." I was begging. Then Supersoul would answer. "Why?" He would say. "He will only offend again." Then I was really upset. I started praying to Yamaraja" "Please, Yamaraja..." And all the while, I was chanting. I told Dad I was sorry I hadn't realized sooner that they had hold of him. He nodded, traumatized. His whole death experience was hellish. I'm sorry that any souls have to experience such a thing and understand now why Srila Prabhupad felt such urgency to save everyone. "Dad," I said, "do you want me to hold you and chant?" "Yes, yes," he said. "Have they still got you?" "No, they let me go." Then I held him tight for the next three hours, and he slowly gave up his life, through his mouth, peacefully with me chanting right in his ear and dripping Ganga and Yamuna water into his mouth. I stayed fully focused on chanting very close to his ear until he breathed his last, at 6 am. He went straight out of his mouth and his eyes just closed. Poor him! Cruel, cruel, hellish material world! It had been only seven months from the start of his illness, and the seventy-one-year story of his life was forcibly ended. While he would be thrashing and crying out "Let me loose!" I'd ask the nurses what was happening. "Oh, it's normal," they'd say. "He's just fighting it, and it happens to everyone. There's even a term for it. It's called terminal restlessness. And they give nurses' seminars about how to deal with it." Well I've got news for you, folks. It's actually terminal Yamadutaness. Of course they are advised to just pump them full of morphine and ignore all their ramblings. Another thing is that no one is meant to know about it. It was purely Krishna's mercy that we were able to realize it, and even then I almost missed it. For six hours I was confused and yet Dad was telling me quite clearly and begging for help, so some sort of maya is covering the whole thing and people aren't aware of it. Only the person who is going through it knows. Mention is made of the dogs. A devotee told me afterwards that they were reading Yamaraja scriptures, which give detailed descriptions, and it is said that the hounds of hell come ahead several days before and sniff out where the rascals are dying. There was also the fact that he said, "She's got me." Apparently the Yamadutas have their own society with wives, kids and everything. Since they are also living entities in this material world, they are born into that society. I don't usually put pen to paper, as I don't feel at all qualified to do so, but mother Radha Kunda Devi Dasi encouraged me and said that this experience should be shared with all the devotees. So please excuse my shortcomings. I am not very philosophical or academic. Here are some of Srila Prabhupada's comments on the subject: "To see the Yamadutas, or the carriers of order of Yamaraja, superintendent of death, to see face to face... At the time of death, when one very sinful man is dying, he sees the Yamaraja or the order carriers of Yamaraja. They are very fierce looking. Sometimes the man on the deathbed becomes very much fearful, cries, 'Save me, save me.'" Srimad Bhagavatam lecture, Denver, July 2, 1975 "But you take this mission and go everywhere, in every corner. I am thankful to you. You are already doing that, in Europe and America, [people are] deep asleep. Because people are sleeping under misguidance, and they are becoming candidate for being carried away by the Yamaduta. This is the position of the whole world, Yamaduta. Yamaduta will not excuse you, however you may be very proud of becoming independent. This is not possible. To save the human civilization, the rascal civilization, that 'There is no life after death, and you go on enjoying as much as you like,' this wrong civilization is [a] killing civilization. So you save them. You save them. Otherwise the Yamaduta is there." Vrindavan, September 5, 1975 "This man was like this, and he must be carried to Yamaraja for punishment..." Why punishment? No, to make him purified, it is said, 'Punishment required.' This is nature's law. Just like if you have infected some disease, the punishment is you must suffer for it. The punishment is good. If you have infected some disease, and when you suffer, that means you become purified from the disease. Suffering is not bad, to become purified. Therefore when a devotee suffers, he does not take it ill. He thinks that, 'I am being purified. I am being purified.'" Vrindavan, September 5, 1975 So I suppose that even though Dad had Tulasi beads on, he was a good man by ordinary standards, but he liked to hunt, and he had been a drinker, womanizer, and cow eater. And even though he had had all facilities for the last 28 years, he didn't surrender to Krishna. Even at the time of death, he didn't seem able to think of Krishna as the solution to his woes.Srila Prabhupad sums it up in the purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 6.2.49: "At the time of death one is certainly bewildered because his bodily functions are in disorder. At that time, even one who throughout his life has practiced chanting the holy name of the Lord may not be able to chant the Hare Krsna mantra very distinctly. Nevertheless, such a person receives all the benefits of chanting the holy name. While the body is fit therefore, why should we not chant the holy name of the Lord loudly and distinctly? If one does so, it is quite possible that even at the time of death he will be properly able to chant the holy name of the Lord with love and faith." Purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 6.2.15: "Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail. If one practices chanting the Hare Krsna mantra, he is naturally expected to chant Hare Krsna when he meets with some accident. Even without such practice, however, if one somehow or other chants the holy name of the Lord (Hare Krsna) when he meets with an accident and dies, he will be saved from hellish life after death. One is immediately absolved from having to enter hellish life, even though he is sinful." In the purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 6.2.7: "The Yamadutas had considered only the external situation of Ajamila. Since he was extremely sinful throughout his life, they thought he should be taken to Yamaraja and did not know that he had become free from the reactions of all his sins. The Visnudutas therefore instructed that because he had chanted the four syllables of the name Narayana at the time of his death, he was freed from all sinful reactions." In the same purport, Srila Prabhupada quotes the following verses: "Simply by chanting one holy name of Hari, a sinful man can counteract the reactions to more sins than he is able to commit." Brhad-Visnu Purana "If one chants the holy name of the Lord, even in a helpless condition or without desiring to do so, all the reactions of his sinful life depart, just as when a lion roars, all the small animals flee in fear." Garuda Purana "By once chanting the holy name of the Lord, which consists of the two syllables ha-ri, one guarantees his path to liberation." Skanda Purana I can only hope and pray that somehow my father had a small thought of Krishna because of my feeble efforts and the causeless mercy of Guru and Gauranga. Anyway, I would like the feedback of all the devotees. Do others have similar experiences to tell? What do you all think about this topic? Please all of you Vaishnavas pray for my father that he may have an opportunity to serve Krishna. I was thinking myself to be the big hero, going to save my father, only to find that I'm just a big bag of hot air zero. I am such a fallen rascal that I couldn't help him in his hour of need, and I hope this story helps others to advance their efforts in Krishna consciousness so that we can all help Srila Prabhupada in his mission to relieve all the sufferings of the fallen conditioned souls. All glories to Srila Prabhupada, savior of the whole world! Your fallen servant, Subhangi Devi Dasi subhangidevidasi@yahoo.com

Srila Prabhupada explains in this quote how the living entity forgets his eternal self and identifies with the material body. Unless a living entity forgets his real identity, it is impossible for him to live in the material conditions of life. Therefore the first condition of material existence is forgetfulness of one's real identity. And by forgetting one's real identity, one is sure to be afraid of death, although a pure living soul is deathless and birthless. This false identification with material nature is the cause of false ownership of things which are offered by the arrangement of superior control. All material resources are offered to the living entity for his peaceful living and for the discharge of the duties of self-realization in conditioned life. But due to false identification, the conditioned soul becomes entrapped by the sense of false ownership of the property of the Supreme Lord. (SB 3.12.2)

The following is a verse from the Bhagavad-gita As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada where Lord Krsna explains about the various bodies one attains if he is predominantly surcharged with the modes of passion and ignorance. rajasi pralayam gatva karma-sangisu jayate tatha pralinas tamasi mudha-yonisu jayate When one dies in the mode of passion, he takes birth among those engaged in fruitive activities; and when he dies in the mode of ignorance, he takes birth in the animal kingdom. PURPORT BY HIS DIVINE GRACE A.C.BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI PRABHUPADA Some people have the impression that when the soul reaches the platform of human life, it never goes down again. This is incorrect. According to this verse, if one develops the mode of ignorance, after his death he is degraded to the animal form of life. From there one has to again elevate himself, by evolutionary process, to come again to the human form of life. Therefore, those who are actually serious about human life should take to the mode of goodness and in good association transcend the modes and become situated in Krsna consciousness. This is the aim of human life. Otherwise, there is no guarantee that the human being will again attain to the human status. (Bg 14.16 verse and purport)

Start preparing by tuning in to this BLISS Podcast with His Grace Purujit dasa and Maitreya Rsi Dasa.