no belief in life after death

So practically you ask so many big, big men... Last time when I was here, Lord Fenner Brockway came here to see me. I asked him this question, that "What is your next life?" He is also old man, eighty-four years. He said, "Swamiji, we shall die peacefully, that's all." Peacefully you may die, but you have to accept the next body. Whether that will be peaceful or not, that they do not know. Similarly, I spoke with Professor Kotovsky in Moscow. He also said that "Swamiji, after finishing this body, everything is finished." This is the position of human society at the present moment, that they do not know how to make life perfect. To make life perfect means how to make my next life very perfect or happy or better life. Otherwise, if I remain in darkness-Krsna says, tatha dehantara-praptiḥ [Bg 2.13]-then I shall be..., I may become any of these so many types of body. I may become a tree, I may become a dog, I may become a cat or maybe a demigod. There are so many, different. But I must be sure what kind of life I must have. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita. We are not imagining. We are... Our movement, this Krsna consciousness movement, based on Bhagavad-gita. So Krsna says that... As He says there is next life, that is a fact. Now, how we can prepare for the next life, that is also said in the Bhagavad-gita. How?    (More...)

So this is the position, that we do not know what is the perfection of life. Krsna says, therefore, begins real knowledge. This chapter is "Knowledge of the Absolute." So everyone... You ask any M.A., Ph.D. that "What is your next life, sir?" "Gow! Gow!" [laughter] That's all. "Gow! Gow!" means "Why you are bothering about these things?" Now, this is the position. And we have taken very hard job to convince these people about Krsna consciousness. They will not accept it. They will deny immediately. They will say, "Why do you bother us? You do your own business. Let us do our own business." But why we are bothering? Because we are servant of Krsna. Krsna wants that these rascals should be informed; these rascals should be raised from this status of ignorance. So that is our mission. Therefore we are going and pleading, "Sir, I am a beggar. I have come to beg from you that you kindly purchase one book and you read it." So sometimes they are doing. After all, human being... So this is our... This is our business. We are stressing on pushing on these books because modern man, if he purchases one book, then at least he will see one line, "What these nonsense have written?" So if he reads one line, if he is intelligent man, he will understand the value. That is sure. That is sure.    (More...)

So our real business is how to attain that eternal life. That is real business. Other business, they are not important. Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido na labhyate yad bhramatam upary adhaḥ [SB 1.5.18]. This is the instruction, that we should try how to become again immortal. We are immortal by nature, but we have been covered by another nature, external nature, bahirahga-sakti And because we have been entangled with this material body, we have to die. Otherwise there is no death. Na jayate na mriyate va [Bg 2.20]. The living entity does not take birth, neither it dies. Then why we are taking birth and dying? The..., this question does not arise to the fools and rascals of this materialist world. I was talking with one very big man in London, Lord Fenner Brockway. He came to see me. So I asked him this question. He was old man. He was, I think, older than me. He was eighty-four. So he said, "Yes, I'll die peacefully." Just see. This question does not bother even any man. And I talked with that Professor Kotovsky in Moscow. He also said, "Swamiji, after death, everything is finished." You see? Big, big men in Europe, very exalted position, they do not know even that there is life after death. They do not know. And in India, I think when I spoke in Calcutta, the American Consulate... There is a club, Indo-American Cultural. They invited. So they gave me the subject matter for speaking: "East and West." So in that meeting I said that "We don't make any such distinction 'East' and 'West,' because everything belongs to Krsna. But there is little difference between East and West. What is that difference? Here, even an ordinary man, a cultivator, uneducated villager, he believes in the next birth. He believes. He's afraid of committing sin-'Oh, I'll have to suffer in my next life.' And in the Western world, the big, big men like Lord Fenner Brockway and Professor Kotovsky, they do not know that there is life after death."    (More...)

In the Bhagavad-gita it is said that mrtyuḥ aham sarva-haras [Bg 10.34]. We are accumulating so many things-big, big buildings, big, big estate, big, big bank balance, big, big family. That's all right, but what is the guarantee that we will be able to enjoy this? That they are not thinking. And it is a fact that death may come at any moment, especially nowadays. So you... There is no guarantee. Even in your ordinary life you are going by the car, there may be accident. "Maybe" not; they are taking place. So many people are dying. He does not expect that "I am going to office. I shall be killed." In aeroplane crash... So there is no guarantee. Any moment we can die. But we are not thinking, because they have made this theory, "There is no life after death. So enjoy. Enjoy life as far as possible." But that is not the fact. After death we will have to accept another body. Tatha dehantara-praptiḥ [Bg 2.13].    (More...)

So you can prepare yourself for better life in the heavenly planets or in a better society in this world or to go to the planets where ghost and other wretches are controlling. Or you can go to the planet where Krsna is there. Everything is open to you. Yanti bhūtejya bhūtani mad-yajino 'pi yanti mam. Simply you have to prepare yourself. Just like in youth life they are educated-somebody is going to be engineer, somebody is going to be medical man, somebody is going to be lawyer and many other professional man-and they are preparing by education; similarly, you can prepare for your next life. This is not difficult to understand. But they do not believe in the next life, although it is very common sense. But actually there is next life, because Krsna says, and we can understand the philosophy by a little intelligence that there is next life.    (More...)