Prabhupada 0322 - The Body is Awarded by God According to Your Karma



Lecture on SB 1.15.40 -- Los Angeles, December 18, 1973

We have been given by the supreme father, "Now this is your America. This is your India." But nothing belongs to the American or to the Indian. It belongs to the father, supreme father. So unless they come to the consciousness, that "The father has given me to enjoy that this is mine, but actually it belongs to father..." This is called Krsna consciousness. This is called Krsna consciousness.

Therefore those who are Krsna conscious, fully conscious that "Nothing belongs to me. Everything belongs to..." Isavasyam idam sarvam yat kinca :(Iso mantra 1). "Even the minute thing, even atom, that belongs to God. I am not proprietor." If this sense comes to you, then you are free. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita,

mam ca yo 'vyabhicarena
bhakti-yogena sevate
sa gunan samatityaitan
brahma-bhuyaya kalpate
(BG 14.26)

The bondage is gunamayi maya, being wrapped up by the qualitative modes of nature. That is bondage. But if one is engaged in devotional service, he is not under this bondage because he knows things as they are. So... Just like I am foreigner and I am... So I have come to your country. So if I claim that "This country is mine," then there is trouble. But if I know that I have come as a visitor or as a foreigner I have come here, so there is not trouble. I can freely move. I can get all the facilities of the United States government. There is no trouble. Similarly, we come here as traveler, as visitor, within this material world, and if we claim that "This material world belongs to me," or a group of men, or group of nation, that is called ignorance.

So Krsna consciousness movement means to move this ignorance, to make people intelligent, that "Nothing belongs to you. Everything belongs to God." So here is the general process, renouncement, that Maharaja Yudhisthira, he's saying... Because as I have already explained, that because we are too much absorbed in the conception of ahankara, "I am this body, and anything in relationship with this body that is mine," this is illusion, moha. This is called moha, illusion. Janasya moho 'yam. Moha means illusion. This is illusion. What is this illusion? Aham mameti: (SB 5.5.8) "I am this body, and anything in relationship with this, it is mine." This is called moha, illusion. The body even does not belong to him, because the body is awarded by God according to your karma. Just like according to your payment, the landlord gives you an apartment. The apartment does not belong to you. That's a fact. If you pay $500 per week, you get very nice, good apartment. And if you pay $25, then you get another. Similarly, these different types of bodies we have got... Everyone we have got, different type. This is apartment. Actually, it is apartment because I am living within this body. I am not this body. That is the instruction of the Bhagavad-gita. Dehino 'smin yatha dehe (BG 2.13). Asmin dehe, there is the dehi, the occupier, not proprietor. Occupier. Just like in any apartment, the occupier is somebody and the owner is somebody. Similarly, this is apartment, this body. I am the spirit soul, occupier. I have rented it according to the payment or according to karma.