Prabhupada 0556 - First Understanding of Self-realization, that Soul is Eternal
Lecture on BG 2.62-72 -- Los Angeles, December 19, 1968
Prabhupāda: The materialistic person they cannot understand what is the future. They are thinking this body is everything. "We have got this body, and when it is finished, it is finished for all." These questions we have already discussed. But actually it is not. This is the first understanding of self-realization, that soul is eternal, it is not annihilated even after the annihilation of this body. This is the beginning of self-realization. So these people they do not understand it. They don't care for it. That is their sleeping. That is their miserable condition. Go on.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "He goes on with his self-realization activity undisturbed by material reactions." 70: "A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still, can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires."
Prabhupāda: Now, here is the... A materialistic person, he has his desires. Suppose he is doing some business, he is getting money. So he fulfills his desire in materialistic way. But a Kṛṣṇa conscious person, suppose he is doing in the same way, he is also planning or doing something after (for?) Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So these two different spheres of activities are not on the same level. Go on.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 71: "A person who has given up all desires for sense gratification, who lives free from desires, who has given up all sense of proprietorship and is devoid of false ego, he alone can attain real peace."
Prabhupāda: Yes. So the person who has given up all desire for sense gratification. We haven't got to kill our desire. How you can kill? Desire is constant companion of a living entity. That is the living symptom. Because I am living entity, you are living entity, you have got desire, I have got desire. Not this table. The table has no life; therefore it has no desire. The table cannot say that "I am standing here for so many months. Please move me to another place." No. Because it has no desire. But if I am sitting here for three hours, oh, I'll say, "Oh, I got tired. Please remove me from... Please get me another place." So desire must be there because we are living. We have to change the engagement of desires. If we engage our desires for sense gratification, that is material. But if we engage our desires for acting on behalf of Kṛṣṇa, that is our, we're free from all desires. This is the criterion.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 72: "That is the way of the spiritual and godly life, after attaining which a man is not bewildered. Being so situated, even at the hour of death, one can enter into the kingdom of God." Purport: "One can attain Kṛṣṇa consciousness or divine life at once, within a second, or one may not attain such a state of life even after millions of births."
Prabhupāda: Several times there were questions that "How long it will take to become Kṛṣṇa conscious?" I have also answered, that in a second it can be done. The same thing is being explained. Go on.