Prabhupada 0755 - Sea-sufferer
Lecture on SB 6.1.7 -- Honolulu, May 8, 1976
Prabhupāda: You have read Bhagavad-gītā. Sarva-yoniṣu: in all sources of birth. Sarva-yoniṣu sambhavanti mūrtayo yaḥ (BG 14.4). There are different forms of life, 8,400,000. They are all living entities, but according to karma, they have got different bodies. This is the difference. Just like we have got different dresses according to my choice, similarly, we get different bodies according to my choice. This morning we were talking about the sufferers... What is called? The sea sufferers?
Devotees: Surfers.
Prabhupāda: Surfer, yes. (devotees laugh) Surfer. I call "sufferer." "Sea-sufferer." (laughter) Sea-surfer, it is practical, because we are creating a situation by which we shall become a fish. (laughter) Yes. Contamination. Just like if you purposely contaminate some disease, you must suffer from that disease. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22), in the Bhagavad-gītā. Why there are different varieties of life? What is the reason? That reason means kāraṇam. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad..., kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad janma-yoniṣu. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni (BG 3.27). prakṛti-stho 'pi puruṣaḥ bhuñjante tad-guṇān (BG 13.22). So the reason is as we are infecting. The nature's law is so perfect that if you infect something, some disease, some contamination, then you must suffer. This is nature's law automatically going on. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya.
So there are three modes of material nature—goodness, passion and ignorance. So long we are in this material world, puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho 'pi bhuñjante tad-guṇān. If we remain in certain place, we must be affected by the modes of that place. So there are three modes: sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa... We have to associate either with the modes of goodness or with the modes of passion or with the modes of passion..., er, ignorance. Now, three into three, it becomes nine, and nine into nine, it becomes eighty-one. So mixture. Just like color. There are three colors: blue, red and yellow. Now, those who are expert in manufacturing color, artists, they mix these three colors in different way and they display. Similarly, according to the guṇas or mixture, association—kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya—we get different types of bodies. Therefore we see so many varieties of bodies. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). So the person who is taking very much pleasure, dancing in the sea like fish, so he is contaminating that modes of nature so that in next life he will become a fish. He'll be very free to dance with the ocean. (laughter) Now it will take again millions of years to come to the stage of human being. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. He has to pass through the fish life. There are 900,000 different species of life. Then you again come to the land—you become trees, plants and so on. Two millions different forms you have to go through. That is evolution. Darwin's theory of evolution, that is not perfectly explained. It is explained in the Vedic literature. So just a tree is standing for ten thousands of years, we had to pass through this life. But there is no perfect knowledge. We are thinking that we are now very nice American body or Indian body. No. It took so many years to come to this life. Therefore śāstra says, labdhvā sudurlābhaṁ idaṁ bahu-sambhavānte (SB 11.9.29): "You have got this human form of life after many, many millions of years' waiting." So do not misuse it. That is Vedic civilization, not to misuse the human form of life.