Why there are so many varieties?
Today's verse was one frequently quoted by Srila Prabhupada: 5.5.4 nunam pramattah kurute vikarma . . . Pradyumna read out the translation: "When a person considers sense gratification the aim of life, he certainly becomes mad after materialistic living and engages in all kinds of sinful activity. He does not know that due to his past misdeeds he has already received a body which, although temporary, is the cause of his misery. Actually the living entity should not have taken on a material body, but he has been awarded the material body for sense gratification. Therefore I think it not befitting an intelligent man to involve himself again in the activities of sense gratification, by which he perpetually gets material bodies one after another."
Explaining from various angles the frustration and futility of the pursuit of sense gratification, Prabhupada provided compelling examples from Indian life. All over India now there are large hoardings and signs placed by the government exhorting people to be more disciplined and to work harder. On morning walks, particularly in the cities, Prabhupada has frequently passed wry comments on the unfortunate lot of the Indian masses, especially those that have to labor very hard, pulling hand carts laden with huge loads just to scrape out a living, what to speak of increasing their material enjoyment.
"So the same thing is repeated in different way in different places," he said. "These rascals have become so mad, pramattah. Prakrishtha rupena mattah. Mattah means mad, intoxicated. Pra means prakrishtha, sufficiently mad. So these materialistic persons, you will see everywhere. They're running here and there. Especially in the Western countries, from the early morning, from five o'clock or still earlier, the whole street is full of motorcars. They are going to their work. Those who have gone to foreign countries, you have seen. In every big, big city of the Western countries they are always busy. They work. Now we are also imitating them. Our leaders are advertising, 'Work hard. Work hard. That you are pulling on rickshaw, that is not sufficient. Still you have to work hard. You are pulling on thela [hand cart]? That is not sufficient. You have to still [work harder].' 'What I can do more?' This is going on. This is material civilization. Mad. Nunam pramattah kurute vikarma. And what for they're doing? Yad indriya pritaya aprinoti. The aim is how to satisfy senses. Eat, drink, be merry, and enjoy. That's all. I get money, go to the restaurant, go to the liquor house, go to the prostitute house and nightclub, and so on, so on, so on. Because they have no other business. They do not know anything more than that. Indriya pritaya. A little sense gratification."
Stressing the limitations of the senses and the pointlessness of exerting one's entire energy to satisfying them, Prabhupada gave another vivid example from his own experience to illustrate that no matter what body one has, and no matter how it is relatively situated, the basis of material existence is the same.
"Anyone who has got this material body-material body means klesada, different degrees of klesada. Somebody is millionaire-but don't think that his body is not klesada. His body is also klesada, giving some pain. Nobody is free from klesa. There was a very big rich man in Calcutta. So he could not eat. His appetite-there was no appetite. So he's rich man. So he was given sufficient foodstuff, and simply show, he could not eat. But a big rich man. And one poor man was passing on the street, taking a fish and singing very jubilantly. So this gentleman saw. He said that 'I have become so rich man, but I have no appetite in spite of so many nice foodstuff before me. And that poor man is carrying one fish. He's thinking that he'll go and cook it and eat it very nicely. He is so jubilant. So if I would have become a poor man like him I could have enjoyed some food.' He was wishing that. Because real business is sense gratification. So in spite of his becoming so rich, he could not gratify his senses."
Because of our unlimited desires, Prabhupada said, Krishna supplies so many different types of bodies. "Why there are so many varieties? Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita [18.61] that isvarah sarva bhutanam hrid dese 'rjuna tishthati. Isvara, the Supreme Lord, Paramatma, is situated in everyone's heart. And we are always praying-even we do not pray, we are [wishing,] 'If I would have been like this, if I would have got this opportunity, then I would have eaten like this, I would have done like this.' This is going on continually. Continually. And it is God's business, thankless business, that He is noting down, 'All right, I will give you facility like this . . . This rascal wants like this,' and still He's so merciful, He asks maya, the material nature, 'Give him a body like this. He wants like this.' So therefore we have got varieties."
It is these varieties of desires that enmesh us in material existence, Prabhupada told us, and to free ourselves there is but one solution. "You have to stop these nonsense desires. That is wanted. Otherwise, you are implicated. You are implicated. So, therefore you can stop your desires only by becoming Krishna conscious. Otherwise, they will go on . . . Tribulations there must be. Material body means klesada. Therefore, the Vedic civilization is to stop getting this material body. That is Vedic civilization. Not that increase. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gita. Two things are there. You must accept; you must get the service of Krishna. Otherwise you go on in this way Mrityu samsara vartmani. If you don't get Krishna, then there is no other way. There is no other alternative . . . The only alternative is mrityu samsara vartmani [Bg. 9.3], you get one body and again you die, again get another body. This will go on. Therefore Rishabhadeva said, 'This is not good.' Na sadhu manye yata atmano 'yam asann api klesada asa dehah. So this culture, this education, is practically nil. Especially in Kali yuga, it is very regrettable. But the informations are there; the science is there. If one is intelligent, he can take advantage of this science, Krishna consciousness, and mold his life accordingly so that he can stop this process of accepting a body which is klesada. That is the perfection of life."
Reference: Transcendental Diary Volume 5 by Hari Sauri Dasa
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