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We have to stand.
Prabhupada, New York, April 19, 1966: There is another very good example. Of course, that is not in your experience, but it is in our India we have got experience that on the riverside the boatman drags the boat with a rope. Have you got any experience like that here, in America? I don’t think you have got. The boat is in the middle of the river, and there is a big log in the middle of the boat, and that log is tied with a rope, and that rope is, I mean to say, snatched by the boatman, and the boat goes in the middle of the river. Now, while passing on the bank of the river, there are so many things which pains his, I mean to say, sole.
So he is thinking that “When I shall be very rich man, then I shall cover this bank of the river with, I mean to say, soft pillows so that when I shall go by the pillows, dragging this boat, I shall have no pain.” Now, our position is like that, that the foolish boatman, thinking that “When I shall be very rich man, still I shall be pulling on this business.
He does not know that “If I at all become rich man, then where is the necessity of my pulling this boat in this way?” So similarly, we want to be happy in the same way, that “When I shall be able to cover the whole world with cushions and soft pillows to travel over it, then I shall have no pain of working like this.” You see? This is our plan.
So this plan has to be rejected. The Lord says that “Your plan, so many plans, foolish plans, you should reject.” Prajahati. Now, He says… What… Arjuna inquired that “What is the sign of a person who has already dovetailed his consciousness with the supreme consciousness, sthita-prajnah. Sthita-prajnah means steady, steady in consciousness.
So what are the signs? Now, those signs are being explained by the Lord like this. Now, prajahati yada kaman sarvan partha mano-gatan. Now, we plan like that boatman. For our happiness, we make multi-plans, that “I shall do this. Then I shall be happy. If I shall have it, then I shall be happy.”
In this way. But all… We do not know that “I am pure consciousness. Any amount of my plan on this bodily conception of life, I’ll never be happy.” He does know it. He does not know it. He simply makes plans. You see? Because the platform on which you are standing, that platform itself is tottering, is tottering. You cannot make it stop tottering. This, this body…
We have already discussed that all the miseries of our life, it is due to this body. Matra-sparsas tu kaunteya sitosna-sukha- duhkha-dah. Matra-sparsas tu. All the distress and happiness that we feel in this material world, that is due to the skin, this body. Otherwise, the things as they are, they are neither miserable nor source of happiness. The example is given: just like water. Water now, in this season, the summer season, you will find very pleasant.
The same water, in the winter season, it becomes pinching. So water as it is—neither pinching nor the source of pleasure. But it is due to this body—under certain circumstances, it feels pleasure, and under certain circumstances, it feels distress.
So pleasure and distress, these dual forms of our existence, is going on. Now, if we want to transcend above this material plane, then our, we’ll have to completely reject the bodily conception of life. We have to stand on the spiritual consciousness of life. That is being taught.