(Prabhupada's lecture - Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.1.1 - Vrindavan, March 16, 1974)
So we should be very much careful of our next birth. Because... Yaṁ yaṁ vāpismaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram [Bg. 8.6]. This is the verdict of Kṛṣṇa. At the time of death, whatever thought is there, you get next birth a similar body. The mind, mind creates the body, gross body. As we have got this gross body, so within this gross body there is the subtle body: mind, intelligence and ego. These rascals, they do not know that when the gross body is annihilated, it does not mean that the soul is finished. No. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre [Bg. 2.20]. This is the verdict. Don't think because the gross body is now finished, therefore the person is finished. No. The person is there within the subtle body. And the subtle body will carry him. Just like the fragrance is carried by the air. You cannot see what is this fragrance, but you can smell. A very good smell, wherefrom it came? That is subtle carrying. Similarly, the soul is carried after annihilation of this body, gross body, material... Mind, intelligence, ego—that is also material, but subtle. You cannot see. Everyone knows that I have got mind. I have got soul, but you cannot see. Neither I can see. But there is. But one who does not know what is soul, what is subtle body, they become perplexed. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, dhīras tatra na muhyati. Dhīra, those who are sober, one who knows how things are going on, dhīras tatra na muhyati.
dehino 'smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
[Bg. 2.13]
So one has to become dhīra. These, nowadays, the modern civilization is a rascaldom. Everyone is adhīra. He does not know... In the Western countries, big, big, professors, they do not know how the soul is existing, how the transmigration of the soul is taking place, how the body is changed, what is the purpose of life, what is the perfection of... Nothing they... Simply like cats and dogs. Work very hard like an ass and enjoy like cats and dogs, āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ casāmānyam etat paśubhir narāṇām. This life is most degraded life, that at the present moment we see that people are suffering because they have simply become animals, all over the world. Simply taking care of this body. But here Parīkṣit Mahārāja, now he knows that "Taking part of the body is now finished; I have to take care of the soul." Therefore he wanted to ask from Śukadeva Gosvāmī, "Now what I have to do? Shall I fully think of Kṛṣṇa?" Because he was a Kṛṣṇa devotee. Naturally, he was thinking of Kṛṣṇa. Satataṁ kīrtayanto māṁyatantaś ca dṛḍha-vratāḥ [Bg. 9.14]. A devotee, he always thinks of Kṛṣṇa. That is devotee.