Prabhupada, Gorakhpur, February 16, 1971: ..Just like we have no janma, we have no appearance. It is simply change of dress. It is not death. As it is explained in the Bhagavad-gita that vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya [Bg. 2.22]—if I change my dress, that is not my death. This is easily understood.
Similarly, transmigration of the soul from one body to another, that is not death. But because we have no eyes to see the soul, how it is changing from one body… Just like we cannot see how the baby is coming to another body, childhood, boyhood. We cannot see. We see that the body is changing. No. He’s changing from one body to another. That is the version of the Bhagavad-gita. But we say that body’s growing.
Why body’s growing? If the body has got any growing power, then why the body of a dead child does not grow? The body has no growing power. It is actually changed. But because… Just like in the spool of your film, there are many pictures. But because you see under certain condition, you see one picture.
It is very easy to understand. Actually, the pictures are changing, different pictures, and we are seeing one picture. We are seeing the picture is moving in one picture. Similarly, this body is continuously, every moment, there is different body, different body, different body, every moment, but we are seeing one body. This is our ignorance. But we are changing body.
Every moment we are changing body. The spool is going on. The exact example is that, like that, the film. Every second, changing one picture, one picture, one picture, one picture. And it appears that it is only one picture. One who does not know how the machine, cinematographic machine is working—the foolish persons—they say, they think that the picture is one and it is moving. No. It is changing. Similarly, the body is also changing.
The exact example is changing of dress. Vasamsi jirnani. That is the exact word used in the Bhagavad-gita. So even for an ordinary living being, we cannot see how the body is changing, how the living entity is changing from body to another. It is so swiftly, every moment, every second, it is taking place. How you can see? So there is no death; it is simply changing.
So if for ordinary living entity there is no death, how Krishna can be appearing and dying? No. Therefore, janma karma me divyam yo janati tattvatah. One who knows in truth how Krishna is appearing, how Krishna is disappearing, he is learned. He is learned in the spiritual science, and for him, as soon as he becomes learned, well- versed in the spiritual science, Krishna science, he immediately becomes liberated.
Caitanya Mahaprabhu confirms, yei Krishna- tattva-vetta sei guru haya [Cc. Madhya 8.128]. Because one who has understood Krishna in truth, he is liberated person. Therefore he is guru. Guru cannot be a conditioned soul. Guru must be liberated. Because without complete knowledge of Krishna, without being free from the contamination of the three modes of material nature… One cannot understand Krishna on account of his being engrossed with these three material modes of nature.
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