Prabhupada: I may tell you two things. The purpose is – that is experienced by every one of us – what is the purpose of life, what is the purpose, anything. That, everyone, we can understand very easily. The purpose is ananda. Pleasure. That is the purpose. There is no difficulty to understand what is the purpose. The purpose is pleasure-seeking. Or purpose is pleasure. One who hasn’t got the pleasure, he’s seeking after it. That is the purpose. Purpose is ananda. Anandamayo ‘bhyasat (Vedanta-sutra 1.1.12). That is the Vedanta-sutra. Everyone of us, seeking ananda. The scientific knowledge, philosophy, or even driving the car or whatever you are doing—the purpose is ananda. That is a common factor. Purpose is… Why I am eating palatable dishes? I can eat anything, but I am seeking that “This sort of foodstuff will please me.” That is ananda.
Guest: That is driving force and motivation of most human activities. But the question, purpose, which Leibnitz was asking for, he was asking on higher plane, in abstraction.
Prabhupada: Higher plane means you are seeking after pleasure, but that is being obstructed. That is your position. You are seeking pleasure, but it is not unobstructed. Therefore you are seeking higher, where there is no obstruction. Pleasure is the purpose, but when you speak of higher plane, that means you are experiencing obstruction in getting pleasure. So you are seeking a platform where there is no obstruction. But the purpose is the same.
Guest: Must it necessarily be so? That would be so, supposing that we human beings are at the center of existence, and our criteria should be applied, measuring everything which exists. Now, the question, “Why there is anything?” is asked on the more higher level, in the sense, trying to forget about this answer for anthropocentric thinking.
Prabhupada: No, thinking…
Guest: This question relates to everything what may exist, other beings, other intelligences.
Prabhupada: This is a fact, that intelligent or not intelligent, that doesn’t matter. Everyone is seeking pleasure, ananda. The Sanskrit word is ananda. So ananda… Suppose I am constructing a big house to live there, but before the construction is finished I am, by nature, I am taken away. I die. Just like Napoleon. That, in France, that Arc in Paris?
Devotee: Arc de Triumph.
Prabhupada: He could not finish. You see? There are so many things. We are thinking, “By finishing this, we shall be happy,” but that is sometimes hampered. So ananda is checked. So this is the position. So higher means where ananda is not checked. That is higher position. The purpose is ananda, but in this material world we are experiencing ananda being checked. Just like nobody wants to die. That’s a fact. Why you shall die? I already discussed that I know that I was a child, I was a boy, I was a young man, and now I have got this body, old man’s body. It is now going to finish. So I am little anxious. Now, whatever ananda I was drawing in my living condition, now it is going to be finished. But if we think properly that “I am eternal, so although the body will be finished, I’ll not be finished…” This is very natural, that “I was not finished. Because my childhood body was finished, so I was not finished. My boyhood body was not finished; I was not finished. My youthhood was finished, but I was not finished.” Similarly, the conclusion should be: “Even though this body will be finished, I’ll not be finished.” That is stated in the Bhagavad-gita, tatha dehantara praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13]. Dhira, one who is intelligent, he is not disturbed. Dhiras tatra na muhyati. So dhira, one who is dhira, sober, philosopher, he knows that “I am not going to be finished. I shall have to accept another body.” Now, whether that body will be ananda? That is the consideration. I’ll get another body, just like I have got this body, after changing so many bodies. Moment after moment, we are changing body. That is the medical science, changing of blood corpuscles. So this body will be changed again. Then I will have to enter the mother’s womb and packed up for at least ten months in suffocated condition. This is scientific, all. Then again I’ll come out when the body is prepared nicely to come out and exist. So that period of formation of body is not ananda. To remain compact in this way for ten months, it is not ananda. It is not ananda, just opposite ananda. Then when we die… Die, death, means the miserable condition is so great that we cannot live. We have to go out. There is no ananda. Then, when we have got this body, changing, there is no ananda because we are sometimes diseased, and to become old man, that is also not ananda. Therefore I am eternal. I am seeking after something which is eternal ananda. Therefore next consideration should be that “Whether this condition of repetition of birth, death, old age and disease can be changed?” That is next question. And if there is possibility, then we shall try for it. But there is possibility here. The conclusion is: so long we get this material body… Because matter is not eternal. Anything you take, material—earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence and false ego—these are all material things. So these material things, they are not eternal, none of them. This table is created; it is not eternal. It will be finished at a certain date, anything you take. But I am eternal. So if I transfer myself in another nature which is eternal, then my ananda will be eternal. That is the purpose of life.
(Room conversation, Mexico, February 13th 1975)
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