Your third question is: does the soul ever become weak or strong on account of its association and contact with material nature? It is not the spirit soul that becomes weak or strong but it is his determination to become Krsna Conscious that he become weak or strong. By the influence of the modes of passion and ignorance he becomes weak and by the influence of the mode of goodness he becomes strong. But by the association with the pure devotee he becomes strongest.
Question: Does the soul reincarnate?
Prabhupāda: Yes, the soul does not manipulate. It simply... Just like you had your childhood body, boyhood body. Now you have got a body of young man, youthhood body. And again you will get an old man's body, just like I have got. So these bodies are changing. Here everyone can remember that "I had a small body," but that body is not existing anymore. But I know that I possessed such body. Similarly, when this body will be finished, you will accept another body. You may forget it. Death means forgetting. But the body changing of body is going on perpetually, and spiritual life means how to stop this change of body and remain in the spiritual body. That is blissful and full of knowledge.
(Lecture on Bhagavad-Gita------Rome, 1975).
Hṛdayānanda: (translating) Does the soul suffer with the mind, or he's always enjoying?
Prabhupāda: Yes, he creates. He's thinking in his own way; therefore he's creating a situation which will be botheration for him.
(Lecture on Bhagavad-Gita------Mexico, 1975).
Replies