Srila Prabhupada’s Letter to Dr. W. H. Wolf-Rottkay, June 18, 1975:
Biological evolution is taking place on account of the soul’s desire. It takes place because of infection. If a man has smallpox virus, then he is subjected to smallpox. It is not that everyone is infected and everyone is attacked with smallpox disease. Only the person who is infected, he is attacked.
In this connection, Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita, purusah prakrti-stho hi bhunkte prakrti-jan gunan karanam guna sango ’sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu [Gita 13.22]. Purusa means the living entity, or the soul. He is subjected to be infected by the modes of material nature. There are three modes of material nature: sattva-guna, raja-guna, tama-guna. And when they are mixed up, they become 3 x 3 = 9, and 9 x 9 = 81, and in each quality, there are millions of forms. Therefore the total number of forms is 8,400,000.
So, the diseases are there, and the forms of disease are also there. Material form means diseased form. Therefore, one has to change this form—death. And he carries with him the infection, and he develops another disease. In this way, the soul, although part and parcel of God, in diseased condition is forced to change body. That is transmigration of the soul from one body to another.
To be more clear, the disease is there. Just as the smallpox disease is there. One has to become diseased, being infected. Similarly, the forms of the body are there. One has been infected by the form and it develops. Karanam guna sango ’sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu. Because he is infected by different diseased forms, therefore he is developing different forms of body. There is no such case of smallpox changing into malaria. Smallpox is smallpox, and malaria is malaria. By the desire of the living entity, he becomes infected with a certain disease or body. Krishna consciousness is the vaccine for all the diseases (different forms of material bodies).
Krishna says,
mam ca yo ’vyabhicarena bhakti-yogena sevate
sa gunan samatityaitan brahma-bhuyaya kalpate
[Gita 14.26]
Brahma-bhuyaya is the immune stage, or Krishna Conscious stage, when one is always fixed in Krishna. When one reaches this perfectional stage he no longer has to accept these different types of diseases, or bodies.
I hope this meets you in good health.
Your ever well-wisher,
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
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