This is very important question, that... We are working very hard in this material world, but we are not preparing ourself for death, which is a "must" fact. Everyone must die. The modern civilization, they are afraid of death, but they do not know how to counteract death. This is the modern civilization. But there is process. In the Bhagavad-gita Krsna informs us that our real problem of life is death -- birth, death, old age and disease. Birth is the beginning and then, one who has taken birth, he must die. Yavat, yavaj jananam tavan maranam. But if one does not take birth, then he does not die. This is the actual problem. Why we have to take birth? People do not know even that there is again life after death. And Bhagavad-gita's first instruction is tatha dehantara-praptih.
dehino 'smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptih...
[Bg. 2.13]
As we are changing our body in this life from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youthhood, then old man, then we give up this body, Krsna says that similarly, as I was a child, now I have got a different body, similarly, when I give up this body, I'll get another body. Tatha dehantara-praptih.
The people do not even know that there is dehantara-praptih, again we have to accept another body. They do not care for it. And there are so many varieties of body. Just like if we are sitting here, so many ladies and gentlemen, each one of us has got a different type of body. Nobody's body is similar exactly to the other body. This is a fact. We can see. So why we have got different types of body? That we do not try to understand. Not only human body, but there are other bodies also. Jalaja nava-laksani sthavara laksa-vimsati. We have got bodies in the water, we have got bodies on the land, the tree life, the plant life, the insect life, the birds' life, the beast life, the human form of life... Amongst the human beings there are different varieties -- some American, some Indians, some others. So why they are different bodies? What is that science? Why there are different types of bodies?
The different type of body is due to our different karma and different mentality.
By H.D.G. Srila Prabhupada
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