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Question: This morning you said, when you asked me how I feel and how my body feels? It is two different ways. You said, I feel thankful for Srila Prabhupada, I am always thankful for Srila Prabhupada. But then when I said, how are you? When I asked about your body, you said, don’t ask! So it is a very powerful thing to do that differentiation. How do you do it? How do you strengthen the differentiation? How do you continuously gain power from your spiritual body?

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Jayapataka Swami: Living in the holy dham, it is not difficult. In India, in Bengal especially, the language is such, people they say, tomar sorir kemon ace? How is your body? That is the normal greeting! Here they say, how are you?  You meaning, they think of the body. When I was a child I would pray, when they would lay me down to sleep, I would pray, oh Lord my soul do keep. I thought I have a body; I am a soul. But we have the soul, we have the body. So if I haven’t realized that after 52 years, being a devotee, then I have something wrong! So we should understand we are not the body. We have a body, we have to take care of the body, give that to Krsna, and the body has certain amount of inbuilt pleasure and pain. Some things like eating good food, maybe procreation, some things have some pleasure, but then there may be indigestion, or sicknesses, so the body is a source of suffering. Krsna has described this world as dukalayam asasvatam. A place of misery and temporariness. Once He told Radharani, this world is a world of death. So we want to die to live. Living we want to spread the holy name. Srila Prabhupada said that Srila Bhaktisiddanta Thakur Prabhupada said,’prāṇa āche yāra sei hetu pracāra.’ Those who have spiritual life, they preach! So we are still alive, we should preach. And Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur he was saying that grihastas, they can touch each other, they can talk with each other, that is alright. But they should also see that their sadhana bhakti or preaching increases. So that is the difference between devotees and ordinary animals, or people who are living like animals. So we want to serve the Lord, and we understand we are not the body, but the body is alive because of our presence as the spirit soul. We leave the body; the body is dead. We enter the body, the body is alive. Not very difficult to understand the difference between a dead body and a living body. The presence of the soul – even a little child can understand. But we are not in the habit of thinking like that. We have to change the way we think. So Srila Prabhupada said, his mission was to change the way that people thought. So we want people to think that they are not the body, that they are the spirit soul, and because of the presence of spirit, the body is alive. When they leave the body, the body is no longer alive. The body is depending on the superior jiva sakti. Hare Krsna!
14-NOVEMBER-2019 ATLANTA, USA