(Click to enlarge photo of the Ramesseum temple, Luxor, Egypt)
"So many empires were destroyed. The British empire destroyed, the Roman empire destroyed, the Egyptian empire destroyed, the, I mean to say, the Indian empire... Formerly..., just like Parīkṣit Mahārāja. He was the emperor of the world. So these things, paśyann api na paśyati, they see that 'They cannot give me protection. When I shall be called for death...' Just like Parīkṣit Mahārāja is preparing. 'At that time, all these, my soldiers, my bank balance, my good wife, my good children, my good countrymen— no. Nobody can give me any protection.' Just like when you have to fly in the sky, you have to protect yourself. No other can... Take it for the birds or for the airplanes. If you are being crushed in the airplane, no other airplane can protect you. You'll have to come down from the sky. Similarly, when death will come, none of you will be able to give me protection. Either my good state or good family or good bank balance or good this, that. No. That's all, finished. You see?"
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Boston, December 22, 1969)
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