(Do you want the body of a fish?)
Prabhupada: According to karma, there are different species of forms of life, but they have got all facilities to live. That is God's creation. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). The direction is there, that this living entity wanted a body to swim in the sea very jubilantly, so now he has got the body of a fish. So let him live very peacefully. That is God's mercy. You take very much pleasure with that surf... What is called, in the sea?
Devotee: Surfboard.
Prabhupada: Surfboard? Yes. (laughter) So if you increase your engage..., "How I shall be swimming and enjoy this sport whole day and night?" then, then Kṛṣṇa will give you the body of a fish. (laughter) Yes. He is very kind. And you will very nicely live in the sea, always swimming without any difficulty. Every life. As you increase your propensity for a certain type of activities, nature is ready immediately: "Take this body. Why you are anxious? Take this body." Similarly, if you become anxious to have a body like Kṛṣṇa, that is also ready. Now it is your choice. If you like, you take the body of a fish, or if you like, you take the body of sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1), eternal, blissful knowledge.
So we are trying to give that body—not a fish body, cat's body, dog's body. That we have experienced, past life. We have got this life now to make discretion, to make choice, what kind of body we are going to get next. That is intelligence. That is intelligence. Not that to give away with the waves of this time. Māyār bośe jāccho bhese' khāccho hābuḍubu bhāi. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura therefore sings that "Don't be carried away by the waves of māyā. Now you have got intelligence. You try to understand that you are eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa and do the needful. Then get out of this māyā's webs."
This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, giving the right information, that "If you do not want to be carried away by the waves of this māyā, material nature, then take to this consciousness so that at the time of your death you will change this body to Kṛṣṇa planet, Kṛṣṇa..., Goloka Vṛndāvana." Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). Kṛṣṇa says.
Kṛṣṇa is not making lying propaganda. He has no business. He is giving you information, that if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, janma karma me divyam, always thinking of Kṛṣṇa—how He is acting, why He has come, why He has appeared, why He has given us the Bhagavad-gītā, what lessons He is giving—in this way, if you simply try to understand Kṛṣṇa, janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tat..., in truth, not whimsically, not sentimentally; with sound philosophy, knowledge, argument, you try to understand Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then you get tyaktvā deham... Then after giving up this body, undoubtedly you go back to Kṛṣṇa, go back to home, back to Godhead. This is the proposition, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Los Angeles, September 20, 1972)
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