A lecture excerpt explaining the spiritual importance of attaining human life, distinguishing human from animal consciousness, and arguing that sense-control (indriya-samjaya) is the essential practice to realize the self and relationship with the Supreme. The speaker contrasts worldly uses of discipline (e.g., science, technology, demonic tapasya) with Brahminical/Vaishnava sense control aimed at spiritual liberation.
This living entity is expressing his realization while present in the womb of the mother in the form of a 10 month old embryo. As a fully developed embryo, he is realizing the benefits of having achieved the human form because he has awakened to consciousness. So he's offering prayers with folded hands. Therefore he's saying, I offer my respectful obeisances to the Lord. The difference between animal body and human body is very clearly explained here. That animal sees by instinct. They're already programmed or organized by nature to see things in a particular way. They don't have the intelligence to see things objectively. They see things according to what is agreeable or disagreeable to the sense perception of that animal. Just like a pig will like to eat stool that is agreeable to that animal. You cannot communicate with the pig and convince the pig that something else is better. Human being can by habit develop certain association with modes of ignorance, passion or goodness. But you can convince someone to change their habit, the human form of life. That is why human being is considered to have higher intelligence. You can't convince an animal by training. Sometimes animals are given a particular kind of food and they get used to it. But their natural inclination is in a particular direction. Although human beings body is made for being a vegetarian, by habit many have become meat eaters. And for this reason there are so many more diseases than needed in human society. So this devotee or this person in the womb of the mother is very happy to see that they have human form of life. Because with human form of life one can realize Ka, one can realize the self and one can get out of the cycle of birth and death. If we control the senses, the whole key is sense control. Samjam or control of the senses. The indriya is the system to go to higher levels. In previous ages, even the demons would do great tapasyas in order to get more power. They had an understanding about atma. Unfortunately, by their tapasyas they could not understand the position of the supreme personality of Gatun. Ramana was famous for doing great tapasyas. His tapa bhumis are situated in different parts also. Hiranya Kashipu did a great tapasya. Many demons also do tapasya. But they do that temporarily to get more material power to then again enjoy the sense gratification. So they miss the whole point of the real purpose of human life. Brahminical culture means Vaishnava culture means to understand our relationship with the supreme Lord, to control the senses for that higher purpose. In modern civilization, sense control is also expected of people but the tendency is more in a demonic direction. Scientists have to exert lot of sense control to do their research. They have to control their senses, their mind. There are many modern fields of technology and science where a lot of sense control is required. Not a slight mistake, for instance, in this spatial launches seems to throw the whole thing off quite a bit. But if all the sense control is utilized to enhance sense gratification, Prabhupada gave the example that the vulture is flying high in the sky, but the vulture is looking down on the ground. Where is the dead corpse, the dead body, to eat the dead flesh? So although the ability is there to fly high, the consciousness is always down on the ground. So that type of sense control, which does not lead us to a higher understanding of life, was compared to that of the vultures. It's not really beneficial to the human society's ultimate sreas, ultimate welfare.
