When a pauper and a millionaire both have human bodies, how is their happiness different and destined by their bodies?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
When Prabhupada says that pleasure is designed according to the body, and a cobbler and a millionaire have different kinds of bodies. So they will enjoy. They can’t enjoy the same kind of happiness.
What does it mean? Both cobbler and millionaire have the same kind of body, a human body. Isn’t it? Yes. Here the point is not just the specie of the body.
The point here is that If we consider verses like this, which Prabhupada often quotes, the point is that when the soul comes in contact with a particular body, that body brings the soul into a particular situation. And that situation is not determined by the person. So when Prabhupada is using the word body, he is using the word body inclusively to refer to the body and the situation associated with the body.
So for example, Prabhupada sometimes says in classes that, to his disciples, you are born in American bodies. And you have material pleasures and comforts far more than somebody who is born in an Indian body or say somebody who is born in an African body. So the point here is that now physically African and American bodies are similar.
But African countries are relatively underdeveloped. So comforts and even the necessities of life may not be as easily available. And that’s why having an African body means that associated pleasure is likely to be lesser than the pleasure that is with an American body.
Now, of course, somebody can be an American pomper and somebody can be an African millionaire. Those are exceptions. But the general understanding is that the first world is prosperous and the world is not prosperous.
Similarly, when we are in a dog body, somebody can be, a soul can be born as a sweet dog who is kicked by and driven away by people. A soul might be born as a pet dog of a millionaire who drives in cars with the millionaire. So even within, the te hai okey na te hi naam, it means that by past karma, which comes by destiny, the soul gets a particular material situation.
So body refers to, there is an inclusive reference to the body, material situation. And because the millionaire is born in a millionaire’s family, that means the material situation is much more comfortable than that in a commoner’s body. So in that sense, the starting point is very difficult.
And of course, this life’s endeavors can also make a millionaire into a pomper and a pomper will become a millionaire. So destiny doesn’t determine everything, but destiny does determine our situations. And overall, the starting, the kind, so if we take another example, if you consider the body to a vehicle, a car, then destiny determines the kind of car we will get.
Somebody might get a very high speed, very comfortable sports car, and somebody else might get an ordinary sedan which can’t move at all fast and not be that comfortable also. But now, depending on how somebody drives that car, the person who is driving the expensive sports car might meet with a car crash, and the other person driving an ordinary car might reach the destination safely. So there is the factor of what we do in our present life also affecting, but it’s not going to change the car itself.
So the pleasure of, say, driving a booming fast in a fast car, cannot be had by someone who is having an ordinary car. So in that sense, by the contact of the body, or the connection with a particular body that is established by one’s past karma, determines, to a significant level, the kind of pleasure that we will get. And in that sense, the millionaires and the paupers’ situations are determined by destiny.
And certain kinds of happiness are accordingly determined by destiny. Thank you.