So what kind of body I shall accept, that is stated in the sastras. Urdhvam gacchanti sattva-sthah. Read Bhagavad-gita. These things are there. Those who are in the modes of goodness... Goodness means avoiding these four principles of sinful life. Even if you do not become a pure devotee of the Lord, if you follow the principles, the regulative principles, then you remain in goodness. And if you remain in goodness, then your next life is in the higher planetary systems, even not going back to home, back to... You'll get that opportunity. So everything is there. We have to utilize our intelligence. Then... This life is meant for that. But if we waste our life, misuse this opportunity of human life just to live like the cats and dogs, ahara-nidra, eating, sleeping, mating and defending, then we are spoiling.

[Srila Prabhupada from a Srimad-Bhagavatam Lecture, 1.8.41,Los Angeles, May 3, 1973]

Note: So if we look at the first quote in THE DEVOTEES OF LORD JESUS CHRIST and compare it to this quote we can conclude that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another. This is an axiomatic truth.

 

Religious platform means in goodness. Then you can understand. On the platform of goodness, you can understand the All-good. If you are in ignorance platform, if you are in the passionate platform, how you can understand the All-good? That is not possible. So one has to keep himself in goodness, and that goodness means one should follow the prohibitions. Either you follow the Ten Commandments or these four commandments, the same thing. That means you have to keep yourself in goodness. The balance must be in goodness. In the Bhagavad-gita it is stated, param brahma param dhama pavitram paramam bhavan. Arjuna accepted Krsna as the supermost pure. How you can approach the supermost pure without becoming yourself pure? So this is the steppingstone to become pure, because we are contaminated.

[Srila Prabhupada from a Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.8, Seattle, October 21, 1968]