life force, the soul. Forms change, but the person (soul) residing there is permanent, because it is eternal. Identifying with her body, she believes she is changing. The human form is especially intended for the unfolding of the consciousness of God, the consciousness of Krishna, for this divine consciousness will enable us to regain our eternal body of bliss and knowledge. The purpose of the consciousness of God is to give us a body of the same nature as that of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, Himself. Krishna consciousness is the art of spiritualizing material activity, of increasing the degree of spiritual realization of the one who achieves it, of knowing the universality of God and the relation which unites us to Him.
Our next body depends on the three attributes and modes of influence of material nature; virtue, passion, ignorance, which will predominate in us at the time of death. Those who die influenced by ignorance will obtain bodies of animals or even lower species. Those who die of passion will obtain human form on an earth-like planet. And those who die under the aegis of virtue will be promoted to the higher planetary systems, Edenic, paradisiacal, and will acquire the body of a celestial being (beings more evolved than man). But all these bodies are material, and therefore temporary, ephemeral.
Only one who is fortunate enough to die thinking of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person can obtain an eternal body like that of the Lord. He will join the Supreme Lord, Krishna, in his eternal abode, and will never return to the material universe again.
The Supreme Lord says:
In My personal form, always absorb your thoughts, without failing. Dedicating your acts to Me, turning your mind and intelligence towards Me, without a doubt you will come to Me.
He who, at the moment of leaving the body, thinks of Me, God, the Supreme Person, that one will undoubtedly reach the spiritual planets.
Logos 366
There are two places from which, if one enters, one no longer leaves.
Krishna who is God, the Person Supreme, encourages us in these terms:
When they have reached Me, the transcendentalists imbued with devotion, these noble souls, having thus risen to the highest perfection, never again return to this transient world (the material universe) where suffering reigns.