Devotee (2): What about on the hellish planets? Do they know they're suffering there?
Prabhupāda: Just like to an animal, whipping is nothing. And for a man, to show the whip is sufficient. So there are different degrees of consciousness. Even a child, he'll be afraid by seeing the whip, and the animal, actually being whipped, doesn't care. That is the difference.
Gurukṛpā: So either they take the śāstra or the śastra.
Prabhupāda: There is no question of śāstra; it is śastra only. When there is no śāstra there must be śastra. Argumentum baculum. When there is no logic, give him whip. That's all. So all these, they are awaiting whipping. They are being whipped. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27).
Devotee (2): How can we make them understand they're suffering, then?
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (2): How can we make them understand they're being punished?
Prabhupāda: You can understand, provided you have got the sense. If you are nonsense, you cannot understand. You cannot understand means you are nonsense. That is the difference between sense and nonsense. That I have already given, the example: the same whip, to the animal it is no suffering, but for a man, simply by seeing it is suffering. It is the question of sense. That is the difference between man and animal. The animal cannot understand that he is suffering. Man can understand. That is difference. If you do not understand, then you are animal. Now, here it is clearly said, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). This is unhappiness. And if you think, "Oh, what is there, unhappiness, in dying?" then you are animal. The animal are taken to the slaughterhouse. He is not disturbed. He is eating grass very peacefully. That is the animal life. If you do not understand what is unhappiness, then you are animal; you are not human being. But his unhappiness, that's a fact, to remain in a airtight bag for ten months. If you have no sense, "Oh, what is this?" and still being killed, is it not unhappiness? And if you say, "Where is unhappiness?" then you are a stone. The Bhagavad-gītā says, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9). Janma is unhappiness. First of all you have to remain ten months in a packed-up bag, and that also risk your mother will kill you. And still you say, "It is not unhappiness"? Then what is happiness? You are so dull that you see there is no unhappiness in birth. Practically see.