From Bhurijana Prabhu...

Hare Krsna.

What deeds enacted in previous lives cause one to inhabit a butterfly body alighting upon a blossoming mustard plant in Vraja, near Govardhana Hill? Where will this soul go after his butterfly body returns toVraja's dust?

I cannot say, but one purport and one lecture of Srila Prabhupada's indicate two deep lessons we can learn from a butterfly.

From a purport to the Bhagavad-gita: "One example often given is that of the caterpillar that thinks of becoming a butterfly and so is transformed into a butterfly in the same life. Similarly, if we constantly think of Krsna, it is certain that at the end of our lives we shall have the same bodily constitution as Krsna." (Purport to Bg 8.8)

You see a butterfly, how it is nicely painted.You just see duplicate in both the wings. Just like an artist paint nicely, it is painted. So we think it is coming out of nothing. This is our foolishness.

Here is, that it is coming out of the jnana-sakti. But His jnana is so wide that simply by His desire, simply by His will, it can be executed.

These are the things to be studied. Because we cannot see something before our eyes, that does not mean there is no existence.

There is existence, but we do not know how one is working, how one is working.

(From a lecture by Srila Prabhupada, New York, December 16, 1966)