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[Posted May 9, 2007]
Whose Nature is it, after all?
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami |
Ideal
Foreign Policy Foreign to our Leaders
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Advancement of Civilization Hansadutta das Just imagine if America were to change the foreign policy from exploiting to just distributing: "Yes, come on, take it." But they won't do that. They think, "Why should we do that? No one else does it." Everyone is waiting for the other person to do that. Krishna is doing it. Krishna is giving to everyone, and everyone is taking and then selling to one another. Why not continue the same gesture? "Krishna gave me this; you take some." You follow? Krishna is giving to the animals, to the insects, to all living creatures who are living at the expense of God. Only the human being is hording and trying to make profit on the gifts of God. Animals don't do that. If I find an animal, he'll eat, and when he is finished, he'll walk away. He won't take it home and put it in his refrigerator. It's a fact. Animals don't horde. They eat, and when they are finished they go away. Even the lion. When he is hungry he kills an animal and eats. When his hunger is satisfied, he drinks in the same water hole with the other animals. He won't bother them. He takes just what he needs. Only a human being is hording nad killing everything, aborting his children, all in the name of science, technology, education, politics, music and art. He has got the most perverted life style. Half of his kind are starving. They are pitted against one another like cats and dogs over some trivial matter, ready to destroy everything. Where is sanity? Where is hope? Where is knowledge? Where is civilization and advancement? Is that advancement? Why can't man be happy with what God has given him? What is the necessity for economic development, technological advancement, political emancipation—what is all this? more |
Disciple: Srila Prabhupada, once you said,
"The tractor—this is the cause of all the trouble. It took all the
young men's farm work. It forced them to go into the city and become
entangled in sensuality." You said people had to leave the country and
the simple life of goodness and God consciousness. And so they went to
the city and got caught up in the anxious life, the mode of passion.
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. In the
city people must naturally fall into the mode of passion: constant
anxiety due to needless lusting and striving. In the city we are
surrounded by all sorts of artificial things for agitating our mind and
senses. And naturally, when we have this facility we become lusty. We
take to this passionate mode and become filled with anxiety.
Disciple: The country is more
peaceful. It's easier to think of spiritual life.
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. There
is less disease. Everything is less brain-taxing. In the country the
pangs of this material world are less. So you can arrange your life for
real profit. Spiritual profit. Realize God; become Krishna conscious.
And if you have got a temple in your home or near your home, you have a
very happy life. You work just a little—just for your food—in the
spring a month and a half or so for planting, in the fall a month and a
half for harvesting. And in your remaining time you become culturally
enriched. You engage all your talents and energies for realizing God.
Krishna consciousness. This is ideal life.
You see the minute fibers on this flower? No other manufacturing
process in this world can do this—such small fibers. And how brilliant
is the color! If you study only one flower, you will become God
conscious.
There is a mechanism that we call "nature." And from it is coming
everything we see around us. Now, how is it that this mechanism is so
perfect? And who is it that has devised this mechanism?
Disciple: Once in London you
said, "People do not know that flowers are painted. Krishna paints them
with thoughts."
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Most
people think that by itself, unconnected with a painter, this flower
has become beautiful. This is foolishness. "Nature has done it." Whose
nature? Everything is being done by the natural mechanism of Krishna. Parasya
shaktir vividhaiva shruyate: [Chaitanya-charitamrita
Madhya 13.65, purport] the Lord is orchestrating everything by His
innumerable, inconceivable energies.
Anyway, learn to love this natural mode of life, life in a wide-open
space. Produce your own grain. Produce your own milk. Save time. Chant
Hare Krishna. Glorify the Lord's holy names. At life's end, go back to
the spiritual world to live forever. Plain living, high thinking—ideal
life.
Modern, artificial "necessities of life" may seem to increase your
so-called comfort, but if you forget life's real aim, your so-called
advancement of technology is suicidal. We want to stop this suicidal
policy.
People today are extremely attached to this so-called advancement.
Therefore when Lord Chaitanya appeared five hundred years ago, He gave
a simple formula: chant Hare Krishna. Even in your technological
factory, you can chant. You go on pushing and pulling with your
machine, and chant, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna." You can devote
yourself to God. What is the wrong there?
Disciple: The leaders know
that once a person starts chanting God's names, in time he'll lose his
taste for this anxious life of technology.
Srila Prabhupada: That is
natural.
Disciple: So the leaders know
you are sowing the seeds of their destruction.
Srila Prabhupada: Where is
the "destruction"? Rather, it is construction: devote yourself to God,
and live forever. This is the proper path. Follow it. You will live
forever.
By our method, tyaktva deham punar janma naiti: [Bhagavad-gita
4.9] after leaving your present material body, you don't get any more
material bodies. You regain your spiritual body and go back to the
spiritual world. And without this spiritual realization, tatha
dehantara-praptih: [Bg. 2.13] when you leave your present
material body, you'll have to accept another material body.
So consider the two methods of living. Which is better? The "advanced"
method—accepting more material bodies, or our "old-fashioned"
method—accepting no more material bodies. Which is better?
As soon as you accept a material body, you have to suffer: birth, old
age, disease, death. The material body means suffering. Therefore, if
we prepare so that on leaving this present body we undergo no more
suffering, that is intelligent. But if we prepare to receive another
material body for more suffering, is that intelligent? Unless you
understand the Lord, unless you understand Krishna, you'll have to stay
in this material world and accept another body. There is no alternative.
Now our method. We understand, first, that na hanyate hanyamane
sharire: [Bg. 2.20] when the body is finished, the soul goes on
living. Unfortunately, many people have become so dull-brained that
they cannot understand this simple truth.
Every day of their lives people see that a soul in an infant body is
going to take on a childhood body, then a teenage body, next an adult
body, and later an aged body. People see, with their own eyes, how the
soul is transmigrating from one body to another body to still another
body.
Nevertheless, with their dull brains they cannot understand that at
death, when the aged body is finished, the soul goes on to yet another
body, material or spiritual. But people cannot understand this. They
are so dull-brained. They cannot make the simple distinction between
the body and the soul. It will take five hundred years to teach them
this simple truth—their education is so advanced.