Journalist: Do you think modern man must mend his ways or he will… he must get better and know God or he will destroy himself?
Prabhupada: Yes, he is destroying already. The society is not in stable stage. Just like in America, they are also in trouble now. They are asking money from the federal government. They cannot make solution. So as soon as the monetary source will decline, this civilization will be finished.
Journalist: As soon as the money declines.
Prabhupada: Yes. Because there is no culture. They are not standing on culture. They are standing on money.
Journalist: You think we pay too much importance to money?
Prabhupada: Yes, everybody, yes. They do not know what is culture of life. They simply want money, that’s all.
Journalist: Do you think we have too much for our needs?
Prabhupada: You are creating your needs. You are not too much in need, but you have created so many artificial needs.
Journalist: Such as what?
Prabhupada: Everything. Suppose this boy is sitting down. Now I am sitting in a very nice couch. So it is not absolutely necessary that couch is required. But for getting this couch, we had to spend so much energy. So similarly, unnecessarily we have created so many things and going on.
That I was going to say, that we come to the human form of life by nature’s way. Now what is our duty? Our duty is to make further progress. But instead of going further progressively we are again going to become monkeys and dogs. This is our position.
Journalist: What about other artifacts of civilization like television and motorcars…
Prabhupada: Yes, it is very good, just like we also use motorcar, but not for fashion. Suppose if we go for preaching. If we can go by car quickly, we take advantage of the car. We have got many cars for preaching work. So everything is good, provided it is used for progressive goodness. (coughs) That our mistake is that when… Now listen, there is the mistake in Darwin’s theory also.
He has no information that the evolution is taking place, of the body, by the desire of the soul. That he does not know. Just like sometimes people were happy and living in a small cottage. Now they are making big, big skyscraper building. So what is the difference? The cottage and this… The cottage is not becoming the skyscraper building but the man who was living in the cottage, by his desire the skyscraper building is coming. Similarly the evolution means the soul within the body desires a certain type of body and he gets it. Not that the monkey body has developed into human body.
But the soul within the monkey’s body desired a human body, and he has got it. This is the process of evolution. The Darwin’s theory, this knowledge is lacking. If he is thinking that the cottage has become big skyscraper building, that is not the fact. The owner of the cottage desired to have a skyscraper building, therefore he, from the cottage he transferred to the skyscraper building. It is due to the owners.
Journalist: In that case, if we go on developing, we stay in the skyscraper, or the skyscraper gets bigger.
Prabhupada: Yes. The skyscraper is not impediment, it is not impediment. If you remain in the skyscraper and develop your spiritual consciousness, you can do that. But the unfortunate thing is that we are too much absorbed in constructing the skyscraper building, forgetting our real business. That is the defect.
Journalist: What about sex and drugs, sex and alcohol.
Prabhupada: Sex, yes, alcohol, we condemn any kind of intoxication, all our students are forbidden illicit sex. We don’t say, “No sex,” but “illicit sex,” we forbid. Similarly we forbid meat-eating. We don’t say that “Don’t eat,” we simply say that “don’t eat meat.” You can eat other things, just like we are eating so many nice things.
Journalist: Why not meat?
Prabhupada: Because it is sinful, you are killing all animals. Your Christian religion says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Why you are killing?
Journalist: Yes. How many followers do you have throughout the world now?
Prabhupada: No, throughout the world, in India everyone is Krsna conscious. In the outside India we have got about ten to twelve thousand dedicated followers.
Journalist: Do you mean every, the whole of India is Krsna conscious?
Prabhupada: Yes. Krsna consciousness, they know what is Krsna.
Journalist: But how many of them practice it?
Prabhupada: How many millions? Still, if you hold any Krsna conscious meeting, they will come by thousands, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, like that. Even village to village, if there is any chance of Krsna conscious meeting, all the villagers will come, still.
Journalist: How many years has Krsna consciousness…
Prabhupada: That I told you, according to the modern history, Krsna consciousness movement is there since five thousand years.
Journalist: Nine thousand years.
Prabhupada: Five thousand.
Journalist: Five thousand years.
Prabhupada: Mm. And before that there was Krsna consciousness movement also and that date is… (end)
[Conversation with Srila Prabhupada: May 19, 1975, Melbourne]
No comments:
Post a Comment