Prabhupāda: Our plan should be to accept Kṛṣṇa's plan, that's all. Approved, authorized plan. That is very easy. Take any words of Kṛṣṇa, it is very easy. What is your problem, first of all? Just consider, whether Kṛṣṇa answers it. First of all, propose what is your problem.
Hari-śauri: Well, my problem is that I have to have somewhere to live and I have to get something to eat.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that Kṛṣṇa's solves. Yes, Kṛṣṇa says annād bhavanti bhūtāni: (BG 3.14) produce food grains. You have to work because it is material world. You cannot sit idly. Even if you are a very strong tiger, you don't expect that animals will come and enter your mouth. You have to work for it. This is the world. Na hi suptasya siṁhasya praviśanti mukhe mṛgāḥ. Suppose a lion... He's the king of the forest. And if he says, "It is my order, I'll sleep here and all the animals may come in my mouth." The animals will urine on his face. "Yes, we shall pass urine on your face. We are not going to accept your order." You have to work. Practical, everyone has to work. This is the third nature. Avidyā karma-saṅga. Because here everyone is under ignorance, the punishment is he has to work for his living condition. Work is not very pleasing. It is very troublesome. But he has to. Avidyā karma-saṅga. You have to work. Therefore we see practically that countries who are working very diligently, they are materially prosperous. Europe, America, they work very diligently, hard, and they have got material prosperity. And the Eastern countries, they are not working, intelligent. From material point of view. From spiritual point of view that is another thing.
Hari-śauri: So all I have to do is just make some working arrangement.
Prabhupāda: No, that work is recommended. Your question is how Kṛṣṇa is giving you instruction. Just like food, Kṛṣṇa says annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14). You produce anna. Kṛṣṇa never said that you produce tire tubes. Never says.
Hari-śauri: But the same example, in the West, we weren't so materially prosperous until we started industrialism. The prosperity was not there until we started our big factories.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Just like in India, there was no industry at all. Until the British period, there was no industry. Not a single. Even in Muhammadan period there was no industry, and they were happy. There was no industry. The Muhammadans also did not know how to start industry. It is Western imported, larger scale industry. Cottage industry was there.
Hari-śauri: Such a high standard of living, that was not available to as many people as there is now.
Prabhupāda: What is that higher standard? When there was no industry, in India, there was full of gold, jewelries. And now there is plastic.
Harikeśa: Yes, but now there's TV.
Prabhupāda: TV, yes.
Harikeśa: How can you enjoy without TV?
Prabhupāda: Yes, how can you waste your time?
Nava-yauvana: Their reason, they say, is because we have to work so hard all day, then we have to try to forget, watch the television.
Prabhupāda: Why should you work? If you have to forget, why should you take such nonsense things that you have to forget again? Why not chant Hare Kṛṣṇa? Even the child does not forget. He's chanting. Take such things that you'll enjoy. The more you do not forget, you more enjoy. Why should you take up something that you have to forget? This is rascal.
Nava-yauvana: Karmīs cannot understand.
Prabhupāda: There is a story like this. A man is sitting. His friend came, "Why you are sitting idly?" "What shall I do?" "Work." "Why shall I work?" "You'll get money." "What shall I do with the money?" "Then you'll be able to sit peacefully and eat." "I'm doing that. I'm already doing that." I'm peacefully sitting and eating. Why shall I go and work? If that is the ultimate end, that I shall peacefully sit down and eat, I am doing that. Why shall I go and work?
Harikeśa: What about when it gets cold?
Prabhupāda: That you again "if." You are bringing some condition. For the present time, sitting very peacefully and haven't got to work. Why you are insisting me to work? If this is the goal, to sit peacefully and eat, I'm doing that.
Hari-śauri: But I want more than that; it's boring. I want more.
Prabhupāda: Boring?
Hari-śauri: It's very boring just to sit and eat all the time.
Prabhupāda: No, no, that boring for the rascal. Otherwise, one who is intelligent, he's enjoying.
Harikeśa: Yes, but I mean definitely it will get cold. There's no question that "maybe if." It definitely it will get cold.
Prabhupāda: Cold you will get both ways, whether you work or not.
Harikeśa: No, no, because when I work I have a nice house and I got a heater, then it's warm. If I didn't work I wouldn't have my heater, and it gets to be zero...
Prabhupāda: And when there will be no electricity, you will be frozen.
Harikeśa: Well, I have my gas heater.
Nava-yauvana: We have experience sometimes the heater breaks and there's even more anxiety.
Hari-śauri: Then there's always a coal fire as well.
Prabhupāda: Such kind of argument can be counteracted by so many other argument.
Harikeśa: We just see practically that we're enjoying life. We can't...
Prabhupāda: Enjoy life means... Even the industrialists, they go to the remote village and have a peaceful house there. That is the anxiety, how I shall live peacefully. The poorer class, the workers, they live in the city, and the capitalist, he goes to a different place.
Jñānagamya: Vṛndāvana, they came to Vṛndāvana, those Indian industrialists. They were so nervous, always like this, "Who is here? Who is also here? Should I talk to him about business." Very nervous.
Hari-śauri: But variety is the spice of life.
Prabhupāda: Variety, there are qualities of varieties. Just like we enjoy varieties prasādam, and there is variety in the brothel also. Two qualities of variety. Variety is good, that's all right.
Hari-śauri: Well, sometimes we want to sit in a garden like this and sometimes we like to be inside, and other times we like to go out to the movies.
Prabhupāda: I don't go out. We do not go to the movies or to the restaurant. It is different taste. Therefore it is calculated three kinds of men-sāttvika, rājasika, tāmasika-their tendencies are different.
Nava-yauvana: Karmīs can't understand why a devotee doesn't want to go to the cinema.
Prabhupāda: So many things—they do not smoke, they do not drink, they do not go to cinema.
Hari-śauri: We're as good as dead. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Harikeśa: What happens with all these people who, like for example, myself, I can't live on a farm?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Harikeśa: I can't live on a farm.
Prabhupāda: That does not make you, what is called, unfit. You can do something like that.
Harikeśa: I mean I was born in a city, raised in a city, and feel very good when I'm in a city, but when I'm on a farm, I'm very disturbed.
Prabhupāda: Rājasika, you have got rājasika. So that means your mode of nature is rājasika. There are three kinds of-sāttvika, rājasika, tāmasika.