Just imagine what is the value of our so-called knowledge. We cannot understand even things within this planet or within this universe, so many planets. So how to understand the other nature, where there are spiritual planets, where there are spiritual living entities, they are also working, their center is God. So there are so many information; these are called ātma-tattvam. So apaśyatām ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2), those who are blind or rascals, have no complete knowledge, their subject matter of understanding is this newspaper, that's all. Their subject matter is newspaper. Because they have no other information.
So when it was proposed that I am going to translate this sixty volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam for describing God, so some of the friends, they inquired, "What is that description sixty volumes of books of God?" So our reply was that this universe is a fragment of the whole material creation, and within this universe there are millions and trillions of planet. Out of those millions and trillions of planet, this planet is most insignificant.
And within this planet, there are so many cities—London, New York, Calcutta, Bombay, so many. And from each city there are hundreds of newspaper. And each newspaper they are publishing four times. So if for this teeny place there are so many informations, just imagine how much information you can have from the spiritual world. Just imagine. So sixty volumes of description of the spiritual world is nothing; it is simply sample. If sixty millions of volumes would have been written, it still was insufficient, there are so many information.
So here it is said, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. One who has no information of the spiritual world, they are interested in these newspaper and magazines. Apaśyatām ātma-tattvaṁ gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām. Gṛheṣu means they have an impact of understanding: "This is my body" or "This is my society" or "This is my community" or "This is my nation" or "This is my humanitarian . . ."
They can expand. But what is the . . . even you take the whole human society, what is the value? If you take all living entities, there are so many other living entities. Not only human being, there are animals, thirty thousand species of animals. Not thirty thousand—thirty hundred thousand. Similarly, twenty hundred thousand species of living entities who are called the trees, plants.
So where is the knowledge of all this? Suppose if one is naturalist, what knowledge he has got? He can study a thousand species of plants and trees, but there are two millions of plants and trees. Just try to understand how much meager a small quantity of knowledge you have got. It is practically not possible. But at least one must know that this material world, this material body, is not myself. At least this self-realization should be there. Otherwise, we remain animals.