Prabhupāda: My point is that śrotavyādīni rājendra nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2). Householder is not bad. That is not condemned. Real thing condemned: apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. That is condemned. Because they do not know what is the aim of life. That is missing. All these people . . . ask anybody that, "What is the aim of your life?" Nobody will say . . . nobody agree, able to say. Any householder, any businessman, ask. They will simply say that, "It is my duty to earn money. It is my duty to maintain my children, to give them education, to give them good opportunity for prospective life. And if I have got little more money, then I can give in charity to the poor man, daridra-nārāyaṇa. And . . ." These are their program. But nobody knows the necessity of, I mean to say, liberating the soul which is conditioned by this material covering. Nobody knows. That you will find. Nobody knows. Big, big professors, big, big . . . they simply say that, "Yes . . ." Why if you ask, "Why you are constructing some big, big scheme?" "Oh, for the future generation. That's all," they will reply. Nobody will reply . . . nobody knows about the necessity of the soul. That is the important point. Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. Nobody knows. Nobody has any vision of the ātma-tattva. Simply they are talking superfluously. This is the defect.
So "I am not this body," that is the whole scheme of Vedic knowledge. Apaśya . . . this is the important point, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. Because they do not know what is the necessity of life, therefore they have created so many news. Just like big, big newspaper, bunch of papers, full of rubbish news only, advertisement, cinema. But you won't find anything talking about the necessity of the . . . (break) So to become a gṛhastha is not bad. But to become unaware of the necessity of the soul, oh, that is bad. The Māyāvādī sannyāsīs, they are sannyāsī; they're also renounced gṛhastha life. But they have no idea what is the goal of life. They're simply thinking in negative way: "This life is very troublesome." That they have realized, that even in highest stage of life of the material relation, your country, President Nixon, he's the president of the most rich country, but there is no happiness. He's now embarrassed. So many attacks are upon him, and he does not know how to defend him, how to keep his position. He's embarrassed. So in this way, everyone is missing the point. Nobody sees that, "Why I am embarrassed? I have become now President of USA, and still I am embarrassed. And when I was a, a nonsignificant man, ordinary man or ordinary lawyer, nobody cared for me. That time I was also embarrassed. I was trying to improve my position. And now I have come to the highest point of success in the material world, still I am embarrassed." Is it not a question?
These rascals, they cannot see. Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. That is the defect. Nobody thinks that, that "I was embarrassed from the very beginning of my life. I was embarrassed even within the womb of my mother. I was packed-up. And when I came out from the womb of my mother, there also I was embarrassed. I could not express my pains and pleasure. I was crying. Some ant was biting me, but I was crying, and my mother gave me more milk, (laughter) although I was fully fed." This is embarrassment. I wanted something; my mother gave me something else. Because mother cannot understand that what is the pain and . . . neither he can express what is the pains and pleasure. So the embarrassment was at the beginning. Otherwise, why the child cries? He's feeling some pains, but mother does not know how to relieve. But he's crying. This is going on. Then childhood. I do not like to go to school. My parents force me to go to school. So embarrassment. Then all right, I became married, or I enjoyed sex life, then children. Then embarrassment. Embarrassment. Contraceptive, that is also embarrassment. So this embarrassment is going on. And then again death. Then again go to the womb of the mother and be killed within the womb of the mother, abortion. So the whole life is full of embarrassment. Why? That "why" question does not arise that, "Why I am embarrassed?"
So therefore the Māyāvādīs, they think that, "Make me zero, void. Then there will be no pains and pleasure, no embarrassment." Their philosophy is like that. Impersonal, that is also the same thing. Or void. Voidism, the same thing, "Make it zero." Just like the foolish man, when one is embarrassed, he commits suicide. He commits suicide. He thinks, "If I end this body, then my embarrassment will be finished." So these are the circumstances. Why? Now, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam (SB 2.1.2) . He does not know, "What is the necessity of me, soul? How to get me relieved from that." That he does not know. So therefore this word is used, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. He does not see that, "I am spirit soul. My necessity is different from the bodily necessity." (break) "Then I'll be comfortable." Even one knows that, "I am not this body," but the body is home . . . or I know that "I am not this room," but I am engaged always how to keep this room very neat and clean. That is my business. I do not know that there is another business. Apaśyatām ātma-tattvam. That is the defect.
Therefore it is the duty of every human being—animals cannot do—to understand about the ātma-tattvam. Ātma-tattvam, necessity of the soul. That was presented by Sanātana Gosvāmī when he went to Caitanya Mahāprabhu that, "I was minister, quite comfortable. People called me learned scholar. That is also, some way or other, it is right. But I did not know why I am suffering in spite of becoming the minister or king or this or that. And people say that I am a learned man, but I do not know how to get out of the suffering." This should be the question. They are trying to get out of the suffering, but they do not know the ways how to get out of it. That is ātma-tattvam. He does not know what is the nature of ātmā, what the ātmā wants, and how the ātmā will be comfortable. That he does not know. That information is given by Kṛṣṇa, by Caitanya Mahāprabhu: jīvera svarūpa haya nitya-kṛṣṇa-dāsa (CC Madhya 20.108-109). The . . . every living entity is eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore unless he comes to the platform of serving Kṛṣṇa, there is no question of happiness. There is no question of happiness. And Kṛṣṇa also says the same thing: duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15), "This place is simply full of miseries, and if you come to Me," yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama (BG 15.6).
So whole world is missing the point that he's not this body, the body is the encagement, and we are accepting sometimes golden encagement and sometimes iron encagement and sometimes silver encagement and wooden encagement. He's thinking by changing the encagement he'll be happy.