Prabhupada: The farmers' children, they are leaving their farms. I have seen. In New Vrindaban, the farmers' children are not following. The father is working, and the boy has gone for education in the city, never to come back. Just like our Indian boys, they come here and they do not go back home. Material facilities they find more attractive. All varieties of vegetables, fresh fruit. In India still they have got many farm like that. I went with my father when I was about twelve years, thirteen years old, a remote family in the village. From the railway station it was twenty-four miles each way, and we had to go there. In those days there was no bus; this bullock cart. And I stayed there three, four days. The fresh vegetables, and ghee, nice rice, nice puffed rice, molasses. They gave me for breakfast this puffed rice mixed with molasses and cream. And then first-class rice, ḍāl, vegetables, ghee, cow's ghee, milk. And everything will be within the reach. You haven’t got to go to the store. The rice is there, ḍāl is there, the vegetables, in the garden, the milk is there, the ghee. Remote village, and they are independent.
My father was doing cloth business; he was customer. They bring cloth. Formerly the cloth was also being manufactured in the village. And in Bengal, the system was that four, five men dig a big lake, and with the mud they prepare their house. Mud walls, that's good as brick. It is not fired. Raw. That is very good. So you get water by digging the lake, and all around there are cottages. And little farther you have got your land, grow your food. Those who are fish eaters, they are keeping fish farm. Everything fresh. No one had to go to the city. Nowadays, this city capitalist, they sold their market, and he will get five hundred dollars. He thought that "We are not... Money is very scarce in the village. Let us go to the city and spend." You get five hundred dollars but you have to spend eight hundred dollars. Then he will learn how to drink, how to go to cinema, how to go to restaurant, how to go to club. Then gambling. All good things.
Siddha-svarūpa: You don’t think that it will be difficult, then, to convince people to move back to the farms once they learn that it is the right thing to do? Because everyone has been taught that the right thing to do is to, in America, is to live in the cities and make money and this and that. They don’t know...
Prabhupada: You... Our people should show example, just like we are trying to do in New Vrindaban, that you grow your food, and (indistinct) milk, weave your cloth. And little school, and chant.
Govinda dāsī: This philosophy is going on here in Hawaii. I mean, there are many..., not just devotees; there are many other people...
Prabhupada: This is peaceful. Unless one is peaceful, how it is possible to awaken Kṛṣṇa consciousness? So peacefulness means you require eating, sleeping, mating, defending. So adjust it in such way and save time. We are not denying these things—these are necessities—but in a organized, planned way. That we are doing. When the attraction is Kṛṣṇa... Otherwise he will be attracted by the city. So, it is all in your hands. So village to village, organize this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We don’t want to stop this material activity. That is not our goal. But if people remain satisfied in country life, sustained living, that will be better for them. But the government does not like village independence. The leaders?
Siddha-svarūpa: No, they promote city life. I think that they consider city life to be more money-making. They make more money for themselves.
Prabhupada: Money-making for the big capitalists.