Prabhupāda: Sometimes we find that peaceful living is visible even in animal society. Just like the cows. They're very peaceful. There are other animals, dogs and others. They fight. But hundreds and thousands of cows, they live very peacefully. Birds also... Just like the swans, they live very peacefully. So is that the highest goal of life, to live peacefully? Because that is also found in animal society. Is that the perfection of life?
Buddhist Monk (1): Yes, a man has to ask himself a simple and straightforward question. What really does he want to put his life to? Does he want suffering or peace?
Prabhupāda: No, suffering, of course, nobody wants. That's a fact.
Buddhist Monk (1): That's it, that's it...
Prabhupāda: But in this material world, even if you become peaceful, does it mean that you are out of suffering? I don't think.
Buddhist Monk (1): Yeah. Well, I've been asking in all these universities, high schools, and all those, all those audiences, "What is the purpose of this so-called modern education? What is the purpose? If so, kindly define this purpose. Have people thought on this?" I just gave a broadcast at Southampton day before yesterday. Nobody, not many people appear to have seriously considered this question. Is it to fly to the moon? Is it to be a food taster or a noise lover? Or is it to build dreams and castles in the air? Or to soak one's self in the whirlpools of kāma, sensuality? What is this meant for? What is our education for? No one appeared... Very, very few people have appeared to ...
Prabhupāda: No, there is no aim of the education. Their only aim is economic development.
Buddhist Monk (1): That's right.
Prabhupāda: And that means a higher standard of sense gratification.
Buddhist Monk (1): The more material doubts people can produce, that's supposed to be the educated person.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Buddhist Monk (1): And I told them directly and indirectly, "Your systems, which have transplanted the well, type systems, especially of India, has created a catastrophe. We have made mistakes in the past. But we profited by them, and we want a successful educational system that taught the individual how to give himself peace within himself, mentally and physically. Within his family, within his relations society, nation and the world. And today that system has been overtaken by this materialistic system. One calls himself materialist directly. Another, camouflage, just under the name of religion. That's the only difference I know of in these two systems in the West. That's the only difference." And I told them. I said, "We want peace. Śānti, śānti, śānti. And we know the danger of playing with the fireball of materialism, which is throwing its tentacles into every part of society: divorces, nervous cases, mental cases, cancers, suicides, family life is breaking. And it reminds me of Gibbon's writing about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. And all those symptoms are there in this so-called progressive, civilized culture." I used the word "so-called." And this mind...
Prabhupāda: But what remedy you have suggested?
Buddhist Monk (1): Reduction of greed, and substitution of liberality. There is no other remedy.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Buddhist Monk (1): Because greed causes the rat-race. Greed causes these wars. But if we reduce this, and the reduction parallelly followed by simple living, high thinking and high practice. There is no other remedy, whatever religion a man follows. If they get involved in this rat-race of materialism, war is inevitable, whether for a stretch of water or of land. But if man lives a simple life, this Mother Earth can be made to produce everything that is necessary. Soya beans are a very fine substitute for meat. And if they do not damage the crust of the earth, and if they scientifically control birth, scientifically, not by drugs and pills, which are dangerous...
Prabhupāda: What is that scientifically?
Buddhist Monk (1): It's a control of the sex, sex.
Prabhupāda: That is brahmacārī.
Buddhist Monk (1): Brahmacārī. (Background talking, people entering.)
Prabhupāda: Let them come. They want to see me. Let them come.
Buddhist Monk (1): And (Sanskrit or Pali:) tan moha veda krati dhanacari. (?)
Prabhupāda: Come. (People coming in.) This greediness... That is a good suggestion, that you reduce your greediness, but unless they get a substitute, they cannot. That is the difficulty.
Buddhist Monk (1): Yes. The substitute is, according to us... We point out the difference between the sensual, fleeting pleasures, which is not quite a proper word... It's no pleasure, in that (it) brings pain and suffering. In the renunciation of greed is prīti, delight. And when a man enjoys delight, that's incomparably better and lasting, more...
Prabhupāda: According to Vedānta philosophy, every living entity is searching after delight. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). By nature, a living entity is delightful, but he has been covered by this temporary material covering, and therefore his delightness is perverted. So our philosophy, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness philosophy, is that paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). If you give him better delight, then he can give up this inferior delight of material enjoyment. Otherwise, simply by instructing that "You give up this," it is difficult.