Every living being is busy, the lower animals and the human being, in finding out where is food, where is shelter, where is sex and where is defense. So they have selected four businesses: where to find out food, where to find out shelter, where to find out sex indulgence and how to defend ourself. These propensities are prominent both in animal and man.
So these things are common for both the animals and the human being. A dog is also searching after food; a hog is also searching after food; a bird is also searching after food; a man is also searching after food. Now, in the broad road, so many cars are going in seventy-mile speed. What is their research? "Where is food? Where is money?" Ask anybody who is very busy in driving car in seventy-miles speed that "What is your business?" He will answer that "I have got to take money from there. I have to do this business." That is also money. This will be the answer. They have no other answer. And if you ask him, "What you will do with your money?" then he will say, "I shall live in a very nice apartment, I shall eat very nice foodstuff, I shall have to enjoy very good sex life and I will have to defend myself." But the Bhāgavata says, or the supreme authority says, "No, this is not your business. Because you are human being—this business is also there in the animal life—therefore your business is tattva-jijñāsā, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. When you are developed animal. . . Now you are also animal, because you don't enquire about the Absolute Truth. But you are developed, so now your business is to enquire about the origin of everything." Your business is not to increase the problem of the four, I mean to say, necessities of life. By this karma, or unnecessary activities, you are increasing simply problems.
Just like amongst the birds and beasts, there is no economic problem. The birds rise in the morning, and they chirp between themselves, and after a few hours or minutes they go away and they get their food. Similarly, the animals also, they also go. Even in the jungle, they get their food. The birds and beasts, they have got their home. The bird lives on the top of the tree very comfortably at night, without any disturbance. Similarly, the beast. . . Even in the jungle, there are elephants, there are tigers, there are so many others; they have got their some place to rest. So far sex is concerned, that is also guaranteed. The birds, when they are in the eggs, there are two eggs: one male, one female. And you will find these birds, beasts, they are in pair. Just about two months before, when I was in Māyāpur, the two snakes—not very big; small—were found in the lavatory, and they were also two, in pair. That means this pair in birds and beasts, in animals, in snakes, they are found. The tiger, the elephant, there are two. So there is no scarcity of sex also. And so far defense is concerned, everyone is provided with nails, jaws and wings and everything. According to their capacity, they can defend also. So in this way, so far our four necessities of life required, it is already arranged by the laws of nature.
So we, means the living entity or the soul, we are wandering throughout the whole universe in different types of bodies. And because we are part and parcel of God, our four necessities of life, namely the food, shelter, sex and defense, that is already provided. So for these four things, we need not work very hard because they are available even in the animal life, birds life, beasts life, lower form of life - and why not in human life? Therefore the śāstra says,
- tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido
- na labhyate yad bhramatām upary adhaḥ
- tal labhyate duḥkhavad anyataḥ sukhaṁ
- kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā
- (SB 1.5.18)
They say that, "So far these necessities of life are concerned, they are ready, supplied." In any life, either in human life or in birds and beasts, lower animal, trees, plants, that is ready. Therefore we should not waste our time for these things, but we should be ready to enquire about the Absolute Truth.
So human intelligence is there to enquire about the Absolute Truth. So they have got better developed consciousness or intelligence than the lower animals. So that higher intelligence should be utilized for enquiring about the Absolute Truth. So that is. . . Vedānta-sūtra says, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), athāto brahma jijñāsā. This life, human life, is not meant for wasting time for adjusting how to get better food, better shelter, better sex and better defense. So the human intelligence is that, when one thinks, that "If these necessities of body are ready even for the animals and beasts and birds, then why not it is ready for me?" It is ready for the human being also. That is a fact. We see when human beings are uncivilized, the ready food is there. They live in the jungle—there is fruit ready for eating. Everything is ready there. They do not know how to produce food, the uncivilized man. They eat some animal. They eat some fruit. This is already ready.
So uncivilized man, who cannot produce food, even for him there is food ready. Similarly, the civilized human being, for him also the food can be improved. Just like he can produce from the field, agriculture, so many food grains, varieties of food grains he can produce. So these things are already there. There is no need of extra time for developing how to eat nicely, how to sleep nicely. One should be satisfied like the animals. They are satisfied with their position. They are not agitated. Similarly, we should be satisfied whatever is available automatically by the gift of nature, or by God.