Student: Well, secondly, I don't quite understand what material world is, because...
Prabhupāda: Material world is full of suffering and miseries. Don't you understand it? Are you happy?
Student: Sometimes I'm happy and sometimes I'm not.
Prabhupāda: No. You are not happy. That sometimes is your imagination. Just like a diseased man says, "Oh, yes, I am well." What is that "well"? He's going to die and he's well?
Student: I don't claim any ultimate happiness...
Prabhupāda: No, you do not know what is happiness.
Student: ...(indistinct) but it's greater or lesser...
Prabhupāda: Yes. You do not know what is happiness.
Student (2): Well, of course, that sorrow or that suffering might add the spice to make that suffering that goes in between happiness.
Prabhupāda: No. The thing is that there are different kinds of miseries. That we understand. That is our..., due to our ignorance. We don't care for it. Just like a man who is suffering from very, since a long time. He has forgotten what is happiness. He has forgotten what is real happiness. Similarly, the sufferings are there already. Now take for example, you are now young man. Now, would you like to become old man?
Student: I will become an old man in the process of...
Prabhupāda: Now, you will become. You'll be forced to become old man, but you don't like to become an old man.
Student: I'm not going to be forced to become old man.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Forced. You'll be forced.
Student: I don't see why...
Prabhupāda: If you don't like to become old man, you'll be forced to become old man.
Student: It's one of the conditions of...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That condition is miserable.
Student: I find it not miserable.
Prabhupāda: No. You don't because you are young man, but ask any old man how he's suffering. You see. A diseased man—do you want to be diseased?
Student: I wouldn't search it out.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Student: I wouldn't search it out.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Just answer me. Do you like to be diseased?
Student: What is...?
Prabhupāda: Just answer.
Student: What is disease?
Prabhupāda: Oh? You have never suffered from disease? You have never suffered from disease?
Student: I've had, I've had the mumps and the measles and whooping cough, (laughter) which is what everyone has, and you get over...
Prabhupāda: Everyone has, that does not mean because..., that does not mean... Everyone is now suffering from this winter season, but that does not mean that is not suffering. So we have to admit that we are always in suffering.
Student: If I've never known happiness, I feel sure I've never known suffering either.
Prabhupāda: That is due to your ignorance. We are in suffering. We don't want to die. The death is there. We don't want to be diseased. The disease is there. We don't want to become old. The old age is there. So we don't..., so many things we don't want, but they are forced upon us. And any sane man will admit that these are sufferings. But if you are accustomed to these sufferings so you say, "It is all right," that is a different thing. But naturally, any sane man, he won't like to be diseased. He won't like to be old. He won't like to die. You see. Why this movement? Because if there is war, there will be death. So people are afraid. They're making agitation, "There should be no war." So don't you... Do you think that death is very pleasurable thing?
Student: I have never experienced...
Prabhupāda: You have experienced, forgotten. You have exper... Several times you have died, you have experienced, but you have forgotten. Forgetfulness... Forgetfulness is no excuse. Forgetfulness is no excuse. Suppose a child forgot some suffering. That does not mean that he did not suffer.
Student: No, I agree. I agree. But...
Prabhupāda: Yes. So suffering's there. You have to take version from realized souls, from, I mean to say, authorities that this... Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam: (BG 8.15) "This place is full of miseries." So one has to realize it. Unless we understand that this place is miserable, there is no question how to get out of it.
Student: So we have to...
Prabhupāda: Similarly, a person who does not develop this miserable condition of this world, he is not fully developed. Just like the animals. Animals, they do not understand what is misery. They do not understand. They are satisfied... (end)