Brahmānanda: Actually, the future looks very dim because of the military. They've created such a military threat with their atomic bombs and armies and so on.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Brahmānanda: The future is very bad because of their military burden, atomic bombs. This is what the scientists have created. They're thinking a bright future, but actually the future is . . .
Prabhupāda: Very dark.
Brahmānanda: . . . seems very dark.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Idle brain is a devil's workshop. If they're not directed, then think like devil. We are thinking rightly because we are taking direction from Kṛṣṇa, the most perfect. Therefore our thinking has meaning. And what is the value of their thinking? It has no value. Now we are thinking . . . just like, take the first instruction, that within this body there is the proprietor of the body. You can go on thinking, "Then am I this body?"
So you can think on your finger, "I am this finger?" The answer from the within will come, "No, you are not finger. It is your finger. It is your finger. You are not finger." If I am finger, then if I cut my finger, why shall I not die, if I am finger? Therefore it is my finger. Just like I'll never think that I am this stick. It is my stick. That is thinking. That is thinking. If I wrongly think that I am this body, then your whole thinking process is wrong. And they are thinking like that, that we are this body.
- yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke
- sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma ijyadhīḥ
- yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij
- janeṣvabhijñeṣu sa eva gokaraḥ
- (SB 10.84.13)
So such kind of thinking is done by the asses and cows, yasyātma-buddhiḥ. One who is thinking, "I am this body," he's no better than the animal, ass or cow. They're all thinking like that, "I am this body." They're asses. And the whole world is suffering by thinking like that: "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Russian," "I am this," "I am that." That's all. We must know how to think.