Śyāmasundara: One thing that Malcolm and I were talking about before was that, he was lamenting that our educational system nowadays in the west, material education, practically spoils the child to understand spiritual life.
Prabhupāda: Why in the West? Everywhere.
Malcolm: More in the West because the child is more constrained in his molding.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole defect is that we are missing the goal of life. Therefore we do not know how to conduct business with the goal of life. At the present moment, in every field, they are missing the goal of life.
Malcolm: They seem oppressed by weight of number, that there are too many.
Prabhupāda: No, goal is one.
Malcolm: No, people.
Prabhupāda: No, people do not know the goal. That is the defect of modern civilization. Not modern, that is the defect of material existence.
Malcolm: But a number of people over a certain size make a goal by the number of people.
Prabhupāda: Hm? What is that?
Pradyumna: When a number of people think in a certain way?
Malcolm: No. The number of people make the goal not of them, but of the number.
Paramahaṁsa: Mass. Mass opinion usually forms society.
Malcolm: Not... No, not mass opinion. Not the, not the involvement of the people, but the number of the people.
Prabhupāda: The millions and trillions number...
Śyāmasundara: By unanimous opinion, by unanimous pursuit of some goal, that becomes the common goal.
Paramahaṁsa: Fashion. Fashion?
Prabhupāda: No, therefore I say...
Malcolm: No, no. Number... I know, I... That when a number of people become beyond a certain size, that in order for that size to maintain, there becomes a code of written law whose existence is to preserve the number, and it becomes the goal of the people, and it is the goal of number and not of the people. And the people I see...
Prabhupāda: The people are numberless. Therefore the goal should be numberless? People are numberless. We cannot count. It is not possible. Therefore the goal should be also numberless?
Paramahaṁsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda has taught us that actually the amount of people in the world has nothing to do with the form of education. Simply the... For example, if everyone in the world was Kṛṣṇa conscious, then where would there be a question of overpopulation? Because there would be harmony throughout society because the center of the society would be Kṛṣṇa. But unfortunately, due to the overpopulation, we have so many different goals, different interests, and therefore there's continual clash. So there's nothing against overpopulation as long as people are raised in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Malcolm: Is overpopulation, then, a more important problem?
Paramahaṁsa: Well, for example, even in animal society, there is more animals, there's more insects, there's more birds than human society. But there's no question... They have no starvation. They have no nuclear warfare. Because they live as they're, as Kṛṣṇa has meant them to be, as their karma dictates. But in our situation we are meant to understand Kṛṣṇa. This, the goal of human life, is to use our developed consciousness to serve God. But unfortunately, since we misuse this for selfish motives, therefore we have descended lower than animals. Therefore we have not even the simple harmony that animal life has. Therefore we have mass warfare. Therefore we have greed, economic distress and pollution. All these things are caused simply because we have not used our human life for understanding Kṛṣṇa.