Devotee: Sometimes they say it's just a dream and they say if you are bothering me, and you are just my dream; I don't have to worry about it, I'll have another dream and you'll go away.
Prabhupāda: No but dream is... It may be, but when there is fire, you call it dream, but why do you call fire brigade? When you are diseased why you go to physician? Dream it. (laughter) The major problem is birth, death, and old age, and disease. You do not want that. You must seek the measures. That is human life. Whether birth, death, old age, disease can be stopped? If there is any such life that there is no more birth, death, that is human life. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. That is the Vedānta philosophy: "Now the human life is meant for enquiring about these things." If you don't enquire, then you remain animal. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to save the human society from this animal life. To bring him to the real human life. Animal life means there is suffering—go on suffering. Human life means there is suffering—how to get, how to counteract. That is human life. Suffering—so long you have got this body, there must be suffering.
- nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma
- yad indriya-prītaya āpṛṇoti
- na sādhu manye yata ātmano 'yam
- asann api kleśada āsa dehaḥ
- (SB 5.5.4)
The karmīs, Ṛṣabhadeva is warning that nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma: (SB 5.5.4) these rascals being mad after sense gratification, they are doing everything and anything irresponsibly. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ. Pramattaḥ means mad. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4). Things which you should not have done, but he's doing it. Why? Yad indriya-prītaya: Simply for sense gratification. Therefore, he advises, na sādhu ayam: this is not good. So why it is not good? Yata: he has already got a body, material body for which he's suffering, and he's again creating the circumstance by which he'll again get a material body and will suffer. Therefore, one should act very responsibly. Not like madmen. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4). Then Ṛṣabhadeva instructs, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). This body, although I have got this body, and the dog has got the body, or the hog has got the body, but these bodies are not meant for being spoiled like the dogs and hogs. The hog is also whole day working to find out where is stool. So if you also work whole day and night for our sense gratification, then where is the difference between the hog's life and my life. The human life, human brain should be sober to understand what is the problem of life, why I'm subjected to so many tribulations, how to remedy, how to find out the remedy and that requires tapasya. Tapo divyam (SB 5.5.1). In order to create that brain, it requires a little tapasya. Therefore we are recommending no illicit sex, no meat eating, no intoxication, no gambling. Because we are already mad by material existence, and again we are... If you are forced to become more and more mad by intoxication, by meat eating, by this... Then where is your life? Your life is finished. Because to understand these problems of life requires a little brain. So to create that brain, this little tapasya is required. He's already puzzled, and if you make him more and more puzzled by supplying him intoxication and this gross eating of meat, then he remains in the grossest platform of ignorance. That is not human activity. The brain must be little clear to understand what is the value of life, why I am suffering, if is there any remedial measure, how can I take it. That is brain. And if the brain is used only to find out where is sense gratification, where is sex, where is food, where is shelter, where is money? Then, that is, that business is being done by the hogs and dogs. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to save people from this dogs' and hogs' life and to come to the real platform of understanding the value of life. They do not know it. Na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ (SB 7.5.31). They do not know what is the aim of life. Simply by false hopes they are trying to adjust things with material effects. That will never do that. Durāśayā. Durāśayā means it is useless hope. It cannot be. Just like we practically see that the, here in New York City, American people are very rich and intelligent, but they cannot stop this fire which is unwanted. They cannot stop it. That is not possible. Because they are living very high, 300 feet high or more than that, you are not safe still. You are still in the same danger. Because you are living in big, big skyscraper building, it does not mean that you will not die. Death is there also, birth, death, old age, disease, the real problems of life. It does not mean that because we have advanced in so-called material civilization, you have avoided birth, death. Even big, big scientists who gave us so many big, big inventions, but still they died. They could not invent something which will protect them from death, that at the time of death, give me this pill so that I will not die and I'll go on giving you more scientific advance. That is not possible. What is your question?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Some people think that by meditating they can somehow, another ignore...
Prabhupāda: Meditating means this subject matter: that I don't want death, why death is forced upon me? That is real meditation.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So then the problems of life are more than simply those which we perceive?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise, what is the meditation? Think about something seriously, that is meditation. But if you have no important serious thinking, simply some imagination, how it will help you?
Devotee (1): Excuse me, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This evening they are having one convention here, the Democratic National Convention. One of the two big political parties in the city, at one place called Madison Square Garden. And all the television and newspaper people in the whole country will be there. They're beginning at 8 o'clock this evening. So we want to send all the devotees in the temple on saṅkīrtana party there, because we feel that not only will the atmosphere become purified but also all the television cameras and all the newspaper people will interview our devotees and take their pictures, and they will be on television all over the country, simply because...
Prabhupāda: That is good cause.
Devotee (1): So we are requesting if all the devotees can possibly go?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (1): In that way they can all attend, if we have a big force...
Prabhupāda: At least, let them hear Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Devotees: Yes.
Devotee (1): I have a feeling it could be just like with the Chand Kazi. When he was... Lord Caitanya made a civil disobedience mood, perhaps if we chant loudly enough...
Prabhupāda: No, by hearing this transcendental vibration they will benefited.
Devotee (2): The actual presidential candidates will be there.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Devotee (2): Presidential candidates, the candidates for the president of the United States, they'll be there.
Satsvarūpa: They'll all be there tonight.
Prabhupāda: All right, go ahead chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee (3): Thank you Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Devotees pay obeisances)