People are short-living and manda. Manda means very slow for ultimate goal of life. The ultimate goal of life is to search out or is to reestablish your lost relationship with God. That is the mission of human life. Otherwise, what is the difference between animal life and human life? The animal life, they are also busy for eating, sleeping, mating and defending. So if we human being, we are also similarly busy, then what is the difference?
So this sort of civilization, simply making nice arrangement for eating and sleeping and mating and defending, that is not practically human civilization. The human civilization is meant for searching out God. Na te viduḥ. They do not know, unfortunately. They have forgotten. But by good association, they can remember. Therefore this meeting of Krishna Consciousness Society's meeting is just to give people chance to associate with the Society and invoke their lost relationship with God. That is the missionary activities of this Society.
So that is the highest gift to the human society. There are so many welfare activities in the human society. People open hospitals, schools, colleges, charitable institution. They are nice. But the best contribution to the human society is to revive his lost relationship with God. Just like a rich man's son.
Some way or other he has left his father's home and he's loitering here and there. Somebody finds him: "Oh, you are Mr. Such-and-such. You are the son of such-and-such gentleman. He's very rich man. Why you are suffering? Come, come with me. I shall take to your father." So this is one kind of welfare activity.
And another welfare activity, the same person who is loitering in the street, somebody says, "Oh, you are hungry. All right, come on. I shall give you some bread." That is also welfare activity. But this welfare activity, to get the lost son to his father, rich father, not ordinary father, that is the best service. Similarly, all living entities, as Kṛṣṇa claims in the Bhagavad-gītā . . . Kṛṣṇa claims:
- sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya
- sambhavanti mūrtayaḥ yāḥ
- tāsāṁ mahad yonir brahma
- ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā
- (BG 14.4)
In many places in the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa claims all living entities as His sons, parts and parcel. Just like your children, they are part and parcel of your body. They are not different from you. The same blood is running in his body. Similarly, our constitutional position is that the same blood of God is running in our body. We are not different in that way from God.
There are two kinds of philosophers. One class of philosopher, they say that we are one with God. Another class of philosopher says that we are different, God is different from living entity. But Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu has adjusted that we are simultaneously one and different, just like the father and the son. The father is one with the son, but at the same time, the son is different from the father. The son cannot claim cent per cent equality with the father. That is not possible. But the son's body is non-different from the father's body.
Similarly, living entities, we are simultaneously one and different from God. One in this sense: that all the qualities that God has, the same qualities the living entity has. But the difference is God has all the qualities in fullness, and so far we are concerned, we have got all the godly qualities in minute. That is the difference. Aṇu and vibhu. Vibhu means unlimited, and aṇu means limited. So we have got opulence, fame, beauty, strength, influence, knowledge—all good qualities that God has. But God has got in full; we have got in minute quantity.
So anyway, qualitatively, we are one with God. Therefore our business is how to again unite with God qualitatively. That is the highest perfection of human life. And this chance of realization, how we can unite again with God, or Kṛṣṇa, is given only in the human form of life. We are wandering in so many species of life, transmigration of the soul. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). Just we change our dress, similarly we are changing our body every moment, and finally we are changing to other body. Not only we are changing or transmigrating from one body to another, but we are transmigrating from one planet to another. These things are all explained in the Bhagavad-gītā.