Svarūpa Dāmodara: This year also, Śrīla Prabhupāda, just like their 200 year anniversary, similarly in American Chemical Society this is 100th year celebration. There was a big meeting in New York just few months ago, international meeting, celebrating the 100th year of the American Chemical Society. So I was planning to go there but I didn't go. But they have a moving model of what science has achieved in the last 200 years. And also predictions for what will happen in the future. And one of the Nobel laureates-Fowling is his name, from California—he predicted that, specifically in the chemical community, people take him as some sort of, their leader, so whatever he says, they believe that it's going to happen. So he believes that in the next coming 100 years there will be more knowledge on this life matter, and then people will be happier.
Prabhupāda: That is mis...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Selling plastic world.
Prabhupāda: Plastic world?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Mostly synthetic, in a synthetic...
Prabhupāda: Manufacture.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Plastic materials will be predominant, and we will have more frontiers of knowledge especially in the biology, molecular biology. So they are also pessimist that in such and such years we're going to make short of these coal deposits and all these energy supplies, all these different...
Prabhupāda: That will be finished?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) will work?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But he is not, he's optimistic. He said they will find new sources on the nuclear energy, solar energy and all these predictions. But the point there is that these people, they believe in what he says, because he has Nobel laureate (indistinct), and he's respected by... He's very old about seventy...
Prabhupāda: So what he is proposing? It's nothing new.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: He's giving some thought, to those people who are worried, "Don't worry about life, it's going to be all nice." And...
Prabhupāda: No, we are not worried, and even if we, one is worried, he'll be finished by that time. So all worries will be gone. Moreover, after death there will be no worries. (pause) Prove that everything is being done by God, that we want. Half past five?
Hari-śauri: Almost twenty-five to. Twenty-seven minutes to...
Prabhupāda: Twenty-seven minutes? No, no. It is thirty minutes.
Hari-śauri: Twenty-seven minutes to six.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Minutes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is made by science. This watch is a product of science.
Prabhupāda: Science means craftsman, that's all. (laughter) Mistri. We say mistri. (laughter) You know, in our Indian language? Mistri?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Mystery.
Prabhupāda: Mistri.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: What is that?
Prabhupāda: Any craftsman, we say mistri.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: So mistri has no position. Maybe correct. In our Vedic civilization a learned brāhmaṇa is honored, not a mistri. Is it not?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: A learned brāhmaṇa, is not expected to manufacture a watch, but he's more honored than one who is actually... This modern age is: if he manufactures watch he is honored. Not the learned brāhmaṇa. That is Kali-yuga. That is Kali-yuga. They do not know whom to honor. That is the Kali-yuga going on. You kill so many souls, and if you have a great big skyscraper building, then you are successful. And those who constructed the skyscraper, they are going to become dog, never mind, the skyscraper building is there. That's all. That is success. This is modern civilization. After they constructed the skyscraper building all the mistris are going to hell, that doesn't matter. The building is there. Is it not?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: This is civilization. Long ago in 1917 perhaps, in our college, we saw one magazine.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: St. Xavier's College?
Prabhupāda: No, Scottish.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, Scottish.
Prabhupāda: Scottish Churches College. So one American, Scientific American, we have contribute(?). So there the picture was that one skyscraper building is constructed and so many men are working, carrying the beams and so on. So there was—I remember still—that all, some material construction, so many living entities they are being sacrificed(?). I do not know how the Scientific American gave this picture, I still remember. Actually that is a fact. This human being would have been released from this materialistic way of life, back to home, back to... No, instead of giving them the chance, they are engaged in constructing huge skyscraper building. They're spoiled. So it is little difficult to understand our philosophy. And Prahlāda Mahārāja said, tat-prayāso na kartavyo yata āyur-vyayaḥ param. Tat-prayāso na kartavyaḥ. This kind of activity should stop. It is simply wasting the valuable life. But they do not know how they're wasting. They're in such an ignorance. They are thinking that these people, crazy people, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, are wasting time, they're thinking like that. They do not know what is the value of life.