Prabhupada, Bombay, October 2, 1973: We can practically see. Everyone is working with this body in Bombay city. A very poor man is also in Bombay city, and a very rich man is also there. Both of them have the same facilities to work, but we find that one man is working very hard day and night. Hardly he is getting his morsel of food. Another man, simply by going, sitting in the office, earning thousands and thousands. Why? Because the difference of the field of activities.
The body is different. Because one has got a certain type of body, his destination is already there. Karmana daiva-netrena jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1]. We can study this thing, that somebody is living in a poor slum and another man is living in a very palatial building. So simply by endeavoring that “I shall live in a palatial building, and I shall not live in this poor slumhole,” it is not possible because the destiny is there. Therefore the body is made according to our past karma, and that is called destiny. Your happiness and distress according to the body is already settled up. It is not possible by natural way to improve or disimprove it. It is already settled up. Therefore sastra says,
tasyaiva hetoh prayateta kovido na labhyate yad bhramatam upary adhah tal labhyate duhkhavad anyatah sukham kalena sarvatra gabhira-ramhasa
The human life should be utilized for understanding the Absolute Truth. The next paragraph, that describes how one can understand the Absolute Truth. Amanitvam adambhitvam ahimsa ksantir arjavam. So our life should be utilized for understanding the Absolute Truth, not for economic development. Economic development, what is already destined, you cannot improve less or more. It is already settled up.
There are so many examples. Just like a pig has got a body. He likes to eat stool. If you give him halava, that “Don’t eat stool. Take this nice halava,” he’s not interested because he has got a particular type of body. That is the aggregate. That is already explained. Maha-bhutany ahankaro buddhir avyaktam eva ca, iccha dvesah sukham duhkham. Iccha dvesah. The iccha and dvesa according to the body. He has got the desire to eat the stool. That is his iccha. And he has got a dvesa for the halava, while a gentlemen, advanced gentlemen, he has got the iccha for halava, not for the stool.
Therefore our duty should be that without trying… That was Indian civilization. Everyone was happy in his position, everyone— brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, sudra. The culture was so nice that nobody was unhappy, even if he is a sudra or even if he is a vaisya or a brahmana or ksatriya. It is not that because the ksatriyas, the royal family, they were happy, and the brahmanas were not happy or the sudras were not happy. No. Everyone was happy because… Still in India you go to the village. They are happy with their destination. This is the Indian culture. Now we are injecting discontentment, injecting. Otherwise everyone was happy in his position: “God has given this position. So this is all right. Let me do my work.” That is satisfaction. Everyone was satisfied.
Still it is going on, although great propaganda is going on to kill the Vedic culture. Just as some in 1971, we attended the Maghamela. In 1971? Or which year? That Allahabad Maghamela.
Devotee: ’71.
Prabhupada: Yes. So people were coming there, thousands and thousands, to take a bath in the Ganges, and they were happy. There in Calcutta there was an Indo-American society. I was invited to speak there. So they gave me the subject matter, “East and West.” So far we are concerned, we have no such distinction, “East and West.” We know that everyone is human being, and everyone, every living entity, not only the human being, even the birds, beasts, animals, trees, everyone, a living entity is part and parcel of God, Krsna. Mamaivamso jiva-bhutah [Bg. 15.7]. So everyone is in ignorance. That is our concern.
Our propaganda is not for the East and the West, but our fight is with the ignorance of the people because at the present moment people are kept in ignorance, in foolishness, that he is this body, bodily identification. But still, there is difference between East and West. In the West, I have talked with big, big professors, learned scholars. They have no idea of next life.
I talked with Professor Kotovsky in Moscow. He said, “Swamiji, after annihilation of this body, everything is finished.” They have no idea that there is soul. And in India even the poorest man, he knows that, “There is next life. I existed in the past, and I will exist in the future.” This Vedic conclusion is known even to the poorest man, illiterate man. That is, of course, the difference between East and West.
Full Lecture: http://causelessmercy.com/t/t/731002BG.BOM.htm
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