SB 8.19.21 P The aim of the varnasrama divisions—-is to train
one to control the senses and be content with the bare necessities.
Here Lord Vamanadeva, says that without
contentment one could not be happy even if he possessed the property
of the entire world or the entire universe…. In modern civilization there is no
such education; everyone tries to possess more and more, and everyone
is dissatisfied and unhappy. The Krsna consciousness movement is
therefore establishing various farms, especially in America, to show
how to be happy and content with minimum necessities of life and to
save time for self-realization, which one can very easily achieve by
chanting the maha-mantra–Hare Krsna..
751211SB.VRN Lectures
Rupa Goswami, the chief minister of the government of Bengal, most opulent position: . They became mendicant, voluntarily accepting, “What is this nonsense position, minister, opulent life? Kick it out.”
They are not fools. Then what they became? . They become mendicant.
So voluntarily accepting poverty, this is Indian civilization, this
is Vedic civilization. Not to increase material opulence but to
decrease. The more you decrease, you are civilized. And the Western
countries, if you decrease, if you instruct them that “Decrease these
nonsense activities. No more tire(?) civilization,” they’ll say “Oh,
this is primitive, primitive.” This tendency is present.
Instead of increasing unwanted necessities,decrease it. That is Srimad-Bhagavatam. Anarthopasamam saksadbhakti-yogam adhoksaje. This satvata samhitam bhagavata is there, simply to decrease
this unwanted so-called material civilization. It is very difficult to
understand, but our Krsna consciousness movement is for that purpose.
We are interested to construct a nice temple, but we are not
interested to construct a very big skyscraper building for people’s
generally No. We should live very humbly.
750514mw.per Conversations
Amogha: He was saying that your solution was too simple. He said that
people will not accept it because it is too simple.
Prabhupada: That is his ignorance. They will say it is primitive.
That is the only solution.
►760731r2.par Conversations
… little cottages, grow little vegetable, little barley or wheat and
milk. That is sufficient. We don’t require much. We don’t want luxury.
We want just to subsist. Yavad artha prayojana. We hate the idea of
luxury, unnecessary.
770322rc.bom
Economic question? Annad bhavanti bhutani. Grow food. Practical.
Just like when I was going to the pandals,
millions of clerks were coming–“Education. Educated.”
And who is growing food?
And they have to be provided in these pigeon
holes [tiny apts.] and depend on ration. Is that civilization? And throngs of
people are coming, just like machine, ants. Ants are coming. I saw
like that. And go to the village side–all vacant land. Nobody’s
interested to produce food. Everyone is interested to live within the
city, in these pigeonholes, and go to the cinema and go to the
brothel, go to the club and learn how to drink, how to become
gentleman. Is that civilization? Human life’s aim is lost. You do not
know why you are going to the office, why you are eating, why you
are… Keeping them all pet animal’s mentality, doggish mentality.
A True story about being with Srila Prabhupada:
A devotee friend of mine once told me he and several other western devotees were visiting one day
with Srila Prabhupada , a humble Indian village which had no indoor plumbing, had no electricity, therefore no TV, no cars, and all the houses were made from cow dung and mud. It was remote and seemingly austere.
Yet Srila Prabhupadas comment was –“this is first class“.
The western devotees , I was told and fully believe this, were shocked to see that place and hear his comment, thinking they could never live like this. And yet in all the above statements, he explains that is how a sadhu or simple villager lives in India.
Most of us will not be able to do that, so then we have to take the consequences of that action namely,
working very hard our entire lives to pay the banks three times what our houses are actually worth, working very hard to pay off all the credit charges we amass on all the gizmos and gadgets we are told we need, and basically living a life of constant debt. Where’s the time left in this scenario for self realization and God Consciousness?
On the other hand, below….. we have this option….
below– last years saved tomato seeds on paper towels
paper and seed all goes in the dirt
hundreds of plant starts coming up for spring and summer growth
