Four Classes Of Atheists

As explained in the succeeding verses, there are four classes of men who will never surrender to the lotus feet of Krsna; similarly, there are four classes of men who do surrender. The four classes of men who refuse to surrender to Krsna, as explained in the fifteenth verse, are the grossly foolish, the lowest among mankind, those whose knowledge is stolen by illusion and those who partake of the atheistic nature of demons. The grossly foolish are called mūḍhas or asses, for they are simply like hardworking beasts of burden. They try to accumulate some enjoyment by working hard, but they know neither the source of enjoyment nor the source of misery. The example used is that of the ass who, in India at least, works very hard for the washer man. The ass does not know for whom he is working; he simply remains satisfied with a little hay. He sleeps under the fear of being beaten and satisfies his sex appetite at the risk of being kicked by the obliging party. The ass sometimes sings poetry and philosophy, but this braying only disturbs others. This is the position of the foolish fruitive worker who does not know the meaning of work, karma, nor that work is meant for sacrifice, yajna. He is simply working very hard night and day to relieve himself from some self-imposed duties; he has no time to hear of the science of Krsna. It is a strange paradox that to the grossly foolish mūḍhas, material gains which are so perishable are their sole objective. They are never disillusioned when they receive so little, and they spend sleepless days and nights in search of so-called material success, tolerating ulcers and indigestion, putting up with food and water that is hardly fit for the animals, serving every temporal master under the sun. But for the Supreme Master, they have no time. The stool-eating swine does not care for sweetmeats made of sugar and ghee, and similarly the foolish worker chews the chewed of mammon and leaves the succulence of Krsna consciousness.