A Cheating Civilization

Actually, God has provided all our natural resources, but today's civilization is taking them from Him without any thought of return. Hardly even a "thanks." A materialist simply tries to enjoy the body. Never mind if the resources will run out; never mind where they came from-just madly chasing after material prosperity. It's a cheating, thieving civilization. And very cumbersome, too. Suppose a man lives in a twenty-five-room house or builds a twenty-five-story building or a hundred-story building. What is the need actually? Does he need it to keep alive? No. It has nothing to do with just maintaining the body. It's geared for accelerating and fulfilling bodily desires. It has nothing to do with the essential needs. But most people deem this to be advancement. That is the point. So first of all we have to understand what advancement is. According to Krsna consciousness, advancement means simple living and high thinking.

Jayadvaita dasa: But India now, it seems, doesn't ever have the simple necessities.

Tamala Krsna Maharaja: Yes, that's true. But in India now we don't find the ideal Vedic culture. When we did find it, two or three hundred years ago, it was ideal. You wouldn't have found people starving to death. But what happened was this-the first picture the West gets of India comes through the eyes of the British. The British see India, and they see a Vedic culture, which is very simple and, in their terminology, barbaric, backwards, because from the materialistic standpoint anyone who lives in a mud hut with a grass roof is backwards. If he can't read English-of course he may read Sanskrit, but if he can't read English he's illiterate. The Indian people were reading Sanskrit, many of them but not English. "Oh, he's illiterate." In the same way, one may know Bhagavad-gita, but if he doesn't know the Bible he's irreligious.

So in other words, the whole process of Westernizing India or materializing India began about two or three hundred years ago. The Westerners introduced their so-called civilization, with its coffee, tea and meat eating. They built factories and developed large cities that had never been developed before. The entire Indian economy had been based on the villages, but under British rule and then recently more and more, everything moved toward the city. What happened is that the Vedic culture broke down. When it was present, the necessities of life were plentiful; there was no difficulty. But by and by it broke down. People were encouraged, "Come into the cities to work in the big factories." And what is the great advantage of the big factories? Luxury: an economy with the ultimate goal of material, temporary sense gratification. And as bodily satisfaction becomes paramount, spiritual culture fades away. But the actual necessities-fruits, grains, vegetables, milk-these were not produced by the factories. You can't eat nuts and bolts, you know.