The Lure of City Life

These people were lured out of the villages, and now they've become completely indoctrinated to believe that a cumbersome, complex society is more advanced. A society of slaughtering millions of animals to drink their blood instead of drinking their milk, a society of prostitution, of living packed together in small places where there's insufficient air and space-this is more advanced. But actually, you know, there's a huge amount of land in India, enough to maintain not only seven hundred million people but ten times that; there is that much land. Go traveling on the train in India, and you'll find that nearly all of India is unpopulated except for a few big cities. We hear that people are living in horrible conditions. But the most horrible conditions exist within the cities. The people in the villages are still relatively happy.

The fact is, however, that the city life and the city consciousness are beginning to infiltrate the villages, so that now most of the young men have left the villages. Therefore the villagers are no longer farming properly. There aren't enough young men to farm properly, so there's not enough food. There's not enough produce. And the intelligent men, the leaders of the village, the spiritual leaders, are also gone. Everyone is being lured away into this dream of the city and led to believe that the city is the panacea that will bring all happiness.

Jayadvaita dasa: So the problems in India today are due to lack of a Vedic, Krsna conscious culture.

Tamala Krsna Maharaja: In a Vedic culture, there is no poverty. The poverty we see here is not present in a Vedic culture; it's a consequence of our modern materialistic culture.

Jayadvaita dasa: All right. Because the traditional Indian culture has been contaminated by Western culture, it doesn't work. So suppose we introduce Krsna consciousness and the mass of Indian people, the intelligentsia of Indian people, take to it. Then what do they do practically?

Tamala Krsna Maharaja: The first thing is that a Krsna conscious culture, or a perfect society, is based on a varnasrama system. A varnasrama society is a community of brahmanas, ksatriyas, vaisyas and sūdras [intellectuals, administrators, farmers and workers]. One of the first features of Indian culture destroyed by foreigners was the caste system. This point is very much played up. "India was for so long held down by the caste system, but now it's being abolished, and India is developing." But what is the caste system? The caste system, Krsna says, was originally created by Him.

"I have created these four varnas [castes or divisions of human society] according to the qualities and work of different people." Krsna, God, says, "I have created these divisions." And what are they? The brahmanas are the intelligent men-are there not intelligent men all over the world? Ksatriya means the protective class. The brahmana teaches and the ksatriya protects. Is there not a class of administrators who protect? Vaisya means a farmer, a protector of cows or a trader. Aren't there people everywhere who normally do that? And sūdra means one who simply does menial work, assisting the other classes. So in any country in the world, not just in India but everywhere, you'll find these four varnas, or occupational divisions. Automatically they are there. By nature, everyone is inclined toward a certain type of work, and therefore the purpose of the varnasrama system is to define the duties of each division, so that everyone will have his own work to do and everyone can work cooperatively in a peaceful and progressive society. Without these four divisions, there's no question of a civilized society. There are so many societies-human society, animal society, plant society and so on. But only the human society is considered civilized. Why? Because a human being can regulate his life to achieve a higher purpose. The so-called caste system is therefore meant to regulate human society in such a way that everyone can be prosperous and at the same time God conscious. So what is the question of destroying these divisions? You cannot destroy them; it's not possible to destroy them. They represent natural divisions of labor, divisions of work. So the first point is that if we're going to restore the culture of the Vedas, if we're going to restore prosperity to India, we have to clearly define divisions of human society and establish them properly.