"So at the present moment, our position is very precarious. We are in the darkness, ignorance, and so many other things, corollaries to these things. Rāṣṭrāṇi vā tair avaropitāni itas tataḥ. Just see. Five thousand years ago this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was written, the symptoms of Kali-yuga. Now you see that itas tato vāśana-pāna-vāsaḥ-snāna. Now everywhere, all over the world, the young boys and girls, they have no fixture where they'll live, where they'll take their bath, where they'll eat or how..., or how they'll have sex. No. These are preliminary necessities of life. One must have a good place to live. One must have sufficient nice foodstuff to eat. Sleep. Eating, sleeping, mating—this is physical necessities. So in the Vedic civilization, these necessities are prescribed in a regulated way so that he can satisfy his physical necessities, at the same time, become Kṛṣṇa conscious and go back to home, back to Godhead.
So at the present moment there is no fixture even for the physical necessities. Physical necessities. No hope. When I first came to America, when I saw in the Bowery Street, they're lying on the street, 'And how is that?' I understood, 'The Americans are very rich. Why they are lying on the street?' I was surprised. But see, even in such rich country like America, they're lying on the street—no fixture of sleeping, no fixture of sex life. Nobody knows with whom one has to satisfy his sex life. Nobody knows. In New York City I was..., I saw that one friend asking another friend, 'Can I take my showers in your room?' Then I understand, 'Oh, there is no fixity of even taking bath.' There is no fixity of where to sleep. There is no fixity where to satisfy sex. Everything, although such a rich country. Why? Because the leaders are rascals. The leaders are rascals. These are the first duty of the government, to see that everyone is nicely situated so far his physical necessities are concerned. But a sane man, when he sees this disturbance, or everything mismanaged, he becomes very unhappy and tries to set up by Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Honolulu, January 18, 1974)
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