(Click to enlarge photo of Srila Prabhupada distributing sweets)
"Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). Param, if you get better thing, you give up inferior quality thing. That is our nature. Just like our students, American students, they were all accustomed to meat-eating. But now another student, she is preparing the sweetballs, ISKCON balls, and they are forgetting meat-eating. They do not like any more meat-eating. They have got better engagement: sweetballs. (laughter)
Similarly, that is the way. When you get better engagement... We are hankering after pleasure. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt. Every living entity is seeking after pleasure. That is his nature. You cannot stop. If you stop... Just like a child is seeking after some enjoyment, he's breaking something, enjoyment. But he does not..., that he is breaking, but he's simply enjoying that breaking.
Similarly, we do not know what is enjoyment in this material concept of life. We are breaking and building. In your country I have seen in several places, nice building is dismantled, and again, in that very place, another building is raised. You see? Breaking and building. Breaking and... 'Oh, this building is old. Break it.'
The same childish play. You see? Simply wasting engagement, valuable time of this human. Breaking and building, breaking and building. 'This motorcar is useless. Another, '69 model.' And thousands of people are engaged in that '69 model. You see? What is that? In essence, the breaking and building, breaking and building. Just like the child. You see?
So unless one has got better engagement, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, surely they will be engaged in this breaking and building, breaking and building. Childish engagement. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). And so far our students of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they are trying to get two hours more than twenty-four hours. They have got so many..., so many engagements.
So unless one is engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he must be in the māyā's engagement, same thing. People may eulogize such engagement, 'Oh, he's so moneyed man. He has dismantled such nice building and again constructed another nice building.' So, this is very nice in material estimation, but in spiritual estimation they are simply wasting time.
(sings) Hari hari biphale janama goṅāinu, that song. Manuṣya-janama pāiyā, rādhā-kṛṣṇa nā bhajiyā, jāniyā śuniyā biṣa khāinu: 'Knowingly, purposefully, I am drinking poison.' Poison. Why poison? Wasting time of this valuable human form of life is drinking poison. Just like a man drinks poison, he does not know what is his next life. He's going to become a ghost. For years together, he'll not have this material body, as punishment. You have seen? Gaurasundara has written one ghost article in our Back to Godhead. In England, that ghost who fought with Cromwell? There is still fighting. At night, there is sound of fighting going on. You see?
So poison means this human form of life is the chance to get into Kṛṣṇa consciousness and go back to Godhead, but if we do not engage in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, simply engage in this breaking and constructing, then we are simply drinking poison. That means next life I'll be thrown into the cycle of birth and death in the 8,400,000's species of life, and my life is spoiled. We do not know for how many millions of years I'll have to travel in that cycle of birth and death. Therefore it is poison.
Jāniyā śuniyā biṣa khāinu. 'I know this; I am hearing. Still...' Jāniyā śuniyā biṣa... Just like a thief. Jāniyā śuniyā, these very..., these words are very significant. Jāniyā means knowing, and śuniyā means hearing. So a habituated thief, he knows that 'If I steal I shall be put into jail.'
And he has heard from scriptures that 'Don't steal. Then you'll be put into hell.' So he has heard from the scriptures and he has seen practically, he has experienced practically, but still, as soon as he's freed from the prison life, he again commits the same mistake. Jāniyā śuniyā biṣa khāinu.
We know; we are hearing from the scriptures, from authorities, Vedic literatures, that 'I have got this miserable conditional body, material body, to suffer threefolds of material miseries; still, I am not very much anxious how to stop this repetition of birth and death. I am drinking poison.' Jāniyā śuniyā biṣa khāinu. Hari hari biphale janama goṅāinu. These songs are very instructive. Simply purposefully, we are drinking poison."
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Los Angeles, December 19, 1968)
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