A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 This exchange between His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and some of his disciples took place on October 18, 1975, during a morning walk in Johannesburg, South Africa.
 
Disciple: Srila Prabhupada, people sometimes criticize by saying, "Your Vedic culture was most solidly established in India. And India is now considered relatively poor and unfortunate. So why should we respect the Vedic culture?"
 
Srila Prabhupada: The thing is, when you Westerners went to India you curbed down the original Vedic culture. The people in India could not take to your rascal Western culture, and thanks to you they have lost their own culture. This is India's bad luck. The British did not teach them how to actually take up the Western culture, but they killed the Eastern culture. You understand?
 
Disciple: Yes.
 
Srila Prabhupada: Now India has no position. She cannot take to the Western culture fully, and she has lost her own culture. This is India's bad luck. The British never taught Indians how to become actually Westernized. No. They did not give them sufficient education. Especially in the beginning, the British were against giving the Indians higher education. They wanted some clerks to conduct their affairs some third-class, fourth-class men for their mercantile and government bureaucracies.
 
"Educated" meant ABCD. That's all. "Let the Indians know ABCD, then take fifty, sixty rupees' salary, go home to their little neighborhoods outside the city and return the next day on the train. Let them work hard in our city and get just enough money to maintain themselves."
 
Nothing more. No money, no education, no real knowledge of industry. The Indian people were not taught properly. In America, for instance, I see the factories, and the arrangement is so nice. But go to those Indian factories it is hell. Hell. Simply hell. The Britishers exploited the Indians, and the mercantile class of India they have learned simply how to exploit.
 
Disciple: Exploit their own people.
 
Srila Prabhupada: That's all. Formerly, the Manchester people were exploiting the Indians. And now the Ahmedabad people they have learned how to exploit. And the government is satisfied, because the exploiters pay taxes: "Never mind. The workers may go on suffering." This is going on. And the Indian people have lost their own culture. They have been taught how to drink alcohol, how to eat flesh.
 
Aside from all this, Indians cannot work as hard as Westerners. The hot climate does not allow it. India's climate is good for living peacefully, not working so hard, and instead engaging the brain in spiritual advancement. That is India's gift. Her people are not meant for hard work.
 
Actually, hard work is not required for anyone. This is animal civilization simply to work very hard. If a man works hard like an animal, then what is the difference between the man and an animal? Here in the Western countries the climate is more suitable for heavy industry, and as one would expect, the people are being taught to work very hard like animals, and they do that. Therefore, materially they have become so-called advanced, to the point that spiritually they are committing suicide. Is it not?
 
Disciple: This is true.
 
Srila Prabhupada: Materially advanced, spiritually suicidal. Am I right or wrong?
 
Disciple: Right, Srila Prabhupada. Another dimension also comes to mind. In your commentary on Srimad-Bhagavatam you write that if people want to increase their material advancement, then they should also increase their sex lives.
 
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Without sex one cannot be materially enthusiastic. And if you stop sex, then you become spiritually advanced. This is the secret. If you stop sex, then you will become spiritually advanced, and if you indulge in sex, then you will become materially enthusiastic. That is the difference between Western and Eastern culture. The whole Eastern culture is based on stopping sex, and here in the Western countries on how to increase sex. The people here are eating meat, eggs, drinking wine. These things increase sex desire. And as soon as you get a very satisfactory sex life, you become enthusiastic to work hard. Therefore for karmis, or those seeking material advancement, marriage is necessary, because without sex they cannot work. And for those seeking spiritual advancement, sex is prohibited.
 
Actually, in this Western culture, people do not know the science of life. For them, "life" means this body. Their life is this body. That means they do not know what life is. After all, when the living person has gone, the body they thought he was is lying there. They are very proud of their scientific advancement, but in reality do they know who the person was? They cannot explain. This is their ignorance. And yet they are very proud of their advancement.
 
But once this person's life span has come to an end, can they bring him back to life? That they cannot do. That means the whole basic principle of their so-called culture is ignorance. Mudho 'yam nabhijanati: Krsna says, "Fools and rascals can never understand the soul or the Supreme Soul." And moghasa mogha-karmano mogha-jnana vicetasah: "Their material cleverness their so-called knowledge leaves them spiritually baffled." Why? Raksasim asurim caiva prakrtim mohinim sritah: "Those who take shelter not of My divine nature but of prakrti, the material nature, become so bewildered that they do not know life's real aim." Moghasa: "They are utterly baffled." And therefore, mogha-karmano: "Whatever they are doing that will be useless." Again, mogha-jnana: in this so-called advanced culture, there is no spiritual knowledge. So actually there is no knowledge.
 
Disciple: So with their advancement of knowledge they are increasing their sex lives, but if they were really advanced in knowledge, they would be decreasing their sex lives.
 
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. They do not even know what knowledge is. To these fools and rascals, knowledge means sex. That is their knowledge. Advancement of knowledge means how to enjoy sex. How to take shelter of abortion child killing. And how to perfect their contraceptive method. The whole thing is on the basis of sex. That's all. They do not know anything except these things. They know that after sex there is so much botheration. But they cannot give sex up. Therefore, they make all these arrangements: take contraceptives, or kill the child.
 
That means their whole so-called civilization, their whole culture, is based on sex. That's all. But yan maithunadi-grhamedhi-sukham hi tuccham/ kanduyanena karayor iva duhkha duhkham: "Sex is like the rubbing of two hands to relieve an itch. Those with no spiritual knowledge consider this itching the greatest happiness, although actually, from start to finish, the whole business is distress and it is most abominable."
 
Is that pleasure? These supposedly advanced rascals think it is pleasure to unite the urine-passing parts. [Laughter.] And we have to believe this is pleasure a standard of pleasure utterly third-class, fourth-class. Yan maithunadi-grhamedhi-sukham hi tuccham. Very abominable. Tuccham: the Vedic literature says, "Sex is most abominable." And yet these fools take it as the highest goal, and they make all sorts of elaborate arrangements for this abominable pleasure.
 
When dogs have sex, everyone knows that their whole "enjoyment" is abominable and insignificant. Therefore, dogs are allowed to do it on the street. And people can see it. Is that a very nice scene? Yet when the same abominable and insignificant thing is done by the human beings, they are taking it that "This is the highest." This is the basic principle of their happiness. That's all. Mohinim captivation by the opposite sex.
 
And this is real captivation. For instance, nature has already made women's faces, breasts, and hips beautiful, their singing and talking and walking all very attractive. And now, thanks to this rascal culture, the women are walking around virtually naked. This is going on. The whole thing is based on sex, and that is tuccham, most abominable. Prakrtim mohinim sritah: people are being taught to take shelter of the material nature's potency for bewilderment.
 
It will take them three hundred births to understand that sex pleasure is actually abominable. Therefore, in Bhagavad-gita Krsna says, bahunam janmanam ante: "A rascal gains the wisdom to surrender to Me only after many, many births." Not that immediately, simply by hearing our Gita lecture, people will give this abominable pleasure up. It will take many, many births to understand.