Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, in New York City, many of these big buildings have courtyards, and in the courtyards they have purchased sculpture. So all the sculpture is abstract. They are against form, they are all impersonalists. And they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have these gigantic structures. All over New York City you see them. They have no form. They are simply . . .
Prabhupāda: That is a form. The structure itself has a form.
Rāmeśvara: But it's abstract. It's to give the idea . . .
Prabhupāda: No, it is not ab . . . it is form.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not personal, that's what he means.
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is a form of their imagination, that's all. Not standard form, but it is a form. They want to make everything formless with form. That means they cannot avoid form.
Devotees: Oh, jaya. (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: . . . political satires. Critic of the government put the criticism in the form of a children's story, but indirectly was criticizing the government. (break)
Prabhupāda: . . . reason they cannot keep this park neat and clean? In other cities they keep.
Ādi-keśava: They cannot pay the workers.
Prabhupāda: How is that? In America, city, New York, they cannot pay?
Hari-śauri: New York almost went bankrupt.
Devotee (1): They have mismanaged the whole thing.
Hari-śauri: They had big strikes last year or early this year. They wouldn't clear the garbage away, and the whole city was piled up with garbage everywhere.
Devotee (2): Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says in this Kali-yuga they are all lazy, misguided.
Prabhupāda: So much drinking, they must be lazy.
Devotee (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: So much drinking excessively. Drinking means laziness.
Rāmeśvara: Also the banks, they loan the city money, but at a very high interest rate. So then the city cannot afford it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This way, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Hari-śauri: People nowadays are so filled with intoxications they're not fit to do anything.
Rāmeśvara: They loan the city money at a very high interest rate, so in order to pay it back they have to borrow more money. (break)
Prabhupāda: . . . dried up on account of being detached from the original bark. Similarly, as soon as any civilization detached from God consciousness, they'll dry up.
Devotee (1): Simply buildings and cement, that is their culture.
Bali-mardana: Except for India, no civilization has lasted very long.
Prabhupāda: No, it cannot last.
Hari-śauri: And as soon as they started to give up their culture in India, they're also dried up.
Prabhupāda: They'll dry. That is the nature's way. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ (SB 5.18.12). Anyone detached from God consciousness, he has no qualification. Manorathena. Their only qualification is mental concoction. That's all. Just see, how this . . . in America, such a wretched man. Willfully. Willfully.
Devotee (1): They've become useless.
Prabhupāda: This is due to excessive meat-eating, intoxication, sex. This is the result.
Devotee (1): They've wasted their brains.
Hari-śauri: Also these bums that hang around the cities, they're all alcoholics.
Prabhupāda: That is the reason.
Devotee (3): That's one reason crime is so high is because of intoxication.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (3): Always increasing crime.