Prabhupāda: That is going on. Therefore it is called punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30): "chewing the chewed." That's all. You know the sugarcane. You chew it and throw it, and again another man comes to chew it again. This is going on. They do not have the sense . . . even in this Rome city, they see that "Big, big buildings were constructed by our previous forefathers, and they are now lying, now simply relics. So this will be also relics. So what we are doing actually?" But they have no sense. Another relic. And other generation come, they will make another relic. This is called punaḥ punaḥ, again and again chewing the chewed. That's all. They have no other brain to do something else, which is actually fact. They are seeing it that, "This will be, say, after two thousand years it will be all useless. So what actually we are doing?" They have no sense of what is actuality, what is reality, no spiritual knowledge. Therefore bahir-artha-māninaḥ, external something, some engagement, like children. They play with something, they do not know that, "It has no future, it has no meaning, what we are doing." They do not know it. But they are very busy. So this is all childish, ignorance.
Satsvarūpa: Prabhupāda, there was a French philosopher, Voltaire. He said you should not simply criticize negatively, because this is the best of all the possible worlds there is. This is all we have. So they would criticize that our hope in the spiritual world is utopian; better turn to cultivate the material world as best you can.
Prabhupāda: No, material world we can see that it is useless. Everyone sees. That I am giving, this example. Before, the Romans, they constructed this big, big building. Now what is the value of that? It has no value. Simply it is kept as sentiment, relics, that's all. So this will be also the same thing. So where is the utility? Spiritual . . . apart from spiritual, what is the value of your material activity? It is practical. Everyone can see. If one comes to Rome, they can see that these big, big buildings, they were very nice building at that time, very wonderful building, but what is the value of it now? Anyone can see. Any sane man can see. So why should we waste our energy in that way? If there is any valuable work, let us see. That is intelligence. To make another heaps of relics, is that very good sense? Nobody will go there even to urine or pass stool.
Dhanañjaya: No facilities.
Prabhupāda: No facility. Nobody is . . .
Dhanañjaya: Only the cats go there.
Prabhupāda: That's all.
Dhanañjaya: So many cats are living there.
Satsvarūpa: But just like this building up ahead, they say: "But now we have it, we can enjoy. There are so many facilities there we are enjoying every day."
Prabhupāda: No, that's all right. What you are enjoying?
Satsvarūpa: In this building, working there.
Prabhupāda: So that enjoyment, eating, sleeping, mating, the animals are doing that. What other enjoyment you have got? The same thing, eating, sleeping, that's all. That can be done without this building. Even the animals, they very nicely sleep on the ground. They haven't got skyscraper building, but they have no disturbance in their sleeping. The birds are sleeping on the top of the tree very nicely. So what advancement you have made than the birds and the beast? The business is the same.