Prabhupāda: So all the great sages and saintly person, Brāhmiṇs, they assembled together and began to consider, "Now what to be done? This rascal king has declared like this and making things hellish. What to do?"
This is the problem of Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, that people are becoming more and more godless. And one may think that unnecessarily we have taken this responsibility to make them God conscious, Kṛṣṇa conscious. You see. There was no need to make this propaganda all over the world. But actually, the saintly persons have concern. Just like the other day I told you, Prahlāda Mahārāja was concerned that these rascals, for temporary so-called . . . (break) . . . people are engaged unnecessarily to work very hard day and night, the capitalist, the worker. Big, big factory, iron factory, in so many factories, unnecessarily. So Prahlāda Mahārāja was concerned. He was living—his father was a demon—in the demonic state.
So this is natural. If one saintly person do not be disturbed by people's unhappiness, he is not saintly person. He is not saintly person. If he is simply satisfied that, "I have got a temple, I am getting good income. Let me eat and sleep . . ." No. My Guru Mahārāja condemned this process. He said that to earn livelihood by showing some temple and collecting money and eat and sleep, better to become a sweeper in the street and earn his livelihood instead of earning livelihood in this so-called spiritual way. So practically all over the world a class of men, a priestly class of men, they have made it a means of earning livelihood, temple achara, taking money from people and enjoying, and then become drunkard. As in your country, five thousand drunkard priests were consolidated in a hospital for treatment. Just see. They're getting money.
So there is possibility, we are opening temples, public is contributing. But if we become easy-goer, "Now money is coming, let us eat sumptuously and eat, and eat and sleep, and if possible drink also . . ." But of course, we are restricting. But naturally when become . . . when one man becomes idle, "Idle brain is the devil's workshop." So if he can get . . . just like rich man's son, they become. Everyone has got experience in every country. When he has no difficulty to get money, then what he will do? He will simply drink or invent some means of intoxication, naked dance. This is the . . .
So they became very much perturbed. Venasyāvekṣya durvṛttasya viceṣṭitam, vimṛśya loka-vyasanaṁ kṛpaya ucuḥ sma . . . kṛpāya, they were very much compassionate. They cannot see. Para-duḥkha-duḥkhī. Therefore, Vaiṣṇava is always unhappy by seeing others' unhappiness. They know how they are going to hell. Just like any gentleman will be aggrieved when they pass on the Bowery Street, seeing their fallen condition. So if any gentleman can become unhappy by seeing such condition of people, what to speak of saintly persons, who are supposed to be responsible for spiritual uplift . . .
Devotee: Ahhhh!
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Devotee: A monkey. No one is guarding. They are probably taking . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Somebody must be there. So monkeys, they are now taking advantage that, "These people have got some eatables." Therefore Darwin's theory is from monkey. That's a fact. From the monkey, cow and lion, the next birth is human life.
So vimṛśya loka-vyasanaṁ kṛpaya ucuḥ sma satriṇaḥ, they began to discuss how to mitigate the troubles of the people. They began to discuss that aho ubhayataḥ prāptaṁ lokasya vyasanaṁ mahat: people, they are now disturbed both ways. One way, the king is a rascal. Another way is that taking advantage of the bad king, the thieves and rogues, they are also very powerful. So just see how the saintly persons become compassionate with the people, that they are both ways.
Actually, at the present moment, people are disturbed by unnecessary taxes, at the same time, bad elements. So without proper king, without nice state, everyone is unhappy. And that is going on nowadays. In the Kali-yuga it will go on, continue, and more and more people will be unhappy.
- arājaka-bhayād eṣa
- kṛto rājātad-arhaṇaḥ
- tato 'py āsīd bhayaṁ tv adya
- kathaṁ syāt svasti dehinām
- (SB 4.14.9)
"If people are disturbed in this way, both ways, from the state side and from the rogue side, then how they will live peacefully?" Just like we sometimes say that if the politicians and the statesmen they are so irresponsible, fighting amongst themselves to capture the power, where is the time for them to think of people's welfare? They cannot. It is not possible. The same thing happened there. Tato api āsīd bhayaṁ tu adya kathaṁ syāt svasti dehinām. Svasti means peacefulness, dehinām, of the embodied living entities, dehinām.