Prabhupāda: So they're talking about what is knowledge. Yes. This is very good question, "What is knowledge?" So Arjuna wanted to know this knowledge from Kṛṣṇa. Knowledge means to understand this body and the soul. Kṣetra kṣetra-jña. Kṣetra means this body, and kṣetra-jña means the owner of the body. Just like if you study your body . . . "What is this?" Just we ask any child. Sometimes we play with the child. We ask, "What is this?" He'll say: "My hand" or "My head." So even the child can say that the hand is different from him. We also say: "This is my hand," "This is my leg," "This is my head." We never say, "I head" or "I hand." No. "My hand." It is very simple thing.
So Kṛṣṇa, being asked by Arjuna, He's giving the knowledge that this body is called kṣetra. Kṣetra means field of activities. Just like in agricultural land, you get a piece of land, and you produce your own food grain, or as you like. The government gives you a piece of land, and you have to pay a little tax, and you can grow your food grains as you like. Similarly, as we wanted, Kṛṣṇa has given us this body. Now we can work with this body as we like. If you want, you can utilize this body for higher elevation, or you can utilize this body for your nonsense purpose and go to hell. That is your choice.
Just like somebody is using this body, undergoing austerities, penance, according to the spiritual, regulative life, and one man is using this body only for sense gratification, drinking and sex. So it is my choice, to utilize this body as I like, and I also reap the result. The same example: You are given a field, a piece of land. You can grow twice, thrice in a year very nice foodstuff, sometimes pulses, sometimes paddy, sometimes the mustard seed. Any land . . . in India, we have seen that a cultivator produces three, four kind of food grains in a year. That is the system. (aside) Not this . . . that is the system, that in India every man is producing his food grains independently. Now it is stopped. Formerly, all these men, they used to produce their food grain. So they used to work for three months in a year, and they could stock the whole year's eatable food grains. Life was very simple. After all, you require to eat. So this Vedic civilization was that keep some land and keep some cows. Then your whole economic question is solved.
Now, in this country, Geneva, I heard there is actually, I am tasting the milk, first-class milk. I think the world's best milk. Unless one has got his own cows, one cannot get such nice milk. But I hear also that because there is excess production of milk, they have decided to kill twenty thousand cows.
Devotee: Last year, they decided to do it, but apparently they didn't do it. They wanted to do it.
Prabhupāda: Just see how much foolish proposal it is. So for want of God consciousness, this mischievous intelligence can be found. The whole economic question can be solved. If you have got excess, then you can trade, you can send to some place where there is scarcity. But every man should produce his own food. That is Vedic culture. You get a piece of land and produce your family's foodstuff. But they are . . . what they are doing? In Australia, in Africa, they have got enough land, but the government . . . maybe they have no sufficient men to utilize the land, but they won't allow any outsider to go there who can produce. I have seen in Africa, very, very large tract of land was lying vacant, nobody is producing any food. They are producing coffee. That is not the local men. The Britishers who have gone there. They are producing coffee, tea, and keeping some cows for slaughtering. This is going on. In Australia, also, I have seen.
Even some priestly class. They invited me, received me, received me very well. So one of the priests—he inquired that, "Why our Christian religion is dwindling? What we have done?" And actually, that's a fact. I have seen, in London at least, the churches are for sale. Nobody's going to the church. Some of the churches have been taken for making go-down, storehouse or some factory. Many hundreds of thousands. In London there are many churches. Churches are there in New York also, other places. Formerly, people were religious. It doesn't matter whether one construction . . . one construct temple or church. It doesn't matter. There was prayer to the Supreme.