Prabhupāda: Well, in America there are so many things which requires thorough reformation. And this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is that. When I went to your country, so I saw these boys and girls, they're living like friends. I said that "You cannot live as friends, you must get yourself married."
Bob: Many people see that even marriage is not sacred. So they find no desire to. Because people get married, and if things are not proper, they get divorced, so very easy . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes, that also.
Bob: . . . that some people feel to get married is not meaningful.
Prabhupāda: No, the idea is that marriage is not sacred. They think marriage is a legalized prostitution. They think like that. But marriage is not that. Even that Christian paper, what is that, "Watch . . .?"
Śyāmasundara: Christian . . . oh, Watchtower?
Prabhupāda: Watchtower. It has criticized, one priest has allowed the marriage between man to man, homosex. So these things are going on. They take it purely for prostitution. That's all. So therefore people are thinking, "What is the use of keeping a regular prostitution at a cost of heavy expenditure? Better not to have this."
Śyāmasundara: You use that example of the cow and the market?
Prabhupāda: Yes, when the milk is available in the market, what is the use of keeping a cow? (laughter) It is very abominable condition. In the Western countries I have seen. Here also, in India, gradually it is coming to be so. (speaks to someone in Bengali) (break) . . . movement is especially meant for making human life reaching the real goal.
Bob: The real goal?
Prabhupāda: The real goal of life.
Bob: Is the real goal of life to know God?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Bob: So that is the real goal, to know God.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Go back to home, back to Godhead. That is real goal of life. Just like the water coming from the sea as cloud falls down as rain, and the actual goal is to flow down the river and again go to the sea. So we have come from God. Now we are embarrassed in this material life. Therefore the aim should be how to get out of this embarrassment and go back to home, back to Godhead. This is real goal of life.
- mām upetya tu kaunteya
- duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam
- nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
- saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ
- (BG 8.15)
That is the version of Bhagavad-gītā. "If anyone comes back to Me," mām upetya kaunteya . . . Mām upetya tu kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam, nāpnuvanti, "he does not come back again." Where? In this place, duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam. This place is the abode of miseries. Everyone knows, but he has become fooled, befooled by so-called leaders. This is miserable life, material life. So duḥkhālayam . . . Kṛṣṇa says, God says, that this place is duḥkhālayam, it is a place of miseries. And that also aśāśvatam.