This human life is after many, many evolutionary process. We have forgotten that. So this life is meant for jñānam, ultimate knowledge. In the lower grade of life, there is jñānam, there is consciousness, there is knowledge. A mosquito bug, mosquito, knows where to bite. The knowledge is there. They will bite on the joints. Therefore there is mosquito, you have to eat your hands and legs, the joints, but they know where to bite. This knowledge is there, for eating, sleeping and sex life. Nobody takes education for sex life. Nobody takes education for eating or sleeping. Where is the education that, "You shall eat like this," "You shall sleep like this," "You shall have sexual intercourse like this"? That is automatically known. This knowledge is automatically known. So human civilization does not mean that scientifically you have to do this, do that, eating, sleeping, mating. That is going on, scientifically. Now this science of mating is that we shall have sex intercourse, but there will be no pregnancy. Contracept. So this is not knowledge. Knowledge is different thing. Knowledge means jñānaṁ niḥśreyasārthāya puruṣasya ātma-darśanam. That is knowledge. Atma-darśanam, self-realization. That is jñānam. Otherwise this lower jñāna, or knowledge—how to eat, how to sleep, how to perform sexual life and how to defend—this knowledge is there even in the mosquito or small ant, and what to speak of other, higher grade living entities. That is jñānam, but that is not niḥśreyasāya. Śreya and preya, there are two things. Preya means to fulfill immediate necessities of life. That is called preya. And śreya means the knowledge; śreya means the goal of life. Niḥśreyasāya. Niḥśreyasāya. Niḥśreyasāya means the ultimate benefit. That education is lacking. In the material world, the jñāna, especially in the present age, jñāna means technical knowledge: how to eat, how to sleep. Now they are . . . somebody was telling me that they have invented eating, eatables, from petrol. (aside) Who was speaking the other day?
Nitāi: Bhāgavata dāsa.
Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata dāsa. So they might be very advanced in scientific knowledge, but the ultimate aim is how to eat. That's all, nothing more. How to eat, how to sleep, that's all. Tranquilizer pills, in USA, a large-selling line. That means how to sleep. This is the advancement, scientific advancement. There is no sleeping. Without scientific knowledge, he was sleeping very nice. But with advancement, advancement of scientific knowledge he has lost his sleep—insomnia.
So they are taking the advancement of knowledge in this way. But the Vedic scripture says that jñānaṁ niḥśreyasārthāya: to achieve the highest perfection. That we are discussing in so many ways. And what is that highest perfection? Highest perfection is there, mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā, nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gataḥ. Highest perfection, saṁsiddhiṁ paramām. Param means the supreme, and saṁsiddhim means perfection.