One should . . . everyone is trying his best to mitigate distressed condition of life. Ātyantika duḥkha-nivṛtti. Everyone is trying. "I am in miserable condition. If I get so much money, my miserable condition will be mitigated." So everyone is after money. But that mitigation is temporary. Suppose if you get some money, you get a nice apartment, nice bank balance. Does it mean that you have ended your main problems of life, janma-mṛtyu, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam?
So they have become so foolish, so degraded, that they do not know what is the meaning of life, what is the problem of life, how to make solution of the problem. Nobody is interested. Simply cats and dogs, that's all, as the cat and dog is working very hard simply for eating, sleeping and mating. That's all.
The human life is not meant for that purpose. This is the defect of modern civilization. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye (SB 5.5.1). Viḍ-bhujām, the hog, who eats stool, he's also struggling for the same thing. What is that? Eating, sleeping, mating and defending, that's all. So is that human life is also simply meant for this purpose? No. Human life is meant for tāpo divyaṁ yena śuddhyed sattvam (SB 5.5.1). You have to purify your existence. My existence is now impure. In the Bhagavad-gītā we learn, na jāyate na mriyate (BG 2.20). The living entity, the soul, never takes birth, never dies, but I am subject to birth and death. So this problem does not come. They are simply making adjustment a temporary problem. That is not human civilization. Vedic civilization means to solve the major problems of life. That is Vedic civilization. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). They don't care for these troubles.
Formerly, people were very happy so far material conditions were concerned. They had no complaint. Everyone was happy, everyone was getting ample food. And why they shall not get? The birds, beasts, they are getting their ample food, even up to death. There is no complaint amongst the birds and beast, unless one is in the human society. Otherwise in the jungle there are major portion of the animals and birds.
They have no complaint. They do not come in the city that, "We have this complaint." They are happy. They are getting ample food; life is very happy. They have got their eating, they have got their sleeping, they have got their mates for sex life and they know how to defend. Everything is there. There is no problem. Only in the human society they have created problems, because they have no knowledge. The so-called knowledge is useless. Unless you cannot (sic) solve the problems, what is the meaning of this knowledge? Therefore Kṛṣṇa says knowledge means one must know this is my real, acute miserable condition of life, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam (BG 13.9). This is knowledge.
So to begin with knowledge, Kṛṣṇa recommends amānitvam, humility. Because the real disease of material life is that he is not humble. He is always proud, little possession. Svalpa-jala mātrena . . . (indistinct) . . . just like the big fish in the ocean. They are deep within the water, and if you find out a small lake, little water, you'll find small fishes, "parput-parput," they're doing there. So there is no depth of knowledge. Simply they're perplexed. Therefore this education should be given, how to become humble. Śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ prapannam (BG 2.7). Tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā (BG 4.34). Paripraśnena sevayā. One has to learn by service, by praṇipāta. Praṇipāta means surrender. There is no surrender. Nobody is prepared to surrender. "Oh, why shall I surrender? I know everything." Puffed-up unnecessarily.