In the Vedic literature we get information, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām, eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). God, the description of God, is given there, that "He is also living entity like us. He is also eternal, like us." Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām. But what is the difference between Him and us? That is described, eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān: "That one God is supplying all the necessities of these many." So we should not approach God for economic satisfaction or for bread or for wood or for anything necessary for our life. God has arranged food for everyone—the aquatics, the birds, the beasts, the trees, the elephants or the other, four-legged animals—and why not for human being? Human being also, those who are uncivilized, still living in the forest, they have no arrangement for economic development, or they do not know, but they have got also food.
Therefore śāstra says,
- tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido
- na labhyate yad bhramatām upary adhaḥ
- tal labhyate duḥkhavad anyataḥ sukhaṁ
- kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā
- (SB 1.5.18)
"One should try for developing God consciousness, not for anything else, because happiness and distress, they come automatically. We haven't got to try for it." Happiness. . ., everyone aspires for happiness. Nobody aspires for distress, but distress is forcibly come upon you. Similarly, the śāstra says, "As distress comes without any desire, similarly, happiness also will come without any endeavor." So long we are in the material world, the so-called happiness and distress will come and go, but our the human life, the endeavor should be how to find out or revive our relationship with God. That is our main business. They are just like seasonal changes, happiness and distress. Mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ (BG 2.14). Just like there is winter season; it is pinching cold. That will also not stay. And the scorching heat, that will also not stay. It comes and goes. Therefore, so long in the material world we are, the so-called happiness and distress will come and go. Don't bother about it. You simply try for reviving your Kṛṣṇa consciousness, or God consciousness.
So human being has misunderstood the mode of life. They are simply busy for maintaining this body whole day and night. So we should conclude like this, that "If God can supply eight million types of different lower animals, then why shall not God give the necessities of life to the human society?" So don't execute your religious principle for some material benefit, but try to revive your relationship with God and try to love Him. That type of religious system is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam - that there is no motive but how to love God. That is stated. This type of religion - means to love God - is stated here: śivadaṁ tāpa-traya unmūlanam. Śivadam means all-auspicity, and the threefold miserable condition of life is completely uprooted.
On account of this material body, we have got threefold miseries within this material world. One is called adhyātmika. Adhyātmika means miserable condition due to this material body and the mind. The another miserable condition is adhibhautika: miserable condition offered by other living entities. And the third miserable condition is which is offered by the nature, just like earthquake, famine, pestilence and so many other things on which we have no control. We have no control in any kind of miserable condition, especially the miserable condition offered by nature. We cannot avoid it. So therefore. . . Here it is said that if you take up this religious system—means how to love God—then you will be transcendental to all this miserable condition of material existence. And these information, these practices, are given in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is compiled by. . ., not by any ordinary person, but śrīmad-bhāgavate mahā-muni-kṛte, the greatest sage, Vyāsadeva. He has given us.
In ordinary literatures, they are full of mistakes and cheating and illusion and imperfectness. Every conditioned soul, as we are, we have got four defects, namely we commit mistake, we are sometimes illusioned, and sometimes we do not know properly anything, and still, I give my thesis, "Perhaps," "It may be. . ." What is this knowledge "perhaps"? That means cheating. One hasn't sufficient knowledge, and "perhaps," "maybe," he is giving knowledge. And above all of them, we should know that our present material senses are imperfect. For example, just like we are very much proud of our eyes. We say, "Can you show me God?" But our eyes are so long perfect as long the light is. It is conditional. Therefore every sense now we are possessing, they are not perfect. So we acquire knowledge by using our different senses. Therefore, because they are imperfect, whatever knowledge we gather by speculation, that is imperfect.