In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is said, harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā (SB 5.18.12)
"One who is not in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he cannot have any good qualification." Why? There are so many doctors, Ph.D.s, and M.A.C., B.A.C., and very, very big man, and because they are not in Kṛṣṇa consciousness they have no good qualification? One may ask question like that. But the answer is that they may be very learned man in the estimation of common man, but manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ: if a man is educated materially, without any spiritual understanding, without any Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then his field of activities is the mind.
He cannot surpass the field of activities beyond the mind. Those who are grossly materialistic, they are working on the field of this gross body, senses. And those who are a little more advanced, the so-called philosophers, mental speculators, scientists, or many others, they are working on the mental plane.
So unless you promote yourself to the platform of spiritual understanding, there cannot be any good qualification. Therefore harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā (SB 5.18.12). One who is not in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he cannot have any good qualification, because his field of activities is on the mental plane. As it is stated in the previous verse, being situated on the mental plane, even a learned man, I mean to say, transgresses the limits of law. There are so many.
Of course, in India I have personal experience that many . . . why in India? I have seen here also. In New York our boys wanted to purchase one house, and they had a few thousand dollars, and a group of lawyers, I mean to say, they made a plan to take out this ten thousand dollars from these boys, and . . . I know it personally. They are educated lawyers, but because they're acting on the mental plane, they are thinking that "By somehow or other, if we can grab this money and we shall divide amongst lawyers . . ." This is going on. The so-called educated persons, for want of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they can act less than even an animal. You see?
So vidvān apītthaṁ danujāḥ kuṭumbaṁ puṣṇan sva-lokāya na kalpate vai. So they do not care for what is going in the next life. Tamaḥ prapadyeta yathā vimūḍhaḥ. They also fall into the darkness, the darkest region, as ordinary illiterate or ignorant persons also fall.
- yato na kaścit kva ca kutracid vā
- dīnaḥ svam ātmānam alaṁ samarthaḥ
- vimocituṁ kāma-dṛśāṁ vihāra-
- krīḍā-mṛgo yan-nigaḍo visargaḥ
- (SB 7.6.17)
And in this way they are becoming more and more entangled in this materialistic life. So he is concluding, he is asking his friends, tato vidūrāt parihṛtya daityā: "So therefore before you become entangled in this materialistic way of life, my dear friends born of demonic family . . ." Daityeṣu saṅgaṁ viṣayātmakeṣu: "Please give up the company of the demons."
This is very essential, to have good society. A man may be very innocent, and if he is given chance for good society, he becomes a godly man. And if he's given inferior society, then he becomes a demon. So first thing proposed by Prahlāda Maharaj amongst his friends, that daityeṣu saṅgaṁ viṣayātmakeṣu: "Please give up the company of the demons." What demons?
Now, viṣayātmakeṣu, those who are too much attached for sense gratification. They are called demons. They have no other idea. Simply they are concerned with sense gratification and they do not know what is life, what is God, what is next life. They have no information. They are called demons.
And another explanation of the demons and the demigods are there in the Śrīmad-Bhagavad-gītā. Viṣṇu-bhaktaḥ bhaved daiva āsuras tad-viparyayaḥ (CC Adi 3.91).
Those who are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they are called demigods. Demigods, you don't think that simply the citizens or the residents of higher planet, they are called demigods. No.
Even in this planet, those who are devotees of the Lord, those who accept the supremacy of God and those who are devotees, they are called demigods. And those who do not accept that, those who defy the existence of God, they are called demons.