Prabhupāda: There are two things: one material, one spiritual. Spiritually, India is happy, those who are actually spiritualist. But materially, India is unhappy. Spiritually, even if you still go in the interior of village, poor man, living in a cottage, he is taking bath three times and doing his professional work, a cultivator, having little food and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. They are happy actually. They have got their family—husband, wife, some children. If one lives spiritual life, he is actually happy.
Materially, nobody can be happy. In your country, although there is enough facility for material enjoyment, actually they are not happy. Otherwise, why in your country the hippies are coming out? They are coming from respectable, rich parents, nation, but they have given up their home, their father's opulence, mother's opulence. That I have seen practically. Practically all my students.
Here, Brahmānanda, his father, at least he was a big industrialist; mother. But he did not like. He joined this movement. Similarly, Girirāja, his father is a big lawyer, rich man. But he did not like that. There are many, many students, their fathers are . . . Śyāmasundara's father is big lawyer, rich man, businessman. He is the only son. But he did not like his father. So there are many . . . Even though he is not our student, still, I do not know. I have seen in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills. You know?
Banker: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is a rich quarter. Very nice house. And one boy is coming, he is hippie, and riding on his car and going. Then I saw, although it is such a nice, rich quarter, there are also hippies. That I could study. Why these boys are becoming hippies? And New York you know, the hippies are lying here and there in the Fifth Avenue, on Central Park, and they are worshiping pig. (laughs) You know that?
Banker: Yes, I know.
Prabhupāda: He also knows. Why this disappointment?
Banker: We have had a long history of debate in America over wealth. We have had one group, the fundamentalist Protestants, who argue that . . . most of them are poor, and they feel very guilty if they have money. And then you have another group of Protestants, the gospel of wealth Protestants, who say that if you are truly holy, then it is better that the money be entrusted to your hands than to a man who is unholy.
And then you have still another group that regards money as an end in itself, rather than a means to committing you to do other things. And this confuses people in America. Your parents will be one thing, you'll be another. In my case, my mother is a gospel of poverty person. "Blessed are the poor." She thinks you won't get into heaven unless you are poor. And I'm in the gospel of wealth category. (laughter) And you just select your own philosophy along the way. Carnegie was in that philosophy. He even wrote a book about it one hundred years ago. The steel Carnegie, Carnegie Steel.
Prabhupāda: Yes, Carnegie's name I know.