[…] The living being cannot enjoy the Goddess of Fortune without serving Narayana, and therefore whoever desires to enjoy Mother Laksmi wrongly will be punished by the laws of nature. These laws will make certain that the money itself will bring about destruction instead of peace and prosperity.
Unlawfully accumulated money is now being snatched from miserly citizens by various methods of state taxation for the future civil and international war fund, which is spending money in a wasteful and destructive manner. The citizens are no longer satisfied with just enough money to maintain a family nicely and cultivate spiritual knowledge, both of which are essential in human life.
Now everyone wants money unlimitedly to satisfy insatiable desires. In proportion to the people’s unlawful desires, their accumulated money is taken away by the agents of illusory energy in the shape of medical practitioners, lawyers, tax collectors, societies, constitutions, so-called holy men, famines, earthquakes, and many similar calamities.
One miser who hesitated to purchase a copy of Back to Godhead spent $2,000 for a week’s supply of medicine and then died. Another man who refused to spend a cent for the service of the Lord wasted thousands of dollars in a legal suit between the members of his home. There are innumerable similar instances occasioned by the dictation of illusory nature.
Indeed, that is the law of nature; if money is not devoted to the service of the Lord, it must be spent as spoiled energy in the form of legal problems or diseases. Foolish people do not have the eyes to see such facts; therefore the laws of the Supreme Lord befool them.
The laws of nature do not allow us to accept more money than is required for proper maintenance. There is ample arrangement by the law of nature to provide every living being with his due share of food and shelter, but the insatiable lusts of human beings have disturbed the arrangement set forth by the Almighty Father of all species of life. By the arrangement of the Supreme Lord, there is an ocean of salt because salt is so necessary for the living being.
God has, in the same manner, arranged for sufficient air and light, which are also essential. Anyone can collect any amount of salt from the natural storehouse, but constitutionally we cannot take more salt than what we need. If we take more salt, we spoil the broth, and if we take less salt our food becomes tasteless.
On the other hand, if we take only what we require, our food is tasty and we are healthy. presently there is a great deal of concern over the fact that our natural resources are becoming polluted and exhausted. Actually there is ample supply, but due to misuse and greed everything is being spoiled.
What conservationists and ecologists do not understand is that everything will continue to be spoiled by the insatiable lusts of mankind unless this Krsna consciousness process is taken up. It is impossible to have peace on any platform of existence without Krsna consciousness.
Man is therefore suffering due to his insatiable desires and lusts. Not only is man suffering, but the planet on which he resides, his mother earth, represented in Srimad-Bhagavatam by mother cow, is also suffering. Once a well-known swami in India was asked whether God or providence is responsible for the sufferings of humanity.
The swami replied that these sufferings were all God’s pastimes or lila. The questioner continued to ask why a living entity should be put under the dictations of the law of karma. The swami could not answer these questions to the satisfaction of his inquirers.
The monists and impersonalists who think only in terms of the oneness of the living entities with the Supreme Lord cannot give satisfactory answers to such questions. Such an imperfect reply can hardly satisfy the heart of a living entity.
The Lord is described in all scriptures as lila-purusottama, or the personality of Godhead, who is by His own nature always engaged in transcendental pastimes. In the Vedanta-sutra He is also described as anandamayo ’bhyasat. The monists and impersonalists try with great difficulty to explain this sutra in diverse ways in order to support their imperfect theory of oneness and impersonality.
However, the fact remains that ananda, pleasure, cannot be enjoyed alone. That variety is the mother of enjoyment is a well-known fact. Cities, for instance, are known to be attractive if they contain a variety of things. Living entities are naturally attracted by variety, by attractive streets, buildings, cinemas, parks, conveyances, businesses, employments, foodstuffs, etc. Despite all this variety, the English poet Cowper once said, “The city is made by man, but the country is made by God.”
The countryside is also full of natural variegatedness in a crude form, whereas in the city this variegatedness is displayed in a modernized scientific manner. Poets like Cowper are attracted to the variegatedness of the country, and prosaic people who live in the city are attracted by the colorful varieties manufactured by man. In any case, it is variegatedness which attracts people both to the country and the city. This is the proper explanation of the verse of the Vedanta-sutra.
Full Chapter
Speak Your Mind