PRABHUPADA: God is the father, and father’s property is this whole world. We are all sons, beginning from Brahma down to the ant, and father’s property lets us enjoy equally. That’s all. All questions are solved.
PUSTA KRSNA: What to do with the greedy people in the world, though?
PRABHUPADA: Greedy because you are meant to…, because you don’t recognize father and father’s property, you have created the situation.
HARI-SAURI: Because they don’t know who the proprietor is, they’re thinking “I can take this for myself.”
PRABHUPADA: Therefore America has so much over-production. Let the hungry men come here. Greediness is not allowed. Whatever… Tena tyaktena bhuñjitha. Ishavasyam idam sarvam [Isopanisad mantra 1]. This is shastra. Everything belongs to God. Whatever He allots to you, you take it. In the family the father says, “My dear boy, take of this.” That’s all. Why should he claim more? The father knows how much he’ll eat, and He’ll give it. He’s supplying the elephant his food, the ant his food. Elephant’s not dying starvation. Why you are worried? You want to eat forty kilos. All right. Take it. The father is able to supply. Eko yo bahunam vidadhati kaman. He’s supplying everyone.
PUSTA KRSNA: [break] …not a practical solution.
PRABHUPADA: Yes. This is the knowledge, real knowledge. 8,400,000 forms of life, and the supreme father is supplying food to everyone. And each form millions, millions. You’ll find millions of one type of fish within the water. And there are nine hundred thousand different forms of fishes. They are eating within this water. Who is supplying them food? We cannot imagine even what is the food there within the water. But there is. Otherwise, how they are living? They have no scarcity.
HARI-SAURI: Neither there’s any overpopulation either.
PRABHUPADA: Neither. Overpopulation, the fish, they lay eggs hundreds and thousands at a time. You know that? There is not…, unlimited number of eggs they lay down. [break]
Nature will punish money-driven agriculture
PRABHUPADA: …say, “Your food is ready. Just little work.” Annad bhavanti bhutani [Bhagavad-gita 3.14]. Just produce food grain. Everyone will be happy. But why they are producing motorcars only?
PUSTA KRSNA: So they can go to the market and get the food. So they can drive to the market.
PRABHUPADA: Why market? You can produce your food at home.
HARI-SAURI: They have so much land, and then they grow a crop that they don’t need…
PRABHUPADA: I have estimated if land lying vacant, if they used for farming, producing food, ten times as many people can be fed. There is no question of scarcity. Your American government, “Oh, don’t produce, don’t produce, don’t produce.” If they’ll produce more, “I’ll throw it in the sea.” Produce motorcar. Produce motorcar, 1967 model. Don’t produce foodgrains. This is government’s position. Don’t produce foodgrains, produce 1967 motorcar, so that there may be more and more accidents.
HARI-SAURI: They pay the farmers not to grow crops.
PRABHUPADA: Yes. [Around the world] there are so many people starving, they have no land to produce food. Therefore the Supreme Father has to be accepted.
HARI-SAURI: Just like when we were in Fiji, all they grow is sugarcane so they have to sell the sugarcane to get money to buy crops that they could have grown there in the first place.
PRABHUPADA: Yes, business. Why so much sugarcane? The islands of Hawaii, they grow more sugarcane. We have seen all the islands. Huge sugarcane farms. The sugarcane is required for manufacturing wine. …
HARI-SAURI: Even when they try to grow the grains, they can’t guarantee it.
PRABHUPADA: Eh?
HARI-SAURI: Like in Russia, they projected they would grow so much grains…
PRABHUPADA: Nature will punish them. Prakriteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvashah [Bg. 3.27]. Nature is Lord’s [indistinct] maintainer, he’s observing, factually.
excerpt from Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.10.4, text purport
Artificial economic development detrimental to human society
During the reign of Maharaja Yudhishthira, the clouds showered all the water that people needed, and the earth produced all the necessities of man in profusion. Due to its fatty milk bag and cheerful attitude, the cow used to moisten the grazing ground with milk.
PURPORT
The basic principle of economic development is centered on land and cows. The necessities of human society are food grains, fruits, milk, minerals, clothing, wood, etc. One requires all these items to fulfill the material needs of the body. Certainly one does not require flesh and fish or iron tools and machinery. During the regime of Maharaja Yudhishthira, all over the world there were regulated rainfalls. Rainfalls are not in the control of the human being. The heavenly King Indradeva is the controller of rains, and he is the servant of the Lord. When the Lord is obeyed by the king and the people under the king’s administration, there are regulated rains from the horizon, and these rains are the causes of all varieties of production on the land. Not only do regulated rains help ample production of grains and fruits, but when they combine with astronomical influences there is ample production of valuable stones and pearls. Grains and vegetables can sumptuously feed a man and animals, and a fatty cow delivers enough milk to supply a man sumptuously with vigor and vitality. If there is enough milk, enough grains, enough fruit, enough cotton, enough silk and enough jewels, then why do the people need cinemas, houses of prostitution, slaughterhouses, etc.? What is the need of an artificial luxurious life of cinema, cars, radio, flesh and hotels? Has this civilization produced anything but quarreling individually and nationally? Has this civilization enhanced the cause of equality and fraternity by sending thousands of men into a hellish factory and the war fields at the whims of a particular man?
It is said here that the cows used to moisten the pasturing land with milk because their milk bags were fatty and the animals were joyful. Do they not require, therefore, proper protection for a joyful life by being fed with a sufficient quantity of grass in the field? Why should men kill cows for their selfish purposes? Why should man not be satisfied with grains, fruits and milk, which, combined together, can produce hundreds and thousands of palatable dishes. Why are there slaughterhouses all over the world to kill innocent animals? Maharaja Parikshit, grandson of Maharaja Yudhishthira, while touring his vast kingdom, saw a black man attempting to kill a cow. The King at once arrested the butcher and chastised him sufficiently. Should not a king or executive head protect the lives of the poor animals who are unable to defend themselves? Is this humanity? Are not the animals of a country citizens also? Then why are they allowed to be butchered in organized slaughterhouses? Are these the signs of equality, fraternity and nonviolence?
Therefore, in contrast with the modern, advanced, civilized form of government, an autocracy like Maharaja Yudhishthira’s is by far superior to a so-called democracy in which animals are killed and a man less than an animal is allowed to cast votes for another less-than-animal man.
We are all creatures of material nature. In the Bhagavad-gita it is said that the Lord Himself is the seed-giving father and material nature is the mother of all living beings in all shapes. Thus mother material nature has enough foodstuff both for animals and for men, by the grace of the Father Almighty, Sri Krishna. The human being is the elder brother of all other living beings. He is endowed with intelligence more powerful than animals for realizing the course of nature and the indications of the Almighty Father. Human civilizations should depend on the production of material nature without artificially attempting economic development to turn the world into a chaos of artificial greed and power only for the purpose of artificial luxuries and sense gratification. This is but the life of dogs and hogs.
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