"Men who are like dogs, hogs, camels and asses, praise those men who never listen to the transcendental pastimes of Lord Sri Krishna, the deliverer from all evils"

The general mass of people, unless they are trained specifically for a higher standard of life, in spiritual values, are no better than animals and in this verse, they have particularly been put on the level of dogs, hogs, camels and asses. Modern university education practically prepares one to acquire a doggish mentality, with which to accept the service of a greater master. After finishing the so called education, the so called educated persons move like dogs, from door to door, with applications for some service and mostly they are driven away, informed of no vacancy. As dogs are negligible animals and serve the master faithfully for bits of bread, a man serves a master faithfully without sufficient rewards. Persons who have no discrimination in the matter of foodstuffs and who eat all sorts of rubbish are compared to hogs. Hogs are very much attached to eating stool. So stool is a kind of foodstuff for a particular type of animal and even stones are edible for a particular type of animal or a bird. But the human being is not meant for eating everything and anything. He is meant to eat grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, sugar, etc. Animal food is not meant for the human being. For chewing solid food, the human being has a particular type of teeth, meant for cutting fruits and vegetables. The human being is endowed with two canine teeth as a concession for poor persons who will eat animal food at any cost. It is known to everyone that one man's food is another man's poison. Human beings are expected to accept remnants of food offered to Lord Sri Krishna and the Lord accepts foodstuffs from the category of leaves, flowers, fruits, etc. (B.G. 9.26) As prescribed by Vedic scriptures, no animal food is offered to the Lord. Therefore the human being is meant to eat a particular type of food. He should not imitate the animals to derive so called vitamin values. Therefore a person who has no discrimination whatsoever in eating is compared to a hog. The camel is a kind of animal that takes pleaure in eating thorns. A person who wants to enjoy family life or the worldly life of so called enjoyment is compared to the camel. Materialistic life is full of thorns and so one should live only by the prescribed method of Vedic regulation, just to make the best use of a bad bargain. Life in the material world is maintained by sucking one's own blood. The central point of attraction for material enjoyment is sex life. To enjoy sex life is to suck one's own blood and there is not much more to be explained in this connection. The camel also sucks it's own blood while chewing thorny twigs. The thorns the camel eats, cuts the tongue of the camel and blood begins to flow within the camel's mouth. The thorns mixed with fresh blood create a taste for the foolish camel and so he enjoys the thorn eating business with false pleasure. Similarly the great business magnates, the industrialists, who work very hard to earn money by different ways and questionable means eat the thorny results of their actions mixed with their own blood. Therefore the Bhagavatam has situated these diseased fellows along with the camels. The ass is an animal who is celebrated as the greatest fool, even amongst the animals. The ass works very hard and carries burdens of the maximum weight without making profit for himself. The ass is generally engaged by the washerman, whose social position is not very respectable. And the special qualification of the ass is that it is very much accustomed to being kicked by the opposite sex. When the ass begs for sexual intercourse, he is kicked by the fair sex, yet he still follows the female for such sexual pleasure. A henpecked man is compared, therefore to the ass. The general mass of people work very hard, especially in the age of Kali. In this age the human being is actually engaged in the work of an ass, carrying heavy burdens and driving thelas and rickshaws. So called advancement of human civilisation has engaged the human being in the work of an ass. The labourers in big factories and workshops are also engaged in such burdensome work. And after working so hard during the day, the poor labourer has to again be kicked by the fair sex, not only for sex enjoyment but also for so many household affairs. So Srimad Bhagavatam's categorisation of the common man without any spiritual enlightenment into the society of dogd, hogs, camels and asses is not at all an exaggeration. The leaders of such ignorant masses of people may feel very proud of being adored by such a number of dogs and hogs. But that is not very flattering. The Bhagavatam openly declares that although a person may be a great leader of such dogsand hogs disguised as men, if he has no taste of being enlightened in the science of Krishna, such a leader is also an animal and nothing more. He may be designated as a powerful, strong animal, or a big animal. But in the estimation of Srimad Bhagavatam, he is never given a place in the category of man, on account of his atheistic temperament. Or in other words such Godless leaders of dogs and hog like men are bigger animals with the quality of animals in greater proportion.

 

In this most wonderful and graphic purport by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, he summarises the condition of human civilisation. 'yad yad acarati sresthas tad tad evetaro jana sa yat pramanam kurute lokas tad anuvartate'. What the great men do the common men follow. Whatever standards they set by their exemplary acts the world will pursue. In the world today, because of the influence of material energy, so strongly imprisoning the people's minds for sense enjoyment, the more one can enjoy their senses, more one is praised by the common man. The tide of the current of the river of material existence naturally flows towards unrestricted sense enjoyment. And the animals, they have no conception of any reason why to restrain their senses from their natural desires for enjoyment. Mataji is a professor of zoology, so she knows very much, the detail of the nature of animal life. Whatever their instincts, they just follow their senses. Human life is meant for tapasya. Tapo divyam putra kale na satvam. Tapasya means to actually say no, to go against the natural flow of material nature. To go against the inclinations of one's mind and senses. To follow the sense, to serve the sense, is considered to be something wonderful in this world amongst men, who are dogs, hogs, camels and asses. And as Srila Prabhupada explains, those who have the greatest proficiency in enjoying their senses are considered to be the greatest leaders of society. Pralhad said, "When the blind lead the blind, they all fall into the ditch and suffer." Therefore there is a great need for leadership in this world. Leadership of those people who are willing to perform the tapasya of giving up their own selfish interest, for the higher purpose of leading people on the path of true dharma. But even people who are in the guise of so called religious leaders are dogs, hogs, camels and asses just in the religious garb. For this reason human civilisation is practically in a hopeless situation. Therefore Srila Prabhupada told us that the most important duty of the Krishna Consciousness movement is to train a class of first class men and women who could actually become leaders within society. By their words and by their example. This is the only means by which there is hope that human beings can fulfill the aim of their lives. It is explained there, that the the general mass, they are systematically trained to be no better than animals. So called modern education. Srila Prabhupada explains, makes you into a dog. You go to college, university, work so hard, for so many years and then you have to begging from door to door, begging for some scraps of bread. In the Vedic civilisation, dignity is given to a person's life. The Brahmin, thee Ksatriya and the Vaisya are never to be employed by anyone. They are meant to be self-employed. By their own creative intelligence, they are able to maintain their livelihood and offer great services to society. The only person who works under another is the Sudra. And that sudra is meant ot be completely faithful to one employer throughout his whole life. And that is actually a great virtue. And the brahmins and the ksatriyas and the vaisyas are meant to care for their employees like a father for his own children. In this way everyone in society is satisfied. No one is exploiting the others. But when the system of Varnashram is forgotten or perverted then everyone in society is in anxiety. And we see on the world wide level, here in India we have brahminism and there is a form of brahminism in all the countries of the world. Where the priests claim an exclusive postion, higher than everybody else, by which no one can have the grace of God, no one can be forgiven from sins, unless they pay them money, for them to perform some puja or ritual. We know that this mentality among brahmins has practialyy destroyed Vedic civilisation. But in the Western world it has practically destroyed religion also. The Catholic church at one time was the one church of Christianity. But the priests became like smartha brahmins. If anyone committed any type of sin, they had to pay them good money to offer prayers and otherwise there was no way they could be redeemed from the sin and they would have to go to hell for the rest of their life. Very good business. Just think. If you commit any sin you will go to hell for ever, unless you pay the priest to do some prayer for you. And who in this world never sins, especially in the western world? And no one was allowed to even open the scriptures of the western world except the priests. You had to learn from them. and they would teach you exactly what would make the best money for them. And they would make you very much afraid. So in the east and the west this conception of brahminism has become such a disturbance that because of it the whole Protestant chuch began. Now most Christians in the west are Protestants. Lutherans, Galvanists, Methodists, Baptists. There are literally hundreds of denominations in the Protestant church. And do you know what the word protestan means? It means protesting against the Catholic church because of these smartha brahmin priests. And it is still going on. So this is how the brahmins are trying to exploit everyone. But Krishna explains in the Bhagavad Gita what are the symptoms of a brahmin. He is simple. He is pure in heart. He is completely honest and truthful. He is self controlled, compassionate to other living beings and a brahmin is not supposed to be in any way concerned with money or wealth. He is supposed to live the most simple and austere life so that people trust that he is not actually after anything from them. He is only giving. And then you have the ksatriyas. You have governments that are dictatorships. Where the ksatriyas want to exploit everyone. Usually what they do is they kill the brahmins, except for those who teach the people what the ksatriyas want to say. And everyone else is their slave. They tax. They just kill whoever does not agree with them and they enslavee everyone else. In the western world we see people like Napolean, Hitler. They were dictators. The ksatriyas wanted all power to exploit everyone. Just like the brahmins wanted all power to exploit everyone. And then you have capitalism. Capitalism is when the vaisyas want ot take over the world. They want to control everything. The capitalists are the vaisyas, the big industrialists, money makers. Money talks. Nobody walks. If you have enough money you can buy everything. In the western civilisation, it is literally capitalist. Because all the politicians are simply paid by the rich people to make the laws, execute the laws, to do anything. Just like there was a president of the United States, Jimmy Carter. And he was a capitalist, he was a farmer. Peanut farmer, a vaisya. He became the president. Not a ksatriya, he was a businessman. And at one time the Vegetarian society of America arranged that atleast one day, one evening there would be a vegetarian dinner in the White House. Sounds nice? But it wasn't like that. Because what happened is that the meat packers, the owners of slaughter houses who make billions of dollars every year killing animals, they approached President Carter and they said, "Listen. We are giving you so much money. If you endorse vegetarianism, people may become vegetarian. They will stop eating our meat. Therefore we will withdraw our funds to you, our donations to you, in other words our pay offs to you, if you have this vegetarian dinner". So he cancelled it. And the whole Vietnam war had nothing todo with anything but big big capitalist vaisyas who were making huge amounts of money. They wanted to build bombs, tanks and guns and by doing so they were becoming very rich. They were the ones who were paying the politicians to continue the war. And of course here in India there is not even a need for any explanation. Practically every politician is willing to take some bribe from such rich person and in this way they are controlled. So in this way capitalism is where the vaisyas completely take control and exploit other classes of men because they have big money. And then we have Communism. Communism is when the sudras want to take over the world. And we see in communist parties what the sudras do. They just go crazy. In Russia, the communist revolution, the common working class of people, they just went in and they killed the Czar, who is the ksatriya in charge. They killed the brahmins who were preaching anything against what they wanted and they were killing the rich people who had lots of money and who were employing them, because they wanted control. Communism is when the sudras want to control the world and exploit all other classes.

Because, you see, no matter what anyone does, human civilisation will be divided into these four varnas. According to the modes of material nature some people are meant to be proper brahmins, ksatriyas, vaisyas and sudras. The Varnashram established by Krishna is giving each person with their particular propensities, rules which they must live by, that they could be in harmony with all other classes of men and women. And without this Varnashram system, human life is nothing more than animals. Everyone is simply fighting and competing with one another for control and power. Why? So that they can enjoy unrestricted sense gratification. And this is the condition of this world. But in the Varnashram system if we live according to Bhagavad Gita's teachings, every class is not only in loving harmony with other classes but everyone is happy and is progressing towards the ultimate goal of life. Because they are all acting according to the aim of human life which is self realisation or Krishna consciousness. So this is very important. And the only way that this could be possibly understood in society, is if there are leaders, especially brahmins who are teaching the proper understanding of humna civilisation. And this is the purpose of our temple. to somehow or the other instill in people's hearts the understanding that human life is not meant for exploitation but for tapasya. For putting aside our own selfish interests for the pleasure of Krishna. For the service of God. The animals, they do not cause a problem within this world and actually the animals are necessary for the ecology of the world. But when humans take on animalistic propensities, they cause havoc in the world. Every little child naturally loves animals. Their toys are usually animals. Their cartoons are usually animals. They like animal pets. But in this degraded society, we are even children are taught to eat the very object of their love. In the western civilisation, there is practically no such thing vegetarianism until Srila Prabhupada came. In this people are training their children to have no sympathies towards even the objects of their love. And through this process they become so hard hearted that they become like animals. eating sleeping mating & defending. Srila Prabhupada is explaining so nicely how humans are becoming like animals. There is nothing else that can be said except that we should take to Krishna consciousness & transcend the influences that are all around us. This is why Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu especially came - to deliver to the world the means by which we can all be leaders of human society towards self realisation. Therefore we follow these 4 regulative principles and we accept leadership from a person or persons who are genuinely representing the truth. In human civilisation everyone must follow. The spiritual masters of their spiritual masters in disciplic succession. The ksatriyas always follow the dictation of the brahmins, of such spiritual masters. The working class or the vaisyas also follow the dictations of the saintly people and they follow the laws which the ksatriyas ordain according to the instructions of the saintly people. In this way in human life everyone is dependent and subordinate. No one acts whimsically according to their own idea. So this is the greatest need in the world. To establish authority and to teach people how to submit to authority. But it must be real authority, the authority of God or Krishna, based on guru, sadhu and sastra. In this way Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu came to establish this Guru parampara. By following the four regulative principles, no illicit sex, no intoxication, no meat eating, no gambling, by chanting the holy names of the Lord, by learning to be the servant of the servant, we can counteract all the effects of these animalistic propensities. And we can collectively and individually march forward towards real peace and happiness. So what is the responsibility that we have towards Lord Caitanya's mission? It must be taken very seriously, because whether we believe it or not the world is very much depending on devotees to set a standard which they could follow. There is so much chaos in society. We have already explained in some detail, how every class of society is trying to exploit everyone else. And the common people are simply frustrated. They are tired of conflicts. There are conflicts in homes. There are conflicts between nations. There are conflicts between castes. There are conflicts between religions. There are conflicts everywhere.People are looking for harmony and peace and love and some direction in life. If we want people to accept the great mercy of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we must display to human society, such peace and harmony amongst ourselves. Although there is individuality within Krishna consciousness and we all have our own nature and our own tendencies. It is not that when we come to Krishna consciousness we will all become one. We will all think differently and act differently but it should be within the guidelines of Krishna consciousness. And as Vaisnavas we must honor and respect individual's particular natures and individual's particular levels of spiritual progress. We must show an alternative to the exploitation of this world. In this world poor people are beaten down by rich people. In Krishna consciousness we have no concern with a person's income. We honor and respect a person because of his faith, devotion and humility. In material society, women are exploited and denied rights because of their weaker physical nature. In Krishna consciousness we are taught to honor every women, especially devotee women as a holy mother and give them great respect and give them complete facility by which to advance in spiritual life. Inn materialistic society, a person who is educated is always looking down upon those who are not educated. But in Krishna conscious society we understand that the highest education is to be convinced to take to the chanting of the holy names of Krishna.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

And anyone who sincerely chants the holy names, we honor them as the greatest scholars. In materialistic society, there is low class and high class. There are mlecchas and yauvanas because they are born in other places. But in Krishna conscious society anyone who is a Vaisnav, anyone who is chanting the name of the Lord and serving the Lord, is considered better than a brahmin. He is considered the most exalted. And worst of all, in materialistic society, those who are so called equal status in society, they are always fiercely fighting and cheating one another, to see who could get more prestige. But in Krishna conscious csociety we have only one aim and that is to be the servant of the servant of the servant.