Letters from Srila Prabhupada Vol.1 1947-1969 (in pdf) - Krishna Path

24 Letters from Srfla Prabhuptida
very easily discover that
I. People in the present age are generally
shortliving. The average duration of
life being 30 years or so.
2. They are generally not very simple.
Almost everyman is designing and
crooked.
3. They have no scope fo r high thinking
because they are perplexed with different
relative truths.
4. Unfortunate as they are in this age
their problems remain unsolved for the
whole life even though they are tackled by
their leaders. They make the best effort to
solve a problem but unfortunately the
same becomes more acute and stringent.
5. And above all, people in this age are
always distressed by famine, scarcity,
grieves and diseases in an increasing ratio.
In the old days life was not so much
conditional and encumbered. The simple
problems were then the problems of
bread, clothing and shelter which were
solved by the simplest process. By agriculture
they used to solve the bread,
clothing and shelter problems and
industrialisation was unknown to them.
Thus they had no idea of living in big palatial
buildings at the cost of sacrificing the
boon of humanity. They were satisfied to
live in the cottages and yet they were perfectly
intelligent. Even the famous
Chanakya Pandit who was the Prime Minister
of India during the reign of Chandragupta,
used to live in a cottage and draw
no salary from the State. Such simple
habits did not deteriorate his high intelligence
and dignity and as such he had compiled
many useful literatures which are
still read by millions for social and political
guidance. Thus the simplicity of Brahmanical
culture was an ideal to the
subordinate others of the society and in
the Deductive way the subordinate orders,
namely the the Ksatriyas, the Vaishyas
and the Sudras would follow the instruc-
tion of the cultured Brahmin. Such ways
of approaching the Truth is always simple,
plain and perhaps the most perfect.
The cultured Brahmin-order of the society
would declare that there is God or
Brahman and the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas
and the Sudras who were less cultured
than the Brahmins-would follow the
later fa ithfully call it blindly or otherwise .
By such fa ithfully following the subordinate
classes would be able to save much
time in the matter of arguing or reasoning
fo r the existence of God at all, and still
they would not be faithless.
In the old days even a politician Brahmin
like Chanakya would say that
Vidwatamcha Nripatamcha
Naiva Tulaya Kadachana
Swadeshs Pujyate Raja
Vidwar Sarbatra Pujyato.
A really cultured learned fellow is fa r
above a politician. Because a politician is
honoured by the votes of his countrymen
while a cultured and learned fellow is honoured
everywhere all over the world. So
we say that Rabindra Nath and Gandhi
were never dependent for the votes of their
countrymen but they were honoured all
over the world for their cultural contribution.
The same Chanakya Pandit defined
the standard of learning. The standard of
learning had had to be testified by its
result and not by the manner of University
degrees. He said that one, who looks
upon all women, except one's married
wife as mothers-all other's wealth as the
pebbles on the street and all living being
as one's own self,-is really learned fellow.
He never stressed on the point of
standard of how many grammars, rhetorics
or other books of knowledge one
might have gone through, or how many
Doctorates of different Universities one
might have been decorated with.
At the present moment we know very
well that a few men look upon other women,
besides one's married wife as mothers; very