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The FUTURE

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SRILA PRABHUPADA SPEAKS OUT

INCREASING POPULATION NO PROBLEM

 

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This conversation between Srila Prabhupada and some journalists took place in London, England, on August 18, 1971.

 

 

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Srila Prabhupada: Now India is faced with so many problems on account of imitating Western civilization.

Guest: Not simply because of the increased population?

Srila Prabhupada: There is no question of increased population. This idea, I say always, is foolishness.

Guest: Foolishness?

Srila Prabhupada: The birds and beasts are also increasing their population. Who is giving their food? There are 8,400,000 species of life. Out of that, 8,000,000 species are other than human beings, and 400,000 species are human beings. out of that, the civilized persons are very few. And all the problems are in the so-called civilized population.

We know that God is the original father. He is supplying maintenance for everyone. If there is increase of population, God has enough resources to feed them. It is not a problem of increasing population but of demonic civilization.

Journalist: I was going to ask you about that - civilization.

Srila Prabhupada: The demonic civilization - not increasing population - is creating the problem. So far as I have studied, in America, in Africa, and in Australia there is so much vacant space that if the present population of the world were increased ten times there would still be enough food.

Journalist: You think there's enough food?

Srila Prabhupada: There are enough provisions. But we have made artificial divisions. "This is America." The Americans went from Europe and illegally occupied America. Now they won't allow anyone to come there. Similarly, the Australians wont' allow anyone to come there. The same with New Zealand, Africa. Why? Our philosophy is that everything belongs to God and we are all sons of God. everyone has got the right to live at the cost of God.

Journalist: But the values of Western civilization have...

Srila Prabhupada: Western civilization created the artificial idea that "this is Aftica, this is America, this is Europe."

Journalist: Therefore that has made living as children of God impossible.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Because the one son of God is not allowing the other son to come in. He hasn't got the right to forbid. Say your father has ten sons. So all the ten sons have the right to use the property of the father. That is the law. Similarly, all the living entities - not only human beings but birds, animals - all of them have the right to use the property of God. This is called spiritual, or transcendental, communism.

According to Vedic civilization, a householder has to see that even a lizard in the room has his food. A householder would stand on the street, and before taking his food, he would say loudly, "If anyone is hungry, please come. I have food." And if there is no response, then he takes.

Journalist: That's a very difficult doctrine for many people in civilization.

Srila Prabhupada: But that is real civilization. In animal civilization, as soon as one dog comes, another dog barks, "Yow! Yow! Yow! Why are you coming?" Just like there, and everywhere, the immigration department is asking, "Oh, how long will you stay?" Why should they ask that? A human being is coming. In Vedic civilization, even if an enemy comes to your home you receive him with such friendliness that he forgets that you are his enemy.

Journalist: But it must be very difficult for you to preach these values.

Srila Prabhupada: It is difficult because this civilization is demonic. India welcomed everyone, but the result was they were occupied. Your English people were welcomed. Lord Clive was welcomed, but he intrigued to occupy India. And his statue is worshiped here in London. But what was his credit? He made an intrigue - he illegally entered India and made an occupation. That is Western civilization.

Journalist: That's really what I was going to ask. You must find life very difficult preaching values of brotherhood in present day society.

Srila Prabhupada: Brotherhood is natural. In a family of ten sons, natually they are brothers. But one son is intriguing how to take the whole property. That is going on. That is demonic.

Journalist: How do you stop that?

Srila Prabhupada: By Krsna consciousness. As soon as you are educated that God is one - the Father is one - and we are all sons, then the whole solution is made.

 

 

--

 

BTG(Jul/Aug 1994)

 

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How I explain on my website:

"there will be billions of people with one or two lives, and like today they are fixing the rules from TV to Religion".

Srila Prabhupada is speaking about "demonic", but it's the peoblem of evolution of the people on this planet, the "quality", not the number, and in the future will be more "demonic" in the picture of the world.

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Affa,

 

It is not clear to me from your website or your article just exactly what is meant when you say that people have 1 or 2 or 4 or 7 lives.

 

I might agree if you say that many people are using more than 100 times as many world resources than they really need, but I can't figure your "lives" concept out.

 

gHari

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Yes, we have 7 reicarnations in human body, at the begining we are "demons" at the end "saints".

From Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi I learned a lot, he is one of the greatest. For me everybody who have the Knowledge is my Master. When somebody have only one Master, is far away from Knowledge.

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Seven reincarnations - this sounds different than the knowledge presented in Ramana's Vedas. What is the source of this idea?

 

Does your school of knowledge accept that man is God? Or is man a separate entity somehow?

 

The non-dual Advaita interpretation of the Vedas expressed by Shankara and Ramana, which is the lesser of the five major schools of thought arising out of the Vedic scriptures, is considered by each of the other four Vaisnava understandings to be very problematic for the soul. Three of the other schools accept Advaita, but not exclusively non-dual - that is, we are all part of God, but, the soul exists separately as well; it is real; it can interact with the Supreme Being. Thus bhakti (devotion) is possible; indeed it is the only real occupation of the soul.

 

The other four schools see non-dual Advaita as the annihilation of the soul by merging into God, and therefore warn against any contact with the destructive ideas of the strictly Advaita philosophy.

 

I guess the easy way to spot this suicidal attitude is to ask two questions of the teacher:

<ul>Are you God?

Might you be God tomorrow?

 

Anyway, I do not find any limit (minimum or maximum) on the number of reincarnations we face in Krsna's knowledge presented in the Bhagavad-gita. I take His word as Absolute. With your deep interest in yoga, I'm sure you read the Bhagavad-gita which is the source of all yogas, so I am very interested in knowing your source for that seven reincarnation number.<font color="#dedfdf">

 

[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 04-02-2002).]

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That is an interesting question regarding population growth. At what point does it reach critical mass and surpass the available resources on the planet? Scientists have made projections and those are sobering and somewhat alarming. In 1971 when SP was discussing the matter, there were far fewer people on earth. You have to consider that he certainly would be singing a different tune today! This is a serious issue facing all nations that needs to be addressed. We can already see some of the ill effects in the form of starvation and exploitation of child labor and slave labor in various pockets.

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Originally posted by gHari:

Seven reincarnations - this sounds different than the knowledge presented in Ramana's Vedas. What is the source of this idea?

 

Does your school of knowledge accept that man is God? Or is man a separate entity somehow?

 

The non-dual Advaita interpretation of the Vedas expressed by Shankara and Ramana, which is the lesser of the five major schools of thought arising out of the Vedic scriptures, is considered by each of the other four Vaisnava understandings to be very problematic for the soul. Three of the other schools accept Advaita, but not exclusively non-dual - that is, we are all part of God, but, the soul exists separately as well; it is real; it can interact with the Supreme Being. Thus bhakti (devotion) is possible; indeed it is the only real occupation of the soul.

 

The other four schools see non-dual Advaita as the annihilation of the soul by merging into God, and therefore warn against any contact with the destructive ideas of the strictly Advaita philosophy.

 

I guess the easy way to spot this suicidal attitude is to ask two questions of the teacher:

<ul>Are you God?

Might you be God tomorrow?

 

Anyway, I do not find any limit (minimum or maximum) on the number of reincarnations we face in Krsna's knowledge presented in the Bhagavad-gita. I take His word as Absolute. With your deep interest in yoga, I'm sure you read the Bhagavad-gita which is the source of all yogas, so I am very interested in knowing your source for that seven reincarnation number.<font color="#dedfdf">

 

[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 04-02-2002).]

gHari Prabhuji, shame on you, you are never mentioning the dvaita vedants of Madhavaji which is being a major school. Are you forgetting?

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Shashi (edited 04-02-2002).]

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gHari,

"destructive ideas of the strictly Advaita philosophy".

Everything is exactly, the Universes are like a perfect clocks. How much you sleep, or pray can be calculated in advance.

If you look in The Theosophical Society books you'll find a lot of information about lives, time frame etc.

Why do you ask me if I'm God...?

In my first sentence on my website:

My Ego is my Student, My Spirit is my Master.

For me it's very clear.

 

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gHari Prabhuji, shame on you, you are never mentioning the dvaita vedants of Madhavaji which is being a major school. Are you forgetting?

Yes, Shashi, let us mention the Dvaita school. I believe that is Madhva's (also known as Madhvacarya) wonderful tattvavada sampradaya. It was the fifth school mentioned, but not explicitly named.

 

[This message has been edited by gHari (edited 04-03-2002).]

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Alfa, I'm glad it's clear to you. It wasn't to me and isn't to me. People use that word "spirit" to mean many things.

 

I had assumed that since yoga schools originate from the Vedas and the word samadhi is a sanskrit word, that your fund of knowledge had its source in the Vedas too. What is the source of the knowledge in the Theosophy books?

 

I was not asking you if you were God. At the time, I did not realize that you see yourself as a teacher, not a seeker.

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