“The lifetime of the materialistic man is passed at night either in sleeping or in sex indulgence and in the daytime in making money, by any means, for gratification of the senses.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto Two, Chapter One, text 3)
According to the philosophy of the Vedas, our present materialistic civilisation, being primarily based on the principles of eating, sleeping, sex and defence, is an existence on a par with the lives of lower animals like dogs, hogs, camels and asses. Human society has developed into a polished animal existence. The Vedic school of thought considers this the greatest waste of human energy because human life provides a chance to acquire knowledge. Therefore, human society should be directed towards the goal of liberating the self from its bondage to matter.
Knowledge concerning the self is called atma-tattva. Atma indicates the living being, and tattva means knowledge. But those who are too materialistic are unaware of self-knowledge, being too much absorbed in the opiate of sense pleasure. In their dreamlike state of illusion, such foolish fellows, who are called karmis, or fruitive labourers, philosophise that man is meant to work hard to enjoy this temporary life. But no pleasure is to be found in this transient phenomena, for it is pervaded by four-fold miseries: birth, old age, disease and death.
Factually speaking, life is a hard struggle for existence. We may claim to be scientifically advanced, but that will not save us from the pangs of death. No one, regardless of how rich or powerful, will survive the battle against material nature. One should examine the fact that his father or grandfather has already died and that he will therefore also die, and similarly his children. How then can one find happiness here?
This physical world is known to be constantly changing. It is created just to be annihilated after some time, like waves in the ocean that appear and in a minute are gone. All material forms are like waves in the great ocean of material energy. They appear, develop, stay for some time, produce by-products, dwindle and at last vanish from sight. But although material forms undergo many changes, the conscious self always remains the same.
In Bhagavad-gita (2.16) Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that seers of truth have concluded that the phenomenal world has no endurance and the conscious element (the self) no cessation. One can easily understand this truth. The body is always changing: from boyhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, yet the living entity (atma) remains throughout all the changes of the gross body. Once we all had the bodies of five-year-olds, but those bodies no longer exist. Yet we still exist. Thus one can see that his existence is more than merely physical. This is the realisation of those conversant with the science of the self.
Unfortunately, people who are too attached to sense pleasure never take the time to contemplate the nature of their existence. They go on life after life enjoying the meagre pleasure they experience through their senses. In false happiness, they never make a solution to their material struggle. Therefore, they are compared to dogs, hogs, camels and asses. This comparison may be explained as follows.
A common man, untrained in the standard of higher life, unfortunately spends his valuable time trying to perfect his animal propensities. Consumer consciousness, which both communists and capitalists share, educates people into acquiring a doggish mentality. After finishing a so-called education in a technical school, the so-called educated man doggishly goes from shop to shop to apply for work, but he is often rejected and informed that his skill has been replaced by a machine. As dogs, although of no real value to society, serve their masters for scraps of food, so these doggish men take meaningless employment to provide themselves with bread.
Such unfortunate men do not realise that with the rising and setting of the sun, their duration of life decreases. As a dog will bark at and quarrel with anyone, so when approached by sadhus, saintly persons who wish to give them enlightenment concerning a more meaningful existence, these men argue that life is not meant for contemplating the Absolute Truth. They declare that God is dead and that all spiritual pursuits are simply a waste of time. It is better to get a job, they say, and work hard to enjoy life, for by our advancements in medical science, we will conquer disease and live indefinitely.
Prolong life to the maximum duration and enjoy eating, drinking, sexual intercourse and merry-making to the fullest: this is their hoggish mentality. They have no information of the eternal existence of the self; like sleeping men who have forgotten wakefulness, materialists, lost to their higher consciousness, want to enjoy the maximum pleasure in this life, thinking that there is no existence after death.
Modern leaders are very happy to keep people in this ignorant condition and thereby exploit them in the name of advancement. But this ignorance about the eternality of the living being and the changing of bodies in the material world have wrecked havoc in the structure of modern human society. Industrial plans to increase the pleasures of life have only multiplied the problems. In a passion to get places quickly, man has manufactured the automobile, and now the world is suffering a new misery: air pollution. Thus by exploiting nature, man, thinking he is making progress, only aggravates the miseries of his material existence, like the camel, who derives pleasure from eating thorny twigs and tasting his own blood when they cut his tongue.
The pleasure we are seeking in this world is completely phantasmagoria, even if we get something, it is transient. But there is a real pleasure in spiritual abode of Krishna (God) that pleasure is eternal. To know more about Krishna (God) and His abode you can contact the Hare Krishna people. Thanks.
