And very importantly the Lord is equal to all. It doesn't really matter whether you are living in a big house or you are a pauper in the street as long as we are engaged in the service of the Lord. People in this world value material accomplishments. In fact we may see in devotional communities that they respect only those who are very wealthy. It's natural. You see that's the tendency of the conditioned living entities that they tend to become impressed with opulences. The Lord here is demonstrating that that doesn't really matter.

I remember, sometime ago, I won't mention the name but I was going in the car to some congregation's house, some very big industrialist. There were other people with me from abroad and we did a program there. And after that we had to go for another program and on the way we had to pass through one slum area and that devotee asked me that, Where are we going? Which is our next program. I said that the next program is in the slum. He said, Oh Hare Krsna! He got off the car and he came back..

You know we may make such distinctions but the Lord doesn't make such distinctions. We may live in big houses, not a big problem but let the house not live in us. That's very important. We may drive a car but we should not allow the car to drive us.

The Lord is not against opulences. If you want opulences to serve the Lord, the Lord may award us and if we like to serve the Lord with renunciation, then that's also okay.