Blog

Tuesday, 13 May 1975

During the walk on City Beach, Srila Prabhupada spoke candidly about the ill-effects of the increase in the world's demonic population. One of the most prominent features of the move towards a more materialistic society, Prabhupada explained, was an increase in an unwholesome taste for sex.

"Their inclination is for illicit sex. Therefore, when we say: 'You shall not have illicit sex', it is revolutionary. They want sex enjoyment to the best capacity -- homosex, this sex, that sex, naked dance -- all sexually inclined. And we say: 'Stop this'. They do not like it because they are asura.

"So-called svamis, they are coming for this so-called yoga practice. But they are themselves victims of sex. This is going on. It is a bluff, and we are speaking against them.

"The whole world is full of asuras, descendants of Hiranyakasipu, and it is very difficult. What is the difficulty: the so-called svamis, priests, Popes, they have illicit sex. They are passing: 'Yes, you can have homosex with man.' They are getting man-to-man marriage. They are performing the marriage ceremony between men in the open church.

"What class of men they are! And they are priest. Just see. Such degraded persons. Drinking -- they have got a hospital for curing their drinking -- five thousand patients in a hospital in America, all drunkards, and they are priests. So, what is the value of this priestly class?"

Due to the degradation of the priestly class, Srila Prabhupada continued, people were being kept in ignorance. He told an amusing story. A Christian clergyman in a coal mining town in Sheffield was preaching to the miners about the consequences of not worshipping Jesus Christ.

"If you don't worship him," the priest said, "then you'll go to hell."

The miners inquired, "What is that hell?"

The priest began to describe it to the best of his abilities. "Well, it's very dark, and hot, and moist ..."

The miners, however, did not think it sounded so bad; and since they worked daily in conditions similar to the priest's descriptions of hell, they therefore did not take his preaching very seriously. Prabhupada thus concluded his story: "People are kept in so much darkness; they do not know what is hell, what is heaven, what is God, and what is misery. They do not mind. They are accustomed to all these things."

As the walk continued, Srila Prabhupada stopped to tell another story in the same connection. The devotees huddled close. His stories made spiritual life pertinent and alive, and they were eager to hear more.

"One man said: 'Oh, you are drinking, you will go to hell', and he explained what is hell -- 'It is a miserable life'.

The drunkard said, 'But my father also drinks'.

The man replied, 'Oh, he will also go to hell'.

'And my mother also drinks.'

'Oh, she will also go.'

In this way the whole family. 'Then where it is hell? Because the family is there, mother is there, brother is there, everyone, we are going ... So where is hell?' People don't mind so much suffering if they can suffer with their friends. They are accustomed to so many sufferings. They say that they do not mind what is suffering -- especially if they can bring their friends. If their friends are there, it is heaven."


- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu