(Click to enlarge photo of Srila Prabhupada, New York City, 1966)
"So the more we will pass this Kali-yuga, the symptoms will be more acute, intolerable. So we should care. We should take care of this so that we may not come back again to this Kali-yuga. You see? This life should be utilized. Now we are conscious, Krishna conscious. It should be so utilized that no more coming back to United States of America and no more coming back of this condemned earthly planet. That should be the aim. Yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaḿ mama (BG 15.6). We have to be determined to go back to Godhead, to Krishna, where going nobody will come to this condemned place. One should know that this is a condemned place. Unless one is fully convinced that this is a place, condemned, one cannot make progress. If he is satisfied with this condemned condition... Just like these Bowery Street men, they are lying on the footpath. They are satisfied. Condemned condition, but they are satisfied. We should not be satisfied in that way. That is very wretched condition. So we are all in wretched condition under the grip of material nature, always suffering threefold miseries. So we should be conscious. Unless we are conscious about this fact, then our human life is spoiled. They say that you spiritualists, you are very pessimistic. Yes. He should be pessimistic. There is no question of being optimistic. Where is the optimistic view?"
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, New York, December 22, 1966)
.
