Hare Krsna-Below Srila Prabhupada explains the concept of simple living-for us westerners this idea of living very simply is a novel and difficult idea to grasp-there are no huge machines, no cell phones, no 5G cell phone towers spewing their polluting radiation, no computers,and and no traffic accidents because there are no cars !
He once described the difference between east and west as the eastern cultures are more oriented towards some sort of spirituality, whereas all the western cultures want machines and more machines because they believe that will solve all their problems. Too much traffic? Just build another freeway-that is their solution.
Damaghosa das
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May 27 1974 Rome
Bhagavān: What about the question of using petrol for heat? Another import, there is three uses of petrol, or four. One is the transportation, one is heat, another is electricity, and a fourth is they use it to manufacture so many products. So what if someone asks...
Prabhupāda: No, you go on products, with your product. You have created problem, you go on with your problem. But we live like this. If you like, you can adopt.
Bhagavān: What is our solution to heat? Wood?
Prabhupāda: Heat? Yes, wood. Sufficient.
Dhanañjaya: But they are saying they used all the wood for paper, so there's no more wood.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Paper you can make from grass, from cotton. So many other fibers. You don't require wood. You grow grass, sufficient quantity, and you make paper. Why should you publish so many rubbish literatures? Just like you were telling. The Times of India, the newspaper. (Sound of cars) This is the difficulty, walking on street. Therefore I wanted to go to the park. This is disturbance. So paper, if we don't produce unnecessary paper, there is no scarcity. From grass. You produce grass, huge quantity of grass, you will get paper. Cotton also. First-class paper. In India also, the rejected paper. From rejected paper you can get another paper also. But they throw it away in your country. Collect this rejected paper and again put it into paper. And why should you publish all rubbish literature? Simply publish Bhāgavata and Bhagavad-gītā, that's all. What is the use of this newspaper, nonsense newspaper, huge, huge quantity? So everything will be nice provided you become ideal. Live in community. Produce your own food. Even you can produce your own paper. You don't require printing of so many books. If there is one book, others can imitate, or copy. There is no need of printing. Formerly they used to do that. Here is the...