Choosing Human and Animal Lives
11
worshiping them. They actually wanted one hog to become President, and they wanted the hogs to lead them. This has gone to such lengths that at one be-in in Seattle there was a demonstration with hogs in which the boys and girls undressed themselves and got in the mud and played with the hogs, and in this way they were associating with the hogs and pigs which they worshiped. All this is going on in a country where the young people have good looking bodies, a great deal of money and so many other advantages over the young people of other nations. The result of gaining all these advantages is that they have simply taken to hog worship. Such hog worship was anticipated long, long ago and was described in  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , which was compiled at least 5,000 years ago. The point is that a beautiful situation in life should be utilized for a beautiful end, not for degraded forms of worship.
In the Vedic histories we find that there were many, many exalted emperors and kings who practiced austerities and penances. Dhruva Mahārāja, Ambarīṣa Mahārāja and Yudiṣṭhira Mahārāja were all great kings and were most opulent, but at the same time they were great sages. Thus they set the example for those who have acquired this good opportunity of a beautiful human form of life with all the facilities for economic development and good living. This opportunity should be used to attain an even better life, and this can be actualized by practice of penance. At present we are existing in these material bodies, but if we take to the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, our consciousness will be purified. Although American and European, the young