Text 19] Pure Devotional Service: The Change in Heart
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called vitamin values. Therefore, a person who has no discrimination in regard to eating is compared with the hogs.
The camel is a kind of animal which takes pleasure in eating thorns. Similarly, a person who wants to enjoy family life or the worldly life of so-called enjoyment is compared with the camel. Materialistic life is full of thorns, so one should live only by the prescribed method of Vedic regulations just to make the best use of a bad bargain. Life in the material world is maintained by sucking one's own blood. The central point of attraction for material enjoyment is sex life. To enjoy sex life is to suck one's own blood, and there is not much more to be explained in this connection. The camel also sucks its own blood while chewing the thorny twigs. The thorns that the camel eats cut the tongue of the camel, and so blood begins to flow within the camel's mouth. The thorns, mixed with fresh blood, create a taste for the foolish camel, and so he enjoys the thorn-eating business with false pleasure. Similarly, the great business magnates, industrialists who work very hard to earn money by different ways and questionable means, eat the thorny result of their action mixed up with their own blood. Therefore the  Bhāgavatam  has situated these diseased fellows along with the camels.
The ass is another animal who is celebrated as the greatest fool, even amongst the animals. The ass works very hard and carries burdens of the maximum weight without making profit for itself.* The ass is generally engaged by the washerman, whose social position is not very respectable. And the special qualification of the ass is that it is very much accustomed to being kicked by the opposite sex. The ass, when he begs for sexual intercourse, is kicked by the fair sex, yet he still follows the female for such sexual pleasure. A henpecked man is compared, therefore, with the ass. The general mass of people work very hard, especially in the age of Kali. In this age the human being is actually engaged in the work of an ass, carrying heavy burdens and driving  ṭhelā  and rickshaws. The so-called advancement of human civilization has engaged a human being in the work of an ass. The laborers in great factories and workshops are also engaged in such burdensome work, and after working hard during the day, the poor laborer has to be again kicked by the fair sex, not only for sex enjoyment but also for so many household affairs.
*Human life is meant for earning values. This life is called  arthadam , or that which can deliver values. And what is the greatest value of life? It is returning home, back to Godhead, as indicated in the  Bhagavad-gītā  (Bg. 8.15). One's selfishness must be aimed