22 Elevation to Krsna Consciousness

said, ‘The city is made by man, but the country is
made by God.” The countryside is also full of
natural variegatedness in a crude form, whereas in the
city this variegatedness is displayed in a modernized
scientific manner. Poets like Cowper are attracted to
the variegatedness of the country, and prosaic people
who live in the city are attracted by the colorful
varieties manufactured by man. In any case, it is
variegatedness which attracts people both to the
country and the city. This is the proper explanation
of the verse of the Vedanta-sittra.

Many so-called svamis who are so frequently
attracted by the cities often seek a kind of pleasure
in society and feminine friendship. Generally they
are not attracted by the natural beauty of the woods,
although they may assume the dress of a man who
is meant to live in the woods. Such svamis are seek-
ing varieties of enjoyment in matter because they
have no information of the variegatedness of spiritual
life. On the one hand they enjoy variegatedness in
matter, and on the other they deny spiritual
variegatedness to the Absolute. Because they are
pledged to the theory of monism and impersonal-
ism, they deny that whatever pertains to matter can
pertain also to spirit. According to them, spirit is the
denial of matter. The fact is, however, that spirit is
not a negation of matter, but matter is a perverted
reflection of spirit.

The real pleasure of variety exists in spirit without
deluding relativity. On the other hand, inert matter,
in association with dynamic spirit, manifests a false
representation or a perverted reflection of that very
