46 Sri Isopanisad

called ignorance. The more a man forgets this fact of life, the
more he is in darkness; and in view of this, a Godless civilization
directed toward the so-called advancement of education is more
dangerous than a civilization in which the mass of people are
less advanced.

There are different classes of men, called karmis, jianins and
yogis. The karmis are those who are engaged in the activities
of sense gratification. Almost 99.9 per cent of the people in
modern civilization are engaged in the activities of sense
gratification under the flags of various activities such as
industrialism, economic development, altruism, political con-
sciousness, and so on. But all these activities are more or less
based on the satisfaction of the senses, without any reference
to the sort of God consciousness described in the first mantra
of Sri [sopanisad.

In the language of the Bhagavad-gita, people who are engaged
in gross sense gratification are mitdhas—in darkness like the ass,
the symbol of stupidity. People who are simply engaged in the
pursuit of sense gratification, without any real profit in life,
are in the estimation of Sri [sopanisad worshiping avidyd.
And those who play the role of helping this sort of civilization
in the name of educational advancement ‘are doing more harm
than those who are on the platform of gross sense gratification.
The advancement of learning by the Godless people is as
dangerous as a valuable jewel on the hood of a cobra. The cobra
decorated with such a valuable jewel is quite as dangerous as
one which is not so decorated.

Again, the advancement of educational activities by a Godless
people is, according to the Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya, a decoration
for a dead body. In India as in many other countries, some
people follow the custom of leading a procession with a
decorated dead body for the pleasure of the lamenting relatives.
In the same sense, modern civilization is a patchwork of activities
meant to cover the perpetual miscries of material existence.
Such activities are targetted toward sense gratification, but
