76 On the Way to Krsna

there are svamis who go to people’s houses and
preach, “If you give me one ounce of gold I can
make it into one hundred ounces of gold.” The
people think, “I have five ounces of gold. Let me
give it to him, and Pll get five hundred ounces.” In
this way the svami collects all the gold in the village,
and after collecting it, he vanishes. This is our disease:
when we go to a svami, or a temple or a church, our
hearts are filled with material desires. Wanting some
material profit out of spiritual life, we practice yoga
just to keep our health fit. But, in order to keep
healthy, why take shelter of yoga? We can become
healthy through regular exercises and regulated diet.
Why resort to yoga? Because: kamais tais tair hrta-
jrianah. We have the material desire to keep ourselves
fit and to enjoy life by going to church and making
God our order-supplier.

Having material desires, men worship various demi-
gods. They have no idea how to get out of matter;
they want to utilize the material world to its best
capacity. For instance, in Vedic literature there are
so many recommendations: if one wants to cure his
disease, he worships the sun, or if a girl wants a good
husband, she worships Lord Siva, or if one wants to
become beautiful, he worships such and such god, or
if one wants to become educated, he worships
goddess Sarasvati. In this way Westerners often think
that the Hindus are polytheistic, but actually this
worship is not to God, but to demigods. We should
not think that the demigods are God. God is one,
but there are demigods who are also living entities
just like us. The difference is that they have a con-
