Finding the Cure for Today’s Social Ills 175

is no God, no conception of God, no order of God, then where is
religion? If there is no government, then where is the law?
Interviewer: Well, there wouldn’t be any law. It would be an outlaw
society.
Srila Prabhupada: Outlaw—everyone is an outlaw, manufacturing his
own concocted system of religion. That is going on.

Just ask—in any religious system, what is their conception of God?
Can anyone tell clearly? No one can tell. But we shall immediately say,

venum kvanantam aravinda-dalayataksam
barhavatamsam asitambuda-sundarangam

kandarpa-koti-kamaniya-visesa-Sobham
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

‘**T worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is adept in playing on His
flute, whose blooming eyes are like lotus petals, whose head is bedecked
with a peacock’s feather, whose figure of beauty is tinged with the hue of
blue clouds, and whose unique loveliness charms millions of Cupids.”’
[Brahma-samhita 5.30] Immediately, we can give a description of God.
If there is no idea of God, then what kind of religion is that?
Interviewer: I don’t know.
Srila Prabhupada: It is bogus. People have no conception of God, and
therefore they have no understanding of religion. That is the decline, and
because religion is declining, the human beings are becoming more and
more like animals.
‘**Animal’’ means that one has no memory. A dog comes when there
are some eatables; I say ‘‘Hut!’’ and he goes away. But again he comes—
he has no memory. So when our memory of God is reducing, that means
that our human qualities are reducing. In the Kali-yuga these human
qualities will be reduced. That means that people are becoming like cats
and dogs.
Interviewer: Here’s the second question: ‘‘The traditional charge against
Vedic culture is that it is fatalistic, that it makes people slaves to the belief
in predestination, and that it therefore inhibits progress. How far is this
charge true?”’
Srila Prabhupada: What is that progress? Is a dog’s jumping progress? Is -
that progress? A dog is running here and there on four legs, and you are
running here and there on the four wheels of the automobile. Is that
progress? That is not the Vedic system. According to the Vedic system,
the human being has a certain amount of energy, and since the human
