Humans labor endlessly in illusion, building and abandoning forever, until wisdom awakens them to serve Krishna instead.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Room Conversation — September 24, 1969, London 690924R1-LONDON [18:06 Minutes] Conv_690924R1-LONDON Prabhupāda: ...and when the call is there, they throw it, everything, and go away. Similarly, this material world, the activities of the material world is like that. Somewhere digging and somewhere piling. Somebody is independent and somebody is dependent.
Somebody is very luxurious, somebody's starving. So there cannot be any adjustment. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says, duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam [Bg. 8.15]. [After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.] We are digging somewhere and piling somewhere; so digging is also labor, and piling is also labor. Then, after finishing, you have to quit everything, digging and piling.
So why people do not come to their senses that "What we are doing? Are we utilizing our time properly or wasting our time?" What should be answer? If I asked these karmīs, "Why you are digging? Why you are piling?
And why you are leaving?" Then what will be the answer? [pause] Can you say what will be the answer? Guest (1) [Indian man]: When digging the pile? Prabhupāda: You are digging somewhere, and again make constructing somewhere, and then, after a time, you are leaving both and going away, shifting for another activity. Because you'll not be allowed to stay...
Guest (1): The same place. Prabhupāda: ...same place. By nature's law you'll have to quit. Guest (1): Quit. Prabhupāda: Just like... What to speak of ordinary man. President Kennedy.
Oh, how much labor he had to undergo to occupy that post, how much money he spent to become president. But he had to quit his family, his wife, his state, his post. So this is going on. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate [Bg. 8.19]. [Again and again the day comes, and this host of beings is active; and again the night falls, O Pārtha, and they are helplessly dissolved.] For sometimes we are engaged in this way; then again we are annihilated. Again begin another life, enter into another mother's womb, construct another body, then come out, then again begin work, again the same thing, digging and piling, digging and piling, again going away.
Is that very good business? This is the karmīs. Karmīs means worker, fruitive worker. They want some result for their work.