Without inquiry into one's true nature, all worldly work is defeat; only Krishna consciousness conquers material nature.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.5.5 — September 3, 1971, London 710903SB-LONDON [24:46 Minutes] SB-05.05.05_710903SB-LONDON Prabhupāda: Parābhavas tāvad abodha-jātaḥ. Pradyumna: parābhavas tāvad abodha-jāto yāvan na jijñāsata ātma-tattvam yāvat kriyās tāvad idaṁ mano vai karmātmakaṁ yena śarīra-bandhaḥ [SB 5.5.5] Prabhupāda: Hmm. This great science is unknown to the modern civilization. Parābhavas tāvad abodha-jāto yāvan na jijñāsata ātma-tattvam. What is the next? Pradyumna: Yāvat kriyās tāvad... Prabhupāda: Yāvat kriyās tāvad... Pradyumna: Idaṁ mano vai. Prabhupāda: Karmātmakam... Pradyumna: Yena śarīra-bandhaḥ. Prabhupāda: Yena śarīra-bandhaḥ.
People are working very hard, day and night. Karmātmakam. Karmātmakam means that "I shall work and make profit and enjoy." That is called karmātmakam, fruitive activities. Everyone is working for some profit.
So in this way, according to different karma, or according to different association. Everyone is engaged in different karma, or activities. Just like disease. Disease means different type of contamination. This is disease.
Doctors, they have got different..., they have to treat different types of diseases by different types of medicine. Why? Because the patient has contaminated a different type of infection. So actually, spirit soul has nothing to do for livelihood. They are working so hard.
That is māyā. Because everyone is working for economic development, this is māyā. Just like the newspaper reporter asked me, "the crisis." They created a situation that ultimately it has come to a crisis. The big, big oil tankers are now standing without any work, and they're feeling scarcity. Actually, we haven't got to work for our livelihood.
There are 8,400,000 species of living entities. Out of that, only 400,000 species of life are human form. Other 8,000,000's, they are bird, beast, trees, insect, aquatics, so many varieties. So they have no economic problem.
The bird, beast, aquatic, they have no economic problem. They have sufficient... Our material necessities are to eat, to sleep, to have sex life and to have protection from danger. These are our problems. So living entities less intelligent than the human being, they have no problem of this field of activities.