Spirit souls evolving through bodies must consciously choose return to Godhead over endless material advancement.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Radio Interview — May 25, 1975, Fiji 750525IV-FIJI [14:17 Minutes] Interview_750525IV-FIJI Śrutakīrti: [introducing recording] The following is an interview which took place on May 25, 1975, in Lautoka, Fiji, which was later broadcast on a local radio station. Interviewer: Why did you choose to go to America and propagate the teachings of Lord Kṛṣṇa in a Western country? Prabhupāda: Because Indian people, being subjugated for at least one thousand years, they have lost their original culture. And, being poverty-stricken, they are simply after money, by hook and crook. So in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that bhogaiśvarya-prasaktānāṁ tayā apahṛta-cetasām [Bg. 2.44]. Persons who have lost their consciousness on account of being too much attached to material enjoyment, they cannot understand Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
So I thought that America, they have enjoyed enough of this material happiness, money and women, and they are now becoming disappointed. So they are at least on the platform of renunciation. They don't want any more like their fathers and grandfathers. Of course, they are not guided.
Therefore I preferred to go there to guide them. So almost fifty percent of my devotees are..., they are collected from these disappointed persons, young men. They are going astray. So they appreciate that I have saved them.
Therefore they are after me, this younger generation, and they are helping me in broadcasting this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So I think my attempt was successful. Interviewer: This Oriental philosophies generally, and in particular the Kṛṣṇa consciousness, has found a lot of devotees in the Western civilization. What is the main reason for this?
Prabhupāda: You are thinking this is Oriental civilization, but that is not the fact. The fact is this is human civilization. There is no question of East and West. Every living being, not only human being, even other beings—there are 8,400,000's forms of life—and Kṛṣṇa claims that, sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya sambhavanti mūrtayaḥ yāḥ tāsāṁ mahad yonir brahma ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā [Bg. 14.4] So Kṛṣṇa is for the aquatics, the animals in the water.
The vast sea, there are so many animals. Then, from the water, the trees are coming out. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati [Padma Purāṇa]. In this way evolutionary process is going on.
But all of them, living entities, and part and parcel of God, Kṛṣṇa. So by the evolutionary process they come to the human form of life. Now there is developed consciousness. Now the human being has to decide which way he has to go—again to the lower species of life or higher forms of life. The higher forms of life are there in the upper planetary system.