Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 12 Chapter 3 Verse 33

Canto 12: The Age of Deterioration | Chapter 3: The Bhūmi-gītā

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 12.3.33

avratā baṭavo 'śaucā

bhikṣavaś ca kuṭumbinaḥ

tapasvino grāma-vāsā

nyāsino 'tyartha-lolupāḥ

SYNONYMS

avratāḥ — failing to execute their vows; baṭavaḥ — the brahmacārīs; aśaucāḥ — unclean; bhikṣavaḥ — prone to begging; ca — and; kuṭumbinaḥ — the householders; tapasvinaḥ — those who have gone to the forest for austerities; grāma-vāsāḥ — village residents; nyāsinaḥ — the sannyāsīs; atyartha-lolupāḥ — excessively greedy for wealth.

TRANSLATION

The brahmacārīs will fail to execute their vows and become generally unclean, the householders will become beggars, the vānaprasthas will live in the villages, and the sannyāsīs will become greedy for wealth.

PURPORT

Brahmacarya, celibate student life, is practically nonexistent in the age of Kali. In America, many boys' schools have become coeducational because young men frankly refuse to live without the constant companionship of lusty young girls. Also, we have personally observed throughout the Western world that student residences are among the dirtiest places on earth, as predicted here by the word aśaucāḥ.

Concerning householder beggars, when devotees of the Lord go door to door distributing transcendental literature and requesting donations for the propagation of God's glories, irritated householders commonly reply, "Someone should give me a donation." Householders in Kali-yuga are not charitable. Instead, because of their miserly mentality, they become irritated when spiritual mendicants approach them.

In Vedic culture, at the age of fifty, couples retire to sacred places for austere life and spiritual perfection. In countries like America, however, retirement cities have been constructed wherein elderly people can make fools of themselves by wasting the last years of their lives playing golf, ping-pong and shuffleboard and by engaging in pathetic attempts at love affairs even while their bodies are horribly rotting and their minds are growing senile. This shameless abuse of the venerable last years of life denotes a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge the actual purpose of human life and is certainly an offense against God.

The words nyāsino 'tyartha-lolupāḥ indicate that charismatic religious leaders, and even those who are not charismatic, will proclaim themselves prophets, saints and incarnations to cheat the innocent public and fatten their bank accounts. Therefore the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is working arduously to establish bona fide celibate student life, religious householder life, dignified and progressive retirement, and genuine spiritual leadership for the entire world. Today, May 9, 1982, in the sensual city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we have awarded sannyāsa, the renounced order of life, to three young men, two Brazilians and one American, with the sincere hope that they will faithfully execute the rigid vows of renounced life and provide authentic spiritual leadership in South America.

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Copyright © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
His Holiness Hrdayananda dasa Goswami
Gopiparanadhana dasa Adhikari
Dravida dasa Brahmacari