Product Details:
Paperback Edition
- Paperback; 86 pages; 10.8 x 17.8 (centimeters); 4.25 x 7 (inches)
- no index
- Publisher: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust; First issue: 1990
- ISBN: 0-89213-298-1
- Suggested Audience: Introductory
In a series of questions and answers, Srila Prabhupada defines real progress as self-realization.
If asked how humans have progressed over the past centuries, most people would point to technology and science and the knowledge and luxuries they have brought. But how do these things satisfy the soul’s desire for happiness and eternal life? They don’t and never can.
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami implores us not to lose sight of our true hankerings and needs. Technology and science are good and have their place, but shouldn’t distract us from our most important pursuit: to transcend this world and awaken our spiritual nature.
From the back cover:
People do not know what real progress is. The Vedic civilization is not interested in the false progress of economic development. For instance, something people boast, “We have gone from the hut to the skyscraper.” They think this is progress. But in the Vedic system of civilization, one thinks about how much he is advanced in self-realization. He may live in a hut and become very advanced in self-realization. But if he wastes his time turning his hut into a skyscraper, then his whole life is wasted. Modern so-called civilization is simply a dog’s race. The dog is running on four legs, and modern people are running on four wheels. The learned, astute person will use this life to gain what he has missed in countless prior lives—namely, realization of self and realization of God.
