Advancement of knowledge for better eating, sleeping, mating, is simple animal knowledge. The dog also knows how to eat, how to sleep, how to mate and how to defend. So if our education is only on these points, then what makes us better than the dog? The dog is eating according to his nature, but we are also eating in a nice plate, nicely cooked food in a nice table, but the principle is eating.
That is not advancement of human civilization, that “I am eating on a better plate and in a better place than the dog; therefore I am sophisticated.” But you are eating, that’s all. You may sleep in a very nice apartment, six story building or 102nd story building; a dog is lying on the street, but when he sleeps and when you sleep, there is no difference. You cannot know whether you are sleeping in a skyscraper building or on the ground, because you are dreaming something else which has taken you from your bed. You have forgotten that “My body is lying there on the bed, and now I am flying in the air,” dreaming.
So if you improve your sleeping method that is not advancement of human civilization. The dog has no social customs. Whenever there is another she-dog, he mates on the street, and you may do very silent in a secret place, but the mating is there, but today people are learning how to mate like dog. A dog has also his defense measures. He has got teeth and nails. He can defend himself. Though, you might have atom bombs, the activity is defending. That’s all.
Therefore Vedic knowledge says that human life is not meant only for these bodily demands. There is another thing. That thing is brahma-jijnasa. A human being should be inquisitive to learn what is Absolute Truth. So that education is lacking in modern society today.
– A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
