Speaker: Srila Prabhupada
Source: Senses On Strike
There is a story in the Hitopadesa: Udarendriyanam. Udara. Udara means this belly, abdomen, and indriya means senses. Udarendriyanam. What is that? All the different parts of the body, hands, legs, fingers and everyone, they held a meeting, that “We are working day and night, and this rascal abdomen is sitting down and eating only. (laughter) He is doing nothing. We are collecting everything, and putting into the stomach, and he is eating, very…, sitting nice. So strike: ‘We shall not work.’ So strike.” Udara… Udara said, “All right, you strike. What can I do? I cannot work. You can strike.” So they did not work. Did not work means there was no food, no food given to the stomach. They…, gradually they became weak. The indriyas, the different parts of the body, they became weak, because if there is…, if you cannot eat, naturally you shall be… Then again, next meeting they held that “What is this? Why we are becoming weak?” Then they decided that “The stomach must be given, sir. We have to work.”
This is our position. Krsna is bhokta, and we are parts and parcel of Krsna. That means we have to work for Krsna. This is a fact. If you don’t work for Krsna, then you’ll starve. That is the position. But these rascals, they do not know. Na te viduh svartha-gatim hi visnum [SB 7.5.31]. Exactly in the same way as these rascals, different parts of the body, limbs, they did not know that “Without satisfying the stomach, we shall die,” similarly these rascals, these karmis, these, those who have come to this material world, they do not know that without conscious, Krsna consciousness, without satisfying Krsna, they’ll simply starve. Struggle for existence. Klisyanti. Simply their labor will be frustrated. That is the philosophy.