The most popular creation theory at the moment is the "big bang"... It doesn't explain creation. It is a very weak theory. It can't be duplicated, not even on a small-scale, they can't make a small creation in their laboratories by putting chemicals inside a container and agitating them... there will be no creation. Even if they can create some chemicals it requires a person to mix them. They will never mix by themselves...
All we have in the material world is birth, old age, disease and death. These four miseries are there and we can't avoid them. There is no question of avoiding birth, there is no question of avoiding disease, there is no question of avoiding old age and there is no question of avoiding death. These things are there for every one of us. Of course we are trying to avoid them. The whole material civilization is based on trying to mitigate these miseries. We have such a big, big medical profession, so many big, big medical scientists, so many big, big medical hospitals, so many big, big research organizations. They are all researching and they are all trying to find the cure of disease. Ultimately they think, "We will conquer disease and when we've conquered disease then we will conquer death." No longer will we have to die, no longer will we have to get old, no longer will we have to suffer in the material world.
Medical science may have had a little success but whatever medical science has been able to eliminate has been well and truly made up for by these new diseases. Of course they are working on these new diseases as well, but they are not making much progress. We can see they have been working on cancer for so long. So long they have been working and trying to find a cure for cancer, but there is no cure for cancer. And even if they find a cure there will be another new disease to replace it. And they won't be able to find the cure. Just look at AIDS. AIDS has been around twelve years or fifteen years and they are working so hard, it's a very high priority to find a cure for AIDS but there is no cure.
All these reactions are stored up within our heart. At the time of death we haven't yet experienced all of these pleasurable reactions (good karma) or all these suffering reactions, (bad karma) they are still there -- within our heart. If our heart is still full of all these stored karmic reactions we have to take another material body, we have to come back into this material world to enjoy the fruits of our pious activities and to suffer the fruits of our sinful activities.
Everything in this material world which is meant to mitigate suffering simply pushes the suffering into another place. You can get a tablet to stop a headache. So yes, that's alright. It stopped the headache. But it causes an ulcer in the stomach... All it is doing is pushing the suffering from one place to another. It's all we can do in the material world. It's like if you are carrying a heavy burden. It's just like taking that heavy burden from one shoulder and putting it onto the other. For some time you get a little relief, but still you are carrying that heavy burden.
This is the material world. We're destined to suffer here. This is a place of suffering. It is duhkhalayam asasvatam, it's a place of misery where we are undergoing suffering and we are undergoing repeated birth and death.
"My dear boys, of all the living entities who have accepted material bodies in this world, one who has been awarded this human form should not work hard day and night simply for sense gratification, which is available even for dogs and hogs who eat stool. One should engage in penance and austerity to attain the divine position of devotional service. By such activity one's heart is purified, and when one attains this position, he attains eternal, blissful life, which is transcendental to material happiness and which continues forever." (Srimad Bhagavatam 5.5.1)
By the performance of tapasya or austerity we can make advancement in spiritual life. We have to be determined to do this. We have to be determined to undergo some voluntary suffering for the purpose of spiritual advancement. In previous ages ascetics would practice very severe austerities, but this is not possible for us, it's not practical in this age. In this age the austerity is very much reduced. In the Krishna consciousness movement the voluntary austerities we perform for the purpose of making spiritual advancement are basically four in number: there is no illicit sex life, sex life is only within marriage and then only for the purpose of having nice, God-conscious children. This is definitely an austerity because the general tendency in the material world is one wants to enjoy unrestricted sex life. Then no intoxication. There is also a tendency for us to indulge in intoxication. People are not satisfied with the consciousness they have. They want to change their consciousness mechanically or materially into some other consciousness, so they take all types of intoxicants to soften the blow of material nature. The other principles are no meat eating and no gambling. In the beginning, when we first take to Krishna consciousness, we still have these desires so giving up these things can be a great austerity. It can be very difficult to give up illicit sex life. It can be difficult to give up intoxication. But we have to be determined. We have to decide to do it. This is a voluntary tapasya, it's some voluntary difficulty which we undergo for the purpose of making spiritual advancement.
We have seen this Bhagavan Sri Rajaniesh, he was around a few years ago. He was presenting a very attractive philosophy. He was telling his followers they could have unrestricted sex life and they could channel this unrestricted sex life spiritually so by having unrestricted sex life they would be making spiritual advancement. He had many followers, many, many followers. Because this is perfect. Everybody wants sex life. Now here is somebody telling me that if I have sex life in this particular way then I'll make spiritual advancement. So I can have a Guru who's telling me to do this, it's wonderful! The materialists love this sort of Guru.
"Only unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all the imports of Vedic knowledge automatically revealed." (Svetasvatara Up.6.38)
This is another subtlety of Krishna consciousness. We need to have absolute faith in Krishna and in the spiritual master and then automatically all the purports of the Vedic literature will be revealed within our hearts. One can study, for many, many lifetimes, the Vedic literature but unless he has faith in a bona fide pure devotee spiritual master he won't be able to understand the actual meaning of the Vedic literature. So the point is we have to find a bona fide spiritual master. We have to find somebody who is actually a pure devotee, because this is the key to our advancement in spiritual life. Without finding a pure devotee spiritual master we can't make any advancement in spiritual life. Everything is dependant on the mercy of the spiritual master. Otherwise it is not possible to understand Krishna consciousness. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.