Answer According to the Vedic Version:

Question: How Can You Say the World is a Mess?

Regarding yesterday's "Thought for the Day", how do you think contemporary society has gone way off track? How do you suppose that we have made a "royal mess" out of the world? If you are referring to pollution, that is something we have already discussed. Then again if you are discussing how people practice their religion, I think each one is acting according to their own faith. What has caused the mess? How do you see there is a mess in the first place? With humble regards, Your student

Answer: Read a Newspaper

"Society off track" means that human life is meant for self realization, not sense gratification. But yet we see and entire civilization dedicated to sense gratification. "Royal mess" means that instead of serving God like we are meant to be doing, we are serving our senses instead. It is a fact that different people are acting according to their different religious faiths. One man's religious faith is that you should be tortured and killed because you are not a Muslim. In the name of religious faith so many atrocities are being committed against living beings on a daily basis. This is why we have to rise beyond the false platform of different religious faiths and understand that religion is one, to reconnect with that supreme person who is the source of all existence. To be truly religious means to be 100% reconnected with that supreme person. Such a reconnected person will never give any unnecessary harm to other living creatures. But yet we see that the so-called religious people of varying faiths are in the name of the religion causing so much suffering to other living beings. Such persons are not actually religious in the true sense of the term because they are obviously not reconnected with the supreme person, the source of all existence. If they were reconnected they would never commit the atrocities they do against other human beings, against unborn children in the womb, and against the innocent animals. The mess has gradually compounded itself more and more throughout the various yugas (ages) as mankind has strayed further and further away from the teachings given in the Bhagavad-gita. Any intelligent, sensitive person can see the world is a mess just by reading a newspaper. Your previously expressed idea that pollution can be solved by stronger legislation would be true if there were governments strong enough and intelligent enough to enact and enforce the proper legislation. For example, one of the biggest polluters on this planet are the slaughter houses. If the governments were actually strong and proper, they would immediately shut down the slaughter houses. But there are no such enlightened and strong governments on this planet. So your idea of solving pollution by stronger legislation is not at all practical. We must first have strong enlightened governments, then and only then can your principle of stronger legislation be effectively applied. Until then we are stuck with an ever-increasingly polluted planet. Sankarshan Das Adhikari