By Sahadeva dasa

A man in Colorado, US, tried to steal an ATM by hauling it away with a stolen truck.

The plan didn’t work. The attempted theft of the outdoor ATM in Boulder set off an alarm early morning. When police arrived they found the ATM on its side about 15 feet from its foundation outside a Chase Bank. No money had been taken.

Surveillance photos showed a man hooking the ATM’s chain to the back of a U-Haul truck. The truck, which had been reported as stolen, was discovered a short distance away later that day.

Instead of stealing money from the ATM, the thief in question tried to steal the ATM itself. Similar is our story.

This world is an undisputed property of God because it existed before we entered here and will continue to exist after our exit. We humans are trying to haul it away from its lawful owner, God. Apart from stealing resources of the world, we are trying to haul away the World itself. We are denying the hand of God by manufacturing philosophies like Darwinism and Big Bang and in the name of nationalism, we are trying to carve out our share of the loot. Humanity is depriving other living beings their due share of natural resources.

Srila Prabhupada explains this in a conversation, “Tena tyaktena bhunjitha: [Isopanisad mantra 1] everything belongs to God. Just like the father has got many sons and the father is the proprietor of the house. He gives one son, “This is your room,” the other son, “This is your room.” So the obedient son is satisfied what the father allows to him. Others, those who are not obedient, they want to disturb other brother that “This room also belongs to me.” That creates chaos and confusion in the world. The United Nations, they have created a society for unity of the nations, but actually that is not unity. That is another way of encroaching upon others’ property. Therefore there is no peace, unless they accept God is the Supreme proprietor. And we must be satisfied with the allotment God has given to us. Then there is no trouble. But the trouble is that we are not satisfied with the allotment given to us. That allotment can be understood by language or similar culture. So why one should encroach upon others’ property which is allotted by God? That creates disturbance. So this so-called modern civilized man, first of all they create disturbances, and then they want to make some adjustment.”

Modern man is squandering finite natural resources, which are meant to be shared by all living beings, to fuel his insatiable greed in the form of rampant consumerism.
By stealing from God we become subject to apprehension by His police force, which is known as material nature. As soon as we use the property of God to gratify our own senses, nature will inflict miseries upon us. People are not peaceful because if we steal something from someone else, we cannot expect peace. Nor can we ever really expect to enjoy that stolen property, because we will always be anxious about being caught.

This global loot has set the burglar alarms ringing, only if we are willing to listen. Climatic change, 2012, food crisis, financial meltdowns etc. are some of the unpleasant tintinnabulation of the very same alarm.

By Sahadeva dasa

convert this post to pdf.