Prabhupada 0007 - Krsna's Maintenance Will Come
Lecture on SB 1.5.22 -- Vrndavana, August 3, 1974
Brahmānanda: Brāhmaṇa is not to accept any employment.
Prabhupāda: No. He'll die of starvation. He'll not accept any employment. That is brāhmaṇa. Kṣatriya also that, and vaiśya also. Only śūdra. A vaiśya will find out some business. He'll find out some business. So there is a practical story. One Mr. Nandi, long, long ago, in the Calcutta, he went to some friend that,
"If you can give me a little capital, I can start some business."
So he said, "You are vaiśya? Mercantile?"
"Yes."
"Oh, you are asking money from me? Money's on the street. You can find out."
So he said, "I don't find."
"You don't find? What is that?"
"That, that is a dead mouse."
"That is your capital."
Just see.
So in those days plague in Calcutta, plague was going on. So municipal declaration was any dead mouse brought to the municipal office, he'll be paid two annas. So he took that dead body of the mouse and took to the municipal office. He was paid two annas. So he purchased some rotten betel nuts with two annas, and washed it and sold it at four annas, or five annas. In this way, again, again, again, that man became so rich man. One of their family members was our Godbrother. Nandi family. That Nandi family still, they have got four hundred, five hundred men to eat daily. A big, aristocratic family. And their family's regulation is as soon as one son or daughter is born, five thousand rupees deposited in the bank, and at the time of his marriage, that five thousand rupees with interest, he can take it. Otherwise there is no more share in the capital. And everyone who lives in the family, he gets eating and shelter. This is their... But the original, I mean to say, establisher of this family, Nandi, he started his business with a red, a dead rat, or mouse.
That is actually fact, actually fact, that if one wants to live independently... In Calcutta I have seen. Even poor class vaiśyas, and in the morning they'll take some ḍāl, bag of ḍāl, and go door to door. Ḍāl is required everywhere. So in morning he makes ḍāl business, and in evening he takes one canister of kerosene oil. So in the evening everyone will require. Still you'll find in India, they... Nobody was seeking for employment. A little, whatever he has got, selling some ground nuts or that peanuts. Something he's doing. After all, Kṛṣṇa is giving maintenance to everyone. It is a mistake to think that "This man is giving me maintenance." No. Śāstra says, eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. It is confidence in Kṛṣṇa, that "Kṛṣṇa has given me life, Kṛṣṇa has sent me here. So He'll give me my maintenance. So according to my capacity, let me do something, and through that source, Kṛṣṇa's maintenance will come."