Should I become an environmentalist? A peace corps worker in Romania? What about helping people become self-sufficient farmers in Ethiopia? Srila Prabhupada advises that if I want to help everyone in the world put an end to their suffering, I should take up the preaching of Krishna consciousness. In his purport to Chapter 5, text 25, of Lord Krishna's Bhagavad-gita As It Is, he writes:
"Only a person who is fully in Krishna consciousness can be said to be engaged in welfare work for all living entities. When a person is actually in the knowledge that Krishna is the fountainhead of everything, then when he acts in that spirit he acts for everyone. The sufferings of humanity are due to the forgetfulness of Krishna as the supreme enjoyer, the supreme proprietor, and the supreme friend. Therefore, to act to revive this consciousness within the entire human society is the highest welfare work.
.. "A person engaged only in ministering to the physical welfare of human society cannot factually help anyone. Temporary relief of the external body and the mind is not satisfactory. The real cause of one's difficulties in the hard struggle for life may be found in one's forgetfulness of his relationship with the Supreme Lord."
