Here we are thinking possessing one tin car made of tin, and after one year, it is smashed, and throw it again, and we becoming very opulent. So we do not know what is opulence there in the spiritual world. Not only in the spiritual…, even in this material world. In higher planetary system there are many, many different types, opulence. So people have become poor. Nobody can maintain now horses or elephants or number of cows. No. That is not possible. So they are condemned now. Formerly they were maintaining. Instead of keeping a big car, they used to keep two, three elephants, number of horses, number of cows. This is domestic animals. They are domestic animals. They used to be maintained. But nowadays they cannot.

They are charging thousands and thousands of dollars. But what it is? Tin car. As soon as the machine gone, nobody will pay for the tin even. Especially in this country, they are thrown away to the garbage.

So actually, human opulence means not these tin cars. Once it is dashed with another car, it is finished, no value. Human opulence means the society must have enough gold, enough jewelry, enough silk, enough grains, enough milk, enough vegetables, like that. That is opulent. That is opulence. Formerly a person was considered rich by two things: dhanyena dhanavan. How much grain stock he has got at his home. A big, big barn, filled with grains. Still in India, if I am going to give my daughter to some family, to see the family’s opulence, I go to see the house, and if I see there are many, many barns’ stock of grains and many cows, then it is very good. It is opulent. Dhanyena dhanavan, gavyaṁ dhanavan. A man is considered to be rich when he has got enough quantity of grains, enough quantity of, I mean to say, number, enough number of cows. Just like Maharaja, Nanda Maharaja, the foster father of Krsna. He was keeping 900,000 cows. And He was rich man. He was maharaja, king. But see the behavior. His beloved son, Krsna and Balarama, he has entrusted to take care of the calves or cows: “Go in the forest.” He is well dressed with ornament, and nice dress, everything. All the cowherds boys, they are very rich. They have got enough grains and enough milk. Naturally they will be rich. But not that the cows and the calves will be taken care of by some hired servant. No. They would take care himself.

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.9.2
by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Los Angeles, May 16, 1973