"Vāyasam means crow. The crow take enjoyment in the garbage. You have seen? They won't go in a nice place. They will come all together. Just like vultures, they come together to take pleasure in a corpse, dead body. But a white swan, rāja-haṁsa, he goes to a place where there is nice water, lilies and lotus and nice trees. You have seen that St. James's Park? Yes. They will find out such nice place. They won't go to imitate the crows. The crows-like people will take pleasure in such nonsense literature, sex literature, or any such literature. So many nonsense literatures nowadays they are having good sale.
Because people are becoming crows-like, they have no high idea, they have no sense of Kṛṣṇa consciousness; naturally they will take. Just like hippies, they have become all bad taste, crows-like. So we have to become swans, rāja-haṁsa, paramahaṁsa. Paramahaṁsa. Paramo nirmatsarāṇām (SB 1.1.2). Then you can understand Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If you remain crows, then you cannot; that is not possible.
So by nature's example we have to see if crows-like and swans-like, pigeons-like, birds of the same feather. 'Birds of the same feather flock together,' is it not? So you have to change your feather, then he will be pleased. If you keep your feather the crows-like, then you cannot mix with the swans. That is not possible. This is the test.
There are classes of men like crows, and there are classes of men like swans. So Kṛṣṇa consciousness means swanlike. They should be like swans. Their behavior should be like swans. They should live in cleansed place, at refreshing place... So keep this principle in view, that you have to become swan, not crows."
(Srila Prabhupada Conversation, Jaipur, January 19, 1972)
Compiled by Padmapani das