The Supreme Lord, Krsna, He's maintaining everyone: yoga-ksemam vahamy aham [Bg. 9.22]. And He'll not maintain a person who has fully surrendered to Him? No. How it can be? Suppose a gentleman is maintaining so many others' children. And he does not maintain his own children? Surely he does. Therefore our principle should be we should not think about our personal maintenance. We should dedicate our life for Krsna, and Krsna will take care of it. That should be the principle. Don't be harassed, thinking always, "How I shall be maintained?" That is not the problem. Maintenance is not problem. Real problem is, "How we shall be fully surrendered to Krsna?" That is wanted. Upasannan. Upasannan means those who have surrendered. So if we are fully surrendered souls then there is no problem for our economic advancement. That is automatically it will be done. Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita,
yoga-ksemam vahamy aham…
tesam nityabhiyuktanam
yoga-ksemam vahamy aham
[Bg. 9.22]
He personally takes care, he's taking care of others also. Nobody is dying for want of food this is a misconception. Everyone is getting food according to his capacity. There are 8,400,000 species of life, out of that 8 million are lower grade life, fishes, plants, insects, trees. Jalaja nava-laksani sthavara laksa-vimsati (Padma Purana). Eight million, they have no business, they have no means of other income, by nature they are getting their all supplies. So why not the human being? Even the uncivilised human being they are living in the jungle. They have no business, they have no source of income but still they are getting food. Similarly, why the civilised man should be so much anxious for their maintenance? It is due to lack of Krsna consciousness therefore they are thinking how I shall remain. The maintenance is already there, simply you have to work it. You just till the ground, or the field and sow some seeds and naturally in due course of time one seed will give you thousands. So if you little work there is no question of scarcity of foodstuffs Krsna has given everything. So our main business should be, how to develop our dormant Krsna consciousness. That is our first business, tasyaiva hetoh prayateta kovido [SB 1.5.18]. Everyone should endeavour, we have lost our Krsna consciousness. Therefore we have got so many problems in life. If you revive your Krsna consciousness all problems will be solved.
From Srila Prabhupada's lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.2.5 — March 5, 1975, New York