12.3 · The Bhūmi-gītā

To satisfy their greed for power, determined politicians, dictators and military leaders undergo severe austerities and sacrifice, with much self-discipline. Then they lead their great nations in a struggle to control the sea, land, air and space. Although the politicians and their followers will soon be dead — since birth and death are all inevitable in this world — they persist in their frenetic struggle for ephemeral glory.

This verse describes with brilliant clarity the mundane political mentality that provokes innumerable conflicts in the world. For example, as we prepare this translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, British and Argentine military forces are bitterly fighting over the tiny Falkland Islands.

The fact is that the Supreme Lord is the proprietor of all land. Of course, even in a God-conscious world political boundaries exist. But in such a God-conscious atmosphere political tensions are greatly eased, and people of all lands welcome each other and respect each other’s right to live in peace.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, and as confirmed by Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, the King Rāma mentioned here is not the incarnation of Godhead Rāmacandra. Pṛthu Mahārāja is understood to be an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead who completely exhibited the characteristics of an earthly king, claiming proprietorship over the entire earth. A saintly king like Pṛthu Mahārāja, however, controls the earth on behalf of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whereas a demon such as Hiraṇyakaśipu or Rāvaṇa tries to exploit the earth for his personal sense gratification. Nevertheless, both saintly kings and demons must leave the earth. In this way their political supremacy is ultimately neutralized by the force of time.

Modern political leaders cannot even temporarily control the entire earth, nor are their opulences and intelligence unlimited. Possessing hopelessly fragmented power, enjoying a minuscule life span, and lacking deep existential intelligence, modern leaders inevitably are symbols of frustration and misdirected ambition.

Since all the narrations of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam bring the reader to the perfection of transcendental knowledge, they all give supreme spiritual lessons though apparently dealing with kings or other mundane subject matter. In relation with Kṛṣṇa, all ordinary topics become transcendental narrations, with the power to bring the reader to the perfection of life.

Since any topic related to Lord Kṛṣṇa is auspicious and transcendental, the direct narration of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s own activities, political and nonpolitical, is certainly the supreme subject matter for hearing. The word nityam here indicates regulated cultivation of the topics of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and abhīkṣṇam indicates constant remembrance of such regulated spiritual experiences.

King Parīkṣit was a compassionate, saintly ruler. Thus, after hearing of the abominable qualities of the Age of Kali, he naturally inquired as to how those born in this age can free themselves of its inherent contamination.

Just as there are four seasons, there are four ages of the earth, each lasting hundreds of thousands of years. The first of these is Satya-yuga, when such good qualities as charity are prominent.

Actual charity, here referred to as dānam, is to award fearlessness and freedom to others, not to give them some material means of temporary pleasure or relief. Any material “charitable” arrangement will inevitably be crushed by the onward march of time. Thus only realization of one’s eternal existence beyond the reach of time can make one fearless, and only freedom from material desire constitutes real freedom, for it enables one to escape the bondage of the laws of nature. Therefore real charity is to help people revive their eternal, spiritual consciousness.

Religion is here referred to as vibhu, “the mighty,” because universal religious principles are not different from the Supreme Lord Himself and ultimately lead one to His kingdom. The qualities mentioned here — truthfulness, mercy, austerity and charity — are universal, nonsectarian aspects of pious life.

In the First Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the fourth leg of religion is listed as cleanliness. According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, this is an alternative definition of the word dānam in the present context.

Sama-darśana, equal vision, is based on the perception of the Supreme Spirit behind all material variety and within all living entities.

By falsity truth is diminished, by violence mercy is diminished, by dissatisfaction austerity is diminished, and by quarrel charity and cleanliness are diminished.

In this age, we can already observe that most people are laborers, clerks, fishermen, artisans or other kinds of workers within the śūdra category. Enlightened devotees of God and noble political leaders are extremely scarce, and even independent businessmen and farmers are a vanishing breed as huge business conglomerates increasingly convert them into subservient employees. Vast regions of the earth are already populated by barbarians and semibarbarous peoples, making the entire situation dangerous and bleak. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is empowered to rectify the current dismal state of affairs. It is the only hope for the ghastly age called Kali-yuga.

The four ages described in these verses are manifestations of various modes of material nature. The age of truth, Satya-yuga, manifests the predominance of material goodness, and Kali-yuga manifests the predominance of ignorance. According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, within each age the other three ages occasionally manifest as sub-ages. Thus even within Satya-yuga a demon in the mode of ignorance may appear, and within the Age of Kali the highest religious principles may flourish for some time. As described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the three modes of nature are present everywhere and in everything, but the predominant mode, or combination of modes, determines the general character of any material phenomenon. In each age, therefore, the three modes are present in varying proportions. The particular age represented by goodness (Satya), passion (Tretā), passion and ignorance (Dvāpara) or ignorance (Kali) exists within each of the other ages as a subfactor.

The word kṛta means “performed” or “executed.” Thus in the age of truth all religious duties are duly performed, and people take great pleasure in spiritual knowledge and austerity. Even in the Kali-yuga, those who are situated in the mode of goodness take pleasure in the cultivation of spiritual knowledge and the regulated performance of austerity. This sublime state of existence is possible for one who has conquered sex desire.

In Kali-yuga, people are almost exclusively devoted to gross materialism, with hardly any affinity for self-realization.

In the Age of Kali certain pseudointellectuals, seeking individual freedom, support sexual promiscuity. In fact, identification of the self with the body and the pursuit of “individual freedom” in the body rather than in the soul are signs of the most dismal ignorance and slavery to lust. When women are unchaste, many children are born out of wedlock as products of lust. These children grow up in psychologically unfavorable circumstances, and a neurotic, ignorant society arises. Symptoms of this are already manifest throughout the world.

Many large cities are unsafe at night. For example, it is understood that no sane person will walk in New York’s Central Park at night because he knows he will almost certainly be mugged. Apart from ordinary thieves, who abound in this age, large cities are filled with cutthroat businessmen, who enthusiastically convince people to purchase and consume useless or even harmful products. It has been well documented that beef, tobacco, liquor and many other modern products destroy one’s physical health, what to speak of mental health, and yet modern capitalists do not hesitate to use every psychological trick in the book to convince people to consume these things. Modern cities are full of mental and atmospheric pollution, and even ordinary citizens are finding them unbearable.

This verse also points out that the teachings of the Vedic scriptures will be distorted in this age. Great universities teach courses on Hinduism in which Indian religion, despite limitless evidence to the contrary, is described as polytheistic and leading to an impersonal salvation. In fact, all Vedic literature is a unified whole, as stated by Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15) : vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ. “By all the Vedas I [Kṛṣṇa] am to be known.” All Vedic literature is meant for enlightening us about the Supreme Personal Absolute Truth — Viṣṇu, or Kṛṣṇa. Although known by many names and appearing in many forms, God is a single absolute entity, and He is a person. But this true Vedic understanding is hidden in the Kali-yuga.

In this verse Śukadeva astutely observes that “political leaders will virtually consume the citizens, and the so-called priests and intellectuals will be devotees of their bellies and genitals.” How sadly true this statement is.

Brahmacarya, celibate student life, is practically nonexistent in the Age of Kali. In America, many boys’ schools have become coeducational because young men frankly refuse to live without the constant companionship of lusty young girls. Also, we have personally observed throughout the Western world that student residences are among the dirtiest places on earth, as predicted here by the word aśaucāḥ.

Concerning householder beggars, when devotees of the Lord go door to door distributing transcendental literature and requesting donations for the propagation of God’s glories, irritated householders commonly reply, “Someone should give me a donation.” Householders in Kali-yuga are not charitable. Instead, because of their miserly mentality, they become irritated when spiritual mendicants approach them.

In Vedic culture, at the age of fifty, couples retire to sacred places for austere life and spiritual perfection. In countries like America, however, retirement cities have been constructed wherein elderly people can make fools of themselves by wasting the last years of their lives playing golf, ping-pong and shuffleboard and by engaging in pathetic attempts at love affairs even while their bodies are horribly rotting and their minds are growing senile. This shameless abuse of the venerable last years of life denotes a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge the actual purpose of human life and is certainly an offense against God.

The words nyāsino ’tyartha-lolupāḥ indicate that charismatic religious leaders, and even those who are not charismatic, will proclaim themselves prophets, saints and incarnations to cheat the innocent public and fatten their bank accounts. Therefore the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is working arduously to establish bona fide celibate student life, religious householder life, dignified and progressive retirement, and genuine spiritual leadership for the entire world. Today, May 9, 1982, in the sensual city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we have awarded sannyāsa, the renounced order of life, to three young men, two Brazilians and one American, with the sincere hope that they will faithfully execute the rigid vows of renounced life and provide authentic spiritual leadership in South America.

Although other occupations are available, people do not hesitate to work in coal mines, slaughterhouses, steel mills, deserts, floating oil rigs, submarines and other equally abominable situations. As also mentioned here, businessmen will consider cheating and lying to be a perfectly respectable way to do business. These are all symptoms of the Age of Kali.

In India, the cow is considered sacred not because Indian people are primitive worshipers of mythological totems but because Hindus intelligently understand that the cow is a mother. As children, nearly all of us were nourished with cow’s milk, and therefore the cow is one of our mothers. Certainly one’s mother is sacred, and therefore we should not kill the sacred cow.

The epidemic of bogus gurus, swamis, priests and so forth is explicitly described here.

The symptoms described here are already prevalent in many countries of the world and will gradually spread to other places engulfed by impiety and materialism.

In this age many people are already sending their elderly parents away to lonely, and often bizarre, old-age homes, although the elderly parents spent their entire lives serving their children.

Young children are also tormented in many ways in this age. Suicide among children has increased dramatically in recent years because they are being born not to loving, religious parents but to degraded, selfish men and women. In fact, children are often born because a birth-control pill, a prophylactic or some other contraceptive device malfunctioned. Under such conditions, it is very difficult nowadays for parents to morally guide their children. Generally ignorant of spiritual science, parents cannot lead their children on the path of liberation and thus fail to fulfill their primary responsibility in family life.

As predicted in this verse, adultery has become common, and people in general are extremely concerned with eating and sex, which they consider far more important than knowing the Absolute Truth.

The impulse to find the Absolute Truth, the source of all existence, has motivated philosophers, theologians and other intellectuals of various persuasions since time immemorial, and continues to do so today. However, soberly analyzing the ever-increasing plurality of so-called philosophies, religions, paths, ways of life and so on, we find that in almost all cases the ultimate objective is something impersonal or formless. But this idea of an impersonal or formless Absolute Truth has serious logical flaws. According to ordinary rules of logic, a particular effect should directly or indirectly embody the attributes, or nature, of its own cause. Thus that which has no personality or activity could hardly be the source of all personality and all activity.

Our irrepressible proclivity to philosophize about the ultimate truth often expresses itself through philosophical, scientific and mystical attempts to discover that from which everything emanates. This material world, which is a seemingly limitless network of interactive causes and effects, is certainly not the Absolute Truth, since scientific observation of material elements indicates that the stuff of this world, material energy, is endlessly transformed into different states and shapes. Therefore, one particular instance of material reality cannot be the ultimate source of all other things.

We may speculate that matter in some shape or other has always existed. This theory, however, is no longer attractive to modern cosmologists, such as those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And even if we do posit that matter has always existed, we still must explain the source of consciousness if we want to satisfy our philosophical impulse toward discovering the Absolute Truth. Although modern empirical fanatics state that nothing is real except matter, everyone commonly experiences that consciousness is not the same kind of substance as a stone, a pencil or water. Awareness itself, in contradistinction to the objects of awareness, is not a physical entity but rather a process of perception and understanding. While there is ample evidence of a systematic interdependent relationship between matter and consciousness, there is no rigid empirical evidence whatsoever that matter is the cause of consciousness. Thus the theory that the material world has always existed and is therefore the ultimate truth does not scientifically or even intuitively explain the source of consciousness, which is the most fundamentally real aspect of our existence.

Furthermore, as demonstrated by Dr. Richard Thompson of the State University of New York at Binghamton and confirmed by several Nobel laureates in physics who have praised his work, the laws of nature governing the transformation of matter simply do not contain sufficiently complex information to account for the inconceivable complexity of events taking place within our own bodies and those of other life forms. In other words, not only do the material laws of nature fail to account for the existence of consciousness, but they cannot explain even the interaction of material elements at complex organic levels. Even Socrates, the first great Western philosopher, was disgusted with the attempt to establish ultimate causality in terms of mechanistic principles.

The heat and luminosity of the sun’s rays demonstrate to the satisfaction of any rational man that the sun, the source of the rays, is certainly not a dark, cold globe but rather a reservoir of almost unlimited heat and light. Similarly, the innumerable instances of personality and personal consciousness within creation are more than adequate to demonstrate the existence, somewhere, of an unlimited reservoir of consciousness and personal behavior. In his dialogue Philebus, the Greek philosopher Plato argued that just as the material elements in our body are derived from a vast reservoir of material elements existing within the universe, our rational intelligence is also derived from a great cosmic intelligence existing within the universe, and this supreme intelligence is God, the creator. Unfortunately, in Kali-yuga many leading thinkers cannot understand this and instead deny that the Absolute Truth, the source of our personal consciousness, has consciousness and personality. This is as reasonable as saying that the sun is cold and dark.

In Kali-yuga, many people present cheap, stereotyped arguments, such as “If God had a body or personality, He would be limited.” In this inadequate attempt at logic, a qualified term is falsely presented in a universal sense. What really should be said is, “If God had a material body or a material personality like those we have experienced, He would be limited.” But we leave out the qualifying adjective material and make a pseudouniversal assertion, as if we understood the full range, within total reality, of bodies and personality.

Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and other Vedic literatures teach that the transcendental form and personality of the Absolute Truth are unlimited. Clearly, to be truly infinite God must be not only quantitatively but also qualitatively infinite. Unfortunately, in our mechanistic, industrial age we tend to define infinity only in its quantitative sense, and thus we fail to notice that an infinity of personal qualities is a necessary aspect of infinity. In other words, God must have infinite beauty, infinite wealth, infinite intelligence, infinite humor, infinite kindness, infinite anger and so on. Infinite is an absolute, and if anything we observe in this world is not contained, somehow or other, within our conception of the Absolute, then that conception is of something limited and not of the Absolute at all.

Only in Kali-yuga are there philosophers foolish enough to proudly define the most absolute of all terms — God — in materialistic, relative ways and then declare themselves enlightened thinkers. No matter how big our brain may be, we should have the common sense to place it at the feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.

Although one may practice the mystic yoga system, his actual spiritual advancement is due to the mercy of the Supreme Lord within the heart; it is not directly the result of his austerity and meditation. If one becomes foolishly proud in the name of yoga, his spiritual position becomes ridiculous.

Although the Supreme Lord is always in the heart of every living being, the words hṛdi-sthaṁ kuru keśavam indicate that one should endeavor to realize the Lord’s presence there and maintain this awareness at every moment. Parīkṣit Mahārāja is about to give up this world and is receiving final instructions from his spiritual master, Śukadeva Gosvāmī. In the context of the King’s imminent departure, this verse has special significance.

After mentioning the innumerable faults of this Age of Kali, Śukadeva Gosvāmī now mentions its one brilliant aspect. Just as one powerful king can kill innumerable thieves, one brilliant spiritual quality can destroy all the contamination of this age. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, especially in this fallen age.