Sree Krishna, the Lord of Love

by Baba Premananda Bharati

The average human height in the Silver Age is 14 cubit or 21 feet, average longevity of human life is 10,000 years; human vitality is centered in the strength of the bones; man lives as long as his bones sustain their strength. In the Golden Age men enjoy full measure of spirituality. Virtue resides in them, in the language of the Shāstras, in full four quarters. In the Tretā, owing to the decrease of spirituality, virtue loses one-quarter and retains three. In the Golden Age, they are natural embodiments of Vedic wisdom. In the Tretā, they have to study that wisdom, as it expresses itself through entranced Sages, to keep up spirituality. And as the Silver Age advances, the increased influence of more and more assertive Rāja within them makes it more and more imperative on all religious teachers and kings to direct people's attention to the necessity of wider and deeper study and practice of Vedic truths.

As I have said, in the Golden Age there are no carnal relations between man and woman, so is there none in the Silver Age, although man and woman as husband and wife live together in houses, have housekeeping and enjoy material comforts. Yet, strange as it will strike most of us here at this distance of time, the Golden Age and Silver Age women bear and give birth to children. The child is born in the womb of its mother at the wish and command of the husband. The wife asks her husband for a child, and the husband of the Golden Age, who is a miniature creator in the potency of his mind-force, says, "So be it," and the wife at once conceives. But she has no pain of child-bearing or child-birth to suffer from. The child is born soon after, and, at times, almost immediately. In the Tretā Yuga, the conception takes place in some cases in the same manner, and, in most cases, through the eating by the wife of "charoo," a mixture of boiled rice, milk, sugar and butter—magnetized by mystic words or the will-force of a psychic husband or a saint or a Brāhman—a magnetism which draws into the preparation a disembodied spirit who passes into the body of the wife through the food.

The difficulty in believing this process of child conception lies in the ignorance which now prevails in the minds of most people of the modern world, especially in those of Westerners, as to the origin of conception, as to how conception takes place. The prevailing idea, formed from the teachings of imperfect modern science, is that it is the male seed itself planted in the female soil that begets and develops into the child. No greater fallacy can exist than this idea. Modern science is progressive, and in the process of time that progress will surely open its eyes to the true fact in regard to this matter. It will then find that it is the invisible germ hidden inside the seed, the subtle form of organism encased in the thickened juice of the tree which the seed is, that develops into the shoot and the tree and not merely the juice itself. This subtle organism enters into the forming bud from outside. Without this incoming subtle organism no seed can germinate, neither does a seed germinate, as is well known, of which the germ has been destroyed. Similarly, no conception can take place without a disembodied soul—a human germ—entering the human seed when planted in the human soil. The juice of the seed and the juice of the soil form but the physical body of the child. The astral body, which is encased in this physical body, comes from without to dwell in that seed and leaves the developed physical body at death, which is nothing but the total disorganization of the physical body. The astral body never dies unless it is destroyed by bringing about absolute equilibrium of the three Cardinal Attributes, which form the Ego of man, through spiritual development. I have treated this subject more fully under the heading of "Reincarnation."

The length of the Silver Age proper is 3,000 divine years, equal to 1,080,000 human (lunar) years with the two Twilight (the Junction and the Degeneration) Periods, of 108.000 years each, in addition.

SECTION VII. THE CASTE SYSTEM.

I have said that at the end of the Golden Age and during its degeneration period, people's minds lose their tranquil equilibrium and look outwards for happiness. At this stage of the disturbance within Nature and humanity occasioned by the assertion of the Rāja attribute, the caste system comes into existence. The object of the caste system is to preserve as much order and harmony in human society as possible and prevent its disruption into individual units. In the Golden Age all the people are as one family, in the Silver Age they are divided into four families, divided according to their inclinations, habits and actions, and harmonious relations being established with one another through laws and interdependence. Those who still retain their perfected spirituality by subduing the influence of Rāja are called Brāhmans which means those who know or still dwell in Brahm—the Spirit of God. They are considered the head of the other castes because they are the embodiments of spiritual wisdom which is the chiefest requisite in the building of character and the higher development of the human soul. Some of them still retain their Golden Age habits of life, others clothe themselves with the barks of trees and live on fruits and nuts and roots in the forests, in huts made of tree-trunks and leaves. They pass their days and nights in contemplation of the Deity, the Divine Spirit and its Laws operating within Nature and inculcate these truths into the minds of the other classes of people.

Those who, being unable to subdue the influence of Rāja, are swayed by passions and become bold, spirited and filled with material desires are called Kshatriyas. They become rulers of the other two castes. These are the first Kings and Rulers of men. But they rule according to the injunctions of inspired Codes of laws, laws which are propounded with the object of the highest good of humanity in view, as well as the propagation of peace and goodwill among all classes of people.

According to these laws the King's first duty is to look to the material welfare of his subjects; the second is to protect them from injustice and aggression; the third is to help their moral and spiritual development; in short, the King's duty is to treat his subjects as his children. If any King fail to perform these duties to the satisfaction of his subjects or become aggressive towards them, he is immediately removed from his throne by the Brāhmans (Rishis), the all-powerful Brāhmans, who always have the welfare of God's creatures at heart, and whose spiritual powers are mightier than kingly weapons and might. The Brāhmans are called the "gods of earth" (Bhudevas) on account of their disinterested love of humanity and self-sacrificing devotion for its welfare and their irresistible spiritual and psychical powers to carry their objects for the good of humanity into action.

Those among the Golden Age people in whom excessive action of Rāja develops some Tama as well, and partly covers the Sattwa Attribute, form yet another distinct caste. They are called Vaishyas. While the Kshatriyas occupy themselves in taking over the control and government of countries and peoples, the Vaishyas take to the occupation of agriculture, commerce and raising of cattle, as much in their own individual material interests as in the interests of all humanity. In the Golden Age, owing to the fulness of spirituality within Nature, all kinds of grains grow wild and abundant. With the decrease of that spirituality towards its end, these natural products of the earth diminish in quality and quantity, while the growing material instincts in people bring about their larger consumption, thereby creating greater demand for them. This increased demand is supplied by cultivation by the Vaishyas.

Those, again, among the Golden Age people who, owing to the predominance of the Tama Attribute in them, are filled with envy and greed, and become untruthful and devoid of clean habits of life and take to all sorts of low means and ways for their living are classed as Sudras. The Kshatriya rulers compel these Sudras for their own good as well as the good of all other classes of people to take service under the three upper castes as domestic servants, so that by contact and association with their masters and by the examples of their purer ideas and habits of life they may be elevated in morals and conduct.