Sree Krishna, the Lord of Love

by Baba Premananda Bharati

A spiritual student's training is essentially based upon a life of purest mental and physical chastity; the student is not allowed by the teacher to mix or talk with worldly men or to discuss temporal subjects among themselves. When the practical realization of the Truth is attained, life's one object is attained. If, however, after staying and studying with the Gooroo for twelve years, the student fails to have this practical grasp of the soul of wisdom, he leaves the Gooroo and with his permission returns to his family, takes unto himself a good-tempered, virtuous and spiritually-inclined wife and enters into the life of a householder. But the principal object of this second stage of life is the same as in the first-realization of the Truth. The practice for physical and mental purity is continued, the Veda is studied daily, diligently and devotedly, and the meanings of its truths and principles contemplated with calmness and concentration, comparing their lessons in the light of the experiences of worldly life. The obligations of household life are greater than those of pupilage. Life must be sustained on simple and sparing meals; the means of living must be honestly earned, the hungry or needy beggar must be satisfied according to means and ability; the pleasures and comforts of household existence must be enjoyed moderately and with discrimination; parents, wife, members of the family, poor relatives and dependents and devoted servants must be supported, loved and made happy. All legitimate wishes and wants of the wife must be satisfied, she must be cherished with affection and respect and regarded as the presiding deity of household harmony. If during this household life the truth is realized, the householder remains at home during the rest of his earthly days; he has no need to go into the third stage of life, for, as I have said, realization of the Truth is the end and aim of life in all its stages. If, however, this main object is not obtained, the householder, after twenty-four years of family life, must enter the third stage, that of the ascetic. He must leave his home with his wife and retire from worldly life and interests and live in some secluded forest place near his home and practise austerities, physical and mental, in order to purge the mind of all its material inclinations for a period of twelve years. If during that time the realization is obtained, he remains in that stage for the rest of his life, imparting the realized knowledge and wisdom to all who may come to him.

If, however, he fails in his search for it, even in this ascetic stage, he returns to his home with his wife, and if he has a son to protect and support her, he leaves his home and family, with the permission of his parents and his wife, and enters into the fourth stage, that of the holy wanderer, to tread the path to Freedom and Truth all alone, sundering all ties of worldly life and surrendering himself—body, mind and soul—to that search. He must not occupy his mind with any other but that one thought; he must live on one simple, spare meal a day, enough to sufficiently satisfy his hunger; he must dress himself in scant saffron-colored clothes, the color of Love and Wisdom. He must ever be wandering, never entering a human home, and rest under trees; but must not sleep under one tree or on the same spot or place for three successive nights, Never talk with people on any other subject than that of his search, and discuss it with humble spirit of inquiry with illuminated sages he comes across on his journeyings.

This all-absorbing meditation does help to awaken in him at last the light of the Truth, and blessed with that light he is filled with joy and feels himself the happiest mortal, in touch and tune with the purest spirit of the Universe, the Infinity which is the parent of the Finite. With the first flush of this realization he changes the color of his clothes from saffron to while, the color of Illumination (Sattwa), and as he wanders still, in the ecstasy of the bliss of Truth within his soul, gradually the objective phenomena around him seem unsubstantial and finally grow dim and shadowy, while the realized spirit in which his mind lives immersed, he perceives to be the only substance of those shadows. Then, as he roams along, laughing and sporting like a little boy in the fulness of the glee within, he becomes in time almost unconscious of anything outside of his soul. His very sight is a blessing to all beholders, a blessing which fills them temporarily with the delight of his intoxication. He has no count of time or notion of the phases of time—whether it is morning, noon or night. He lives henceforth in Infinity and views all Nature as dwelling within him and anon views himself as a wavelet in the infinite ocean of its Essence. He does not feel any hunger, for with the satisfaction of his spiritual hunger all hunger has been satisfied forever. He is the embodiment of ecstasy, uncovered ecstasy, and even his physical cover, the white cloth, has fallen from his body. He stands naked as naked Nature's most natural man. He is clothed with the illumination of his soul, like the Golden Age man.

SECTION IX. THE COPPER AGE.

The Divine Cycle of time can be likened to a fruit. Like the ripening and rottening of a fruit, the Divine Cycle develops and degenerates into rottenness. The Golden Age is its ripening stage. At the end of that age, it is fully ripe. The Silver Age is its overripe stage. The Copper Age marks the stage of its rottenness and the Iron Age is its fully rotten stage. At the end of the Iron Age, it is reduced to its seed out of which springs the sprout of the Golden Age. And during the junction period of the Golden Age, covering 144,000 human years, the sprout grows into a flowering tree which bears fruit with the commencement of the Golden Age proper.

The length of the Copper Age is 2,000 divine years, equal to 720,000 human years, while its Twilight periods are 72,000 years each. Men in this age are seven cubits or ten and a half feet high. Virtue lives in it in two quarters, the other two being filled by vice. Vitality is rooted in the blood; men live as long as there is blood in their body. Gold and silver leaving become dearer the metal generally used in making household utensils is copper which is found abundantly, whence the age derives its name. The intensity of accelerated Rāja within Nature helps the assertion of Tama in all her manifest phases, although Sattwa still has some influence. The trees become less in height, less fruitful and the fruits less sweet; crops less abundant despite the best efforts of cultivation. Cows give less milk than in the Silver Age, while wild animals become more ferocious. Most animals can speak in the Silver Age, but now only some of them, the higher ones, are blessed with that power during the major portion of it.

People in the Copper Age become more and more outward-looking generally, especially the Sudras, some of whom having become filled with dense Tama, revolt against all laws and discipline and turn into thieves and robbers. These latter are expelled from their caste and banished out of civilized centres of population the world over by the kings. They are called by the common name of robbers and specific names of Yavans and Mlechhas which means men who are wild, barbarous and unclean by nature and habits. These Yavans and Allechhas come into existence towards the end of the Silver Age and rapidly increase in number during the Dwāpar (Copper Age), towards the end of which they form the majority of the world's population and are known by different names according to the localities of their habitation, different shades of their dark attributes, and the callings they pursue: Yavan, Kirāt (hunters), Gāndhār, Cheen (Chinese), Shabar, Barbar (barbarian), Shak, Tungār, Kanka, Palhab, Ramat and Kambhoj. The kings in the Copper Age have a hard time to protect their subjects and their territories from the depredations of these wild characters and robbers. The king's first duty is to preserve peace in his kingdom so that his subjects may not be disturbed in the performance of their religious duties, may apply themselves to the study of the Veda and the contemplation of the Supreme Deity and tread the path of virtue without annoyance.

The king's chief duty being to insure the material welfare of his subjects with the sole view of helping their spiritual welfare, the punishment for the infringement of caste and religious rules is made severe and swiftly administered. At the same time the spirit of the times is taken into consideration and many rigid rules are relaxed and minor faults are pardoned. The four castes are subdivided into sub-castes according to the different callings that the Vaishyas and Sudras show preference in their inclinations to follow. Those who take to agriculture are classed as cultivators, those who rear cattle and sell milk and butter are called milkmen, while those who take to trade and commerce are called traders and merchants and so on. All these form into different sub-castes under the general caste of Vaishya. Similarly the Sudras are subdivided according to their respective callings; viz., blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, etc., all under the general caste of Sudra. The chief object of these sub-castes is to save human society from disintegration as much as possible, to preserve the masses of men in as large coherent sections as practicable linked to one another through spiritual, moral and material relations.

Another, and almost equally important, object of the caste and sub-caste systems in the Copper Age is to conserve the heredity of their different intellectualities, talents, healthy characteristics, and instincts. This becomes all the more necessary owing to the fact that it is in the Dwāpar Yuga that husbands and wives begin to have carnal relations. During the Golden Age and the greater portion of the Silver Age all men and women are, what Christians call, virgin-born. The fuss that is made about this immaculate conception succeeds only to excite a smile of pity in the Shastra-enlightened Hindoo—a smile of pity for the ignorance of the facts in the past history of the human race of which they seem to know so little and care less to know more. This fact about the Golden and Silver Ages, this generally prevailing immaculate child-conception, ought to open their eyes. If they require any authority for this statement, I refer them to the study of the Shānti Parva of the Mahābhārata.

The Yoga-power of the Golden Age men draw disembodied souls from the Bhuba sphere and spiritual souls from higher spheres to enter into a woman's womb and be born on the earth plane. The will-force of these men supplies these incoming souls with the material of a physical body. In the Silver Age the higher illuminated Brāhmans and Saints can bring about conception in the same way, while others bring it about by making the women eat magnetized "charoo," which not only draws these spirits to the womb, but supplies the material for the physical body. In the Copper Age, however, the decrease of spirituality takes away the power, and so the material of the physical body has to be supplied by the physical vigor of the father and the blood of the mother to enable a disembodied spirit to enter the womb and grow into a child.