We are a little over 5,000 years into the fourth yuga of time known as Kali-yuga. At the present moment we have just passed through a little over five thousand years of the Kali-yuga, which lasts (432,000 years). Before this there was Dvapara-yuga (800,000 years), and before that there was Treta-yuga (1,200,000 years) and previous to that age there was Satya-yuga (1,728,000 years).
For anyone who has been watching the News, we can see just by watching the Weather that there are seasonal changes taking place around the world. We are witnessing flooding where previously it was dry, forest fires are burning up large areas of land across the globe, earthquakes, mud slides, tsunami type waves, and practically every day we are hearing about airplane crashes, and near cataclysmic events. There is violent social and political upheaval, wars and mass genocide taking place around the world. These are some of the inauspicious omens that were foretold in the Srimad Bhagavatam at the very beginning of this Kali-yuga, over 5,000 years ago.
We share with you some of these predictions that were observed by Maharaja Yudhisthira at the beginning of this age of Kali.
A few months passed, and Arjuna did not return. Maharaja Yudhisthira then began to observe some inauspicious omens, which were fearful in themselves. (SB 1.14.2)
Lord Sri Krsna the Supreme Personality of Godhead is ad infinitum, more powerful than the most powerful sun of our experience. Millions and billions of suns are created by Him and annihilated by Him within His one breathing period. In the material world the sun is considered to be the source of all productivity and material energy, and due to the sun only we can have the necessities of life. Therefore, during the personal presence of the Lord on the earth, all paraphernalia of our peace and prosperity, especially religion and knowledge, were in full display because of the Lord’s presence, just as there is a full flood of light in the presence of the glowing sun. Maharaja Yudhisthira observed some discrepancies in his kingdom, and therefore he became very anxious about Arjuna, who was long absent, and there was also no news about Dvarka’s well-being. He suspected the disappearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa, otherwise there would have been no possibility of fearful omens.
He saw that the direction of eternal time had changed, and this was very fearful. There were disruptions in the seasonal regularities. The people in general had become very greedy, angry and deceitful. And he saw that they were adopting foul means of livelihood. (SB 1.14.3)
When civilization is disconnected from the loving relation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, symptoms like changes of seasonal regulations, foul means of livelihood, greed, anger and fraudulence become rampant. The change of seasonal regulations refers to the atmosphere of one season becoming manifest in another season, for example the rainy season being transferred to autumn, or the fruits and flowers of one season fructifying in another season. A godless man is invariably greedy, angry and fraudulent. Such a man can earn his livelihood by any means, black or white. During the reign of Maharaja Yudhisthira, all the above symptoms were conspicuous by their absence. But Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was astonished to experience even a slight change in the godly atmosphere of his kingdom, and at once he suspected the disappearance of the Lord. Foul means of livelihood implies deviation from one’s occupational duty. There are prescribed duties for everyone, such as the brahmana, kstriya, vaisya, and sudra, but any one of them who deviates from his prescribed duty and declares another’s duty to be his own is following a foul and improper duty. A man becomes too greedy for wealth and power when he has no higher objective in life and when he thinks that this earthly life of a few years is all in all. Ignorance is the cause for all these anomalies in human society, and to remove this ignorance, especially in this age of degradation, the powerful sun is there to distribute light in the shape of Srimad Bhagavatam.
All ordinary transactions and dealings became polluted with cheating, even between friends. And in familial affairs, there was always misunderstanding between fathers and mothers and sons, and between well-wishers and between brothers. Even between husband and wife there was always strain and quarrel. (SB 1.14.4)
A conditioned living being is endowed with four principles of malpractice, namely errors, insanity, inability and cheating. These are signs of imperfection, and out of the four the propensity to cheat others is most prominent. And this cheating practice is there in the conditioned souls because the conditioned souls are primarily in the material world imbued with an unnatural desire to lord it over the material world. A living being in his pure state is not conditioned by the laws because in his pure state he is conscious that a living being is eternally subservient to the Supreme Being, and thus it is always good for him to remain subservient, instead of falsely trying to lord it over the property of the Supreme Lord. In the conditioned state the living being is not satisfied even if he actually becomes the lord of all that he surveys, which he never becomes, and therefore he becomes the victim of all kinds of cheating, even with his nearest and most intimate, relations. In such an unsatisfactory state of affairs, there is no harmony, even between father and sons or between husband and wife. But all these contending difficulties can be mitigated by one process, and that is devotional service of the Lord. The world of hypocrisy can be checked only by counteraction of devotional service of the Lord and nothing else. Maharaja Yudhisthira, having observed the disparities, conjectured the disappearance of the Lord from the earth.
In course of time it came to pass that people in general became accustomed to greed, anger, pride, etc. Maharaja Yudhisthira, observing all these omens, spoke to his younger brother. (SB 1.14.5)
A pious king like Maharaja Yudhisthira at once became perturbed when there were such inhuman symptoms as greed, anger, irreligiosity and hypocrisy rampant in society. And it appears from this statement that all these symptoms of degraded society were unknown to the people of the time, and it was astonishing for them to have experienced them with the advent of the Kali-yuga or the age of quarrel.
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