Age of Fighting

The Absolute Truth is very difficult for us to understand, however, because we are living in the age called Kali-yuga, which is an age of fighting and misunderstanding. Prayenalpayusaḥ sabhya kalav asmin yuge janaḥ. One of the symptoms of this age is that almost everyone has a very short life span. We understand from the Vedic literature that in this age one can live for as many as 100 years. There are four yugas, or ages-Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapara-yuga and Kali-yuga. In the Satya-yuga, or the yuga of truthfulness, we used to live for 100,000 years. (I say "we used to live" because in fact we are eternal. although we are changing from one body to the next.) In the next age, Treta-yuga, the duration of life was reduced to 10,000 years, and in the next, Dvapara yuga, it was reduced to 1,000 years. Now, in Kali-yuga, our duration of life is limited to only 100 years. But unfortunately, because we are fallen-because our bodily strength, our sense of mercy, our memory and our other good qualities have all been reduced-we do not live for even 100 years. For instance, I am now about eighty years old, so people think that I have lived very long. But eighty years is nothing; we should actually live for 100 years. Because of our sinful life, however, the time is coming when our duration of life will be reduced so much that if a man lives for twenty or thirty years, he will be considered a grand old man.

Therefore, since we are not very comfortable in material life, the Krsna consciousness movement is meant to take us to the spiritual life of the spiritual world. There is a spiritual world, and we receive information about it from Bhagavad-gita. Those who have read Bhagavad-gita know this, and so I shall request all of you to read our Bhagavad-gita, As It Is. We have published about twenty books, each a minimum of four hundred pages long, and Bhagavad-gita is eleven hundred pages. Nevertheless, we shall have to publish about eighty books to fully explain the Krsna consciousness movement.

I know that all the American ladies and gentlemen here are educated and intelligent, and I am very much obliged to the Americans who have helped me make this movement popular all over the world. When Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu first introduced the Hare Krsna movement, He said:

He thus expressed His desire by saying that anyone who has taken birth as a human being in Bharata-varsa, or India, should understand the Krsna consciousness movement and spread it all over the world for the benefit of all humanity. He also said:

This is a prediction that in all the villages and towns of the entire world, the Krsna consciousness movement will be known. So with the cooperation of you young Americans who are kindly helping to spread this movement, it is now factually becoming well known all over the world. I recently went to Melbourne, Australia, where we held a similar festival, in which many thousands of people joined and chanted and danced with us. Then I went to Chicago, where we held the same ceremony. Now this morning I have come here, and I am so glad to see that you are also joining this movement.