Raja-Vidya – The King of Knowledge, Ch 1: ..In Srimad-Bhagavatam a description is given of the people of this age. Their duration of life is said to be very short, they tend to be phlegmatic and slow and to sleep a great deal, and when they’re not sleeping, they are busy earning money.
At the most they only have two hours a day for spiritual activities, so what is the hope for spiritual understanding? It is also stated that even if one is anxious to make spiritual progress, there are many pseudo-spiritual societies to take advantage of him. People are also characterized in this age as being unfortunate.
They have a great deal of difficulty meeting the primary demands of life—eating, defending, mating, and sleeping—necessities which are met even by the animals. Even if people are meeting these necessities in this age, they are always anxious about war, either defending themselves from aggressors or having to go to war themselves. In addition to this, there are always disturbing diseases and economic problems in Kali-yuga. Therefore Lord Sri Krishna considered that in this age it is impossible for people to come to the perfectional stage of liberation by following the prescribed rules and regulations.
Thus out of His causeless mercy, Sri Krishna came as Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and distributed the means to the highest perfection of life and spiritual ecstasy by the chanting of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. This process of chanting is most practical, and it does not depend on whether one is liberated or not, or whether one’s condition is conducive to spiritual life or not—whoever takes to this process becomes immediately purified. Therefore it is called pavitram (pure). Furthermore, for one who takes to this Krishna consciousness process, the seeds of latent reactions to his sinful actions are all nullified. just as a fire turns whatever we put into it to ashes, this process turns to ashes all the sinful reactions of our past lives.
We must understand that our suffering is due to our sinful activity, and sinful activity is due to our ignorance. Sins, or transgressions, are committed by those who do not know what is what. A child, for instance, will naively put his hand in a fire because of ignorance. He is thus burned immediately, for the fire is impartial and does not allow any special consideration for the innocent child. It will simply act as fire. Similarly, we do not know how this material world is functioning, who its controller is, nor how it is controlled, and due to our ignorance we act in foolish ways, but nature is so stringent that she does not allow us to escape the reactions to our actions. Whether we commit an act knowingly or unknowingly, the reactions and consequent sufferings are there. However, through knowledge we can understand what the actual situation is, who God is, and what our relationship with Him is.
This knowledge by which we can gain release from suffering is possible in the human form of life, not in the animal form. To give us knowledge, to give us proper direction, there are scriptures written in various languages in all parts of the world. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu pointed out that people are forgetful from time immemorial about their relationship with the Supreme Lord; therefore Krishna has sent so many representatives to impart the scriptures to man. We should take advantage of these, especially of Bhagavad-gita, which is the prime scripture for the modern world.
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