In the Srimad Bhagavatam, its described how Pariksit Maharaja met the personification of Kali-yuga, who was at the time beating a cow and a bull. We tend to think of Kali as an age, or perhaps as an energy that causes the degradation of the people, and thus it may sound strange the idea that Pariksit Maharaja could physically meet him, but the fact is that all the different energies that compose the universe have their respective personifications. Just like the power of the sun is personified in the form of the demigod Surya, and the wind is personified as Vayu, all the different energies that compose the universe have their respective personifications, including things like envy, lust, death, and so on. Even our planet is personified in the form of Bhumi.

Just like in the case of the demigods, souls who have the right set of qualifications become the enjoyers and controllers of these energies, and this of course includes Kali. Thus, there is Kali-yuga, the age, and also Kali the personification of it, an embodied being who controls its influence.

The idea that someone could attack a cow and a bull sounded inconceivable to the sages, and they were further puzzled by the fact that Maharaja Pariksit just punished the culprit, instead of immediately putting him to death, as would be expected in such a serious crime. This is yet another example of the difference in values. Nowadays the situation is so hellish that most people see cow killing as normal, while just a few thousand years ago this sounded absolutely inconceivable.

Once, understanding that the age of Kali was approaching, a group of great sages approached Srila Vyasadeva, wishing to hear from him some solutions for the sinful age.

However, when the sages arrived, Vyasadeva was taking a bath in the Ganges, loudly shouting:

“Jaya Kali Yuga!”
“Jaya Kali Yuga!”
“Jaya Kali Yuga!”

The sages where amazed. How could Vyasa be happy about the beginning of such an inauspicious age? After being inquired by the sages, Vyasa answered:

“Sages, listen closely! Though the coming Age of Kali is said to be the worst, there are three blessings in this age:
The first blessing of Kali Yuga belongs to women. Those who are devoted wives in this age are truly fortunate. Their duty is to love and honor their husbands, and they will be fully protected. Even without performing austerities or rituals, they can achieve the same spiritual level as their husbands.
The second blessing is for loyal servants. A servant’s duty is to faithfully serve their master. The master, in the pursuit of business or political success, may sometimes resort to dishonesty. These actions burden the master with sin, but the servant remains blameless. By simply serving, the servant enjoys the master’s protection and avoids the consequences of the master’s actions. In this way, the servant’s position is even more fortunate.
The third and greatest blessing of Kali Yuga is the power of chanting holy names. In this difficult age, most of our efforts yield little fruit. The world is full of challenges and imperfections. But through sincere chanting of the holy names, we can swiftly cross the ocean of material existence and reach Vaikuntha, the Lord’s supreme abode.”

In the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, is described how the Pandavas renounced the world after the disappearance of Krsna.

After installing Pariksit Maharaja on the throne, Yudhisthira Maharaja started towards the north, treading the path accepted by his forefathers and great men, to devote himself completely to the thought of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The younger brothers of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira observed that the Age of Kali had already arrived throughout the world and that the citizens of the kingdom were already affected by irreligious practice. Therefore they decided to follow in the footsteps of their elder brother.

In this way, the five Pandavas went to the Himalayas to practice devotional service, and thus they went back home, back to Godhead. It’s mentioned that “This abode of the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, known as Goloka Vṛndāvana, cannot be attained by persons who are absorbed in the material conception of life. But the Pāṇḍavas, being completely washed of all material contamination, attained that abode in their very same bodies.”

In the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, a mysterious pastime is described: Arjuna was defeated on the way by a group of cowherd men armed with sticks, while he was guarding the wives of Krsna, bringing them to Hastinapura after the disappearance of Krsna.

We can understand that Arjuna could lose his powers after the disappearance of Krsna since the Lord was the source of his powers, and had empowered him to perform a certain mission, fighting in the battle of Kuruksetra and so on. At that point, the mission was already complete, so there was no need for Arjuna to have such power. However, how could this group of infidel cowherds take the wives of Krsna, who were devotees surrendered to Him? Naturally, this was all part of a pastime.

Most of Krsna’s associates in Dvaraka are eternally liberated souls who came with Krsna from the spiritual world. These Yadhus never left the city and just went back to the spiritual world when the city disappeared. They never take birth in the material world, and just become manifest here when the city itself appears. When Dvaraka submerges in the ocean following the disappearance of Krsna, it just means the city and all the associates who live there stopped being visible in this particular universe and manifested somewhere else.

In the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, it is described that Arjuna went to visit Krsna in Dvaraka, to see Krsna and learn about the next activities of the Lord. Chronologically, this happened a few months before the visit of Vidhura and the liberation of Drtarastra. However, as several months passed without Arjuna returning, Maharaja Yudhisthira became increasingly concerned. He started observing many inauspicious signs, as described in chapter 14.

He noticed irregularities in the climate and observed that people became greedy, angry, and deceitful, adopting dishonest means of livelihood. There was cheating even in dealings between friends, and quarreling even between husbands and wives.

There were symptoms of the age of Kali that started becoming manifest. There was no question of such symptoms appearing while Krsna was still on the planet, therefore he started fearing that the Lord may have already left.

Building on the previous article, one could question about the human beings from past Kali-yugas. According to the chronology given in the Vedas, the last Kali-Yuga started about 4.32 million years ago. In the book “The Big Bang and the Sages”, Siddharth Prabhu makes the point that time on our planet goes at a rate of two per one compared to the time in Bhu-Mandala, therefore the 4.32 million years should be multiplied by two to get the geological dates in our planet. Therefore, taking this factor of two into account, we can calculate that the last Kali-yuga started about 8.65 ago, according to our local time.

This implies that there should be no artifacts from advanced human civilizations during this period since the advanced human beings from Satya-yuga up to Dwapara-yuga were living in more refined dimensions and would probably not leave any artifacts that could be found in our reality. Human beings who would be living in the same dimension as us during this period would be aborigines or other less evolved humans. This is consistent with the stone and metal artifacts modern archeologists find.

However, what about past Kali-Yugas? Post-industrial civilizations from these periods would be living in the same dimension as us, and they should have left a lot of artifacts we could recognize, such as plastics, concrete, advanced metal alloys, and so on. Why do archeologists not find artifacts from technologically advanced civilizations dated from 8.65 million years ago, as well as artifacts from other past Kali-Yugas, that started 17.29 million years ago, 25.93 million years ago, and so on? We are at about the middle of the day of Brahma, therefore there are already around 500 Kali-Yugas before us.

Pariksit Maharaja, one of the heroes of Srimad Bhagavatam, was born in the most uncommon circumstances, having to face the danger of an atomic explosion while still in the womb, and having the personal darshan of the Lord, who personally appeared just to save him.

As revealed on SB 3.3.17, the body of Maharaja Pariksit had been burned by the Brahmastra, but it was restored by the mercy of the Lord. This is confirmed in the first canto:

“The womb of Uttarā, mother of Mahārāja Parīkṣit, was spoiled by the dreadful and invincible brahmāstra weapon released by Aśvatthāmā. But Mahārāja Parīkṣit was saved by the Supreme Lord.”

Śaunaka Rishi wants to know more about this extraordinary birth, and thus asks:

“How was the great emperor Parīkṣit, who was a highly intelligent and great devotee, born in that womb? How did his death take place, and what did he achieve after his death?
We all respectfully want to hear about him [Mahārāja Parīkṣit] to whom Śukadeva Gosvāmī imparted transcendental knowledge. Please speak on this matter.” (SB 1.12.2-3)

In this world, we tend to rely on our intelligence to solve problems and acquire knowledge. One could argue that the best method for understanding anything, including the Absolute truth, is the process of logical examination.

To this, Vyasadeva answers (Brahma Sutras, 1.1.3): śāstra-yonitvāt. The speculations of the logicians can’t teach us about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He may only be known by the revelation of the Vedic scriptures.

It’s not possible to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead by just logic and speculation. All conditioned souls share four defects, which are having imperfect senses and intelligence, being propense to make mistakes, cheating others, and being illusioned.

We obtain imperfect information by using our imperfect senses, which are further processed using our imperfect intelligence. Because we tend to be illusioned, we often process information under a completely incorrect framework, which increases the opportunities for mistakes. Not only that, but we may also be cheated by others who want to take advantage of us, or we may cheat ourselves by finding excuses to believe whatever we want to believe. Due to all these factors, it’s impossible to reach perfect knowledge through mere logic and speculation. Perfect knowledge has to come from outside the material universe, from the transcendental world, which brings us to the Vedic scriptures.

Originally, the divisions in the Varnasrama system are based on qualification and not on birth. Krsna declares in the Bhagavad-Gita (4.13) that cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society are created by Me).

However, with the advent of Kali-yuga, different sectors of society started defending the division of classes based on hereditary rights, claiming that one can’t be a Brahmana without being born of a Brahmana father. This was one of the decisive factors in the destruction of Vedic culture since the establishment of a hereditary system allows unqualified sons of Brahmanas to assume the position of Brahmas and thus destroy the society from within.

According to them, if one is born in a degraded family, one has to take another birth in order to purify himself. Without changing one’s body, it’s not possible to become purified.

Our acaryas however energetically opposed this idea. Apart from the idea that a Vaishnava born in a sinful family can be initiated as a brahmana if he shows the proper qualifications, they defended that devotional service is transcendental, and therefore not limited to any particular country, class, society, or circumstance. Any person can become a Vaishnava, whether is he born in a pious family in India, or in a family of meat-eaters in the West.

Supported by passages from the scriptures, they established the potency of the holy names and their capacity to elevate even the most sinful persons to the highest platform. Devotional service is thus open for all, being the constitutional occupation of the living entities and once one becomes purified by the practice of devotional service one becomes automatically qualified as a Brahmana, since a Vaishnava is by definition superior to an ordinary Brahmana. A Brahmana is considered superior to the other classes for being established in the mode of goodness, a position that is superseded by a pure Vaishnava. As Prabhupada mentions: “Anyone who is a pure Vaishnava is situated transcendentally, and therefore the highest qualification in the material world, namely, to be in the mode of goodness, has already been achieved by such a person.”

We normally think the soul is physically situated inside the heart together with Paramatma, and that both move “physically” to another body at the time of death. This simplistic idea helps us to understand several concepts, starting with the idea that there is a soul and that the soul is dependent on the Supersoul, but in reality, is actually a little more complicated than that.

The first problem is that there is nothing “physical” connected with the soul. Although the soul is described as a particle of consciousness, it is not a particle in the physical sense, with weight and measurable dimensions. On Bg 2.24, Krsna describes the soul as sarva-gataḥ (all-pervading), sthāṇuḥ (unchangeable) and acalaḥ (immovable). Just like Ksirodakasay Vishnu (Paramamatma) pervades the whole universe, being present everywhere, the soul pervades the body, and thus our consciousness is present in all parts of the body. We can feel a pinch in our ear the same way we can feel it on our toe. This shows that the soul is more than just the idea we have of a particle. If the soul was something similar to a grain of sand, for example, it would not be able to permeate the whole body. If we would accept that this particle is dissolved, and thus spreads through the whole body, then we would contradict the principle of the soul being unchangeable. The soul is a “particle” of consciousness means the soul is a portion of consciousness and not a “particle” in the literal sense.

Another idea we may have difficulty conceiving is that the soul is acalaḥ (immovable). How can the soul be immovable if we go from one body to the other? It becomes easier to understand when we understand that the soul is consciousness and not a physical particle. The soul is part and parcel of Krsna and is always situated in his original position together with Krsna. The soul can’t be moved from this position. It’s not possible to separate the soul from Krsna.