Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you very much for your participating in this meeting, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is very much authorized. It is nothing like concocted mental speculation. It is authorized on the basis of Vedic knowledge, specifically, directly from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa, five thousand years ago when there was no history of another religion. In the modern age, any religion you can take into consideration, they are not older than 2,600 years. But so far this Bhagavad-gītā is concerned, it was spoken in the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra five thousand years ago.
We should consider what were the religion of the world 2,600 years ago, because modern history cannot place before you any chronological list of religious evolution within 2,600 years. There was human society before 2,600 years. And what was their religion? We think, from Vedic evidences, the whole world was in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There was one God: Kṛṣṇa; one scripture: Bhagavad-gītā; one consciousness: Kṛṣṇa consciousness; and one work: service of the Lord.
From Mahābhārata, the great history of India, we can understand that up to Mahārāja Parīkṣit, the whole world was ruled by one flag, this Vedic culture. Gradually it deteriorated, as we have practical experience. Twenty years ago there was no Pakistan, but now Pakistan is existing. Similarly, the whole planet was known as Bhārata-varṣa. This Bhārata-varṣa name was after the king Mahārāja Bharata, the son of Ṛṣabhadeva. Before that, this planet was known as Ilāvṛta-varṣa. And after the king Mahārāja Bharata—he was a great king—he also left his kingdom at the age of twenty-four years, very young boy, for searching after spiritual realization, self-realization.
That is the way of Vedic culture, or Indian culture. Not that up to the last point of our death we shall stick to the worldly affairs. The Vedic culture divides the whole society into four social orders and four spiritual orders. The four social orders is division of intelligence. The most intelligent class of men are called the brāhmiṇs. And next than the brāhmiṇs are the kṣatriyas. It is all calculated on the basis of intelligence. There are different kinds of people all over the world on account of more or less intelligence.
So brāhmiṇ means the most intelligent class of men—the scientists, the poets, the philosophers, like that. The religionists, they are called brāhmiṇs. And the administrator class is called the kṣatriyas, and the productive class are called the vaiśyas, and the laborer class, or the working class, is called the śūdra. That is natural division.