One who has taken his birth as a human being in the land of India [Bhārata-varṣa] should make his life successful and work for the benefit of all other people.
It is indeed true that Indians are especially able to benefit others world-wide. But if the Indians do not meet this responsibility and instead get enticed and bedazzled by the illusory energy as it is manifest in the West in such variegated forms, then they will become known as misers and end their lives in disgrace. The sun is not visible at night because of the rotation of the earth, yet the sun is very much present in the sky, and the entire solar system is working under its influence. Similarly, the light of India's knowledge, contained in the sublime philosophy of the Vedas, the Upaniṣads, the Vedānta-sūtra, the Purāṇas, the Gītā, and their corollaries, is certainly available, but by divine will it is temporarily beyond our view due to the influence of ignorance and passion. Of course, by the Lord's will and by the mercy of His pure devotee, this knowledge will again spread everywhere. Lord Caitanya has made this prediction;
- pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi-grāma
- sarvatra pracāra haibe more nāma
My holy name will be propagated in every town and village of this globe.
This prediction will very easily come true, for a pure devotee of the Lord can inundate the world with the tidal waves of love of Godhead, the religion preached by Lord Caitanya. Everything is possible if the Lord desires. And thus if the Lord desires, everyone can develop a loving mood of surrender to Him.
Indians must fearlessly preach the glories of the Lord far and wide. One who surrenders to the Supreme Lord, Nārāyaṇa, can easily face all dangers in the effort to propagate His message. As said in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.17.28),
- nārāyaṇa-paraḥ sarve
- na kutaścana bibhyati
- svargāpavarga-narakeṣv
- api tulyārtha-darśinaḥ
Devotees solely engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, never fear any condition of life. For them the heavenly planets, liberation, and the hellish planets are all the same, for such devotees are interested only in the service of the Lord.
When knowledge of the Absolute Truth, which is on the platform of pure goodness, is suppressed by the rampant influence of ignorance and passion, the sages and self-realized souls withdraw to a solitary place of worship and concentrate solely on elevating themselves spiritually. They also greatly benefit the few disciples who stay with them and serve them. But if the Lord desires, then these sages and yogīs come forward to benefit the world through missionary activities. For the ultimate good of the world, saintly kings like Janaka, Yudhiṣṭhira, and Kārtavīrya take up the burden of managing world affairs.
All the pastimes of the Supreme Lord in the spiritual world are eternal. His earthly pastimes are similarly transcendental and eternal. As the Caitanya-bhāgavata states, "Even at this very moment Lord Gaurāṅga is enacting His eternal, transcendental pastimes, but only the most fortunate souls can see them." When the sun sets, it goes out of our sight, but it continues to shine somewhere on this globe. Similarly, when the Lord winds up His earthly pastimes, He continues to manifest them in one or more of the uncountable millions of planets in the universe. As Lord Brahmā declares in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.39):
- rāmādi-mūrtiṣu kalā-niyamena tiṣṭhan
- nānāvatāram akarod bhuvaneṣu kintu
- kṛṣṇaḥ svayaṁ samabhavat paramaḥ pumān yo
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who manifested Himself personally as Kṛṣṇa and the different avatāras in the world in the forms of Rāma, Nṛsiṁha, Vāmana, etc., as His subjective portions.
The cycle of four yugas, or millenniums - namely, Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara, and Kali - goes around a thousand times in one day of Lord Brahmā. The Bhagavad-gītā (8.17) confirms this: sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ. "By human calculation, a thousand ages taken together form the duration of Brahmā's one day." According to the Vedic calculation, one day of Brahmā sees the coming and going of fourteen Manus. Therefore, each Manu lives for seventy-one cycles of the four millenniums. At present we are in the period of Vaivasvata Manu, in the twenty-eighth cycle of the four millenniums, and it is the Kali-yuga. This Kali-yuga is very special, however, because Lord Caitanya appears in this age in His original form and propagates the esoteric science of pure love of Godhead. All this we learn from the scriptures. We have great expectations that this science of pure love of Godhead will be propagated world-wide in the immediate future.
During the Satya-yuga the mode of goodness is in abundance. Or one can say that when the quality of goodness increases in a person to the extent that he becomes situated in his original constitutional identity as a servant of the Lord, thus making his human life a complete success, at that time he enjoys the bliss and tranquillity of the Satya-yuga. The three modes - goodness, passion, and ignorance - are always present in this material nature. According to the predominance of a particular mode, the yugas change from Satya to Tretā to Dvāpara to Kali. The jīvas in Kali-yuga are predominantly in the mode of ignorance, and with with the increase of this mode the threefold material miseries expand unlimitedly. Thus people today are afflicted by a short life-span, ill luck, warped intelligence, lethargy, disease, and many other sufferings.