A very famous hindi song “Jahan daal daal par sone ki chidiya karti hai basera ..? woh bharat desh hai mera..woh bharat desh hai mera” describes in essence as to how prosperous india was a few 100 years ago. In the same manner, many of our scriptures too have described golden age, paradise, satyuga in details as a period of peace, prosperity and happiness which is said to have existed thousands of years ago…
However, if this is true, then a practical question that comes to the mind is that if golden age was such a good period, then why and how did it come to an end? Why do we now find ourselves in a world full of strife and misery? Very few of us are aware of the fact that the Golden, Silver, Copper and Iron ages are the four periods through which the world cycle passes.
If we sit down to assess the reason for our downfall from the golden age to the Iron Age, and then we would easily be able to do it in seconds. YES!! One of the most important factors that distinguish our present times from the Golden Age, and which is the biggest cause of our downfall from that exalted stage, is violence in all its forms. Indeed it is violence that makes a hell of heaven, because paradise is lost when violence, in the form of the five vices and their offshoots, enters the human mind. One would wonder as to what are these vices??? Well!! To put it simply, vices are nothing but violence in its various forms, which violates divinity as well as spiritual and natural laws.
In golden age we all humans were divine because we were totally pure and in our original state of soul which is considered a being of purity, peace, power and bliss. In addition, everyone in the Golden Age is soul-conscious, that is they are naturally conscious of the fact that they are souls and not bodies, hence no one caused harm to another person in the Golden Age.
There was no dishonesty, greed, deceit, anger, selfishness or negativity of any other kind. Since everyone was healthy, happy and prosperous, the feeling of discontent did not exist at all. It is also said that there are no police stations, courts and hospitals in paradise because no laws are broken there and hence no punishment is required. There is no untimely death there because no disease, injury or accident occurs there. A complete opposite to this is the Iron Age where we all are living today and where all of the above-mentioned things happen due to violation of the laws of nature by which the human body functions. Remember!!! The disease is the punishment we receive for our wrong actions performed against the law of karma and the seeds of these very wrong actions are the vices which cause pain to the self and make us inflict pain on others. Such violence is a violation of divinity which drags us down from a divine status to that of an ordinary human being. If we really want to bring peace to this world, then we have to first root out the vices from our minds without which no amount of political, social and economic efforts can ensure lasting peace.
So let us make an effort to first make heaven within self before actually moving into heaven.
