Questions & Answers

What is the distance to the spiritual planets from our planet?

Humankind will be on the planet for the rest of Brahma’s day, which is roughly 155 trillion years.

The present human civilization is like a cancer-tumor on the planet, making life hell for nature and her inhabitants. Such a civilization will not last long, fortunately.

Some time in the near future, after nature has destroyed the present global culture, there will be a time of Krishna-consciousness all over the world. It has been predicted in the Vedas for this particular Kali-yuga.

This universe is scheduled to last creator-god Brahma’s life time, or 311 trillion years. We are about half way through Brahma’s life, so there is about 155 trillion years left. During that time many human civilizations will rise and fall.

The present consumer civilization will remembered only as a short night-mare - a flash in the pan. The ancient Egyptians lasted for almost three thousand years. After them came the Romans who managed to keep their culture going for 900 years, even though they were a pretty depraved bunch.

It can be said that the more a culture is in the mode of goodness, the longer it lasts, and the more a culture is in the modes of passion and ignorance, the shorter it lasts. Both the Egyptians and Romans worshipped demigods, so they were more in the mode of goodness.

Krishna says:

Men in the mode of goodness worship the demigods; those in the mode of passion worship the demons; and those in the mode of ignorance worship ghosts and spirits. —Bg 17.4

Compared to that, we have the modern culture which, if we say it was started by the Americans after WWII, hasn’t even lasted 100 years yet. And nobody thinks it is going to last another 50 years, it simply too destructive towards nature and her inhabitants. It’s a culture totally dominated by ignorance, so it is in the process of being wiped out by nature, even as we speak.

Vishnu says:

When one resents the demigods, who represent God, the Vedas, which give all knowledge, the cows, brahmanas, Vaisnavas and religious principles, and ultimately Me, the Supreme, he and his civilization will be vanquished without delay. -- Srimad Bhagavatam 7.4.27

Fortunately, due to Srila Prabhupada - direct descendents of the bhakti-revival movement begun by God Himself, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, 500 years ago - sanatana-dharma is now spreading like wild-fire on the planet.

This only happens once in a day of Brahma. One day of Brahma consists of 1000 yuga cycles of 4,32 million years, so one day of Brahma’s lasts 4,32 billion years.

In other words, God descends personally to planet Earth only once in 4 billion years. Because we have been fortunate enough to having taken birth as humans 5000 years after Krishna’s descent, we tend to forget what an extremely rare occurrence it is for the soul to be born as human.

The present Kali-age is one out of 1000 Kali-yugas, where God personally descends to planet Earth in order to display His pastimes and deliver Bhagavad Gita. Whenever Krishna descends, He comes again 4500 years later as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, to deliver people by the Hare Krishna mantra.

So in the present Kali-yuga there will be a golden age of 10.000 years of Krishna consciousness. That period began 500 years ago with the descent of Chaitanaya Mahaprabhu in West Bengal.

It’s a work in progress, though, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Nature, obviously, has to rid herself of the present ungodly consumer culture, before the Golden age can really set in.

None the less, it is safe to say that being born at this time, in this particular Kali-yuga, only 500 years after God was here, is a most rare and fortunate event.

Krishna says:

By human calculation, a thousand ages taken together form the duration of Brahma's one day. And such also is the duration of his night. —Bg 8.17

Srila Prabhupada explains:

The duration of the material universe is limited. It is manifested in cycles of kalpas. A kalpa is a day of Brahma, and one day of Brahma consists of a thousand cycles of four yugas, or ages: Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali.

The cycle of Satya is characterized by virtue, wisdom and religion, there being practically no ignorance and vice, and the yuga lasts 1,728,000 years. In the Treta-yuga vice is introduced, and this yuga lasts 1,296,000 years. In the Dvapara-yuga there is an even greater decline in virtue and religion, vice increasing, and this yuga lasts 864,000 years.

And finally in Kali-yuga (the yuga we have now been experiencing over the past 5,000 years) there is an abundance of strife, ignorance, irreligion and vice, true virtue being practically nonexistent, and this yuga lasts 432,000 years.

In Kali-yuga vice increases to such a point that at the termination of the yuga the Supreme Lord Himself appears as the Kalki avatara, vanquishes the demons, saves His devotees, and commences another Satya-yuga. Then the process is set rolling again.

These four yugas, rotating a thousand times, comprise one day of Brahma, and the same number comprise one night. Brahma lives one hundred of such "years" and then dies. These "hundred years" by earth calculations total to 311 trillion and 40 billion earth years.

By these calculations the life of Brahma seems fantastic and interminable, but from the viewpoint of eternity it is as brief as a lightning flash. In the Causal Ocean there are innumerable Brahmas rising and disappearing like bubbles in the Atlantic.

Brahma and his creation are all part of the material universe, and therefore they are in constant flux.

In the material universe not even Brahma is free from the process of birth, old age, disease and death. Brahma, however, is directly engaged in the service of the Supreme Lord in the management of this universe -- therefore he at once attains liberation.

Elevated sannyasis are promoted to Brahma's particular planet, Brahmaloka, which is the highest planet in the material universe and which survives all the heavenly planets in the upper strata of the planetary system, but in due course Brahma and all the inhabitants of Brahmaloka are subject to death, according to the law of material nature.

~Bhakti Vinod Thakur composed one verse expressing his heart’s desire to take Mahaprabhu back to Mayapur.

ami chai gaurachandre laite mayapure

yathaya kaishora-veshe sri-angete sphure

yathaya chanchara kesha tri-kachchha-vasane

ishodyane lila kare bhakta-jana sane

(Sri Nabadwip-bhava-taranga: 70)

“Mahaprabhu may be so great, Mahaprabhu may be Bhagavan Himself, Mahaprabhu may be the Yuga-avatar, Mahaprabhu may be anything, but what will I do if I do not first get the service of Mahaprabhu? First, I need His service. I am feeling great pain to see Mahaprabhu with no hair dressed as a sannyasi. I do not like to see His sannyas-vesh. I need to worship Mahaprabhu in His form of Nabadwipchandra [the Moon of Sri Nabadwip Dham], not Sri Chaitanyadev the sampradaya sannyasi. I want to bring Mahaprabhu back to Mayapur where His devotees can see His long curly hair and His divine form shining in His beautiful garments during Pastimes in the garden of Ishodyan.”