Posted on: 02 Jun 2021
[An online spiritual discussion was conducted on May 30, 2021, in which several devotees participated. Devotees’ questions answered by Swāmi are given below.]
[Shri Bharath Krishna asked: Paadanamskaram Swami! I got this doubt because although You were there with every soul during the Satya Yuga, they would not have realised Your value, as much as we realise now. This is because I am personally able to see how much pain You are going through in helping us overcome all our troubles and also in teaching us again and again. There is no doubt that You are doing all this out of Your infinite love for all the souls created by You. Not only this, You are even bearing the sins of Your devotees who have totally surrendered to You, upon Yourself. But in the Satya Yuga, souls had never done any sins and so, there was no possibility for them to see Your infinite love in protecting and reforming them.
I have another question which is an extension of my above question. Was there a case of any soul totally surrendering to You during the Satya Yuga? I got this question because souls started committing sins only after receiving complete freedom from You. Only thereafter did they start realizing the value of living according to Your guidance. Is the total surrender of a devotee in the Kali Yuga the same as that of souls living according to Your guidance during the Satya Yuga?]
Swāmi replied: In Satyayuga, due to absence of freedom of souls, none can say which soul is a diamond and which soul is a gravel stone. You cannot discriminate souls in the absence of freedom. It was not a play arranged between players. It was just a military parade carried on by the souls, which were robot-soldiers. Love also has no place in a military parade in which there is no trace of freedom except the commands of the boss! As the age passed from Satyayuga to Kaliyuga, the possibility of exploitation increased tremendously, which means that the question paper of the examination became more and more tough. It is natural because as you pass from lower to higher classes, the standard of knowledge increases and the question paper becomes more and more standard and tough. Satyayuga was a class test. Tretayuga was quarterly examination. Dvaaparayuga is half-yearly examination. Kaliyuga is the final annual examination. Whether a soul is saved or not will be finally decided by the end of this Kali age. As time passed on, the IQ of the souls tremendously increased due to the progress of science and logic. Hence, the standard of the examination also increased very much. In the end of Satyayuga or class tests, no medals were prepared because there was absence of total freedom for souls in Satyayuga. In the end of Tretayuga or quarterly examination, the Silver medal, which is the Lordship of Brahmaloka was given to Hanuman. Goloka, the Gold medal given to Gopikas, was created in the end of Dvaaparayuga or half-yearly examination. In the end of Kaliyuga or final annual examination, the Diamond medal or Dattasevakaloka will be created above Goloka for the sake of devotees, who reached the climax of theoretical and practical devotion without aspiration for any fruit in return.
Your another question was already answered in the above paragraph. Class test means just putting an oral question to the student in the class while the teaching goes on. For such tests, there is no procedure of evaluation at all because there was no trace of freedom to the soul and due to this the very examination system is in non-projected bud condition.