People become awestruck when they learn that the life span on Brahmaloka is many millions of years. One has to undergo severe austerities and renunciation, accepting the sannyāsa order of life, in order to reach Brahmaloka. However, we must consider one essential fact: even Lord Brahmā, the presiding deity of that planet, is not immortal. Those who have researched the Vedic scriptures in depth can calculate the lifetime of Brahmā. Human beings count 365 days in their year, and the cycle of four yugas comprises approximately 4,320,000 such years. A thousand cycles of four yugas make up one day-time (twelve hours) of Lord Brahmā's life. In this way his month and year can be calculated, and Brahmā lives for a hundred years of his time. But despite this vast life span—311 trillion 40 billion human years—Lord Brahmā is a mortal being, and this universe created by him is also perishable. Thus it is not strange that human beings, who are also his creation, should perish. As human beings seem immortal to a tiny insect, so Lord Brahmā and the demigods seem immortal to us. In fact, however, no material body of any form is ever eternal.
Forty billion
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Chapters 7 - 12
In the Tretā-yuga vice is introduced, and this yuga lasts 1,296,000 years. In the Dvāpara-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 avatāra, 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 Brahmā, and the same number comprise one night. Brahmā 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 Brahmā 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 Brahmās rising and disappearing like bubbles in the Atlantic. Brahmā and his creation are all part of the material universe, and therefore they are in constant flux.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
Conversations and Morning Walks
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: That is birds are doing also. What is the credit?
Paramahaṁsa: They are thinking that "What is the use of going to any other planet, because there is no life on the other planets."
Prabhupāda: Why no life?
Paramahaṁsa: Well, they have photographs and things.
Prabhupāda: Photograph, what is this nonsense photograph? How long it can go up?
Ambarīṣa: They're taken from hundreds of miles up in space, and then they say there is no life.
Prabhupāda: What is hundreds of miles? It is, er, forty billion, what is that?
Paramahaṁsa: Four billion.
Prabhupāda: Four billion. So how they can calculate?
Paramahaṁsa: If they took a photograph of the earth planet from up in space, they would probably also say there is no life.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (3): They say because the atmosphere is not like this planet, others cannot live there.
Prabhupāda: Why not atmosphere? The moon planet, there is a planet. There is space. There is surface. There is dust. So why not atmosphere the same? It is made of the same ingredients, earth, water, fire. Why do you say that is not same atmosphere?
| Page Title: | Forty billion |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti |
| Created: | 06 of Nov, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=1, SB=0, CC=0, OB=1, Lec=0, Con=1, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 3 |