Text 36] — Prthu Maharaja’s Meeting with the Four Kumaras 935

level. Our real engagement should be in inquiring about the real purpose of
life and rendering devotional service to the Lord. Thus we will be eternally
blessed in our spiritual activities, full of knowledge and bliss.

Regulated human civilization promotes dharma, artha, kama and
moksa. In human society there must be religion. Without religion,
human society is only animal society. Economic development and sense
gratification must be based on religious principles. When religion,
economic development and sense gratification are adjusted, liberation from
this material birth, death, old age and disease is assured. In the present age
of Kali, however, there is no question of religion and liberation. People
have taken interest in economic development and sense gratification.
Therefore, despite sufficient economic development all over the world,
dealings in human society have become almost animalistic. When every-
thing becomes grossly animalistic, dissolution takes place. This dissolution
is to be accepted as isa-vidhvamsitasisam. The Lord’s so-called blessings of
economic development and sense gratification will be conclusively dissolved
by destruction. At the end of this Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as the
incarnation of Kalki, and His only business will be to kill all human beings
on the surface of the globe. After that killing, another golden age will be-
gin. We should therefore know that our material activities are just like
childish play. Children may play on the beach and the father will sit and
watch this childish play, the construction of buildings with sand, the con-
struction of walls and so many things, but finally the father will ask the
children to come home. Then everything is destroyed. Persons who are too
much addicted to the childish activities of economic development and
sense gratification are sometimes especially favored by the Lord when He
destroys their construction of these things.

It is said by the Lord: yasyaham anugrhnami harisye tad-dhanam
Sanath. The Lord told Yudhisthira Maharaja that His special favor is
shown to His devotee when He takes away all his material opulences.
Generally, therefore, it is experienced that Vaisnavas are not very opulent
in the material sense. When a Vaignava, pure devotee, tries to be materially
opulent and at the same time desires to serve the Supreme Lord, his
devotional service is checked. The Lord, in order to show him a special
favor, destroys his so-called economic development and material opulences.
Thus the devotee, being frustrated in his repeated attempts at economic
development, ultimately takes solid shelter under the lotus feet of the
Lord. This kind of action may also be accepted as iSa-vidhvamsitasisam,
whereby the Lord destroys one’s material opulences but enriches him in
spiritual understanding. In the course of our preaching work, we sometimes
