In the previous episode, we had continued on the discussion about how the Kali Yuga is going to span out, according to Sage Sukhaachaarya. It is extremely interesting since we’re able to relate almost all what is happening today in our day-to-day life. In that way, we’ve witnessed Sage Sukhaachaarya narrating yesterday that people would go beyond community, religion, etc. and get married. There wouldn’t be any importance to any “Varnaashrama Dharma” that the other three Yugas were following. People wouldn’t respect marriages, relationships, etc. and everything would be measured only in terms of money, name and fame. Similarly, people wouldn’t give importance to the beauty of the inner consciousness. External beauty would be of extreme prominence – especially for the hair. Hairstyling would largely decide on the beauty of a person and people would fall flat for that. Moreover, Sage Sukhaachaarya also explains that people who are successful, mostly do not taste success with their honesty and integrity. They taste success through all possible shortcuts and perverted intelligence. People would be branded “smart” only based on how well they cheat and outsmart others in the unethical way.
Moving on thus, we had cconcluded yesterday’s episode with the next point that as days and years roll by, administrators and kings would be the biggest thieves on earth! This is such a valid point that Sage Sukhaachaarya is discussing here, as today we’ve assigned a specific term for this – “Corruption”. We’re able to witness this corruption to be rampant in almost all government offices, isn’t it? More than government offices, all of know how our modern-day politicians are. Barring few, the main tagline that politicians carry with them is “corruption”. We’ve reached a stage wherein, if one has to be a successful politician, he / she should have a clinical expertise on various ways and means to be corrupt, manipulate court cases (which comes extremely handy with politicians today), deny justice to the genuine victims and with that, acquire name, fame and status. We’ve now started seeing instances wherein elections are being “fixed” by our unruly politicians by paying bribes to voters. Thus, corruption is becoming rampant at every level of the government machinery and of course, as Sage Sukhaachaarya explains, this would be the norm of the Kali Yuga, which we couldn’t really complain about! Rather, we’ve to live with all of these and be mute spectators!
Moreover, to continue with this point further, Sage Sukhaachaarya explains that administrators in the Kali Yuga would start imposing excessive taxes on the people, for unnecessary reasons. This also is rampant today, isn’t it? We’re seeing how much of money we’re paying on taxes today – be it for petrol, diesel, kerosene, LPG, etc. In actual terms, the real price of petrol in India, according to the crude oil price globally and with the US dollar exchange rate, should be around 20 rupees per litre. But instead, how much are we paying for a litre of petrol today? Rs. 85 on an average! It’s thus evident that India is paying 4 times more the price per litre of petrol to the government, which is a huge burden on the common man. Isn’t this an open and shut case of excessive taxation on fuel? This is where the government administrators obtain loads of money to swindle, on the pretext of coming up with so-called “welfare schemes”. Especially with this current CoVID-19 situation, sadly the government is “using” this situation as an “excuse” to swindle more and more money from the honest taxpayers, which is ethically and morally wrong. With many people losing jobs and their sources of income, how would the common man be able to afford excessive taxes on regular fuel consumption? This is again, the norm of the Kali Yuga, and unfortunately we’ve to live with this!
Here, Sage Sukhaachaarya explains that only one-sixth of a person’s total income should go as tax for the government. In other words, out of hundred rupees, only sixteen rupees can go as tax to the government in all forms put together. If the government is going to tax the people beyond this percentage, it simply means that Kali Yuga has started to take its shape nicely! Moreover, the government should come with a report card to the people, with regards to how it spends the tax money on people’s welfare schemes. Do we even have anything of that sorts today? This might be laughable for all of us, but unfortunately, we’ve to live with this hard reality!
So for today, let us understand this point very clearly and let us wait till the next episode to witness the continuation of Sage Sukhaachaarya’s absorbing discussion on the Kali Yuga! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 