By: BK Sheilu
Source: The Daily Guardian https://epaper.thedailyguardian.com/view/2970/the-daily-guardian/15
Dated: September 13th, 2025

There is a popular television game show franchise called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Participants in the quiz answer a series of multiple-choice questions while attempting to win large cash prizes. The shows are popular the world over largely due to the money on offer - the top prize is usually a million units of the local currency. Most people are quick to see the opportunity to get rich fast.

However, few people see the opportunity to change their lives meaningfully and become something more than an ordinary person, especially when such transformation involves working on oneself. Such an opportunity comes along just once, when the world is passing from one age to another, as the wheel of time turns inexorably.

Time brings major changes, slowly but surely. The process is often imperceptible to us even as we play a part in it, because it stretches over a long period of time. It becomes apparent only when its ultimate results manifest themselves, as is happening with climate change.

A time comes when the world undergoes renewal, and the decrepit old order is replaced by a new, divine one. This is part of the cyclic progression of time, whereby the world goes from new to old, is rejuvenated, and again becomes old before another renewal, in a process that repeats endlessly.

The present time is one of such transformation. It is referred to in religious and spiritual lexicon as the transition from the Iron Age to the Golden Age, which occurs at the beginning of each cycle of time.

The Golden Age is a time when all souls as well as the elements of nature are in their pristine state, and consequently there is spiritual as well as material abundance. The souls – whom we now revere as deities - were free from vices, which are the root cause of sorrow. Consequently, there is complete peace and happiness during that period.

Many people assume that when the Iron Age – also called hell because of the hellish conditions that prevail - ends with the passage of time, and the Golden Age dawns, they will get to live in that new age.

That is not the case. When the world transitions from the Golden Age to the, Silver, Copper, and Iron Ages, there is a gradual decline in the quality of souls, and of life in general. There is material progress, but souls increasingly become distanced from purity, peace, and true love because they have forgotten the fact that they are souls, and that these qualities are a part of their original nature. By the Iron Age, souls are ignorant of the truth about their own identity, and vainly seek fulfilment in objects, places, and other people. The shift from the Iron Age to the Golden Age involves a complete renewal, which is both physical and spiritual. Nothing of the Iron Age remains: the harmful ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that  turn the world into hell are all swept away.

What remains is all that is pure and divine. Only souls with divine qualities exist in the Golden Age. These are the souls who have qualified for the Golden Age by discarding the damaging ways of the Iron Age and embodying virtues such as purity, peace, love, and truth.

Living in the Golden Age is a prize worth much more than a million dollars. All the wealth of a millionaire in today’s world cannot save him or her from physical illness or emotional pain, nor can it shield them completely from the fears, anxiety, and stress that are now commonplace. The Golden Age, in contrast, is free from all kinds of negativity because at that time, weaknesses such as lust, anger, greed, and ego, which give rise to all suffering, are unknown to human minds.

Souls can attain such a state only by connecting with the eternal source of power and purity, the Supreme Soul. When we remember the Supreme, we receive His power and virtues through the mental link, which recharges and cleanses the soul. Gradually, the impurities accumulated during the course of the soul’s sojourn in this world are washed away, and its innate qualities of peace, love, purity, and truth shine through its actions. It is such purified souls, or deities, who live in the Golden Age, where happiness is the natural state of being.

The spiritual effort required for this is simple, though it calls for patience, fortitude, and constant attention on the self. The reward is great – it is something no millionaire or billionaire can hope to get in today’s world. So, who wants to be a deity?

BK Sheilu is a Rajyoga teacher
at the Brahma Kumaris headquarters in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.