take a deep breath

i just found this after MONTHS of looking:


The living entity moves sequentially through the 8,400,000 species of life.

Rarely does one take a human birth. If one does not use this human birth for self realization, then the human birth is wasted. You may as well be a dog or a hog or an ass. Or any of the other 8,400,000 species.

How rare is it? Here we go...

The Basics
- Out of the 8,400,000 species of life, only 400,000 are human (the word "species" has a different definition than the western scientific definition).
- The remaining 8 million are divided up between aquatics, birds, vegetation, animals, etc. none of which have the opportunity for self realization.
- In Kali-yuga, in the human form of life, most will not surrender to Krishna.
- Because of this, according to Srila Prabhupada 99.9% of mankind is the "lowest" among man kind.

The Yuga Cycle - 4,320,000 years.
- In Satya-yuga there are 1,728,000 years.
- In Treta-yuga there are 1,296,000 years.
- In Dvarpa-yuga there are 864,000 years.
- In Kali-yuga (the yuga we are in now) there are 432,000 years.
- 5,000 years have elapsed thus far in Kali-yuga.

The Days and years of Brahma
- In one day of Brahma, there are 1,000 yuga-cycles (all four yugas = 1 yuga-cycle).
- In one night of Brahma, there are also 1,000 yuga-cycles.
- That is 4,320,000,000 years in just one day (12 hours) of Brahma. That is 8, 640,000,000 years in one 24 hour period of Brahma.
- There are 360 days of Brahma in one year of Brahma. That is 3,110,400,000,000 earth years.
- Brahma lives for 100 of his years. That is 311,040,000,000 earth years.

This is going to be a little mind boggling, so take a deep breath before reading on. Inhale.... now exhale...
- At the longest, a deep breath takes 4 seconds to exhale.
- Those 311,040,000,000 years go by in one breath of Maha-Vishnu.
- If an outgoing breath is four seconds, that is 1/15 of a minute. Which is 1/900 of an hour, 1/21,600 of a day. If we are going by Brahma's year of 360 days, it's 1/7,776,000 of a year.
- Maximum age in Kali-yuga is about 100 years, so you have spent 1/7,776,000 of your life in that one breath. That's how many breaths you'll take in 100 years if you are taking a breath every four seconds.

Us
- We are trans-migrating through all these different species of life.
- The human lifespan is considered to be about in the middle. We can take our birth as microbes and live for a few hours or as demigods and live for thousands of years. 100 years is about average.
- That means that the number of lives that a soul experiences in one breath of Maha-Vishnu is 3,110,400,000,000.
- Since there are 8,400,000 species of life, a soul passes through EACH species 370,286 times.

Now... here we are in this rare human birth, only a mere 500 years after the appearance of the most magnificent incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, what should we do with this opportunity? Should we waste it and head back through this process of transmigration for maybe trillions and trillions of years of this one breath of Maha-Vishnu which is only a lightening flash when compared to eternity? Or should we take every opportunity to to try and become Krishna conscious?

Take a deep breath and think about it.


Hare Krishna!

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[all information taken from Srimad-Bhagavatam and mostly lifted by a class given by Hari Kirtana Prabhu in Columbus, Ohio, March, 1995.]