Table of Contents
Thornton Blackmore
Just as Biblical lore speaks on the concept of the ‘end-times’, so too have other cultures and religions explored similar concepts. Interestingly, the Vedic culture of Classical India and the attending Sanskrit texts have spoken extensively of an age of darkness known as the Kali Yuga.
This Kali Yuga, which is said to be an age of quarrel and hypocrisy, is one of four ages that, according to the Vedas, repeat in a cyclical pattern again and again for the duration of the cosmic creation – which is itself also subject to manifestation and dissolution like clockwork on the wheel of eternal time.
The four ages are known as the Satya Yuga, the Treta Yuga, the Dvapara Yuga and the Kali Yuga.
The four pillars of dharma or religion are said by the Vedas to be Austerity, Cleanliness, Mercy and Truthfulness. In each successive age, dharma or religion is said to be reduced by one quarter, pitching the creation into a steady decline over millions of years, whereupon those souls seeking material pleasures are provided incrementally with the facilities for exploring deeper and darker realms of materialism, along with the concomitant karma and the chaos that comes with it.
One’s wealth, strength, beauty and other opulence evaporate accordingly with the decrease in virtue and the reincarnation of the soul along this ever-declining timeline eventually exhausts the soul of material desires and encourages the pursuit of self-realisation.
As such, while the Satya Yuga may in some ways be comparable to the Garden of Eden in Biblical terms, the Kali Yuga is an age of both suffering and materialism. According to the Vedas, we are at present only a few thousand years into the Kali Yuga, which lasts some 432,000 solar years before the Kalki Avatar is said to restore order and the Satya Yuga again recommences.
According to the Vedas a 10,000 year miniature Satya Yuga may appear within certain cycles of the Kali Yuga. Predictions of such a Golden Age have spanned many cultures and even in modernity, parallels have been drawn with the coming Age of Aquarius.
Whatever it may be, there exists today a conflict between the energies of dark and light. And whether one adheres to a Christian, Islamic, Hindu or any other worldview, we must acknowledge that any respite from the miseries of today will only be made possible by our willfully ascending to a higher level of conduct and consciousness.
The final revolution must be a spiritual one in order to be enduring. All other revolutions based upon increasing the facilities for material indulgence only accrue a karmic debt that must eventually be settled by way of collective calamities.
The question remains though, whether we as a species are ready for that quantum leap.
