Astro Foorumi

 by Rene Guenon

कलियुग

             According to the Hindu tradition of cosmology, we are now nearing
             the end of the Kali Yuga (the Age of Iron) which is the final and
             most negative of four evolutionary Yugic cycles.


             Each Yuga is like the season of a super-cosmic year, even greater
             than the cosmic year of the precession of the equinoxes. When the
             Earth came into its current phase of manifestation and the first
             Yuga began ('Satya' Yuga, meaning 'Purity') humanity was barely
             removed from its original state of God-like innocence. This was
             the original Golden Age. As time progressed the planet underwent
             the influence of a negative descending spiral, and the quality of
             life in each successive Yuga became further and further removed
             from the knowledge of truth and natural Law (in other words,
             'Reality'). In the second, Treta Yuga (Silver Age) spiritual
             awareness decreased by one fourth and by the time of Dvapara Yuga
             (Copper Age) negativity had a 50% holding. In the Kali Yuga the
             vibration has become pretty murky and humanity is labouring
             against heavy odds. Righteousness (right-use-ness) has diminished
             to scant one fourth of its original strength. Throughout our
             current history we have created and been assailed by all the evils
             of Pandora's box. No wonder the human race is having such a
             difficult time. But the turning point has now arrived, and the
             dawn once more sheds its light on a confused and ignorant planet.
             The Vishnu Purana, one of the oldest sacred texts of India says
             about the Kali Yuga, "The leaders who rule over the Earth will be
             violent and seize the goods of their subjects... Those with
             possessions will abandon agriculture and commerce and will live as
             servants, that is, following various possessions. The leaders,
             with the excuses of fiscal need, will rob and despoil their
             subjects and take away private property. Moral values and the rule
             of the law will lessen from day to day until the world will be
             completely perverted and agnosticism will gain the day among men."

             There are many other references to this division of time. For
             instance, in the Bible, Nebuchandnezzar's dream (Daniel 2:31-45)
             was of a bright and terrible image with a head of finest gold,
             chest of silver, hips of brass and legs of iron. The feet and toes
             were of iron mixed with clay. This image was destroyed by stone,
             unmade by human hands, which crushed the feet to dust and the
             pieces blew away in the wind. Although Daniel the prophet
             interpreted the various metals as the world empires which
             succeeded Babylon, the dream also has a more cosmic meaning. It
             represents the great yugas. The iron legs are the Iron Age or Kali
             Yuga which deteriorates at the end of its cycle into the present
             unstable civilisation symbolised by the feet of iron and clay. The
             prophet interpreted the stone as the true kingdom of God which
             would replace the other civilisations as the real and lasting
             Kingdom.


             THE END OF A WORLD


             This end only appears to be the "end of the world," without any
             reservation or specification of any kind, to those who see nothing
             beyond the limits of this particular cycle; a very excusable error
             of perspective it is true, but one that has nonetheless some
             regrettable consequences in the excessive and unjustified terrors
             to which it gives rise in people who are not sufficiently detached
             from terrestrial existence; and naturally they are the very people
             who form this erroneous conception most easily, just because of
             the narrowness of their point of view. ...the end now under
             consideration is undeniably of considerably greater importance
             than many other, for it is the end of a whole Manvantara, and so
             of the temporal existence of what may rightly be called a
             humanity, but this, it must be said once more, in no way implies
             that it is the end of the terrestrial world itself, because,
             through the "reinstatement" that takes place at the final instant,
             this end will itself immediately become the beginning of another
             Manvantara...if one does not stop short of the most profound order
             of reality, it can be said in all truth the "end of a world" never
             is and never can be anything but the end of an illusion.
 

             Excerpted from Rene Guenon's The Reign of Quantity and The Signs of the Times.

सत्य युग

The Satya Yuga according to some holy texts

Amongst the four eras, the Satya Yuga is the first and the most significant one. Knowledge, meditation, and penance hold special importance in this era. All the pillars of religion are present in totality. The average life expectancy of a human being in Satya Yuga is believed to be over 4,000 years. During Satya Yuga, all people engage only in good, sublime deeds. Ashrams become devoid of wickedness and deceit. Natyam (such as Bharatanatyam), according to Natya Shastra, did not exist in the Satya Yuga "because it was the time when all people were happy".

...as described in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic:

    [...] there were no poor and no rich; there was no need to labour, because all that men required was obtained by the power of will; the chief virtue was the abandonment of all worldly desires. The Krita Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; there was no hatred or vanity, or evil thought; no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness. [...]