The Atma Jyoti Blog

Q: I was wondering about the Yugas. It is mentioned in your Sanskrit glossary that we are currently in ascending Dwapara Yuga but in descending Kali Yuga in the cosmic scale. I am quite familiar with The Holy Science and the 24,000 year cycle, but not so much with the cosmic cycle. Was wondering about your conclusions that we are in the cosmic Kali Yuga, and how that might tie into the 2012 predictions [referring to the end of a cycle of the Mayan calendar, thought by some to be the end of the world] and Kali and Dwapara?

T hese are not our conclusions but the standard view in India. If you will look up references to the yugas in Autobiography of a Yogi you will find the relevant information. Here is the entire entry from A Brief Sanskrit Glossary:

“Hindus believe that there are four yugas: the Golden Age (Satya or Krita Yuga), the Silver age (Treta Yuga), The Bronze Age (Dwapara Yuga), and the Iron Age (Kali Yuga). Satya Yuga is four times as long as the Kali Yuga; Treta Yuga is three times as long; and Dwapara Yuga is twice as long. In the Satya Yuga the majority of humans use the total potential–four-fourths–of their minds; in the Treta Yuga, three-fourths; in the Dwapara Yuga, one half; and in the Kali Yuga, one fourth. (In each Yuga there are those who are using either more or less of their minds than the general populace.)”

“The Yugas move in a perpetual circle: Ascending Kali Yuga, ascending Dwapara Yuga, ascending Treta Yuga, ascending Satya Yuga, descending Satya Yuga, descending, Treta Yuga, descending Dwapara Yuga, and descending Kali Yuga–over and over. Furthermore, there are yuga cycles within yuga cycles. For example, there are yuga cycles that affect the entire cosmos, and smaller yuga cycles within those greater cycles that affect a solar system. The cosmic yuga cycle takes 8,640,000,000 years, whereas the solar yuga cycle only takes 12,000 years.”

“At the present time our solar system is in the ascending Dwapara Yuga, but the cosmos is in the descending Kali Yuga. Consequently, the more the general mind of humanity develops, the more folly and evil it becomes able to accomplish.”

Opportunists and alarmists (usually the same people) are continually creating “coming events” and “impeding crises” to worry and obsess on and wonder how to prepare for. Then the indicated time comes and passes, and NOTHING has happened–all is the same as before. In the last fifty years we have had:

1. the stellium in Aquarius, in which we were told California would fall in the ocean, and many people sold their homes and moved inland (Idaho’s great this time of year, isn’t it?),
2. the Comet Kahoutek about which many books were written,
3. Haley’s Comet (ditto),
4. the Harmonic Convergence (a lot of fakes got rich on that one and a lot of fools ended up in the desert, having sold everything back home),
5. the “end” of the traditional Buddhist calendars, which sparked off conferences of Buddhist leaders throughout the world, and now
6. 2012!

Thank heaven we are not ignorant and superstitious Fundamentalist Christians worrying about the Second Coming of Jesus or the Rapture!

May I make a prediction? Nothing will happen except the scrapping of books and revision of websites and a lot of thought being given as to what people will buy into next.

If all the interest and energy and dedication wasted on these bugaboos had been channeled into spiritual life, this world would now be a much better place.

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Some articles from the Atma Jyoti Blog you may have missed:

• Learning to Use Your Mind
• The Process of Reincarnation
• How to Burn Our Karmic Seeds
• Be Awake Among the Sleeping

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