We are surrounded by beauty on this planet but there is a lot of darkness happening within humanity. The ancient Sanskrit teachings understood that civilization goes through distinct cycles of creation and destruction. The Kali Yuga is known as the shortest but also darkest cycle. Native traditions have similar stories to describe different ages of humanity as well. It can be easy to lose hope sometimes but there is also much spiritual growth and awakening during this time. The warm glow of dawn always follows the coldest, darkest moments of the night.
What is a Yuga?
The ancients understood time as a circle, not linear, and the circle of ages are known as the yugas. Like the four seasons in our year, there are four yugas in the full cycle (Mahayuga). Each cycle has distinct themes and spiritual lessons for humanity. Below are the four yugas in order from beginning to end. The first yuga is the longest with each one getting successively shorter (4:3:2:1) until the cycle starts again.
The Four Yugas:
- Satya Yuga: First we see the time of truth and perfection, which thankfully lasts four tenths of the cycle. These humans are honest, youthful, vigorous, and virtuous. Everyone is happy, and religions live as one. Disease in non-existent, as is fear. Those living through this part of the cycle are gifted with abundance through the land, along with great weather.
- Treta Yuga: The second Yuga lasts for three tenths of the cycle. Unfortunately, this is where human virtue begins to fall away. Leaders gain more dominance, causing wars to rise. As if to reflect the state of humanity, the weather also moves to more extremes. It is unsurprising that people’s health begins to lessen in this part of the cycle.
- Dvapara Yuga: The third Yuga lasts for two tenths of the cycle. During this time, people become more sluggish and slow. People aren’t as strong as their ancestors, and the number of diseases increases. Becoming discontent with their lives, humans fight each other. Maybe this is because maturity decreases, and some people act like children in old age.
- Kali Yuga: The final age lasts only one tenth of the cycle. However, that is certainly long enough as it is the age of darkness and ignorance. People slide further down the path of dishonesty, with virtue being of little value. Passions become uncontrollable as unrestrained sexual indulgences and manipulations run through society. Liars and hypocrites rise. Important knowledge is lost and scriptures become less and less common. The human diet becomes ‘dirty’. People are not even close to being as powerful as their ancestors in the Satya Yuga. Likewise, the once pristine environment is now polluted. Water and food become scarce, as do family bonds.
What Should We Do?
It appears that we are now in the Kali Yuga stage of the cycle. If that is true, what can we do to come full circle?
The Vedic Scriptures recommend meditation, yoga, and various spiritual practices as the natural antidote to the strife of the Kali Yuga. Some scholars have attempted to tie dates of these cycles to the calendar. Yet few agree on when the Kali Yuga will end. For this reason, we must not fall into fatalism. Thinking that we are all doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it or being hopeless won’t help.
Instead must strengthen our personal practice. We must become the light in dark times for those around us that are lost. To find peace in peaceful times is no accomplishment. To find peace in the most unpeaceful times is true spiritual attainment.
Nature Teaches us About Cycles
The story of the yugas illustrate what we see when we pay close attention to nature. Life goes in natural cycles of gestation, birth, growth, decay, death, and rebirth. We see it in the plants, the seasons, in the rise and fall of nations. We also see it in our own personal lives.
When something is pure it can be maintained as pure. But it can’t become more pure, it can only become less pure. In that same regard, when things are polluted or corrupted, they can be returned to purity. The Kali Yuga is as good a time for spiritual discipline. It is the part of the cycle where we cleanse the impurities and invoke regenerative principles. It is a time of rebirth.
A Universal Story
The ancient Greeks called these four ages of civilization the Age of Gold, Silver, Bronze, and the Age of Iron. The Phoenix always rises from the ashes of its predecessor.
The Hopi tribe believe that the Fourth World is a time when our heads and hearts are disconnected. The next Fifth World is when we can think with our hearts and feel with our brains. It is known as a time of great peace.
The Lakota believe that the birth of a White Buffalo in 1994 signifies a time of great healing and unification for the world. The Pan-American prophecy of the Eagle and Condor speaks of the re-uniting of the tribes through sacred wisdom and technology. For as much darkness as we see in the world, there are endless stories of rebirth to explore. These are road-maps for us from the darkness into the light.
A Parable
Once a king asked his wise men to give him something that would make him happy when he is sad, and sad when he is happy. The wise men spent days thinking about it in silence and watching the clouds go by. On the fourth day, they wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to the king. When the king read it, he thanked them. What did it say? It said, “this, too, shall pass.”
The Big Picture
Whether you take this information as literal or metaphorical, you can gain much value from considering it. Destruction is part of creation, we live in a world of endless cycles. Sometimes things have to fall apart so that they can come back together stronger than before.
Any and all behavior that is wholesome, honest, generous, virtuous, happy and authentic brings us closer to the Satya Yuga. Satya Yuga is the next phase in the cycle, a golden age of abundance. The Kali Yuga can end abruptly at any moment. So observe what is happening around you, grow your compassion, and learn what you can during this precious time.
