Cycles that affect our planet (The Intriguing Vedic Universe, ch.11)
Another important component of Vedic cosmology is the cycles our planet and other parts of the universe go through. These cycles affect different parts of the Universe in different ways.
'The Intriguing Vedic Universe' was my first book on Vedic cosmology, explaining the mysterious universe described in the Srimad Bhagavatam. It describes not just the physical aspects, in a level of detail that rivals modern science, but also the metaphysical aspects, the missing aspect that is missing in the modern perspective.
Chapter 11: Cycles that affect our planet
Apart from cosmology and metaphysical aspects of the Universe, another important component of Vedic cosmology is the cycles our planet and other parts of the universe go through. These cycles affect different parts of the Universe in different ways. Our planet is directly affected by such cycles, while inhabitants of the higher planets are less perceptible. Understanding these cycles is fundamental to understanding our history.
The modern conception of history is that humanity is evolving, coming from the caveman to the modern age. However, our understanding of the past is limited. The oldest finds that can be accepted as recorded history date from about 5000 years ago. Most of the theories about what happened before are based on indirect evidence, like fossils and artifacts. Paleontologists use whatever they find to try to create a coherent view of the human past, but it’s very difficult to find the truth without direct information from people who lived there.
Many cultures from the past had a conception of a forgotten golden age. The Greeks for example believed that humanity went through a sequence of four ages before the present times. In the first, the Golden Age, humans lived almost like gods, living a long and opulent life without having to work and never experiencing suffering. In the next age, called the Silver Age, humans became vastly inferior in appearance and wisdom and had to work to make a living. However, they still lived very long lives, with children playing for 100 years before growing up. In the third age, called the Bronze Age, or the Age of Heroes, men were strong and warlike and had shorter lives. Greeks believed to live in the last age of the cycle, an Iron Age where humans are evil and selfish, burdened with weariness and sorrow. According to them, in this age piety and other virtues disappeared and the gods abandoned Earth.
In the Vedas, the Greeks are described as the Pulindas (SB 2.4.18), people close to Vedic culture who, although not a direct part of it, shared much of its values and knowledge. It’s not a wonder thus that the concept of the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron ages of the Greeks is also described in the Vedas, but in this case with more detail.
According to the Vedas, our planet goes through a sequence of four ages. Just like we have four seasons in a year and these seasons repeat, similarly, these cosmic cycles also go on cyclically.
Different from modern theories that conclude that modern human beings are the result of a long evolutive process that ultimately happened by chance, the Vedas explain that modern humans are actually the fruit of a devolutive process. The idea given in the Vedas is that humanity is originally created by higher beings in a state close to perfection and slowly degrades up to a point of complete barbarism.
This actually makes a lot of sense once we understand that successive copies of the DNA result in errors and mutations. Modern theories are based on the idea that such mistakes, combined with natural selection, lead to improvements in the species, an explanation that makes sense when one tries to explain the existence of intelligent human beings starting from the belief that life comes from matter. The Vedas however offer a different explanation, based on the idea that human beings were created by higher beings. When we start from this principle, the idea of a gradual devolution due to spiritual and cultural degradation, combined with errors in the replication of the DNA starts to make sense.
According to the Vedas, the first of the four ages is called Satya-yuga, the Golden Age. That’s the age of purity, where enlightened souls chalking up an ascending path towards the transcendental platform, take birth on this planet to practice self-realization. In Satya-yuga humans live almost like the inhabitants of higher planetary systems: they live in a subtle dimension and have bodies that are free of diseases. Through the practice of meditation, they can extend their lives, and thus most are capable of living for incredible 100,000 years. At this age all necessities of human beings are supplied by nature, nobody has to work on farms or factories to make a living. By living such natural and pure lives, people of this age are completely free of anxiety and are thus capable of reaching spiritual perfection through the practice of Astanga-Yoga.
Satya-yuga lasts for 4,800 celestial years. Each celestial year corresponds to 360 years of our time, and therefore Satya-yuga lasts for a total of 1,728,000 years. During this period there is a gradual decline in the level of consciousness, which in time leads humanity to the second age in the cycle: Treta-Yuga, or the Silver Age.
During this period, people become interested in economic development. Agriculture becomes very prominent and society is divided into different classes, with pious kings watching over the well-being of the general population. Most people in this age are still quite pious, and their level of consciousness is sufficient to award them bodies capable of living up to 10,000 years. The preferred method of self-realization in this age is the performance of elaborate ceremonies with the perfect chanting of Vedic mantras.
Treta-yuga lasts for 3,600 celestial years, or 1,296,000 years of our time. Again, there is a gradual deterioration of collective consciousness, and slowly bad habits and lower qualities become more prominent, leading humanity to the third age: Dwapara-yuga, or the Bronze Age.
In this age, about half of humanity is dominated by lust, greed, and other bad qualities. At the start of Dwapara-yuga people live for 1,000 years, but life expectancy diminishes gradually and by the end of the period it’s close to 100 years.
There is also an acute division between groups that continue to follow the path of piety and spirituality, and groups that succumb to the influence of lower qualities, and therefore wars become frequent. Still, wars in this period were conducted in a chivalrous way, where warriors would fight one-on-one following certain rules until one side would surrender. Typically, the two sides would previously agree on a certain place and the battles would happen away from the general population. We can see that this martial code was still followed to a certain extent in ancient Greece and more recently in Japan amongst the Samurai.
The battle of Kurukshetra that took place right after the Bhagavad-Gita happened in the final years of Dwapara-yuga, events that are described in detail in the Mahabharata. We can see how at those times there was a strong polarization around the virtuous Pandavas and the impious Kauravas, and that the group that supported the Kauravas was bigger. The Pandavas managed to assemble seven divisions of soldiers in their army, while the Kauravas amassed eleven divisions. Things became better for some time under the rule of the Pandavas, followed by Pariksit Maharaja, but after that things started to become darker.
Dwapara-yuga lasts for 2,400 celestial years, or 864,000 years of our time. It’s followed by Kali-yuga, the last era of the cycle, the era we are currently living. This age started in 3,102 B.C., exactly at the time Krsna left this world.
In the Surya Siddhanta is described a particular alignment of planets (very inauspicious according to astrology) that happens at the start of this era, a piece of information confirmed by modern calculations.
There is a great shift in consciousness after the end of Dwapara-yuga. With the beginning of Kali-yuga, humanity descends to a gross dimension, where we don’t have contact with higher beings (more about that in chapter 15). During this age, our planet is basically quarantined. This idea explains why we can’t find much evidence of evolved civilizations from the past: these were evolved humans, who were living in the subtle dimension, to which we don’t have access in our time. As a result, when we dig the ground we can find only bones and stone artifacts from aboriginal humans that were living in the same gross dimension as ourselves.
During Kali-yuga, humanity slowly degrades, as beings from the lower realms get the opportunity of taking birth on our planet to accumulate a new set of Karma. This is also the shortest of the four eras, lasting for just 1,200 celestial years, or 432,000 years of our time.
An easy way to remember the length of the four eras is to remember that Dwapara-Yuga lasts for 2 times the period of Kali-Yuga, Treta-Yuga for 3 times, and Satya-Yuga for 4 times as long. Combined, the four eras last for 10 times as long as Kali-Yuga.
At the beginning of the age of Kali, people live for about 100 years, but just as before the life expectancy gradually diminishes as time goes on. As people from this age have short lifespans and are not capable of concentrating for long periods, the recommended process for self-realization is the path of Bhakti-yoga, and especially the process of sankirtana.
As Kali-yuga progresses, good qualities such as truthfulness, self-control, simplicity, nonviolence, freedom from anger, tranquility, compassion, gentleness, and forgiveness gradually decrease, and bad qualities such as lust, anger, greed, illusion, and enviousness increase, creating a difficult condition, especially for persons trying to follow a spiritually progressive path.
As Kali-yuga progresses, humanity degrades to such an extent that people gradually lose their humanity and descend into complete barbarism. It’s described in the Srimad Bhagavatam that by the end of Kali-yuga the planet’s ecosystem will be polluted and destroyed to such an extent that agriculture will become impossible. Animals will become much smaller and people will live for no more than 20 years. People will live mainly on meat and cannibalism will be rampant. People will have to work very hard to get just a few morsels of food. Moral principles will completely disappear and people will be prepared to kill for the slightest gain.
It’s narrated that by the end of this period the Avatara Kalki comes. Aniquilating the oppressive kings and soldiers that by the time will be no more than plunderers of the poor citizens, he creates the conditions for the beginning of a new Golden Age. Under the guidance of superior beings, humanity is restored to its original state, and a new Satya-yuga starts, marking the beginning of a new cycle.