Post by Rik Wallin on Apr 5, 2007 16:31:37 GMT -6
Notes on the End of a World
by Rene Guenon
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.
by Rene Guenon
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.