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by Jayaram V
"Migrating to this planet in their subtle bodies,
many of our forebearers traveled through the Sun. The beginnings
of mankind's mission on this planet came in a far-away time, when
the atmosphere was dense with waters and gases. Flowers and animals
were larger and more exotic than today. At first the transformation
from etheric to physical form was difficult, but ceremonies evolved
which, using the fragrances of fruits and flowers, brought devotionally
to special pedestals, assisted in bringing through beings who absorbed
these organic essences to materialize a denser, earthly, fibrous
body. These beings loved the many jewels and golden ornaments that
were crafted to bedeck and help support their flexible forms. Human
life did not evolve from lesser earthly species. Aum." From
The Lemurian Scrolls by Subramuniya and Satguru
Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.
According to the theory of creation in Hinduism, time (kala) is
a
manifestation of Iswara. God is timeless or eternal, for time is
relative and cannot exist in the Absolute. Since everything is
indivisible in Brahman, the past, the present and the future all exist in Him simultaneously.
But once it is manifested in the worlds created by Him, time
becomes divisible and move repetitively or recurringly as a
cycle (kalachakra). He creates time in order to manifest order,
divisions of time and phases of life in the worlds and subjects them to
the recurring cycles of time. While we cannot predict the
events taking place on the timeline, we can predict the movement
and regularity of the time itself. with as much certainty as the
day that follow the night.
God uses time not only to contain chaos, but also to create the illusion of impermanence and the cycle of life and death. Because of
the existence of time, beings
experience change, aging, death and rebirth in the mortal worlds.
Change is one of the 24 or 36 evolutes (tattvas) of Nature.
Time belongs to the domain of Nature. The transcendental
Self (Purusha) and Nature (Prakriti) are both eternal. But where
as the Self is unchangeable, Nature and its constituent parts are
subject to change and evolution. When an embodied self transcends
the limitations imposed upon it by Nature, such as time and
space, it becomes the immortal Self.
Time is responsible for our suffering because it subjects us to
the law of karma, by perpetuating the illusion of a perceptible
gap between our thoughts and deeds and between our actions and
their consequences. Preoccupied with the divisions of time, the
past or the future, people rarely enjoy their present moment.
Time in Hinduism is not linear, but cyclical, just as the
days and nights, seasons, months and years, yugas and mahayugas.
The process
of creation itself is described in our scriptures as cyclical,
having both the phases of involution and evolution.
It is also a never ending process. Each time cycle has three phases,
a beginning, a middle and an end, followed by a period of rest. Creation ends when God withdraws all His energies into
Himself and rests them in a
state of inactivity. He commences a new cycle of creation once.
again after a period of rest, by activating his dynamic energy and releasing the souls
into its custody to manifest things and beings.
The four epochs of time
The Hindu theories of creation as found in the Puranas speak of four epochs
(yugas) of
time. There four epochs together constitute one cycle of creation or a great epoch
(mahayuga).
Each epoch has a specific time frame, a definite purpose and certain characteristic features which
distinguish it from the others. The time frame of each of the
epochs varies. Hindu tradition believes that in the present
great epoch (mahayuga), three epochs (yugas) have already passed
and that we are currently in the fourth
one, which is said to have the shortest duration of 432000 years. At the end the fourth epoch, there would
be great destruction, resulting in the end of the present cycle
of creation. These four epochs are:
1. Satya-yuga or the epoch of Truth. It is also called Krta-yuga
2. Treta-yuga or the second great epoch
3. Dwapara-yuga the third great epoch and
4. Kali-yuga or the fourth great epoch
There has been a lot of speculation as to what exactly these
epochs represent, when they actually began and ended and in what
epoch we presently are. Many try to find historical evidence for
them
and end up with no definitive conclusion. The events that were
believed to have taken place
in each epoch also provide sufficient fodder to the mills of atheists
and critics of Hinduism to dub them them as products of wild
imagination and too unrealistic to be true.
How can Hanuman fly in the air, or make himself unbelievably
large? How can the warriors mentioned in the epics and the
Puranas shoot an arrow and make every one in
the battle field lose their consciousness? How can monkeys build a bridge
across a vast in times when we had no technology? How can we
believe that India had an advanced civilization at a time in
history when man had just begun to practice cultivation and
hardly any knowledge of the use of tools? How can there
be anything like Pushpak Vimana (an airplane called Pushpak)
that was capable of space travel in
an age when there was no knowledge of machines or metallurgy?
These and many similar questions baffle us when we look at
such information critically, and try to fit these epochs
in the framework of history in a period we believe to be "proto history" in which archaeologists
(ironically) found nothing but pieces of pottery, few primitive
paintings and some stone, bone and metal implements. Those who view
Rama and Krishna as historical figures, with a sense of history
with which we are familiar, may find this article very disappointing
because it attempts to provide a radically different perspective
on the subject.
According to Hindu legends men in the age of truth were pure
and divine, with the predominance of sattva (purity), while rajas
(pride) and tamas (ignorance) remained fully suppressed. They
believed in valor and virtue and upheld Dharma. With the help of
their subtle senses (tanmantras), they were able to remain in contact
with the gods (devas), who resided in the higher worlds, as well as their
own subtle bodies in their inner world. Hindu scriptures affirm
that the deities, whom we worship in the Vedas, reside not only
in the cosmos (antariksha), but also in the inner space
(chidakasa) of
our bodies in their subtle forms.
Ordinary people in today's world do not feel their presence
because they do not have the sensitivity or the spiritual purity
to know their subtle bodies, except perhaps through study and in dreams. But the
people of Satya yuga were able to communicate with gods directly
in their wakeful consciousness and invoke them through their
mental and spiritual powers. As men became increasingly gross in
their nature and lost their ability to communicate
with gods, they also stopped communicating with humans and manifesting themselves
in the earthly world in their heavenly forms. This barrier
between heaven and earth had to happen, as a part of the divine
plan, in this particular epoch, which is known as kaliyuga.
Based upon the knowledge available in the Puranas, the epics
and the Vedas, this article tries to make an argument
that symbolically the four epochs or the great ages represent the four phases of involution
during which the outer covering or veiling of the souls gradually became grosser
and denser as a result of which the beings (jivas) lost
the awareness of their subtle bodies and their divine nature.
Correspondingly, as the time passed, the quality of sattva
(purity) gave way to the two impure qualities namely rajas and
tamas It
is mentioned in the scriptures that as the time progresses from
one epoch to another, God
would keep releasing grosser and more restless souls into the world,
including demonic and asuric ones, thereby increasing the
chaos and confusion which would ultimately culminate in the destruction of the worlds and the withdrawal of all
the souls.
The following picture shows the predominance of qualities (gunas)
during the each phase of the time cycle.
The world as a zoo
Imagine this world as a big zoo, with God as the ring
master (Pasupati), the beings of this world as the animals (pasus)
and the celestial beings (devas, gandharvas and others) as the
attendants and performers. As the show begins, first He lets out
all the sattvic and truthful beings, giving them a
chance to establish order and regularity on the stage. Then He
lets out
the more rajasic and tamasic people, the unruly ones, who make living tough,
cruel and competitive. Finally in the last part of His act, He
brings out the worst and the most dangerous ones, creating a
state of panic and commotion in the entire auditorium setting the
stage ready for curtains down.
The five sheaths
According to Hinduism, humans beings have five bodies not
just a physical body. The physical body is what we see and what
is visible to the naked eye. But it is just the outer sheath.
Beneath it there are four more layers, which the scriptures
refer to as sheaths or compartments (kosas)1.
Starting from the outer layer, the five
sheaths are identified as show below.
- The gross physical body (annamaya-kosa),
- The breath body (pranamaya-kosa),
- The mental body (manomaya-kosa),
- The intelligence body (vignanamaya-kosa) and
- The bliss body (anandamaya-kosa).
Satya Yuga or the Age of Truth
According to the theory which we are currently discussing,
during the age of truth, people were pure. In them only the
quality of sattva was active while the other two, namely rajas
and tamas were dormant. They had awareness of all their
bodies and were able to control them consciously. They
used them with the same ease as we
do now with our physical bodies. They led very pure lives and
adhered to truth. Everything was transparent and visible and
there was nothing to conceal.
Their physical bodies were much
lighter and less denser
than the bodies of today. They radiated light. The beings of
this age existed entirely in the subtle planes,
assuming a physical body, by the power of their thought,
only when needed. Since the physical bodies were impure and imposed
several limitations, they chose to remain in their subtle bodies.
They obtained energy for their bodies directly from the subtle
worlds instead of consuming
gross food. As embodied beings, they were subject to the cycle of births and deaths,
but lived longer for hundreds or even
thousands of years as their subtle
bodies lasted longer and suffered much less wear and tear.
In this age, men were truthful and free from the common
vices, namely sexual desire, anger, pride, greed and envy. Hence epoch in which
they lived is known as Satya yuga or the Age of Truth. With well
advanced intellect (buddhi), mastery of their minds and bodies,
and all the chakras active, they possessed immense psychic powers,
which are known in the yoga tradition as perfections (siddhis).
They adhered to the religious and moral duties as prescribed by the law of God
(dharma). They maintained regular contact with the gods and
visited them in their subtle
planes using their psychic power. Because they were predominantly
subtle beings, they could travel to these worlds easily through
the exercise of their will. Men were
so pure and divine that gods sought their company and
occasionally their help to fight against the demons or asuras.
As chronicled in the epics and the Puranas2,
the ancestors of Rama
and many of their contemporaries did participate in battles on
behalf of the gods and against the demons.
Treta Yuga
During the next epoch, which is known as the Treta Yuga, men
lost some of their purity and subtlety. Instead of only sattva
now they possessed some rajas and tamas, which made them
vulnerable to some of the vices identified previously. Like the
people of satya yuga, they had well developed intellect, but
they lost contact with their bliss bodies, while their physical
bodies accumulated some grossness due to changes in the food
habits and breathing pattern that took place in the last part of
satya yuga. As the outer bodies became grosser and
physical senses became active, people lost some of their
power to connect to their inner bodies and communicate with
gods. They now had awareness of actually only three bodies. The
physical body developed strongly in some enabling them to
perform incredible tasks such as the ones performed by Sri Ram,
Lakshmana, Anjaneya, Bali, Ravana, Indrajit, Jambavant and so
on.
As rajas and tamas became active in many, there was a decline
in the moral standards of the people. The impurities of egoism, ignorance and delusion
increased, while the loss of contact with the bliss body,
made them vulnerable to the pairs of opposites and
the experience of suffering. This is evident in the story of
Ramayana. We can see the tainting of human nature and the
frailty of human character, in the demands of Kaikeyi,
the grief of Dasarath and the restlessness of both Rama and Sita
after the latter was abducted by the demon king, Ravana. The
veiling of the souls
and the increasing involvement of the embodied souls with the
sense objects is also amply illustrated in the
behavior of the people Ayodhya when they suspected the fidelity
of Sita upon her return from Lanka even though she was
subjected to the humility of fire ordeal and proved innocent. Despite these
developments, people, in
this age were still were predominantly sattvic (pure and virtuous) like
their ancestors in Satyayug and exercised intellect (buddhi) in
their personal lives.
Dwapara-yuga
Treta yuga was followed by Dwapara yuga, during which sattva
yield place to rajas as the predominant quality, while tamas
also increased in some proportion. With the loss of
purity (sattva), the physical body became grosser while there
was a corresponding loss of contact and control over the intelligence body. Compared to their
ancestors, the people of Dwapara yuga became physically denser,
sensually more outgoing and now subject to all the five vices
named previously. They were now conscious of their their three
outer bodies, namely the breath body, the mental body and the
physical body.
As people lost the knowledge
of their innermost two bodies, they became more outward, materialistic, competitive and ambitious
and began focusing more on worldly acquisitions often at the
cost of their morality and religious duty. A few
like Bhishma, Dharmaraja and Vidura, were virtuous and
righteous. But their numbers were gradually declining as there was an overall decline in the moral
standards of society and people began identifying themselves with
their outward forms, under the temptations
of their lower selves their countless desires.
Some people had immense physical power, which
they often misused for selfish and egoistic reasons.
As they had control over their breath bodies, some of them had
the ability to suspend their breathing and remain underwater for hours
together. With control over their mental bodies, they were also able to play mind games,
create illusions and the
like or defeat their enemies
in war using trickery and fraud. With the increase in rajas and
tamas and decrease in sattva, people had lost their power of
discretion (buddhi) and began indulging in immoral and
self-destructive actions.
Kaliyuga
Kali yuga is the last and final epoch in each time cycle and
also the shortest one having a total span of about 432000 years. In the
beginning of this
age men had lost control over all their inner bodies but
retained some control over their mental bodies and physical
bodies. In the
first phase of this epoch, they had
some awareness and control over their breath bodies as they could sense the
movements of breath in their bodes and the flow of energy
through the various chakras (subtle nerve centers).
But this ability was also lost as time went by and the bodies
became increasingly gross to the point where the quality of
sattva became negligible while the quality of Tamas followed by
rajas increased in proportion. As a result the physical bodies
of the beings in this age became denser and grosser while the
senses turned completely outward and the mind became attached to
the sense objects.
The present age is truly the age of the physical body.
Physical body is also known as food body (annamaya kosa) because
it is made up of the food we eat. Since it is the only way by
which the physical body can be nourished and sustained, its
quality and luminosity depends to a great extent upon the type
of food we consume and the qualities or gunas present in them.
Sattiv food increases the quality of sattva while rajasic and
tamasic foods increase the other two qualities respectivetly.
In this epoch, which is the current one, people are aware of
their physical and mental bodies only. They are predominantly
mind and body centered. They identify themselves with their
minds and bodies and regard their material possession as an
extension of themselves. They live for material things and
physical pleasure, work for them and die for them.
The descent of the soul (consciousness) into the matter (nature
of prakriti) is now complete. It manifests in
the behavior and attitude of the human beings and their total obsession with
material things and objective reality. Matter
in all its forms consumes their interest. From quantum level to the cosmic level and
from subatomic particles to the galaxies, they extend their
interest, knowledge, study and research. Having lost the contact with
their subtle
senses (tanmantras) and the knowledge of using them, they rely
exclusively upon their physical senses and what can be perceived
and experienced
through them.
We have become so engrossed with matter and material things that now we have the ability to
manipulate Nature, create forms and shapes, split atoms,
alter human cells and embryos and create highly complex
machines. It would not be long before our research in cellular
biology and
computing technology would lead to the development of vastly
superior biological machines capable of programming themselves
and performing routine tasks including space travel.
With the preponderance of tamas and rajas and negligible
quantities of sattva, kali yuga witnessed a great decline in the
moral standards of the people. People now have little respect for the eternal laws
of god, no fear of
retribution and no concern for the consequences of their actions
and thoughts. Our moral behavior is clouded by the
pragmatism and opportunism of ideology and scientific research
or the illusion of personal freedom. It does not matter if a
million souls are depending upon compassion and ethical actions,
waiting expectantly at
the other end of the universe, to enter this planet and continue their
spiritual journey. Because we have lost contact with our inner
bodies, we demand physical and intellectual validation to accept
every truth, even though we know the limitations of our sensory
knowledge and the wisdom derived from it.
We can truly call this as the age of physics and physical
laws. It is also the age of pure materialism and ignorance (tamas). We
have but limited awareness of the world in which we live and our
connection with it. We know but
little about ourselves
and our potentialities. We may dissect the human brain and
understand how it functions,
but we cannot control our thoughts. We may replace the heart of
a person with an artificially made heart, but we cannot
have a good heart in ourselves without rigorous spiritual discipline. We
may formulate numerous theories and complex ideas about our existence, but cannot control our thoughts,
desires and impulses.
We have expanded the horizons of our perception outwardly
through artificial means, but do not have the ability to look
within ourselves and find the transcendental knowledge which is
locked up in our
subtle bodies. This is the age of
profound tamasic ignorance. We have descended into our physical
bodies fully, and identified ourselves with our
lower nature so much that we do not see our selfish,
self-centered and purely pleasure oriented behavior as an
aberration but normal and very human.
The extent of our preoccupation with our bodies and minds can be seen and
felt in every aspect of our present day society. See what we value most, where
our thoughts are mostly centered and what we do most of the time.
Think why society is today so obsessed with physical looks and
pretty things. Think why there is so much prejudice in hiring
against older people and why many recruiters fall for good looks,
ignoring talent, experience and intelligence. Understand why tasty food
sells, however harmful it might be.
See how much time the companies spend on advertising and in
packaging things attractively, instead of saving the costs and
passing on the benefits to the consumers.
Our obsession with materialism is such that we want to find
solution to every problem of our existence through physical
means. We want to contact God physically, through prayers
and rituals, by visiting religious places
or worshipping His images. We want to
see Him physically in person to become convinced about His
existence. We argue and quarrel over His names or the methods of
worshipping Him or finding Him. We spend more time in the ornamentation of our thoughts
and activities, in the ostentatious display of our power and
status, in impression management and the superficial display
of what is valued in society rather than what is spiritually
important and urgent for us and our world. We tend to settle our disputes through physical elimination,
alteration, manipulation, restraint and contractual agreements. We want to
enhance our looks through the use of cosmetics, medicines, plastic
surgery, makeup, fashion or illusion. The world revolves
around passion, senses, body, money, physical pleasure, sex, food,
dieting, dating, exercise, sports, films, and other forms of physical
entertainment.
The following picture shows the awareness of human beings
about their subtle bodies in each epoch.
What Happens Next ?
It is stated in the scriptures that in kali yuga chaos will
increase as increasing number of demonic and asuric souls will
take birth on earth to spread confusion and evil. At the end of this
dark epoch there will be a great destruction,
during which the physical bodies of all the embodied souls will
be either destroyed completely or subjected to a great transformation
in which their grossness will be lost. All all the embodied
souls will be withdrawn from the material world by God, followed
by a period of involution during which beings will slowly
advance into higher realms gaining, in phases, purity and
awareness of their
subtle bodies, until they emerge as truth beings.
It is not necessary that every soul will become a truth
being. Some souls will remain for ever in ignorance and darkness
as God employs them specially for spreading chaos in the fourth
epoch. Some souls on the other hand remain permanently free from
the bondage to the cycle of births and deaths. These are evolved
souls whom we call the devas, bodhisattvas, muktas, angels and
the like. They remain in the transcendental realms either as
free souls or duty bound souls performing specific tasks for the
liberation of others. Sometimes they also incarnate upon earth
to spread the knowledge of God's eternal law.
Interpretation of the four ages given here is purely a product
of this writer's intuitive thought, based upon his studies and understanding
of the scriptures. There is no historical or physical evidence
to prove it. This author truly believes that events such as the
ones mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana or the
Puranas happened in the subtle planes and implanted in our
collective memory. It is possible that some events similar to the
ones mentioned in the Ramayana and Mahabharata might have taken
place a few thousand years ago upon earth, but the actual
events mentioned in the epics must have happened much before in
the subtle planes, before mankind acquired the present day gross
material bodies.
Is there any Evidence? Unfortunately No !
All that the present methodologies of history and science can do
is to probe the physical reality and find facts based on evidence. They cannot
lead us into the subtle planes
or study the records that exist in the ethereal planes of our
universe. Even science acknowledges that the physical laws are
not consistent throughout the universe and that there are areas
in some parts of the universe where physical laws as know them cease to
exist. The Buddhists
speak of akashic records, which one can read in the astral plane. But science and history
cannot reach them. There is no way we can prove
the existence of the previous ages when the souls existed mostly
in their subtle bodies, except perhaps through psychic means
such as clairvoyance. Unfortunately through such methods we
cannot produce physical evidence that can be verified by
everyone.
The events mentioned in the previous three and half epochs might not have even taken place
in the physical plane of this planet, but probably in subtle planes
of the earth itself. Just as we have different sheaths or layers
(kosas) the earth also has its own subtle bodies where a lot of
activity takes place before it is manifested in the physical
plane of the earth. In all probability, the events
of the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas came out of our collective consciousness
as stories of great value from which we can learn about
ourselves and our past. Since, they happened in the subtle
planes, no amount of digging
and no amount of research probably would help us establish their authenticity.
As far as this hypothesis is concerned we have three options:
we can either believe in it or know it from our intuition
or look at it with utter disbelief.
Suggested Further Reading
1. (For more information on these bodies please read the section
on "The Constituents of Man - the
Jiva", available at this site).
2. It is not this author's contention that
the Puranas are authentic sources of history. But they do
contain distant memories of the past and broad outlines of the
history of ancient civilizations that existed in the remote past
not necessarily of the present time cycle of this planet alone
but previous ones also.
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