by Life Positive

All through human history, visionaries have striven and yearned for a time when mankind would live in peace, love and harmony. This longest and deepest collective human dream has driven evolution and determined all the twists and turns of history. Every spiritual teacher who ever appeared on the face of the earth embodied that possibility and breathed fresh life into the dream. Slowly and implacably, mankind has been wending its way to this tryst with destiny.

Unbelievably, many sources assert, that time is almost upon us. Though we are in the midst of the most extreme materialism that India has witnessed in centuries, and though we are almost awash in disasters of unprecedented magnitude such as last year's tsunami and the spate of floods and hurricanes across the world, not to mention earthquakes, they say that in a mere seven years, the worst will be behind us and we will see better times. The year 2012 is being invoked by more and more sources. Says Smita Jayakar, a senior teacher with Bhagavan Kalki's Oneness Movement, whose avowed mission is to bring about Satyug, "We need 64,000 enlightened souls for the whole world to make it. By the year 2012, we will have achieved that number."

She reports that when one student queried how such a massive transformation could be effected in such a short time, Bhagavan replied emphatically, "I can do it. One thousand and one per cent I can do it."

The Prajapita Brahma Kumari Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya is another organisation that is focussed on bringing about Satyug. While they do not mention actual dates, their head, Dadi Prakashmani, once said in an interview that Satyug is as sure as death.

The root of the 2012 date appears to be its mention in the Mayan calendar (considered by astrologers to be more accurate than even the Gregorian), as signifying the end of the world. The actual date pinpointed with stunning accuracy millenia back will be December 21, 2012, the time of the winter equinox. What, however, gives those who give credence to this date hope, is that prior to it we will enter into a 260-day period of enlightenment, when enlightened energy will stream into this planet without the usual filters. After this, many hazard, the world will not exactly end, but rather transit into a new era.

There is a distinct New Age ring to many of the pronouncements.

Says Malathi Kuppuswamy, a past-life therapist connected with California Hypnosis Institute, "All this is channelled information from many ascended masters. The process is already on to create a dimensional change from the third level to the fourth level. Energy changes have been happening since last year."

She also talks of aliens coming from other planets and races to help mankind make the transition.

However, she adds that all will not be sweetness and light in the New Age. If anything, the disturbances will continue apace as the process raises negativity to the fore. It is only when the negativity is cleansed that the traditional notion of Satyug or New Age, as a period of great peace and harmony, will actually happen. She says, "By the year 2029, the earth will be a very peaceful place and come under one rule."

Spiritual adept Deepa Kodikal feels that a churning process is currently underway that will create upheavals to spur people into awakening.

"We need 64,000 enlightened souls for the whole world to make it."
Smita Jayakar

Dada Vaswani, the spiritual head of the Pune-based Sadhu Vaswani Mission, and far removed from New Age thought, also affirms that the year 2012 will indicate a shift. His moderate stand is that the year will herald a greater momentum towards positivity which will eventually lead to Satyug. When asked for the source of the information, he responded, "One gets these messages but they could also be wrong."

Others don't agree with the time frame of 2012. In his book, Same Soul, Many Bodies, the psychiatrist Brian Weiss gave a picture of the future shape of the world based on what his clients and workshop participants saw while being progressed into the future. He claims there was a 90 per cent similitude in their visions. According to him, for the next 100 to 200 years, things will be pretty much the same as now. But at some point, which he feels is between 300 to 600 years, an era of darkness begins, and the population is vastly diminished.

Beyond that (though he does not give an exact time, one client puts it down to 800 to 1000 years), there lies an idyllic, fertile and peaceful future for planet earth. Weiss mentions healing using instruments of light and people possessing mental and telepathic powers that enable them to convert matter into energy and energy into matter.

Weiss's time frame appears more in keeping with the traditional Indian concept of Kaliyug and Satyug. According to the Brahma Kumaris, the duration of Kaliyug is 1250 years of which the last 100 is known as sangam or confluence, the time when darkness gives way to light. By these standards, Satyug is many centuries away.

So perhaps what 2012 really signifies is not the definitive opening into the New Age but a tip in the scales favouring the positive.

Certainly, there appears to be a groundswell of interest towards matters holistic. All systems of knowledge are converging and blending. Says Vedanta teacher Uday Acharya, "Science is coming closer to mysticism and psychology is getting integrated into metaphysics."

As the fragmentary and materialistic worldview constructed 300 years ago by Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton and other thinkers of the Enlightenment Age, disintegrates, people are shifting from allopathy to alternative therapies in search of cures that are kinder, more lasting and with no side-effects. The environment crisis too, is awakening many to the inherent contradictions within an economic system focussed on unlimited growth and a finite resource bank.

The extremeties of consumerism and materialism are also forcing people to urgently search for meaning in life. Says Uday Acharya, "It's a good era to be in. The severe discontent is forcing people to look deeply within."

Writes Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth, "A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognise, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. A still relatively small but rapidly growing percentage of humanity is already experiencing within themselves the breakup of the old egoic mind patterns and the emergence of a new dimension of consciousness."

In his book, The Celestine Vision, James Redfield accredits the rise of ideas such as quantum physics and the human potential movement, with having created an environment that supported an experiential quest for the Self. Quantum physics validated mystical claims that reality was subjective, while the human potential movement transcended Freud's understanding of the human psyche as a dark and forbidding place to realising that it is the key to mankind's hidden potential. Larry Dossey's pioneering work in demonstrating the power of prayer in healing also helped shift sceptical mindsets towards the transcendent.

Tracing mankind's tortuous passage through a labyrinth of ways, Redfield says, "I believe that we have finally reached a point where the idea of a personal transcendant experience… has reached a significant level of acceptance."

And yet we are living in times that are two-faced, janus-like. At one level there are visible signs that mankind is evolving beyond the materialistic phase. At another, we are plugged into a sensory feast. Booming stock exchanges, multiplexes, malls, foreign brands - the seduction is immense, and so is the maya. Rising pollution, environmental degradation, unbearable conflicts and stress, have created a variety of personal and societal malaises. Illnesses, epidemics, wars and disasters are exploding around us. Violence and sex have never been so overt.

Unsurprising and par to the course. For the path to Satyug lies through Kaliyug. Writes Tolle in A New Earth, "Since human life and human consciousness are intrinsically one with the life of the planet, as the old consciousness dissolves, there are bound to be syncronistic geographic and climatic natural upheavals in many parts of the planet, some of which we are already witnessing now."

If the worst is going to be behind us in seven years or in 2029, whichever you choose, it still means that the years that follow are going to be extreme. What lies ahead?

Various Hindu texts including Vishnu Puranas and Kalki Puranas paint a detailed though general picture of the deceit, duplicity and immorality of the age, most of which has already manifested.

People, they say, will be strong in anger and enjoy lying and dishonesty. Human life will be short as men will be avaricious, ambitious, virtueless, and greedy. Political leadership will be in the hands of unprincipled rogues, criminals and terrorists. Filling the belly and surviving will be the only purpose in life. Men with false reputation will prosper, cowards will have the reputation of bravery and the brave will be cheerless like cowards. Men will not trust one another. Wealth alone will be the criterion of class, morality and merit. Every household will be afflicted with disputes and quarrels. Power will be the sole definition of virtue. Marriage will cease to exist - men and women will simply live together on the basis of bodily attraction and verbal agreement, and only for sexual pleasure. Religious scriptures will be misinterpreted for personal gains. False gods will be worshipped in false ashrams, while pilgrimages, charities and austerities will be concocted, land will become infertile, kings will kill their subjects, people will be burdened with taxes. Kaliyug will end in apocalypse, they darkly hint.

The prophecies and predictions of the Q'ero, the last of the Incas, say, "tumultuous changes will happen in the earth, in the human psyche, redefining relationships and spirituality". They speak of the "end of the present civilisation". Nostradamus predicted the coming of the Antichrist, World War III, and the geological and spiritual earth shift leading to an end of civilisation. H G Wells saw the birth of weapons using uranium that would be used to destroy cities. He saw an apocalyptic world war leading to the end of humanity.

The final signs according to Islam: The ground will cave in; smoke will cover the skies for 40 days. A night three nights long will follow. The following morning the sun will rise in the west. Repentance will not be accepted. Ignorance of 'The Great One' will be rampant. The Holy Scripture will no longer be in the hearts of the people.

Biblical prophecies mention: Respect for God will disappear from human hearts. Man will wish to efface even God's memory. Hurricanes of fire will pour forth from the clouds and spread over the entire earth! Storms, bad weather, thunderbolts and earthquakes will cover the earth for two days. Uninterrupted rain of fire will take place. The wind will roar. Thunderbolts will be heard. The wind will carry with it poisonous gases which will be diffused over the entire earth. Satan will triumph. A catastrophe shall come upon the earth like a flash of lightning! At which moment the light of the morning sun shall be replaced by black darkness. No one shall leave the house or look out a window from that moment on. There shall be great confusion, and many, many shall die from fear and despair.

According to the Brahma Kumaris, America and much of Europe will be destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and Australia will become an island. Much of the earth's land mass will be submerged. India will suffer a civil war. Mumbai will return to the sea. As time goes on, grain will become inedible and there will be no drinking water. Money will be valueless.

Daunting and dismal they may be, but there is no getting away from the consequences of our actions. The centuries, if not millennia, of ignorance and blindness have yielded a bitter harvest.

"If Euclid's point, ...incapable of being drawn by any human agency, has an imperishable value, my picture has its own for mankind to live..."
Mahatma Gandhi

And yet, there is always goodness and mercy embedded in the heart of darkness. Kaliyug, as all spiritual masters and thinkers affirm, is the most opportune time to convert negativity to positivity, to transmute suffering into enlightenment. Kaliyug is alchemy time and you and I must learn to become alchemists of the soul.

For it is through your transformation and mine that Satyug will form. This is one revolution, or more accurately evolution, that will form bottom-up. Individual transformation alone will pave the way for societal transformation.

In his book, Shambhala - The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chogyum Trungpa suggests that one has to start with the self, beginning with acceptance of the self and thus permitting a ceasefire within. A thinking that extends beyond our homes, hearths, our children and work has to be developed. An attitude of helping others without trying to cause more chaos in an already chaotic environment by imposing our ideas and help on others will also help. On the other hand, shamans say, "Follow your own footsteps. Learn from the rivers, the trees and the rocks. Honour the Earth Mother and the Great Spirit." "Look with the eyes of your soul and engage the essential," is the teaching of the Q'ero Incas.

So although there may be some validity in announcing 2012 as the year when Satyug comes together, it actually depends on how far collective humanity has moved along the path. It may be sooner - Malathi Kuppuswamy optimistically says that evolutionary progress has been so gratifying that the date for transformation has been predated to 2009 - or it may be later.

So what will Satyug or the New Age look like?

Many visionaries and thinkers have emerged with different versions. Some are hopeful, but most are deeply intuitive and focussed on the first principle: all is one. Unity will be the overwhelming theme of the New Age and the fulcrum around which all systems and ways of being and relating revolve. If all is one, it follows that all is interconnected. Interconnection in turn means that the welfare of the larger good will determine the welfare of the individual. Self-interest has to enlarge to include the whole. This means that the economy will have to keep the interests of the environment at heart, politics will focus on the welfare of the citizenry, particularly the weakest sections, livelihood will revolve around self-expression and service to humanity rather than profit, parents will have their children's best interests at heart and so on. On this basis, many have drawn detailed pictures that give us a glimpse of a more caring and more sharing way of life where human potential can be realised and happiness is everyone's birthright.

Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God, Book lll, describes advanced civilisations that live by the truths that we are all one and everything is the One inter-related.

Guided by unity, they would not kill against another's will, not even for food. They would ask the spirit of that being for permission to do so.

Because they know they are not the body, they are not attached to it. Even if attacked, they would choose to die rather than attack back. They also share everything with everyone. The planet is understood to belong to everyone - to all the species in that system.

There will be no personal ownership. Instead, there will be custodianship of property for the common good.

Their life span will be much longer because the lives will not be polluted with worry, shame or guilt.

There will be no competition. Each will be encouraged to compete with herself only, and realise her own unique potential.

Astral travelling will be the norm, eliminating the bother of visas and modes of transportation.

There will be no such thing as work. Writes Walsch, "Tasks are performed and activities are undertaken based purely on what Being loves to do and sees as the highest expression of the Self."

Here is the Brahma Kumari version:

Laxmi and Narayan will be the ruling deities. Under them, all will live like a happy family, without regard for status and hierarchy. There will still be servants and masters, but the arrangements will be informal, as in a family. While some will be wealthier than others, all will be prosperous. There will be no courts, jails, judges or lawyers because there will be no criminals. Likewise, since all will be free of desires, there will be no accounting.

People give what they have and those who want take. The weather will be perpetual spring. Fruits of all flavours will ply year round, so that instead of cooking, all we will need is to use the juice of whatever flavoured fruit we wish for. Cooking, if any, will be by solar power; and planes, our main form of locomotion, will be sourced by atomic power. Birdsong will be as melodious as a musical instrument, and musical instruments themselves will play at a touch. Everyone will be an artist, and there will be abundance of music, art and games.

Life spans will increase to 150 years on an average. Males will not have a beard. And reproduction will transpire through yogic power and not sexual union. However, only 900,000 souls will make the grade.

Mahatma Gandhi too had his concept of the ideal society which he outlined in an article in Harijan in 1946.

"Indian independence must begin at the bottom. Thus every village will be a republic or a panchayat, having full powers. It follows, therefore, that every village has to be self-sustained and capable of managing its affairs, even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world. It will be trained and prepared to perish in the attempt to defend itself against any onslaught from without. Thus ultimately, it is the individual who is the unit. But this does not exclude dependence on the willing help from neighbours or from the world. It will be free and voluntary play of mutual forces. Such a society is necessarily highly cultured in which every man and every woman knows what he or she wants and, what is more, knows that no one should want anything that the others cannot have with equal labour.

"In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever widening, never ascending, circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But will be an oceanic circle, whose centre will be the individual always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages, till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance, but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral units.

"We begin to understand that human purpose on this planet is to evolve a culture that is spiritual in all respects"
James Redfield

"Therefore, the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle, but will give strength to all within and will derive its own strength from it. I may be taunted with the retort that this is all Utopian and, therefore, not worth a single thought. If Euclid's point, though incapable of being drawn by any human agency, has an imperishable value, my picture has its own for mankind to live…"

Obviously this is not a complete picture of Gandhi's future society. As an ardent visionary with an infallible ability to discern the future course of humanity based on holistic and non-violent principles, he emerged with economic, social and political systems that were far ahead of his times.

He gave the world Satyagraha, a practical way in which victims can gain redress without hurting or damaging their oppressors. He popularised khadi as the solution to India's deep-seated poverty. He initiated the concept of trusteeship through which the haves could prevent themselves from exploiting others. He introduced radical ideas of education and social reform that could transform society. His concept of voluntary surrender of property by the wealthy for the welfare of the poor created Vinobha Bhave's Bhoodan movement, through which thousands of acres of property across India exchanged hands.

In The Secret of Shambhala, James Redfield paints a fascinating picture of that legendary place. Of course, some would say Shambhala actually exists, as Krishnanand, a spiritual teacher from Bangalore, affirms. According to him, people in Shambhala are highly enlightened and remain young.

Redfield talks of a civilisation whose technology is composed of mental force fields. Thus they literally think houses and clothes into being. Such houses are impenetrable without the positive intent that you can. Water manifests out of water vapour and electricity is free. Conception is through the merging of auras and not of the physical bodies and is a deeply deliberate process where parents and the unborn babe meditate upon what could be the future being's purpose of life and how best could it be fulfilled. Travel again is through thought rather than locomotion. Disease is virtually non-existent. He has one of the characters in this adventure fable say, "We began to understand that human purpose on this planet was to evolve a culture that is spiritual in all its aspects."

Redfield makes an important point that all technology is only a prototype for what we can achieve with our inner power. This means that present-day technology will soon be transcended by a mind and spirit culture where we communicate, create or travel through thought and intention.

In the final analysis, it does not matter when Satyug will dawn or what it will be like. What does matter is to work on ourselves relentlessly. Self-transformation is mankind's most urgent and important mission. If we accomplish that, all the rest will be taken care of. As Mahatma Gandhi put it, "Be the change you want to see."

Let's get to work, already!

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