Symptoms of the Evil Age

The Vedic Viewpoint and Other Spiritual Perspectives

According to the ancient Vedas, which is the original knowledge that came with the whole creation, there are four ages that cycle in this world. The first age is called Satya-yuga or the Golden age which lasts 1.728 million years, next is Treta-yuga or the Silver age and lasts 1.296 million years and digressing to Dvarpa- yuga or the Copper age, which lasts 864,000 years then last the age of Kali or the Iron age which lasts 432,000 years. We are now in Kali-yuga which began 5,000 years ago after Lord Krishna left the planet.

In the Kali age people tend to be greedy, ill-behaved and merciless, and they fight one another without good reason. When there is a predominance of cheating, lying, sloth, sleepiness, violence, depression, lamentation, bewilderment, fear and poverty, that age is Kali, the age of the mode of ignorance.*

Because of the bad qualities of the age of Kali, human beings will become shortsighted, unfortunate, gluttonous, lustful and poverty-stricken. The women, becoming unchaste and will freely wander from one man to the next.*

Cities will be dominated by thieves, the Vedas will be contaminated by speculative interpretations, and atheists and political leaders will virtually consume the citizens, and the so-called priests and intellectuals will be devotees of their bellies and genitals.*

The Brahmacari (celibate student) will fail to execute their vows and become generally unclean, the householders will become beggars and the renunciates will become greedy for wealth.*

Women will become much smaller in size and they will eat too much, have more children than they can properly take care of, and lose all shyness. They will always speak harshly and will exhibit qualities of thievery, deceit and unrestrained audacity.*

Businessmen will engage in petty commerce and earn their money by cheating. Even when there is no emergency, people will consider any degraded occupation quite acceptable.*

Servants will abandon a master who has lost his wealth, even if that master is a saintly person of exemplary character. Masters will abandon an incapacitated servant, even if that servant has been in the family for generations. Cows will be abandoned or killed when they stop giving milk.*

In Kali-yuga, men will be wretched and controlled by women. They will reject their fathers, brothers, other relatives and friends and will instead associate with the sisters and brothers of their wives. Thus their conception of friendship will be based exclusively on sexual ties.*

Uncultured men will accept charity on behalf of the Lord and will earn their livelihood by making a show of austerity and wearing a mendicants (beggars) dress. Those who know nothing about religion will mount a high seat and presume to speak on religious principles.*

In the age of Kali, peoples' minds will always be agitated. They will become emaciated by famine and taxation, and will always be disturbed by fear of drought. They will lack adequate clothing, food and drink, will be unable to properly rest, have sex or bathe themselves, and will have no ornaments to decorate their bodies. In fact, the people of this age will gradually come to appear like ghostly, haunted creatures.*

Men will no longer protect their elderly parents, their children or their respectable wives. Thoroughly degraded, they will care only to satisfy their own bellies and genitals.*

The people's intelligence will be diverted by atheism, and they will almost never offer sacrifice to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the supreme spiritual master of the universe. Although the great personalities who control the three worlds all bow down to the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord, the petty and miserable human beings of this age will not do so.*

Terrified, about to die, a man collapses on his bed. Although his voice is faltering and he is hardly conscious of what he is saying, if he utters the holy name of the Supreme Lord, he can be freed from the reactions of his fruitive work and achieve the supreme destination. But still people in the age of Kali will not worship the Supreme Lord* (also known as Krishna, Allah, Vishnu, Jehovah, etc.)

In this age objects, places and even individuals personalities are all polluted. The almighty Personality of Godhead, however, can remove all such contamination from the life of one who fixes the Lord within his mind. If a person hears about, glorifies, meditates upon, worships or simply offers great respect to the Supreme Lord, who is situated within the heart, the Lord will remove from his mind the contamination accumulated during many thousands of lifetimes.*

This is just the beginning of Kali-yuga and the description of the qualities of it gets inconceivably worse at the end, which is in 427,000 years. Then there will be a partial dissolution of the creation, when the Lord rides in on His white horse and annihilates the last of the unsurrendered souls who will again get another chance in the next cycle of the ages, starting with Satya-yuga, the golden age.

If one is serious about overcoming all the bad qualities of this age and wants to become peaceful at all times then they will take up the process of chanting the names of God no matter what their religion. If you don't know any names of God, the most recommended names are the Maha Mantra

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

The names of God should be chanted, sung and contemplated at all times to fully cleanse the heart and mind of all contaminations.

What loss can there be, but of all our bad qualities?

By Jayasri Radha

*These verses are taken from the Srimad Bhagavatam 12 th canto Chapter 3 Verses 25-45-Translated with purports by disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada- Who is in a pure, unbroken, disciplic lineage steaming all the way from the appearance of Lord Krishna, which is how all scripture must be given and heard.

For info.on the Maha Mantra- go to http://www.stephen-knapp.com/chanting_hare_krishna.htm