Re-pocalypse

Today was super productive for me. I awoke earlier than usual for once and made it to morning satsangh. (I usually forego Sunday morning satsanghs during the summer season and instead attend on Wednesdays. The time of satsangh will shift in the fall by a good 90 minutes and I’ll then do my best to attend both, weekly.) After satsangh I went grocery shopping in what had to have been the emptiest grocery store in Indiana. It was heavenly. After that I grabbed a “breakfast” at Starbucks and took my car through the car wash before coming home to unpack said groceries, take the dogs out, and start laundry. Soon after those things, I spent a full 90 minutes scrubbing and vacuuming my car – removing everything from wheelchair scuffs to pop-tart crumbs. (Btw, it turns out that my next oil change will fall right around the time my car hits 100,000 miles!) After the car stuff, I managed a very short nap before running into town to get my hairs cut shorter – something I badly needed. The Best managed this for me, and since we were together I snatched him with me as company while I brought my lunch groceries into the office (saving me from lugging them in tomorrow with everything else I usually bring on Mondays) which was followed by us grabbing a Greek lunch. By the end of today I will also have finished reading the most recent issue of Yoga Journal to arrive in my mailbox, as well as the latest Hinduism Today. And only a short while ago, I finished the latest Sahaj Marg book I’ve been reading, “Reality at Dawn.” None of these things are particularly incredible, but for me this makes for an unusually productive day off. That last one, though, is the reason for this post.

Near the end of Reality at Dawn there is a chapter by the name of “My Vision.” I really had no idea what to expect from a chapter with that title, but I was surprised. The book itself was written by the Marg’s current grand-guru whom we call Babuji. Since coming to the Sahaj Marg, I have nearly always felt a bit more drawn to Babuji and I was glad to read one of his books. The start of the chapter is something that already escapes my memory, but I recall that the bulk of the chapter is rather prophetic and paints quite the picture of how the end of the world may well look, and also what may be some of the main contributing factors. Babuji also details slightly some of what the “after” will be like for survivors and the first generation following.

It shocked me a little – mostly because it’s been a minute since I last read something of that nature. I have to say, much of what Babuji detailed is totally applicable even today.

Despite the surprise of reading a chapter wherein the end of the world is spelled out, it wasn’t terribly alarming. Maybe that’s because of my familiarity with Shaivism and the rudimentary understanding so many have in regard to him being the Destroyer and his Nrtya causing everything to “melt.” I think I’m also at peace with ideas of the end of the world because I know it’s not really the end. Everything, even God, is cyclical in Hinduism. In Hinduism, “every new beginning” really “is some other beginning’s end,” to quote Semisonic’s “Closing Time” song.

As a Hindu I can know peace because of this. Life/Love is all that truly exists, albeit in differing energetic forms. In “A Course in Miracles” one of the first verses I learned and which has stuck with me is, “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.” Peace, indeed! You can hold hands with the Destroyer and know true, lasting, and deep peace because nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists. This is hope and this is what would surely carry me through any possible end-of-times scenario I might experience, for as much of it as I’m able to live through. Everything, on the most minuscule of scales, is coming to an end all the time. Literally. And then, after that ending, there’s more. The same will happen on any scale, even if that scale is cosmic. There’s no need to fear, regardless of how tragic those endings might eventually be, and as a Hindu/Abhyasi I take refuge in knowing my karmas and samskaras are being worked on. Each satsangh, each sitting, each book I read – every effort of each day – is for my progression and betterment of my surroundings and the beings therein.

I think no one in their right mind would welcome an apocalypse, per se. But from where I currently stand, it’s possible to see it coming and watch the progressive arrival with the serene smile of a raja yogi.

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

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A New Hindu End

One of the more recent additions to my home library is Alain Danielou’s “Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation: The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India.” For no more pages than the book has, it’s proving to be a slow read. I think the entire opening of the book is essentially a primer on Hinduism – but is not really any easier to digest. I did come across something I feel like sharing here. It’s about the end of the world.

Hindu texts mention a number of “ends” to the story of life. Well-known stories include the last avatar or Vishnu, Kalki. Ganapatyas also have our own version who comes at the end. Shiva’s dance of dissolution, known as mahapralaya, is THE end – not just of the world or this age, but of this entire cycle of creation. But in this book I came upon one I’d not heard of. Although it’s a bit less magical than some of the others, it’s still Hindu and happens to be very much in line with science – a kind of discovery that has always delighted me when it comes to my religion. Allow me to quote Danielou.

“For mankind as a whole, we are now in the Fourth Age, the Age of Decline, which the Hindus call the Age of Conflict (Kali Yuga). This age will head increasingly swiftly toward the disruption of all values and will end in a catastrophe which will destroy mankind. According to the Bhavishya Purana, “the Chronicle of the Future,” this catastrophe will take the form of an explosion under the sea. A kind of volcano, which the Sanskrit texts refer to as the Mule’s Head ( Vadavamukha ), will erupt at the bottom of the sea and destroy almost all life. Among the few survivors, there will then appear a new golden age… For five thousand years we have been in the Age of Conflict which began at the time of Mahabharata War… the end of mankind therefore appears relatively near.

“The mankind we know, however, is not the first. Humanity has already appeared six times on the earth, developed, and reached the highest levels of technical and scientific progress, only to be destroyed in a general calamity. After us, mankind will rise and fall seven times more before the earth itself becomes an uninhabitable desert.”

And there you have it. A lesser known Hindu end.

Om Shanti