What yug are we in and why that is important

What yug are we in?

Last two days I have spent telling everyone Kaliyug is dead and gone so stop whining about how bad the world is! Those whiny folks irritate me… they are usually never the proactive, responsible citizens of society. They might even be first to cut a line or bribe a police guy or bargain with a taxi person and in effect destroy the meter system in the city. They will however whine about how terrible the world is!

This whole yug thing started when I was watching Sadhguru’s Yug DVD. It was quite amazing as he took us through a calculation of the various yugs and stuff. Partly I thought he smoked weed and came but partly what he was saying made sense to me. At least much more sense than those doomsday theorists!

After that I did some research of my own prompted by some discussions that took place in whatsapp groups I flooded with my claims 😉

According to Hinduism Earth/mankind goes through 4 yugs –

Satyug, Treta yug, Dwapar yug & Kaliyug. The way I see it, cosmic environment is the best of supports for mankind to rise to its highest potential in the Satyug and then it keeps falling lower. In Kaliyug cosmos is just not supporting us much. So much so that in the Kaliyug peak man can’t even meditate – hence Krishna had said that in kaliyug people need to be shown path of Bhakti. Through this they can become spiritual. Even Jains confirm to this idea.

These yugs are cyclical. As in Satyug-Tretayug-Dwapar-Kali-Kali-Dwapar-Treta-Sat-Sat-Treta and so on…. Many people think that after every Kaliyug there is an apocalypse, this isn’t true at all. There is also another time cycle – after every xx number of years the world ends but that is a different countdown. First we need to understand how long these yugs are.

I had always imagined them to be infinitely long cause that is how traditional scriptures and inane conversations refer them. After my research I am amazed cause the yugs can’t be longer than 2-3 thousand years! That is not such a long time, definitely not infinitely long time.

In Hinduism, Rama is said to be born in the Treta yug. Recent research has provided very strong reasons for that date to be 5114BC. Note that some sources date Ramayana to have been written even more recently – like around 400BC. I think that is skewed – these dates were often skewed during imperialism to kill a nations culture so we have to be careful… in fact the idea that Krishna is just a mythology with no real base is also known to have been circulated by the British as a way to break Indian spirit.

According to some Hindu theories, each yug is some millions of years long. This doesn’t make sense because I will not believe that Ramayana is a story that is 5 million years old. Are you smoking weed or what? To think that a story that long survives to this day? If it did then it will be so skewed that the true one is lost forever.

So I discard this theory – as a misunderstanding of the scriptures. Paramhansa Yogananda’s guru also suggests much smaller yug length. According to him there was some misunderstanding in the yug length and stuff – this happened cause Kaliyug was on and all the great people had already departed or given up their material affairs cause they didn’t want to stay on Earth during this harsh time.

Continuing with our research. We can say that Rama was born around 5114BC which was Tretya yug.

Then comes Krishna who is known to have been in the Dwapar yug. His birth is found to be around 3112BC & the death of Krishna marks the end of Dwapar and the start of Kali which is stated around 3102BC (hundred years later). So we are saying that 5114BC is Treta and 3102BC is Kaliyug. Dwapar over in between.

Conclusion: Each yug is about 2 thousand years old.

I am sure exact numbers can be provided by looking at other events in the scriptures.

So by this calculation we can say that Kaliyug would not be more than 5000 years long (as there would be two Kaliyugs as discussed in the yug cycle above). 3102BC +2014 = 5114 years have passed already. So we are clearly in Dwapar yug. As per Sadhguru we are actually almost at end of Dwapar, while according to Sri Yukteshwar i.e. Paramhansa’s guru we are midway into it.

Basically there is a short yug theory which I illustrated above and there is a longer one which I disagreed with. In fact as Wikipedia states,

While the long yuga count is the most popular it does not correlate to any known celestial motion found in the Astronomical Almanac. The value of 24,000 years is within 7% of the modern astronomical calculation of one full precession of the equinox of 25,772 years. This phenomenon is observed as the stars moving retrograde across the sky at about 50 arc seconds per year and is thought to produce periods of warm ages and ice ages known as the Milankovitch cycle, thus the yuga cycle may have some basis in known terrestrial cycles.

In fact the yug theory is based around the fact that our sun revolves around another Super star. This theory has not been negated by modern science – research is on and maybe in the next few years we may find evidence to support it. If we accept this then via simple orbital sciences its clear that when the Sun is furthest from Superstar i.e. the time of Kalyug its speed will be the greatest. In effect Kalyug should pass off faster than Satyug. Accordingly the length of Kalyug is less than the other yugs. This means that we would be well into Dwapar yug by now and as per Sadhguru very close to Treta already!  This is the calculation Sadhguru does, according to him we are 70years away from Tretya Yug.

Also remember that in the middle ages aka Kaliyug – the corrupt godmen – church/pundits scared the public by talking about how horrible times will come as a way to keep the public under the religions power. So you can understand why a longer yug theory would be propounded by vested interests especially during Kalyug.

 

Honestly, a lot of us would agree that the world is getting better. Yes, difficulties and problems are there but not compared to previous times! In fact in recent years a very clear shift in humanity is obvious to even the most conventional people – people are questioning religion, they are looking for healthy options, they are looking for happiness & peace, they want a better quality of life.

Why all this was important!

Firstly, if you are looking to get enlightened then its important as it improves your chances.

Secondly, as a Dalai Lama quote I had read earlier (which I couldn’t find online),

We need to understand our past, our culture, our history to go forward. As urban citizens we are becoming more and more cut off from what our culture is all about and then each one finds their own explanation and truths but while we do so let us pay some attention and time to understand what our culture is all about.

Thirdly,

All this research is possible because of the internet. All my research findings I have stated above & even Sadhguru’s DVD I only bought it online (chances of attending his program or buying it offline is much lesser). So just a few years back this wouldn’t have been possible for me. This is why a lot of us become disconnected from our culture and religion because at the end of day we have no source to figure stuff out on our own. Now we can. Let’s be more active about what is passing off as ‘religious theory’ because now there are no brahmins who will decide. We will… (after all it is almost Tret Yug) 😀