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Redeeming aspect of kaliyuga

By K.S. RAM

We have gotten into the habit of blaming all our ills on the times in which we live. We often exclaim “this is kaliyuga, so what else do you expect?” kaliyuga has come to personify all that is bad and undesirable. We feel accursed and we envy the blessed ones who were born in the Sat, Treta or Dwapar yugas. We attribute our misfortune to karma and resign ourselves to our fate. This attitude leads to low self-esteem which in turn can do enormous damage. 

Kaluyuga, like the other three yugas, is the creation of God. And all of the God’s creations has His blessings however different they are from one another. Tulsidas, in his Ramcharitmanas, discusses this point. Kakbhushundi, the deathless, wise crow of many births, compares the different yugas or ages. He calls kaluyuga “the hot-bed of sin” where, he says: “religion is stifled. Imposteres invent and promulgate a number of heretical creeds. Everyone is addicted to sensuality and greed and passion. The guru and the pupil are like the blind and the deaf: the former cannot see, the latter does not heed. Parents teach their children the duty of filling the belly. Everybody follows a course of conduct of his own imagination. There is universal lawlessness. The meanest churl, if only he is rich, is accounted noble. Men practice sin and reap pain, terror, sickness, sorrow and bereavement. Duplicity, perversity, hypocrisy, malice, hersy, arrogance, infatuation, lust, pride and the like pervade the whole universe… 

“men practise prayer, penance and charity, perform sacrifices and undertake sacred vows with some unholy design. The gods rain not upon the earth and foodgrains sown in the soil do not germinate. Men are afflicted with diseases and find no enjoyment anywhere. They are conceited and contend with others without cause. Though their lives are short, in their pride they reckon on outliving the end of the aeon..” he sums up by calling kaliyuga “a storehouse of pollution and vice.”

 However, few are aware of a redeeming feature of kaliyuga. According to kakbhushundi, kaluyuga has many virtues, too, of which the most important is that in kaliyuga. “escape from the cycle of birth and death is easy”. The wise crow says, “the goal which in the first three ages is reached by lolemn worship. Sacrifice and austerity, is attained in kaliyuga by merely chanting the Lord’s name…”

The Satyuga, everyone is possessed of mystic powers and wisdom; in that age men cross the ocean of birth and death by meditating on God. In Tretayuga, men perform sacrifices of various kinds and escape rebirth by dedicating their actions to the Lord. In Dwaparyuga, men have no other expendient than ritual worship. “but in kaliyuga all we have to do is chant the story of Hari’s perfection. The power of the Name is manifest in kaliyuga,” says the wise crow.

 He says: “Merit or Punya conceived in the mind is rewarded but demerit or paap earned by the mind is not punished… so no ther age can compare with kaliyuga, provided man has faith in its virtue.”

Ironic isn’t it, that when an age seems conducive to moral and spiritual well-being, as in Satyayuga, enormous effort is required to attain liberation. On the contrary, in kaliyuga where conditions are not  conducive to spiritual evolutions, it is easier methods which work. Chant the Lord’s Holy Name, fix Him in your mind, and tide across the bhav-sagar (the ocean of existence) almost effortlessly. The effort required for spiritual liberation is inversely proportional to the moral intensity of the age. So are we not blessed to be born in kaliyuga.

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