The Redeeming Aspect Of Kaliyuga

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The Redeeming Aspect Of Kaliyuga

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.

Kaliyuga, like the other three yugas, is the creation of God. And all of God's

creation 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 Kaliyuga “the hot-bed of sin" where, he says: "Religion is stifled.

Impostors 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 practise sin and

reap pain, terror, sickness, sorrow and

bereavement. Duplicity, perversity, hypocrisy, malice, heresy, 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, Kaliyuga 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 solemn

worship, sacrifice and austerity, is attained in Kaliyuga by merely chanting

the Lord's name..."

In 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 expedient 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 other 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 Satyuga, enormous effort is required to attain liberation. On

the contrary, in Kaliyuga where conditions are not conducive to spiritual

evolution, 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?By K S Ram .Source:Indiatimes.com

Arun Reddy Nukala

+44 7946 595063

http://groups.msn.com/

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