Predictions about Kali yuga that seem to be manifesting

[krsna]

Among the most striking of these passages from the Vedic sastras are the following:

 

In the Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be the deciding factor of nobility [ in place of birth, righteous behavior or merit].And brute force will be the only standard or deciding what is righteous or just.

 

Mutual liking [and not family pedigree, social status, etc.] will be the deciding factor in choosing a partner in marriage; cheating will be the order of the day in business relations; satisfaction of sexual pleasure will be the only consideration of male or female excellence and worthiness; and the wearing of the sacred thread (Yajnopavita) [and not pious behavior or Vedic or Shastric learning] will be the outward index of being a Brahmin.

In the Kali Yuga, only one quarter of each of the four feet of Dharma [panance, truthfulness, compassion and charity] remains. And that too goes on decreasing day by day while the feet of Adharma [unrighteousness] increase greatly. So that in the end Dharma becomes extinct.

 

In that [Kali] age, people will be greedy. They will take to wicked behavior. They will be merciless, indulge in hostilities without any cause, unfortunate, extremely covetous for wealth and women. High social status will be attained by Sudras, fisherman and such other classes…

 

When deceit, falsehood, lethargy, sleepiness, violence, despondency, grief, delusion, fear, and poverty prevail, that is the Kali Yuga…

 

…mortal beings will become dull-wittwd, unlucky, voracious, destitute of wealth yet voloptuous, and women, wanton and unchaste.

 

Countries will be laid waste by robbers and vagabonds; the Vedas will be condemned heretics; kings will exploit their subjects, and twice-borns like Brahmanas will only think of the gratification of their sexual desires and other appetites.

 

Celibates [of the brahmacarya ashrama] will cease to observe their vows of study, purity and celibacy; householders will take to begging [instead of giving alms]; hermits [of the vanaprastha ashrama] will resort to villages [leaving their retreats in the forests]; and sannyasins will be extremely greedy for money. [ In short, the whole system of the Varnashrama Dharma will have broken down.]

 

Petty - minded people will conduct business transactions and merchants will be dishonest.

 

In the Kali Yuga, men will abandon their parents, brothers, friends, and relatives. They will occupy high seats [and pulpits] and will [pretend to] preach religion.

 

People will have their minds weighed down with constant anxiety and fear. This will be due to devastating famines and heavy taxation. The land will not grow food-crops, and the people will always be in fear of impending droughts. ( Bhagavad Gita 3:24, 25, 30-3, 35, 37-9)

[Zreedhar]

How true! Very true!

[harerama]

Forgive me if this sounds ignorant, but I don't think this is prophetic in the slightest. I think most societies if not all undergo these trends.

 

And how do we know this wasn't really what was going on in the Vedic civilization at the time, and it's not actually pertaining to now? Perhaps the people who wrote this were bitter about the direction society was going in and wrote those words as a consequence. This isn't necessarily spiritually-oriented, nor a prophecy about what is to come. And there's definitely nothing specific in these verses that would point to the idea these writers could see into the future.

 

Are there any such verses which do state something specific about the present that we can relate to what has occurred? Like supposedly Nostradamus (who was also probably nothing more than a social commentator, but nonetheless some of his writings are somewhat eerie in the way things turned out)?

[raghu]

I don't see how Nostradamus' writings are any more credible than the Bhagavata's. You might consider applying your criticism a little more evenly across the board.

[Sephiroth]

 

I don't see how Nostradamus' writings are any more credible than the Bhagavata's. You might consider applying your criticism a little more evenly across the board.

 

Agreed ... in WHAT way does Nostradamus's prediction seems to be more credible? I have read it, and I even have the book.

 

Many of his interpretation is based on the Bible's Book of Revelation (about Doomsday) which he claims have vision of the future - about the "Dark Man and the Beast" and such.

 

Today, many people (including some Japanese, I heard) interpretes his interpretation as they like and that is like telling a story you heard someone else tell as your own. Lies retold as truth will not become a truth.

 

As for Gita, I see things happening in front of me which EXACTLY as described in it. There is no need to interprete anything.

[gopal sakha]

Nostradamus was in maya.

He had no good conception of reality.

How much faith can we put in the hallucinations of a lunatic?

[Sephiroth]

 

Nostradamus was in maya.

He had no good conception of reality.

How much faith can we put in the hallucinations of a lunatic?

 

I could agree with that.

 

According to sources I have read, the method he used to seek this "prophesy" itself is unacceptable from Christian (and Jews) point of view. It is said that he could stare into a burning candle till it made him hallucinate. It is also said that he could take elixirs of drugs which put him to a trance-like state, thus making him envision this "prophesies". Such practise is called "Divinity" and it is against Christianity and Judaism.

 

So the fact that some people claiming to be Hindus YET accepting it more than what stated in Gita is simply laughable.

[harerama]

 

I don't see how Nostradamus' writings are any more credible than the Bhagavata's. You might consider applying your criticism a little more evenly across the board.

 

I'm not saying his writings are more credible, I'm just saying that even when Nostradamus's writings could be taken as describing real events (although only after the fact that those events have occurred by so-called "scholars" of his), they could still be seen as mere social commentary. Point is, whoever reads his writing can conform their perception of what he is saying to what is happening. The same way, in my opinion, that you guys might be doing with the Bhagavatam. The "predictions" in the Bhagavatam seem rather general to me, and ultimately useless if there's no specific mention of events that occur.

 

Also, who cares what Judaism or Christianity thinks of divination? If yogis can supposedly see the future, or some version of it, if God gifted this power to some (or all) men, why can't Nostradamus have this gift? Note: I don't believe in Nostradamus, but I don't think it's reasonable to discard the possibility he was able to really divine something from doing those practices of divination simply based on the religion he may have belonged to, or what he was writing about. It's certainly not reasonable to brand him a lunatic simply because he didn't write about God, while the writers of the Bhagavatam are writing about God and thus their predictions have more weight to them.

 

It seems to me, that some of what Nostradamus did to induce these trances could actually be yogic practices, where a person might stare at a wall to induce a trance and transcend space-time in his mind or whatever. Or even to induce a near death experience. If you call these exercises a way to produce hallucinations that are devoid of any truth, then how can you say the Bhagavatam is about truth? Maybe they hallucinated the whole thing as well (I don't know, and I really hope not, but you have to consider the possibility)