2012 -- The End of the World?

October 18, 2009

There is a great deal of propaganda afoot

that something dramatic will happen in 2012 and maybe the world will

end...

We have information from the Vedic scriptures about the nature of

this material world. Very extensive information is given about the

cycles this world goes through over and over again. It is not that we

are in uncharted territory. These cycles repeat, just like every year

we have the four seasons. The cycle of the seasons repeats over and

over again. Similarly the cycle of the four ages or yugas also

repeats over and over again. As we know each of the seasons will last

for three months and then the next season will start these four ages or

yugas also repeat in a very systematic way.

There are four yugas, Satya-yuga - the golden age, lasting

1,728,000 years; Treta-yuga - the silver age, lasting 1,296,000 years;

Dvapara-yuga - the bronze age, lasting 864,000 years; and finally

Kali-yuga - the iron age of machines and quarrel, lasting 432,000

years.

We are in the final age, Kali-yuga. So in one sense you could call

the end of Kali-yuga the “end of the world.” But actually Kali-yuga

is

no more the end of the world than winter is the end of the seasons.

After the winter there will be another spring. At the end of winter

everything looks dead. But with the sunshine of spring everything

becomes rejuvenated and new life springs up all over the planet. So at

the end of this Kali-yuga everything will be very baron and devastated.

However that is just like the end of winter. Just like the end of

winter means the beginning of a new spring season, there will be

another Satya-yuga or golden age and everything in the universe will be

rejuvenated again.

There will be some big devastation at the end of the Kali-yuga. But

we have just started the Kali-yuga. This age will last for 432,000

years and so far we have only passed 5,000 years of it. So that means

that Kali-yuga still has another 427,000 years to run... So please be

assured that the world is not going to end in the year 2012... Believe

it or not the world will still be going on in the year 49000. Around

this time the current Kali-yuga will end and there will be some

devastation and a renewal which will usher in a new Satya-yuga...

So this claim that the “end of the world” is coming in 2012 is

complete nonsense. There is no end to the material world. Although

everything here in this world -- except the living entities (the spirit

souls, the atmas) -- including the planet and the universe itself, is

ultimately a temporary manifestation. Everything has a time of creation

and will have a time of destruction.

However, in the bigger picture, the destruction is not actually a

destruction. It is simply an exercise in the conservation of energy.

Einstein came up with the proposition that both energy and matter cannot be

destroyed. They can only be transformed from one form to another.

This is the correct understanding.

There is a time when the universe will be destroyed. The universe will

exist for one thousand catur-yuga cycles. That is one thousand

cycles of the four ages [satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dvapara-yuga and

Kali-yuga]. Each cycle of four yugas takes

4,300,000 years. Therefore the “life” of the universe is

4,300,000,000

years or 4.3 billion years. We have currently passed through

approximately half of that time. So the universe is about 2.15 billion

years old at the moment. So in another 2.15 billion years the whole

material world -- not just our universe -- the entire material creation

of an unlimited number of universes, will all be destroyed.

However, as I mentioned before, this is not actually a

“destruction”

but a conservation of matter and energy. All the matter which forms the

material elements in the universe will be conserved in the

“mahat-tattva.” This means the “unmanifested material energy.”

The

material world has two possible states. Manifest and unmanifest.

Currently it is manifest and we are here in the material world. But

after the completion of approximately 2.15 billion years there will

really be a complete and total devastation of the whole material

existence. That is the ultimate “end of the world” that all the

doomsday people are waiting for. I think that devastation will satisfy

them. At that time the whole material existence will be “destroyed”

and

will become unmanifested for another one thousand catur-yuga

cycles.

This means for 4.3 billion years there will be no manifest material

world. Everything will be conserved, the matter will be conserved

within the mahat-tattva and the living entities will all enter into

the body of Maha Visnu and will exist there in a state of suspension.

Although the whole material creation will be “destroyed” in about

2.15 billion years time, in reality nothing will actually be destroyed.

The matter will be conserved in the mahat-tattva and the

living entries will simply sleep for 4.3 billion years in the body of

Maha-Visnu. This is not liberation for the living entities. They just

sleep. And when the 4.3 billion years is finished the material world

will become manifest again and all the same living entities will enter

it again and again resume their activities where they left off 4.3

billion years ago.

And it will be the same thing again. There will be the same grass,

trees, donkeys, horses, elephants, people... The same sort of planets

and sun and moon will be constructed, the whole thing will be again

constructed in the same way.

It is just like every year it is hot in summer and cold in winter.

There are no surprises.

The new material world will be much the same as the old one because

the material world is created out of the desires of the living

entities. It will be the same living entities entering the “new

world”

who left this world. So they will bring into the “new world” the same

desires they left this world with. So they will simply continue in the

“new world” where they left off in this world. After sleeping for 4.3

billion years.

There are also smaller devastations that happen periodically, but these

only happen at the end of the catur-yuga cycles,

so if the doomsday people really want a date that something may happen

on then let them use the date of the end of this Kali-yuga, something

around 49000, something quite dramatic will happen then for sure. To

get the exact date you will need to consult an astrologer. Until

then this world will go on, and on, and on, and on

It will get worse of course. That is the nature of time. In the end

it will be very bad. But it will go on, and on and on. There will be no

“end of the world” until some time around 49000 and that is, as I

said,

not really the end of the world. That is a time of renewal. A

transition from the dark age of Kali to a new golden age of spiritual

enlightenment.

The material world will never end. There will always be spirit souls

like us who rebel against our natural position of rendering service to

God. So Krishna mercifully creates this material playground for us.

Here we can try to “play god.” Here we can try to enjoy separately

from

God. But this world is constructed in such a way that all our attempts

to enjoy separately from God will end in frustration.

After many, many, many births in the material world, and many, many

frustrated lives of suffering, an intelligent man comes to the

conclusion that there is no happiness in the material world and decides

to go back home, back to Godhead.

There is another world, a spiritual world. That is the place we are

all hankering for. In the spiritual world we have a spiritual body

which is eternally youthful, full of knowledge and full of bliss. That

is our natural position.

The position we find ourselves in the material world is quite

opposite to our natural position in the spiritual world. Here, in the

material world, we are stuck in a material body that is getting old,

getting sick, and ultimately dying. We are always suffering from three

different types of miseries. Our minds are always giving us problems;

nature [the demigods] is always giving problems in the form of too much

rain or no rain, too hot or too cold, etc. And other living entities

like the mosquitoes bite us when we are trying to sleep and our enemies

attack us. In this way we are constantly suffering from many different

types of miseries.

Therefore here, in the material world, we are full of anxieties,

full of ignorance. The root cause of all these problems is we identify

with the material body. Because of this bodily identification we think

we are temporary. We think that we will die. We think that we are not

permanent.

The reality is this material world is not our home. We can never be

happy here. We are not in our natural atmosphere. We belong in the

spiritual world, we will be happy in that spiritual atmosphere.

The purpose of our existence in this material world is to frustrat

our material desires so that ultimately we give up our rebellious

nature of trying to enjoy separately from Krishna. When we give

up this rebellious attitude and surrender to Krishna we will naturally

remember Krishna at the time of death and our soul will be transferred

to the spiritual world, back home, back to Godhead.

But the material world will continue, it will go on, and on and on

and on forever... There is no end to the material world. The doomsday

people will always be wrong. They will always be frustrated. They want

it to end but it will never end...

I have just given a very small introduction to this subject. There

is complete scientific information about all these topics available in

the books of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhuapda. If

you would like more information please research this at www.PrabhuapdaBooks.com where you will find all

of Srila Prabhuapda's books available online in a very easy to read and

search format.If

you have questions and comments on this email then rather than replying

to the email directly please post them on the article at:http://krishna.org/2012-the-end-of-the-world/

Chant

Hare Krishna and be happy!

Madhudvisa dasa

www.KrishnaStore.com

At the present moment our minds are polluted with the dirt accumulated over millions and millions of lifetimes of sense gratification. Even though our original pure nature is eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss, due to our mental contamination we are presently suffering in the realm of temporality, ignorance, and misery. By the purificatory process of chanting the holy names of God we can revive our original, pure nature and thus relish the sweetest happiness at every minute.

Chant:Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare HareHare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare