World Drama Cycle

Understanding the Cycle of Time

In this lesson, we learn about the beginning, the middle and the end of onecomplete 'time cycle' of this world. More than anything else, we will understand the great significance of the period we are undergoing at present.

The world has been in existence since eternity and it will continue to be eternal. The world was neither created anytime before nor will it get destroyed later, because matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it only undergoes transformation from one form to another. Similarly this world also undergoes changes in its characteristics, but as such the world was not created out of nothing nor will there be a total annihilation.

 The cycle of time is best understood with the help of the picture of the world drama wheel. It illustrates the "flow" of time. In the middle of it is the Fylfot ( Swastika ) which divides the Time into four equal parts. The Swastika is considered to be very auspicious. In the first part of this Wheel of Time, marked by Swastika is shown Golden Age. Here the arm of the Swastika is pointing towards right because the right arm symbolizes what is good or what brings about goodness. In these early times, when the cycle started, people of the diety religion ( Sanatan Dharma) were possessed of divine qualities and nature and they enjoyed complete purity, 100% peace and complete prosperity. Then came the Silver Age. In this era too, people were possessed of purity, peace and prosperity to a very high degree. But the degree of their divine qualities had decreased a little. They were two degrees less divine than the people of the Golden Age who were divine to the extent of 16 degrees. Therefore the arm of Swastika that indicates this epoch is bent downwards because souls in this era had come down from the state of super-righteousness to what is just righteous. Next came Copper Age.After having experienced beatitude and fruition for many a life, turned ti the path of vices or unrighteousness. This is why the arm is reversed because the left hand symbolizes what is impure and auspicious. People then were second-grade by their nature, qualities and actions. Mankind is now divided on various religions; strifes and disputes started to appear and the five vices brought disquiet and sorrow in homes. Steadily, unrighteous doings, ie the actions done under the sway of one or the other of these five vices, led the world to more and more impurity and sufferings and the world came under the yoke of Iron Age ( Kaliyuga). Strifes, wars, bellicosity and the resulting peacelessness increased rapidly in frequency and intensity in this era. Therefore the fourth of Swastika is shown raising itself up to indicate the rise in conflicts, clashes and calamities. Then, a stage comes when ignorance, lassitude, stupor, moral turpitude and sin become dominant. People become devilish by nature and religion becomes utterly degenerate. The Significance of the present period At present, we are undergoing through a critical phase in the history of mankind. This is the period of the confluence of the ending phase of the Iron Age and the starting phase of the Golden Age. This is the most important of all epochs, called the Confluence Age, when God, the Highest Being, descends in this world to meet the human beings, His beloved children and gives the most precious boons of Redemption and Beatitude. Through the Godly Knowledge and the easy Raj Yoga, God creates the Golden Age or new viceless order. The act of 'creation' does not mean constructing something out of nothing but it means the moral reconstruction of mankind or the re-establishment of the ancient most Deity Religion. The reader would be pleased to know or, perhaps, surprised to know that God Shiva, the Supreme Father of all, is indeed doing this great task of resurrection of mankind at present. The world will soon be free of all miseries and the paradise, which is full of peace and happiness, will be established again. The Nature of the World Drama Cycle The cycle of five epochs, comprising Golden-Age, Silver Age, Copper-Age and Iron Age and the confluence Age repeats exactly everytime after it has turned full wheel. During every cycle, the souls who are the actors on this world-drama stage will be the same. Each soul will act the same part in every cycle since, in the soul itself is indelibly ingrained the part it has played life after life in the previous cycle or that it has to repeat cycle after cycle. Just as in a tape record or a gramophone record, a whole song or drama is recorded and it repeats every time the record is played, even so, a soul’s role in this world drama is recorded in the soul itself which is only self-luminous, conscient point. The soul replays the part once every 5000 years, because each one of the four eras of the world-drama being equal to 1250 years, the duration of one World Cycle is 5000 years. 

World Drama / World Cycle Time 5000 Years

Satyug / Golden Age

This is the phase that lasts for 1250 years. You can see it in this diagram. This period is also called the Heaven, Paradise, Garden of 
 Eden, Garden of Allah, Swarg by all of us. Heaven is different from the Soul World (Paramdhaam). Heaven is the period that exists on this Earth itself. It is not anywhere in the sky, or on any mountain. It exists right here, and the time has now come when Heaven is going to be re-established on this earth, so be ready to be a part of it. Soul World is where everybody has to go together at one point of time, however, Heaven is not where all of us will go. Satyug is the period formed in the Asian sub-continent when all the souls there exist as deities. The very first soul who takes birth in the Satyug is Lord Krishna. Since all the souls take the form of deities in Satyug, it is obvious that they are completely vice-less. They are completely pure. They are 100% soul-conscious, and completely aware of their virtues. Thus, souls in this period are called 16 Kala Sampurna.

Every soul takes a birth of 150 years long. Thus, every soul takes approximately 8 births in the Satyug, playing the roles of 8 deities during these births. You may think that if the deities are completely pure, how does the process of birth take place? It takes place through the power of yoga and through vibrations. Unlike today's world (Kalyug), when birth takes place as a result of vice-ful acts (bhrashtaachaar)!

Satyug by its end has a population of 9 lakh deities.Currency in this age is Gold. All actions performed by the souls here are neutral, because no Karmic Accounts (see Law of Karma chapter) are created. This is the beautiful age when Tigers and Goats drink water from the sweet river together. There is just one pleasant season, Spring. No diseases, no pain, no hurt. There are Vimans using which we fly from one place to another. There are also school and Arts, Drawing, Singing, Dancing is taught then. Paramdhaam is called Muktidhaam, where we seek Mukti, whereas Satyug is where we get Jeevanmukti i.e. being able to enjoy in corporeal form.

Tretayug / Silver Age 

 Transition from Satyug to Tretayug is very gradual. It is not that one fine day suddenly the next yug will start. It is similar to how your new house becomes old gradually. There is no single day when you can decide that from that day your house will be old. It is a very very gradual process. This is also the phase that lasts for 1250 years. You can see it in this diagram. This period is also called the Heaven. Heaven is different from the Soul World (Paramdhaam). However, similar to the way there is a slight difference in a brand new house and a year old house, Tretayug is a bit lower in value than Satyug. Satyug converts to Tretayug. Since Tretayug is a bit lower in value than Satyug, souls in this period are called 14 Kala Sampurna. However, everybody is still as pure. Every soul takes a birth of approximately 100 years long. Thus, every soul takes approximately 12 births in the Tretayug, playing the roles of 12 deities during these births. Tretayug by its end has a population of 33 Crore deities. It is also a gaayan (saying) in Indian literature that there have been 33 Crore deities in India. This is what it refers to. Currency in this age is Silver. All actions performed by the souls here are neutral, because no Karmic Accounts are created. Thus, by this time, 2500 years (i.e. half the Kalpa) has elapsed. The first half of the Kalpa is called Shivalay (formed by the Supreme Soul Shiva), Ram Rajya, or Heaven.

Dwaparyug / Copper Age 

 Deities are also humans, but with divine powers. Now, by these 20-21 births, the souls have changed so many bodies and changed from deities to ordinary human beings. Gradually, somewhere there must have been situations when the soul's consciousness must have shifted to the body. After all, it is just a consciousness. A doctor can get the consciousness of a father in an operation theatre. Similarly, somewhere after 2500 years, the souls must have started getting thoughts of body-consciousness, and gradually started thinking that they are the body, not the soul. Thus, they started getting attached to the bodies, and this is how vices emerged. Note, this happened very very slowly and gradually over a period of long time. The five vices are sex-lust, anger, greed, attachment, ego. When they thought they are the body, they even looked at others as a body, and this is how sex-lust aroused. Thinking they are the body is ego. Feeling that I should have more money, fame, beauty than the other is jealousy and greed, which easily leads to anger. Souls are now 8 Kala Sampurna, but still in this time, the corruption is not as intense as it is now. Time is still quite pleasant. Every soul takes a birth of approximately 60 years long. Thus, every soul takes approximately 21 births in the Dwaparyug. Deities do not exist anymore in that yug, but still there is the remembrance of Deities in everybody's mind, because some of them have seen the deities in the past, so there is a memory that divine deities existed. Since vices also began, there was pain and suffering. This is why they started calling out for God, and in His remembrance, built the very first temples of the 12 Jyotirlingams in India. Now, since there must have been pictures of the divine deities, there were also temples of various deities built everywhere! This was the time when the great prophets came down to re-unite the humanity and established various religions. However, we expected God to appear as a miracle and change the world with magic, so we could not completely understand these prophets when they said "God is Light". Since these prophets were also divine, we started considering them as God. Currency in this age was Copper. The population was still below 100 Crores  

Kalyug / Iron Age

  If you see the statistics, the population of the world has increased from 100 Crores to 600 Crores only in the last 100 years i.e. all this happened during the Kalyug itself. Currency in this age is Paper and Iron (having almost no value compared to Gold, Silver, Copper). In Kalyug, the souls take 42 births, and on an average, every soul's age is approximately 30 years long. Almost all the souls (i.e. we) are in complete body-consciousness, and completely gripped by the five vices. Sex, the lowest level and the most impure and viceful act is considered as the aim of life, a means of happiness, and the purest relationship between two people. This is how low we have fallen down. Man exploited nature and thus, nature has also become unpredictable. The humans have come down to the lowest level of purity, and hence they are less than 8 Kala Sampurna.

 SangamYug/ Confluence Age 

We became so sad and there was such a collective callout to God that He had to intervene and come down. He came down in an ordinary man in 1936 and formed the Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya. This is when the Purushottam SangamYug began, also known as the Confluence Age, Diamond Age, or Transformation Age. It is during this age, when God transforms the souls from the Rajopradhan stage to the Satopradhan stage, purifies them, and send them back in the Satyug.SangamYug lasts for approximately years, and you can now guess how many more years to go before Satyug.Now, an important truth to know here is that once a soul comes down on this Earth to play its part during Satyug, the soul cannot go back to the Paramdhaam until Kalyug ends. Thus, there are some souls who take all 84 births and some who take less than 84 births (depending on who comes later). There are also some souls who will take only one birth towards the end of the Kalyug. Thus, you see, the population of the world continuously increases, and does not decrease, because the souls keep coming down, and the souls who are already down on Earth take re-births. So, can you guess that the deities (souls) who came down during Satyug (if they have not gone back to the Soul World as yet [because the Kalyug has not yet been destroyed]), where are they right now?This cycle continues until all the souls come down, and once the last soul comes down, the Kalyug destruction begins as we saw earlier. All the souls go back to the Soul World, and only those souls who have purified themselves as per God's Shrimat are purified to the extent that they are eligible to come down to the Satyug. Satyug needs completely pure and soul-conscious souls. Since it is the same soul that keeps revolving throughout the cycle, the same soul gets purified or adulterated. Now, we are adulterated, and now we need to purify ourselves to come back into the Satyug if we want to experience unlimited bliss, happiness, wealth, health, nature, and reign/rule the world. It is during this time when we have an increasing Kala. Remember, you are a soul. It is the souls journey from one phase to another. So, you may not go to Heaven with this body. We will all go back to the Paramdhaam, and then depending on our role, we will come back on this Earth.
  
Why did we become body-conscious (from soul-conscious) during Dwaparyug? 

 When you wear a ring or a bracelet or a necklace for a long time, you automatically start considering it as a part of yourself. Subtly, that becomes a part of you, and you get attached to it. Similarly, over a period of time now, we took so many births and re-births, and gradually, we have got attached to this body so much that we considered that we are this body. Thus, we thought we will perish after a stipulated time. This shift in consciousness was very slow and gradual, and hence we started thinking to acquire as much as possible in a short span of time. We became age-conscious, due to which, we started committing vice-ful acts. We started looking at others body instead of the soul, and started getting attracted to them. We wanted to enjoy sensual and materialistic things, because we thought it is the body that gets happiness. We forgot that it is I, the soul, who gets happiness and pleasure, not this body.