The Sai Dictum
The End of Kali Yuga?
Has someone told you about the end of Kali Yuga?
The Sai Dictum consists of some 21 predictions allegedly given by Sai Baba about the end of Kali Yuga and the beginning of a new age which will be called Sathya Yuga. It lists various catastrophes consisting of earth changes, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, nuclear accidents, epidemics and continents submerging into the waters, etc., etc. Among the predictions are statements about various eras of time and the impact that these eras of time will have on humans. Are these predictions about eras of time correct?
End of Kali Yuga,
Beginning of Sathya Yuga?
The first two predictions are about the end of Kali Yuga (the current era) and the beginning of Sathya Yuga (a different era). (Yugas are aeons, measurements of time). In practical terms, a yuga lasts 432,000 years. That is a very long epoch in the day of mankind. Has one era ended and another begun? We have to look at this. We have to ask, "What are the characteristics of this day and age which the ancient scriptures call Kali Yuga "?
Kali Yuga is the Age of Iron. It is the age of lust, anger, greed,
attachment, arrogance, conceit, and jealousy.
It is also a time of lack of
vision.
It is a time of great pollution; energy is bespoke with the emotions and negative thought-forms generated; thus, the environment of man is utterly polluted by poison of the mental kind. Thought affects everything, the food chain, the money chain, the supply chain. Everything that goes into man today is polluted unless man takes steps to purify it with prayer, with love, with good intentions.
So there is this invisible pollution surrounding mankind, entering mankind, polluting the mind, the precursor to action. Man must be guided by values which aid him to make good choices, which lead to good actions and good outcomes.
Yet, there is an upside; this era is the time when simply remembering and chanting the Name of the Lord merits grace from God and one may obtain the highest state of consciousness and union with God, simply by repetition of the Divine Name. Any Divine Name will suffice, if it is done with single-mindedness.
How do things change? How do things get better? How is the environment cleansed, the mind made pure, the pollution eliminated?
Sai Baba says that yugas change only with dharma , the practice of right conduct, practising righteousness, fostering righteousness in all spheres of living, so you will understand that a yuga does change only with the passage of time.
What is the practice of Dharma, right conduct? Using a metaphor, Dharma is said to have four legs; artha (wealth), kama (desire), karma (action), moksha (freedom from rebirth); these provide balance and enable us to proceed towards the goal of life. Man is born for action, man must work in some kind, man has a wealth of skill, ability and capacity, man must manage his desires and not let them manage him, and man seeks the goal of life, freedom from the cycle of birth-rebirth.
So Dharma is a basic guide, a value by which we can use to guide us and live our lives by. Dharma, right conduct, righteousness, is one of the five human values. Human values are what makes a human being truly human; if one is not living human values, then one is human in form only, and behaving with a lack of integrity.
What is integrity? Integrity is unity of thought, word, and deed; dharma in action is harmony of mind, word and action . Dharma is followed by all things; for fire, dharma is heat; for ice, dharma is coldness, for the earth, dharma is gravity; for the Sun, dharma is light and heat.
What is the dharma of man ? Righteousness, the unity thought, word and deed. All actions should be in harmony with the dictates of conscience. Conscience is the voice of God, within. Conscience should guide all our actions.
- If we say we will do an action, and think/do another, then we lack integrity;
- If we think about an action, and say and do something else, we lack integrity;
- If we do an action for a purpose, then think and say it was for another reason, then we lack integrity.
So we can clearly see that unity and harmony of what we think, say and do is our trustworthiness, our reliability, our dependency, our truthfulness, our steadiness, our righteousness, our protection. This is what it means to be human, what Sai Baba frequently calls true humanness. Dharma protects those who practice dharma . Those who live and uphold righteousness will be protected by that very righteousness itself.
Sathya Sai Baba has come on a mission to restore righteousness to the earth itself. He says,
For the protection of the Righteous,
for the destruction of evil,
and for establishing righteousness on a firm footing,
I the Lord, incarnate from age to age
Note that line, for the destruction of evil ; Sathya Sai Baba has told that evil-doers will not be destroyed. Rather, they will be corrected, and drawn towards righteousness by very Sai Baba himself. How? Sai Baba is Parantahkarana Pravesh , he who enters human hearts and changes them from within.
So we see that dharma is the foundation of true humanness, dharma is the very purpose of Sai Baba's mission, and dharma guides us all to the goal of human life, release from the cycle of birth-rebirth.
Yugas do not begin and end with calamity, disaster, destruction. Human beings cause calamity, disaster, destruction. Sai Baba has nothing to do with this; his purpose, as he as often said, is to show us the path to blessedness which we have forgotten. Yugas end and change with the practice of dharma, right conduct, righteousness in every thought, word and deed. Human beings living in harmony with each other and with the earth will not bring about the destruction of the earth.
Sathya Yuga
Sathya Yuga is also known as the Age of Gold (hence, the Golden Age) and Kritha Yuga.
Sai Baba says that Yugas change with the practice of Dharma. It is possible for individuals to be living in Sathya Yuga, if they are have all the four qualities of dharma, vis: compassion, wealth, austerity and truth (daya, dhana, tapas and sathya). Practice of these qualities express true humanness.
The Golden Age
Sai Baba says the Golden Age is definitely coming:
Many hesitate to believe that things will improve, that life for all will be happy and full of joy, that the Golden Age will recur. Let me assure you that this Dharmaswarupa (Embodiment of Dharma) has not come in vain; it will succeed in averting the crisis that has come upon humanity.'
Sai Baba is not saying that the crisis is one of catastrophe, calamity, disaster. The crisis is the lack of right conduct, the lack of Truth, the lack of Peace, the lack of Non-Violence as a way of life, the lack of Love. These are major crises that confront humanity today and cause climate change, global warming, upheavals of nature. These events are all man's doing. Sai Baba makes it absolutely clear that man shapes his world by his thoughts, words and actions:
The Golden Age is the creation of man, not God. Man is living at the dawn of a Golden Age and he himself will determine the timing of the transition by his own acts and thoughts.
Everyone has the opportunity to enter the new Golden Age. But each one has a choice, the free will, to decide his own future whether he wishes to continue living in the wilderness, a life of illusion, or move forward along the spiritual path and enter the Golden Age.
So Krita/Sathya Yuga, also known as the Golden Age, is the creation of man. When man practises right conduct, man will create a better world worth living in.
To be continued; we will move on to examine more of the Sai Dictum. We leave you with Sai Baba:
I have come to light the lamp of love in your hearts to see that it shines day by day with added lustre. I have not come to speak on behalf of any particular spiritual practice or Hindu philosophy. I have not come on any mission of publicity for any sect or creed or cause; nor have I come to collect followers for any doctrine. I have no plans to attract disciples or devotees to my fold or any fold. I have come to tell you of this universal faith, this divine consciousness, this path of love, this philosophy of love, this duty of love, this obligation of love.
Go to the Next Page and read the evaluation about Kali Yuga-Sathya Yuga
