The Crisis of the Modern World

THE DARK AGE

Hindu doctrine teaches that the duration of a human cycle, to which it gives the name Manvantara, is divided into four ages, marking as many phases in a gradual obscuration of primordial spirituality; these are the same periods that the traditions of Western antiquity designated as the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages. We are now in the fourth age, the Kali-Yuga or ‘dark age,’ and are said to have been in it for more than six thousand years already—that is, since an era long preceding any known to ‘classical’ history. Since then, the truths once accessible to all men have become increasingly hidden and difficult to attain; those who possess them are fewer and fewer. Although the treasure of ‘nonhuman’ wisdom, which precedes all ages, can never be lost, it envelops itself in ever more impenetrable veils that conceal it from view and beneath which it is extremely difficult to discover. This is why, everywhere and under diverse symbols, there is mention of something that has been lost, at least apparently and in relation to the external world, and that must be rediscovered by those who aspire to true knowledge. Yet it is also said that what is thus hidden will become visible again at the end of this cycle, which will at the same time be the beginning of a new cycle by virtue of the continuity linking all things together.