When I arrived in the UK in March 2018, one of my goals was to continue to investigate the mysteries of life through both the study of science and spirituality in general. 

This article is about the other half of the intent, the philosophical and spiritual side that has given meaning to our lives for millennia, whether we admit it or not.

Marco and I have faced challenges and experiences that continually test the lessons learned. Thus, when I joined him in England, he asked me to study the ancient Veda scripts, particularly relating to the Hare Krishna movement.
What will be primarily expounded here is thanks to him.
For my part, I deepened my study of the Vedas by reading the Srimad Bhagavatam (13 volumes, the Uddhava Gita being my favourite part), what was available in English on the Puranas and so on.

In 2020, Marco and I will start a blog in Italy. This is the address (link – if you can read Italian). We upload both wellness and mystical posts, and videos with Qigong exercises to improve physical performance and back flexibility. And much more. Within a short time, each post receives a few thousand views.
The absolute post that has received the most hits is the following, personally translated from Italian to English, and it concerns part of these studies on the Vedas.
The article is signed by Marco, I merely did the editing.

Without further ado, I present to you: The Dark Splendour of KALI YUGA.
Our Epoch.

At this stage in time, we live in KALI YUGA, the last of the four periods (or eras) that, according to Vedic tradition, follow one another cyclically like the seasons. The age of KALI (Sanskrit word meaning black/obscure) despite great technological progress and discoveries in science, is considered an age of decline.

We must point out once again, that we Westerners, compared to the Vedic culture, look at time and history as something linear, which happens by progression. However, for the ancient Vedic people, the history of humanity and creation was conceived cyclically. That is, marked by epochs that began and ended to give birth to new ones.
We can say that Kali Yuga began about five thousand years ago.
This date is made to coincide with the departure of the Avatar Sri Krishna from Earth. The epics of the Supreme Personality are narrated in the Mahabharata (which contains the Bhagavad Gita) and other texts called Puranas.

The Kali Yuga is an Era of spiritual ignorance.
The previous Yugas or cycles, on the other hand, were characterised by the individual’s vast spiritual knowledge, long life and utmost virtue. However, each Yuga is followed by the decay of virtue. After the golden age of Satya Yuga, in which harmony, purity and virtue dwelled, comes Treta Yuga, in which virtue must be acquired through religious practices; in Dvapara Yuga, passion reigns, and religious practices are sustained by sacrifices etc.
Thus, Kali Yuga is a time populated by conflicts and clashes of all kinds. People’s positive qualities such as honesty, charity, benevolence, virtue, and interest in issues and practices aimed at spiritual upliftment, are progressively replaced by misbehaviour and negative attitudes such as manipulation, lies, indifference, cruelty, hypocrisy, thirst for power, and a growing interest in all that is exclusively material. In practice, this is the worst of times to happen, and history has amply demonstrated this, we need only move the clock back a few decades and we are in the midst of the Second World War, we take another step back and find a colonialist Europe engaged in the Atlantic slave trade; we rewind time by a few hundred years and we plunge into the Middle Ages where brigandage, torture, religious clashes, expeditions against heretics, the Inquisition and condemned to the stake abounded.

In thousand years of human history, we have documented more than five thousand wars, a record worthy of the Guinness Book of Records.

To give you proof of this anticipated wisdom, we will read a significant passage from the Visnu Purana (ancient Vedic scripture) that speaks of the current Kali Yuga era:

“…they will be kings of frivolous spirit, with violent tempers, and always addicted to lies and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children and cows; they will seize the property of their subjects. […] Their lives will be short, their desires insatiable, and they will show little mercy. […] Then property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the only bond of union between the sexes; lies will be the only means of success in disputes; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. The earth will be worshipped but only for its mineral treasures; […] weakness will be the cause of dependence; menace and conceit will replace learning; […] mutual agreement will be marriage….”

Fortunately, the Visnu Purana reassures us that all this evil will not be in vain and that at the end of this dark age, there will be events that will restore the Earth to an age of true splendour.

The characteristics of the present time clearly show that while the material aspect of civilisation is on the rise, the spiritual aspect is, as it were, in the dark. There is little to be done, ignorance (of the spiritual sphere) and egoism, are the prevailing order.
The physical and moral perfection, predominant in the psychophysical structure of man in the previous Ages/Yugas (such as Satya Yuga), has been gradually diminishing until it almost declines altogether in Kali Yuga.

But beware! We shall see that the Vedas also give us a final message that fully reverses the perspective adopted so far.

While it is true that we are now in a descending phase, it is equally true to say with certainty that sooner or later the ascending movement will begin, the movement that will bring attention back to spirituality, which according to the Vedic scriptures is estimated to take place many centuries from now.
This is not to say that there is nothing spiritual nowadays, but as we have seen in a previous article on Yoga, every practice in Kali is distorted, gutted, and mutilated from its deeper meaning.

To give you an example: in Kali Yuga, the Veda is divided into four main parts, plus other layers of it. In the golden age of Satya Yuga, all the literature we read in the Veda today (which is larger than the Bible) was contained in the single syllable OM.

The Vedic scriptures have very precise dates on the duration of each Age, but since this is a subject that needs in-depth and serious study on the subject, we have decided not to quote any of them to you, to stimulate you to go and find this information on your own should you be interested in the issue.

Here we are mainly interested in pointing out how accurately the Vedic scripts describe this Age (the Kali Yuga). We propose the translation of some (not all) passages found in another ancient text, the Srimad Bhagavatam, chant 12 chapter 2:

Text 1: Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: Then, O King, religion, truth, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, lifespan, physical strength and memory will decrease day by day due to the powerful influence of the Age of Kali.

Text 2: In the Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man’s good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only based on one’s power.

Text 3: Men and women will live together only by superficial attraction and success in business will depend on deception. Femininity and virility will be judged based on one’s experience in sex, and a man will be known as a brāhmana (sage) only because he wears a religious garment.

Text 4: A person’s spiritual position will be ascertained simply based on external symbols, and on the same basis people will change from one spiritual order to another. A person’s righteousness will be seriously questioned if he does not earn a good living. And one who is very adept at making puns will be considered a scholar.

Text 5: A person will be judged ungodly if he has no money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as a virtue. Marriage will be arranged simply by verbal agreement, and a person will think he is fit to appear in public if he/she has simply taken a bath (…).

Text 6: It will be considered that a sacred place does not consist of more than a tank of water located at a certain distance, and it will be thought that beauty depends on a person’s hairstyle. Filling one’s belly will become the goal of life and those who are audacious will be accepted as sincere. He who can maintain a family will be considered an accomplished man, and the principles of religion will be observed only for the sake of reputation.

Text 7: Because the land becomes so crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among whatever social class shows the strongest will gain political power.

Text 8: Losing their wives and possessions to such miserly and ruthless rulers, who will behave no better than common thieves, the citizens will flee to the mountains and forests.

Text 9: Tormented by hunger and excessive taxes, people resort to eating leaves, roots, meat, wild honey, fruit, flowers and seeds. Affected by scarcity, they will become completely ruined.

Text 10: Citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be further tormented by strife, hunger, thirst, disease, and severe anxiety…

The list goes on in equally shocking detail, but I think that will suffice for now.

It seems that in an Era such as this, where most people live amid spiritual degradation and are therefore oriented towards everything that concerns the satisfaction of their egos and physical urges, there is no possibility of escaping the influence of degradation. Instead, according to the Vedas, this dark age conceals a splendour that dazzles more intensely than any other age. While it is true that in earlier Yugas spiritual awareness and moral virtues were more common, it is equally true that it was much more difficult to achieve spiritual realization.

The Vedas tell us that to attain moksha (or spiritual liberation), aspirants had to engage in very difficult yoga and meditation practices that could last dozens and dozens of years, or perform heavy austerities, ceremonial rituals and recite long and complex Vedic formulae (Mantras in Sanskrit) with absolute precision; the slightly wrong intonation of even a single word would undo the whole process.
This, however, changes in the age of Kali Yuga, where while it is true that the majority of the population lives in complete spiritual ignorance, it is much easier to achieve spiritual realisation if one sincerely follows an authentic spiritual practice.

In a way, the Kali Era allows one to take an intensive path that, while requiring a little bit of commitment and endurance, consents to a quantum leap in the attainment of spiritual perfection. This is the so-called Blessing of the Kali Yuga, where the goal of striving for spiritual realisation is achieved faster.
According to the Vedas, the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra is the easiest, but also the most effective method of realisation for the Kali Yuga. Everyone can experience it: the chanting of the Maha-Mantra, coming directly from the Spiritual World, has the power to bring about spiritual ecstasy in those who chant or listen to it.

“The chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra is spiritual in nature, so it transcends the various levels of material consciousness, the physical, mental and rational. There is no need to understand the language of the mantra or give it an intellectual interpretation. Anyone can participate in the chanting of the Maha-Mantra without prior preparation.” A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Written by Marco

ps.: Here Marcello again,
A small note for those who wish to read parts of the fascinating Vedic world: Bhagavad Gita and Uddhava Gita are two important readings to understand this powerful philosophical thought.

Thank you for getting to the end of the reading. If you have got there, it means that a part of you is deeply interested in the mystery of life, it means that you do not want to live simply as a zombie, and it also means that your divine spark is full and alive within you.