There are four yugas-periods mentioned in our scriptures. After the mass creation - starts Krita/Satya Yuga, followed by Treta, Dvaapara and Kaliyuga. End of kaliyuga brings mass destruction. We at present are living in Kaliyuga.
This is a dialogue between Sri Maitrai and Maharishi Parashara, mentioned in the Vishnu Purana 6.1 about kaliyuga.
Maharishi Parashara said “Humans in kaliyuga do not follow their duties according to their Varna and dharma.
(Dharma means virtue, moral values and doing actions in accordance to one’s birth lineage. Varna is a very interesting word, which means divisions or grouping (it does not mean caste, caste is a negative word and there is no scope of negativity in scriptures) as per one’s liking and profession. There is a mention of four varnas in our scriptures, Brahmin- who have a goal to attain wisdom/ self knowledge.
Kshatriya- who have a goal to attain name and fame.
Vaishya- who have a goal to earn money.
Shudra- who have a goal in pleasure seeking.
The entire humanity comes under these four goals called varnas.)
Marriages will not be performed and sustained as per dharma, belief in marriage will be less. There will be no order in following Guru-shishya, husband-wife or yajna-kriya karmas. Powerful people are going to be own everything despite of their varna and will be capable of marrying anyone’s daughter. “Diksha” would be done even done with prohibited liquids and any karma (by choice) will be considered as penance/austerity.
In kaliyuga, scriptures would be anything said by anyone, anyone including ghosts, dead bodies or cremated will be considered Gods and will have different ashrams/places of worship. Pilgrimages, fast, austerity and charity will be according to one’s personal thinking.
People in kaliyuga will consider them “wealthy” with little money and woman will consider them beautiful because of their hair. There will be scarcity of gold, gems, jewels and fine clothes, therefore women will adorn themselves through different hair-styles. A lady will renounce her husband, if he became poor. Only a wealthy man will remain married in kaliyuga. The rich will be powerful and wealth alone would mean “ownership” and not caliber. People will spend savings in building a house- not charity, mind in accumulating money- not self-knowledge and wealth in gaining pleasures- not entertaining guests.
Women in kaliyuga would seek handsome men and men would seek other’s wealth. People will become selfish and will not offer even a single penny to blood relatives. There will be revolution done by people (who are engaged in pleasure seeking) to gain equality with the wise. Cows will be respected only because they give milk. Humans will keep staring the sky due to hunger, thirst and drought. Humans will live on fruits, salads and vegetable, yet be restless and commit suicide. Incapable people will face dearth and pain.
People will eat before taking a bath, will not honor guests, fire and Gods and will also not follow rituals related to dead.
Women of kaliyuga will be short heighted, foodie, lusty, have more offspring and will not be very lucky. They will disobey their husband and gurus by scratching their heads with both the hands. Women of kaliyuga will only be concerned of earning money for themselves, pleasure seeking, staying dirty/unclean, talking rude and useless. The high society females will seek characterless males, misbehave and will humiliate men.
The kings will not protect their citizens and will snatch away their wealth in the name of taxes. The one with more wealth, luxuries and comforts will rule, and poor will serve despite of any other relation or qualification. Vaishyas will follow shudra dharma and shudras will start asking for alms after taking samnyasa. People will leave for foreign countries which grow rice and barley because of heavy taxation and corruption by the king.
Life span will start decreasing because of decline of Vedic path, selfishness among people and follow of adharma. And then, kids will start dying because of kings’ defects and people following adverse duties. Since people will be of low intellect, doing useless jobs and other demonic actions, they will die soon.
A wise should consider it to be kaliyuga when belief in dharma starts to decline and hypocrisy rises. People start cheating and destroying others. Wise people who follow vedic path become rare. Work started by dharmic people doesn’t get done and they are disrespected, means kaliyuga is at rise. People will stop worshipping Lord Vishnu and will become hypocrites and say things like “what is the use of worshipping Gods, tattva-jnaanis (knowers of self-knowledge) and Vedas or following prescribed karmas like bath/cleanliness etc.?”
There will be a shortage of water everywhere, crops will yield less and fruits will be less juicy. There will be artificial clothes, shami-sponge trees and all the four varnas will behave like shudra varna. Grain size will decrease, goat milk will be available and vetivar grass will be used for bathing.
Men will treat in-laws as guru, wife as better-half and brother-in-law as friend. They will tell their father-in-law “no one is anyone’s father or mother, humans keep taking birth and death as per their karmas.”
Being less-educated, people will keep doing papah karmas again and again through their body, speech and mind.
Men will be in immense pain because of attachment with samnsara They will consider them powerful because of petty accumulations. They will have unclean habits and loose-character. Dharma will be very scarce due to less belief and resources.
But, a human can gain “supreme punyas” by doing minimum efforts in kaliyuga which are equal to doing great austerities in Satya-yuga.
Lord Shiva tells his consort Paarvati about kaliyuga:
Shiva mahapurana rudra samhita 21.23:
Trailokye bhaktisadrshah panthaa naasti sukhaavahah,
Chaturyugeshu deveshi kakao tu suvisheshatah.
Lord Shiva says “there is no other path better than bhakti which gives immense happiness especially in kaliyuga, in all the three worlds.”
There is no buyer of jnaanam and vairagyam in kaliyuga, they have therefore become old and have decayed. My bhakti is the mother of Jnaanam and vairagyam and mukti is her maid.
Gaining moksha is very easy in Kaliyuga.
Om Tat Sat
Raadhaa Acharya
