The nature of time in the Vedic Hindu universe.
The presentation summarises the way time is presented in the ancient Vedic scriptures
of India, and its very different from the modern approach I have to say.
In the first part I will be explaining a little bit about the macroscopic cyclic time.
And in the second part I'll talk something about relative time. Note that different
understandings of time challenges conventional views of human history.
For example, due to the last Ice Age, which they say ended about 9700 BCE,
parts of the world were indeed either uninhabitable or so called primative.
However the Vedic scriptures describe a history of of complex civilisations
based around the South Asian region, and they go back a very very long way indeed.
So, lets get started. Part one:
Now let's look at cyclic time. Now most people imagine time as something linear
with a definable beginning middle and end. That principle is even applied to theories
of the origin of the human species and even our possible future. But this
is where the Vedas / Puranas differ. This of course is not correct. Time rather is
described as a cycle, just like nature itself is governed by cycles. In fact the earth
as a whole has its own cycles and there are cycles within cycles within cycles. There
are cycles that apply in the Vedas across this universe.
The smallest cycle that affects many planets simultaneously is known as a Maha
Yuga. It's a 4.32 million year cycle of four yugas.
4.3 million earth years and as it goes on from the beginning of the Satya Yuga there's a
decline of austerity, mercy, cleanliness and truth in the human population. At the end
of the Kali Yuga there's a replenishment and so the Satya Yuga starts again. Let's look at some
of the qualities of those yugas. In the Satya Yuga, divine and demoniac
mentalities don't occupy the same planets but rather different
parts of the universe. In the Satyayuga thankfully the earth
is on the side of the good guys, the demigods. The
avatar of the Satyayuga. One such is Lord Nrsimhadeva.
Some of the great sages and others of the population can live for a hundred thousand
earth years and the process of self-realization unsurprisingly
is deep meditation. In the Treta yuga, the divine and demoniac people
can live on the same planet, born in different countries.
The avatar for the Treta Yuga is the Lord Rama and
again some of the great mystic yogis and so forth can live up
to ten thousand earth years and the process of self-realization is elaborate sacrifices. Now
in the Dvarpa Yuga, divine and demonic mentalities can appear in the same family. Lord
Krishna appears towards the end of this Dvarpa
yuga. Great personalities live up to about maybe a
thousand up to about a thousand years and the process
for them is elaborate temple and deity worship now. For the final part we're in now,
the divine demonic mentalities can appear well within the same person at any minute. The
Avatar for this Kali Yuga is Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and
people live up to well about 100 years if they're lucky. And the process for the age of
Kali is the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra especially Hare Krishna Hare
Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare
Hare. Closing in here: let's have a look at the Kali Yuga part
here, closing in even further let's look at the beginning section of the Kali Yuga. That's it
going in... so at the end of the Dvarpa Yuga we have of course the description of the
Mahabharat: Bheesma, Dronacarya and so on and so forth all
these different characters. But then let's have a look now at just the where we are now actually
just the beginning stages of the Kali Yuga looking
at some recognizable history. So the Mahabharata essentially ended about 3102
BCE at least the end of the battle etc look at the the Egyptian empire time
of the Greeks the Romans and the European Renaissance and the time of exploration and
the modern day today. I'll explain the colors of this in a minute. This
kind of green or this yellow is what we call now a Golden Age. Let me explain, let's focus
in first of all let's look at some spiritual teachers along this timeline. Here's Lord
Buddha, Lord Jesus Christ, Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya,
Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and I'm also going to mention A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami here.
And this is the Golden Age. So the Golden Age actually
actually kind of technically started with the advent of Lord Caitanya
Mahaprabhu but we're kind of now in a stage of transition
because I wouldn't necessarily describe this age as particularly golden where we are
now. But we're in a transitional stage where spiritual life is certainly available and of
course the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. Let's close in a little bit more
perhaps. Around 1486 the birth of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu
and Srila Prabhupada's mission to bring the holy name around the
world was in about started around 1966. However we still got a little
bit more way to go to start the Golden Age properly but we are
in a stage of transition. Let's look at that this darker red
line representing the materialistic attitude of the world which will gradually
reduce and spirituality will gradually take over. So when
the Golden Age begins in earnest that will be when spirituality
will become larger factor in life generally around the world than the
materialistic one, and then the Golden Age will surely take
off. It will last for about ten thousand years but then after that - - the Kali Yuga really takes
hold: there'll be ongoing spiritual decline. Looking
again at the the Yuga cycle as a whole: the demigods come at the end of the Kalyuga
when things get really bad and the demigods come to replenish it. As mentioned and then
a new cycle begins again with the Satya yuga, but interestingly enough all the other yuga
cycles actually have the Treta and Dvarpa in and in
fact at the moment we're in the 28th. I'll explain that in a moment.
Jiva Goswami wrote third age. Lord Rama would have been there which
is about seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty three thousand 17,253
thousand (sorry)... 17, 253,000 years ago. That's
a very very long time ago but some other people would say well place
Lord Rama at the end of the Treta yuga of this cycle, meaning
maybe about 800,000 odd years ago. But of course avatars can come more than
once. Backing off here, you can see where we are
according to this time scale. The last time large dinosaurs roamed this planet wasvabout 65
million years ago there's a T-Rex there. I'm just showing you how
the Vedic and the kind of modern time scales of understanding of history
coincide or could potentially coincide. Now one manvantara
is 71 maha yuga cycles, the life of one Manu And at the beginning of the end of
each manvantara of 71 Yuga-cycles there's a partial devastation which
often involves avatars of Vishnu. One day of Lord Brahma is 14 manvantaras
which all together is 4.32 billion years long. Let's
have a look at that close in. Let's look at the first half of this day of Lord Brahma the
first manvantara of this day of Brahma. Kadama Muni and Devahuti
were there and it's also the white incarnation of
Vraha, who picked up the earth from the bottom of the Garbhodakasayi Ocean.
In the Uttama Manu was Maharaja Priyavata who created or divided the earth and the solar
system as we recognized it today. In the Caksusa Manu, the previous Manu is the
red incarnation of Varaha who had a fight and defeated of course Hiranyaksha and at the
end of the Caksusa Manu is Matysa the fish incarnation.
And we are presently in the Visvavata Manu which is well about we're about there now.
Lord Brahma's time scale this is really fascinating as we know that Kalpa is 4.32 billion
earth years long. This yellow line here represents his day and the darker lines his
night. The modern estimated age of the earth is about 4.5 billion years so how would we put the
two together here? um Compare a night of Lord Brahma, a day and look at the history
of the earth according to the modern understanding. It'll
be a bit like that. It's interestingly the earth as
we'd recognize it today would indeed correspond with the beginning of the daytime of Lord Brahma.
The night time however the previous night of Lord Brahma where the earth would certainly
be in a primordial state. Going back: days and nights of Lord Brahma so we're back we just see
about three or four days and nights here of Lord Brahma so just his day there
but also his nights are also 4.32 billion years long. And
just like us days and nights go consecutively. Part Two
Looking at relative time across the populated Vedic universe:
Here's a man experiencing on the earth experiencing about for example eight seconds
Now most animals perceive time at a finer resolution than humans. That's because
they process sensory information at a faster rate, so
here's an animal here typical random animal there. I think
that's a chameleon. So his eight seconds appears longer, he can do more in eight
seconds. Movements and events appear to unfold more
slowly to them. It's all relative. If you look at something like a
fly... a fly can do a hell of a lot in eight seconds that's why they
move so fast. To a fly we move very slow. Now let's go in the
reverse direction: A demigod for example - eight seconds will be
much less to be experienced by the demigod. What to speak of Lord
Brahma...eight seconds will be well...can hardly know what it
is. He would blink an eye and thousands of years would go by on his planet,
on our planet compared to his rather.
This is because his subtle forms come created first from the top of the Vedic
universe and then later gross forms are created and subtle and gross
experience time differently. And accordingly 14 divisions of
humanoid populated planets across the universe graded vertically
according to time as well as consciousness. Let's have a look another way of looking
at it: Humankind there in the middle of the earth it's including both subtle and gross
elements. We're influenced by both but as we go up towards the
planet of Lord Brahma there's an increase of subtle matter. As we go down
towards the atoms there and there's an increase of gross
matter and thus time is experienced differently. Here's an example
of relative time: five minutes in heaven equals eg five years on earth,
and equals ten thousand years in hell. That's a long time but hopefully it's not that long. Here's
another example here of relative time: So
the time on one planet passes at a different rate to
another. Here's the earth time going by whereas this other planet, perhaps a more heavenly
one, things are going well quite differently. And here's a very good example here: remember
4.32 billion years on the earth is equal to simply to one day of Lord Brahma.So
thank you very much indeed. I know it's a
lot to absorb... but you DID take the red bill didn't you?
So thank you very much for watching. Take care and feel welcome, and stay in touch.