This is perhaps the most difficult time the Earth has ever seen on a global scale. Yes, things are getting worse and more dangerous both for this planet and all the life it hosts and nurtures. Yet on the other hand, there is every reason to believe we are, also on a global scale, on the verge of entering a new and glorious era of wonderful achievements, both spiritual and material.

Will the latter trend prevail, and will the promise of a New, Golden Age become reality?

For the true believers in God’s promise, it will. They have no doubt of it. But they also know that for it to occur, the darkest hour of night, the one that precedes dawn, will come to pass first.

For those in the knowing, too, it is obvious that we are now in that darkest hour.

However, not all will think this way. For them, it may be necessary to approach this all-important matter by answering some specific questions in the first place.

So let’s be formal: are we really in the End Times? That is, are we in the End Times announced by Jesus Christ as imminent, according to the Gospels, about 2,000 years ago?

To answer this question, we must consider the time and the circumstances in which Jesus’ words were uttered.

Then, no matter what the Christian and Catholic exegetes may construe from those words, we must remember that what Jesus was referring to was the end of an age and not the end of the world, as explicitly mentioned in Matthew 24:3.

In this way, the question becomes like this: what age was the world in at the time of Jesus’ announcements? I am afraid the only source of knowledge for such a specific question is the Hindu tradition.

According to Bhagavata Purana (1, 14:1 ff), a most precious Hindu scripture which deals with the history of the universe, the advent of the present Kali-yuga, said to be the age in which we are immersed now, was heralded by portents of a fearful nature: the sacred images in temples seemed to weep and mourn, deception and misunderstanding polluted all dealings among relatives, and everywhere people were turning increasingly greedy and violent. Above all this, there prevailed severe disruptions in the characteristics of the seasons.

This would have occurred in 3102 BC as the Dvapara-yuga, the third age of the four that form a complete human cycle, came to an end.

Strange as such an early starting date may seem to us at present, it was confirmed in 476 BC by a famous Hindu astronomer named Aryabhata who said he was 23 years old when 3,600 years of the present Kali-yuga had elapsed, which yields 3,600 - 23 - 476 = 3101 BC. The difference of one year can be accounted for by the use of a “zero” year in the conversion to the Western calendar.

In connection with the likely starting point of the present Kali-yuga, some authors have highlighted the fact that, at some time in the sixth century BC, the traditional doctrines experienced diverse re-adaptations and reformulations in several key areas of the world: in Greece by Pythagoras, in Persia by Zarathustra, in China by Confucius, etc., re-adaptations which, considering the universality of the phenomenon, would have been a sort of preparation for the start of a new Era.

I must admit that this date around the sixth century BC, while imprecise, sounds more plausible as a starting point than 3102 BC, which crashes frontally with the believe in an uninterrupted progress of humanity from the development of agriculture and the invention of writing onwards. Yet in favor of 3102 BC can be argued, apart from an unusual planetary alignment depicted in the shastras, the singular coincidence with the “zero year” of the start of the Mayan and Egyptian civilizations (in 3113 BC the former, around 3100 the latter), without a doubt significant as such start coincides with the beginning of writing around the world and seems to draw, for the same reason, a veil between history proper - the written history - and pre-history, about which virtually nothing is known with absolute certainty.

Add to this the persistent allusions, in both oral and written tradition, to ancient, highly sophisticated civilizations spiritually more advanced than ours that disappeared as a consequence of dreadful cataclysms which erased all traces of their passage on Earth, and the picture becomes more complete: if one or more of these civilizations existed before our written history, then it would push the specific weight of history back by several millennia and turn the year 3102 BC into a comparatively recent date.

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Further, is the present time an age of immense progress as depicted by the technocrats, or rather a progression into chasm in every sense?

As is commonly known, India is at present probably the only country in the world where the traditional spiritual values have been kept almost in their entirety. And for those Hindus that have not been seduced by the false glow of Western progress, the whole of the last 5,000 years of history has been a process of gradual deterioration in all orders and life conditions. We would be now in the dreadful times announced by the sacred books of India where “all castes will be intermingled,” where “family itself will no longer exist.”

In fact, we are now in a time when disorder and chaos prevail in all orders and have reached a point that exceeds by far all that had been previously seen. A stop would no longer be possible, since according to the warnings from the traditional doctrines, we have indeed entered the final phase of the Kali-yuga, “the darkest period of the Dark Age.”

We must add that not only is this an atheistic, violent and degraded Era, but it also entails the risk of total annihilation of mankind.

It is amazing that only one century ago, many voices predicted scientific and technical advances that would “very soon put an end to of all the worlds’ evils”, a progress that would bring “unlimited happiness” to humankind.

Well, since then there have only been atrocious wars, the nuclear threat got started, unknown diseases appeared, and moral, social and political decay has reached extreme levels throughout the world to such an extent, that the entire society would seem to relentlessly drift toward anarchy. Violence has become common to an unheard-of extent particularly in the large cities literally submerged in drugs and pornography, and where it shows up in atrocious modes like urban terrorism.

On the other hand, we only need to open the papers to be appalled by the gradual, increasingly accelerated deterioration of the environment, the growing contamination of rivers, seas and lakes, the extinction of forests and whole animal species by the hand of man, the more and more frequent natural disasters which, caused basically by the current global warming (in turn forced by a disproportionate boom of the industrial activity) include the progressive desertification of the Earth, atmospheric exhaustion, draughts, floods, earthquakes and cataclysms resulting in casualties by the millions every year… need I go on?

Yes, there is every reason to believe that we are in the last days of the present cycle and that the end of our civilization, as we know it, is already close at hand.

This admitted, we have only left to know how that end could be like.

According to Bhagavata Purana (3, 11:29 ff), at the end of the “millennium” the devastation is produced, at an early stage, by the “fire that is emitted by the mouth of Sankarsana”, which wreaks havoc on the “three inferior worlds” during one hundred years of the demigods (36,000 human years).

This version matches exactly a Nordic tradition according to which at the time of the world destruction (the ragnarok), from the mouth of Surt, “the Black One”, radiate devastating flames. Of course, the allusions to fire may refer to great volcanic eruptions or to the increasingly frequent forest fires that are currently taking place throughout the world.

Then, during other 36,000 years, there are gales and torrential rains accompanied by raging waves that cause the seas to overflow. Of course, on the human level, the afore-mentioned figures are to be considered symbolic; in connection with the human cycle, the 72,000 years of devastation very likely are only equivalent to 72 years, so that what we may well refer to as “the beginning of end” could actually be situated around this very year 2010 AD.

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There is a serious study by the Red Cross, probably the most important that they have ever undertaken, whose main conclusion is that the situation depicted is absolutely real, global and - even worse - irreversible, as it has become a cyclic process of huge dimension. Started mainly with irresponsible tree chopping and excessive industrial emissions, this destructive cycle would seem to have been brought about not only to the effect of destroying all life on our planet, but also to end its very existence by raising the sea levels, thereby completely changing the weather patterns and the seasons plus causing major landslides and draughts and all the other described phenomena. As to the likely date of the imminent collapse - or “rupture”, as it is called - the Red Cross estimated it at, again, approximately 2010 AD.

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

The Garden of Earthly Delights, right panel's top
by Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450 - 1510)