Treta Yuga
The next epoch, known as the Treta Yuga, is part of an ancient model of the evolution of Gaia and of humanity which originates from ancient Indian religious texts called the Vedas. It works through four great epochs or cycles, known as yugas, which have been mathematically calculated and revised in many ways.
Essentially, we begin in perfection, which we then fall from in a great arc, letting go gradually and forgetting more and more until we are at the bottom, at the base, where we have fallen completely into the material world, and are completely separate from our spiritual origins. And although heaven and earth are a long way apart, we then begin to ascend again. The current rises, remembering itself as it climbs to the top, when we have a gradual synthesising of the material and the spiritual, the above and below.
We begin in perfection.
The happy ending is that we arrive back where we began but we are richer through the journey. It is the Arc of the Aeons, and is a wonderful riddle.
The model that I have found most useful is the one by Sri Yukteswar, a great sage. He postulated that the nadir, the base, where we sank to the deepest part, known as the Kali Yuga, was around 500 AD, which is the Dark Ages, and after that point we began to move up again, and we have been ascending ever since. The process is really interesting when you get into the nitty gritty, because in each yuga are sub-yugas of the whole map, almost like a hologram, and then each one of them again is a sub-sub-yuga. You can really see the patterns within the patterns.
It used to be that we were aware of the magic of life, the magical connection between all things, where matter and spirit were combined. We were a bit of both, and so we were able to manipulate matter in different ways and were more merged with the field of consciousness. Slowly as we came down on the Arc, we forgot the magic and lost track of it, until we sank into the material world and forgot our divine origins entirely. The descent was about forgetting, about coming from a magical world and then forgetting that world, and those magical practices becoming solidified or hardened. That is what happened in many great religious practices, which were initially of the magical reality, but became increasingly ritualised until they were empty, because we had forgotten the magical world.
We are now beginning the ascent in something called the ascending Dwapara Yuga, as opposed to its descending stage. Coming up from the base is about the ascent back to the magical through the material. We have to rise up through mastering the material realm, which is where science comes in, and a different pattern of ascension. In the Dwapara Yuga, where we are now, we are remembering and understanding the material plane more and more. The next stage is the Treta Yuga, which will come in a couple of thousand years from now, and will last for many thousands of years.
We have to rise up through mastering the material realm.
I was trying to envisage that future, where we will remember more of ourselves, when I was out running one day. I happened to be on a golf course at the time, and it got me thinking back to when I was younger and quite a good golfer. Those outside it may find golf hard to appreciate, but it is a really contemplative sport, because it is just you alone, your swing, your rhythm, the ball and the hole – that’s it. It is all down to you, and there is a purity to that.
The rhythm of your swing is an unconscious thing and when you are in harmony, it is the sweetest feeling when you connect with the ball. To be a master of any sport you have to practice it over and over again until that sweet spot has become ingrained in you. But in the Treta Yuga, I saw that every shot you took would be in the sweet spot because it would be in harmony with the Tao. Imagine you got a hole-in-one every time. It would be regarded as a miracle, with every shot taken in harmony with all that is, and the game would be no longer a game. You could never lose. It would be like those wonderful films where great martial artists end up conspiring together because they are so equal in their mastery that neither can win.
You could also apply this to running, which is another thing that I love to do. Imagine you are in an immortal body. You would be able to run for weeks without stopping or tiring because your energy field would be connecting to the quantum realm and drawing its sustenance from it. The joy of the run itself would nourish you. There would be an endless pulsing rhythm and flow, and you would be able to run and run, and be in ecstatic bliss forever.
There would be an endless pulsing rhythm and flow.
Think about a football team, in the consciousness together – the perfection of the passing, the movement, the rhythm, the flow, the positioning of each player, in perfect synchronisation with the whole. They would be unbeatable, and boring to play against because every time you tried to find a weak spot the team would automatically shift into another unbeatable sequence. You might think of swimming.
In the Treta Yuga, you would be able to hold your breath underwater indefinitely, just drawing breath from your inner core, from the deep pulse coming from inside you. You could swim with the whales and dolphins, and glide down to great depths with your organs able to adjust to the immense pressure.
In the Treta Yuga, if you sat down to play the piano and thought of someone you love, you would start to play the music of their soul. It would emerge through the consciousness field, and out through your hands because of your great love. I imagine many musicians will have experienced that. In the Treta Yuga, you would not have to become a musician or even practice because in the consciousness field, mastery would be interchangeable. You could sit down never having played the piano and through your love and the soul of the one you love coming through your hands, you would make the greatest music.
In the consciousness field, mastery would be interchangeable.
With architecture, the architect would go out into the landscape, look at it and see the perfect building that has grown out of the landscape and is already there, in its wholeness. The architect would simply recreate that in the material realm because the imprint of it is there. They would see it in perfect harmony with that particular piece of the landscape and its energies. It would be a place of pure harmony and beauty.
Think about sculpture and the uncarved block. The sculptor would take a block of wood or stone, and through their love the shape would materialise as they remove what is not needed, to reveal the sculpture within. This would not be the domain of just a few masters but everyone ascending into this higher consciousness.
I want to encourage this kind of thinking. It broadens horizons, expanding the sense of boundlessness and of what is possible. We are in a different yuga right now, but to know where we are going gives a great perspective on where we are. It lightens the load in some way to know that is what we truly are.
We are magical beings.
We are magical beings, and step by step we are going to remember that. We are going to regain those heightened states, those natural states in which the material and the spiritual come together, and we will perfect the physical plane, we will perfect ourselves and our world, and we will perfect our soul. That is the purpose of being here – for the perfecting of our souls and the perfecting of all that is around us.
More Resources
If you’d like to explore this theme more deeply, take a look at Richard’s recommended article and book – gentle companions for your further contemplation:
Keys to the Yugas or Cycles of the Ages: Subyugas in the Sri Yukteswar Yuga Cycle – article by David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri),Â
