Joseph Selbie - The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Mans Hidden Past, Emerging Present and Future Enlightenment : from the Teachings of Sri Yukteswar and Paramhansa Yogananda

The Yugas

The Yugas

Keys to Understanding Mans Hidden Past, Emerging Present and Future Enlightenment

From the Teachings of Sri Yukteswar & Paramhansa Yogananda

Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz

Foreword by Swami Kriyananda

crystal clarity publishers

nevada city, california

Crystal Clarity Publishers Nevada City, CA 95959

Copyright 2010 Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz

All rights reserved. Published 2010

Printed in China

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

ISBN13: 978-1-56589-253-8

ePub: 978-1-56589-634-5

Cover design and layout by Rene Glenn Designs

Interior design and layout by Crystal Clarity Publishers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Selbie, Joseph.

The Yugas : Keys to Understanding Mans Hidden Past, Emerging Present and Future Enlightenment : from the teachings of Sri Yukteswar and Paramhansa Yogananda / foreword by Swami Kriyananda ; by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-56589-253-8 (tradepaper, illustrations : alk. paper)

1. Yugas. 2. HistoryReligious aspectsHinduism. 3. Hindu cosmology. 4. Sri Yukteswar Giri, Swami, 1855-1936. 5. Yogananda, Paramhansa, 1893-1952. I. Steinmetz, David. II. Title.

BL1215.H577S45 2010

294.524dc22 2010000978

www.crystalclarity.com

800.424.1055 or 530.478.7600

clarity@crystalclarity.com

Dedication

We dedicate this book to the notion that understanding enables change, and to the observation that a new paradigm must be established before an old paradigm can fade away.

Contents

Foreword by Swami Kriyananda

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Yugas

1 The Cycle of the Yugas

2 The Kali Yugas

Our Emerging Energy Age

3 Ascending Dwapara Yuga The Energy Age

4 Ascending Dwapara Yuga Currents

5 Ascending Dwapara Yuga Emerging Trends

Our Enlightened Future

6 Ascending Dwapara Yuga The Future

7 Ascending Treta Yuga The Age of Thought

8 Ascending Treta Yuga Trends

9 Ascending Satya Yuga

Our Hidden Past

10 Descending Satya Yuga Three Misconceptions

11 Descending Satya Yuga Paradise

12 Descending Satya Yuga Unexplained Anomalies

13 Descending Treta Yuga The Vedas

14 Descending Treta Yuga The Conscious Matrix

15 Descending Treta Yuga Unexplained Knowledge

16 Descending Dwapara Yuga The Great Pyramid

17 Descending Dwapara Yuga Energy Awareness

18 Descending Dwapara Yuga Trends

19 Descending Dwapara Yuga Decline and Transition

20 Previous Yuga Cycles

Conclusion

21 The Tipping Point

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

Diagrams, Illustrations, and Images

Praise for The Yugas

About the Authors

About Swami Sri Yukteswar & Paramhansa Yogananda

Further Explorations

By Swami Kriyananda

I am sincerely pleased to be able to recommend this book, with enthusiastic applause. The subject has long interested me indeed, from my youth. But I am deeply impressed by the depth of research and the astuteness with which the authors have approached their subject. I have written several books myself that included some of the points contained here, but this book goes far beyond my own minor contribution to the subject.

It was Swami Sri Yukteswar, in his book The Holy Science, who first propounded this revolutionary explanation for changes that have occurred in human consciousness over the centuries. I had already written a source theme in high school for my English class, when I was sixteen, which showed my fascination even then with ancient civilizations. Not to belabor what may seem a purely personal point of view, what interested me then, and what interests me as much today nearly seventy years later, is that I found the traditional explanation for ancient civilizations wholly unsatisfactory. It made (and makes) no sense to me for mankind to have spent many thousands of years as a hunter and gatherer, and then suddenly to appear in a mere instant, so to speak, as the founder of great civilizations, complete with cities, industries, literature, education, and sophisticated cosmologies.

The name I chose for my source theme went something like this: Ancient civilizations and their view of the universe. (I had wanted to study, further, what it was in those civilizations that had influenced people to develop those views, but here I was forced to admit failure; I could discover no such subjective influences.)

Mankind must, from the start, have had all the intelligence he needed to build cities and, with them, the appurtenances of a sophisticated civilization. Indeed, Id read that the brain capacity of Cro-Magnon Man was larger than our own. And I wondered, on reading Egyptian history, how it happened that such a mighty civilization, after building the great pyramids, had descended to the level of mediocrity that has been evident in historic times. I simply wasnt convinced by the conclusions reached by the historians, developed from the data they had gathered. In fact, the more I read their conclusions, the more I inclined to agree with Napoleons statement, History is a lie agreed upon.

One thing that bothered me about the insights of so many historians, antiquarians, and other specialists was that they allowed facts to assume a separate reality of their own, seeming quite inadequate in their understanding of human nature. It was as if their approach to history had been only to gather those facts, but to make no attempt to place themselves actually in the shoes of the people they wrote about.

One wonderful thing about Sri Yukteswars revelations (and to me they did in fact seem revelatory) was that he wrote at a time when a descending cycle of enlightenment as described in this book could be observed merging historically into an ascending cycle, and bringing radical change in human awareness with the birth of our present era, or yuga, of energy. Many facts of history over the last three thousand years are more or less known. Sri Yukteswars explanation of those facts was, for me, deeply satisfying. This book presents his thesis with crystal clarity.

Selbie and Steinmetz have, in my opinion, produced a work of genius. They have gone, I think, as deeply into this subject as present-day knowledge permits. I am convinced that, living as we do in a cosmic environment, and one infinitely greater, therefore, than our environment on this little Earth, we are influenced also by that larger environment. We cannot but be affected: not only in our weather, but even in our consciousness. I am persuaded that many changes in human awareness take place not only because of the accretion of knowledge, but also in response to waves of conscious energy flowing into our planet from outside. For I believe that cosmic energy affects even human intelligence and awareness.

I am so enthusiastic on these points, indeed, that my very interest might induce me to repeat some of the points so excellently covered in this book! Let me therefore bow off the stage at this point, with only this comment: If you arent satisfied with what youve read, or been taught, about the linear development of civilization, you will find in this book an alternate picture of our Earths history that will, I think, thrill you.