Correcting the Ongoing Misperceptions of the Kali Yuga

After reading 'Our Ancient Origins: The Cycles of Time & The Kali Yuga' by V. Susan Ferguson as published on a website entitled Ancient Origins - Reconstructing the Story of Humanity's Past, I thought perhaps it is once again time to revisit the work of Vedic Cosmologist Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea) on this subject. In The Gnostic Circle she wrote: 

"We have stated that Kaliyuga is only the measurement of Time. For this reason, therefore, the count does not actually begin with Kaliyuga, 432,000 seconds of degrees of longitude-equivalent to four signs of the zodiac; Kaliyuga is simply our key of measurement. It can be understood how this figure would be the key to the measure of Time since it is also the radius of the Sun. The Sun's radius is the key of Truth in that it unites the outer circle of the disk (the Multiple) with the inner central core (the One). We could call this: 'The Measure of Unity.'…

"The Rig-veda also appears to contain the same key to the measurement of Time based on the Sun of Truth because it is said to have 432,000 syllables. 

 

"In the December 1972 issue of Mother India, the article entitled 'The Mysterious Yugas' marked the beginning of our attempt to decipher the secret of the Yugas. In that article certain essentials were brought forth which are still valid, but the fuller understanding had not yet come. It had been seen that the figures for the Yugas were seconds of degrees of longitude which were then to be converted into years by means of the precession of the equinoxes, and that at present we are, in fact, in the Satyayuga. But at that time there was too great a timidity to follow the movement through to its conclusion and be audacious enough to entirely re-arrange the count, based on the development of the numbers from 2 to 3 to 4, in this way moving from Dwapara to Treta to Satya. It was stated in the article that all the four Yugas would give us three rounds of the zodiac plus one third, and the one third made the design imperfect. Kaliyuga is only the key. In effect it does not exist, or, as was stated in the article: 'We are always in a Kaliyuga. The very fact that the word is also taken to mean black is another important key, because men have been under the yoke of illusion for thousands of years, since the death of Sri Krishna, whose name also means black, believing that they were in the Dark Age. In truth, mankind is in the 'dark' simply by not realising that there is no such thing as a Kaliyuga, and that in effect the Age of Darkness is only determined by an ignorance of Truth, which can come about in any Age. Man has believed himself to be in an age of darkness, which is only the illusion of Time, and consequently Time is illusion only in so far as vision is fragmentary. When one breaks through to a full vision of Truth, Time then is the key and saviour, not the bondage.

"The Kaliyuga exists whenever man has lost the Knowledge; then he becomes lost within the measure of Time, Kali, and cannot see beyond. He has divided time—past, present and future—and lost the vision of Unity whereby he is able to follow the real movement of the Ages. The man of ignorance is always bound by Kali to the wheel of life and death, and can never realise himself within the Age of Truth, while the gnostic being has the key of knowledge, the light of Immortality. 

"In a rather precise manner we can examine certain interesting facts of the Yugas, and show very accurately how we are in the Satyayuga, the Age of Truth, and have been for over 10,000 years. Since Kaliyuga is only the measurement, we begin the count of the Yugas with Dwapara, two times Kali, 864,000; after this we pass into Treta, three measures of Time; then Satya, four measures. There are then the numbers 4, 3 and 2, which are the very digits of the kali measurement: 432,000. They are, as well, the most important numbers in the structure of symbols: 2 equals the Line, 3 equals the Triangle, and 4 equals the Square. With these it is possible to construct the zodiac because 2, or the Line, is the division of feminine and masculine signs, 3, the Triangle, represents the energy flows of Creation, Preservation and Destruction (Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable), and 4, or the Square, is the division of the elements, Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Therefore these numbers, 4-3-2, are the basic numbers of the zodiac, as well as the measure of Time, and the zodiac is in effect the Great Timepiece; 4 + 3 + 2 equal 9, the number that absorbs all the others.... 

"The Sphinx was built precisely at the time the precession was passing over or within the vicinity of 0° Leo, carrying humanity into the Satyayuga, some 10,800 years ago." (pp. 62-63, 65, bold emphasis added)

Thus, Thea saw full Maha Yuga Count as equivalent to 3 Precessional Cycles (3 Great Years) consisting of 9 Kali Yuga (= 2 + 3 + 4), the Kali Yuga being equivalent to one-third (120° = 120° x 60' x 60" = 432,000") of the 25,920-year Precession of the Equinoxes. One-third (432,000") of the Great Year is equivalent to 8,640 years or 4 Astrological Ages.

In the view of the Maha Yuga cycle presented above, we can see that the Kaliyuga is the INTEGER, or the ONE of the circle of 9. I have tried to make this even more clear in the image to the right.

1 Kali Yuga = 1/3 Precessional Year

3 Kali Yuga = 1 Precessional Year

9 x 1 Kali Yuga = 3 Precessional Years 

In Symbols and the Question of Unity and in The Gnostic Circle, Thea introduced and presented the three Great Years (3 x 25,920 years) of the Maha Yuga cycle as the triple-spiral Map of the 12 Manifestation, each Manifestation representing one month/sign of the full zodiacal cycle.

PNB's teachings on the Kali Yuga and the Maha Yuga cycle reveal to us is that the truth of the measure of the Kali Yuga and the Maha Yuga cycle is inseparable from the measure of the Earth's 12-month Year (=the Vedic Year = Tropical Zodiac) and its 12-Age Great Year (=the 25,920-year Precession of the Equinoxes). 

(Revised October 2022)

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See also:
"The Map of the 12 Manifestations", Aeon Group (Robert Wilkinson)
"The Map of the 12 Manifestations", Aeon Centre Archives (Robert Wilkinson)
'Revisiting the Measure of the Yugas' (Lori Tompkins)
'Revisiting the Measure of the Yugas, continued' (Lori Tompkins)
'The Unifying Language' (Thea's comments on the Yuga issue)