THE GOLDEN AGE
THE GOLDEN AGE
It was not always so. The earliest of times, according to the classical writer Hesiod, were a "golden age." Men lived as gods, with their hearts free from sorrow, in a land abundant in fruit and rich in flocks. The Greek philosopher Dicaearchus, of the late fourth century BCE, tells us more, that godlike men lived a life of leisure, health, peace, and friendship, without care or toil or the desires that lead to feuds and wars. "Their life was easy for their food and all things grew spontaneously" (Heinberg 1995). But these halcyon days came to an end; there was progressive degeneration through the ages of silver, brass, heroes, and iron.
This step-by-step decline is a universal theme. The Hindu tradition identifies four epochs, and each one was marked by a decline in moral and physical standards. The Kriti Yuga was the perfect age. Man had no worldly desires, diseases, sorrows, or fears. There was supreme happiness, continual delight, and the ability to move about at will.
THE GOLDEN AGE (continued)
"The things the people needed spontaneously sprang from the earth everywhere and always whenever the mind desired it, and there was no need for houses either." The Treta, Dvapara, and Kali Yugas followed this wonderful Kriti Yuga. With each age man's virtue lessened by a quarter, so in the Kali Yuga, our present age, only one-quarter of man's virtue remains. Now, as is very apparent, we are afflicted by disease and suffering. Men have turned to wickedness, decadence, and materialism. There is pain, sorrow, continual dissatisfaction, and craving.
~Return to the brain of Eden
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