By Sharron Rose
If one does not understand how the fire came to be, he will
burn in it, because he does not know his root. If one does
not first understand the water, he does not know anything
. . . If one does not understand how the wind that blows came
to be, he will run with it. If one does not understand how
the body that he wears came to be, he will perish with it
. . . Whoever does not understand how he came will not understand
how he will go.
-Dialogue of the Savior" from the Nag
Hammadi Library
Myth is the history of the soul; the memory of our greater
Being; ritual and sacrament are the reminders. In the continuing
Fall the part breaks away from the Whole; to make something
sacred, one must reconnect the part to the universal Whole.
-William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling
Bodies Take to Light
From the time I was first introduced to the teachings on
the yugas or cyclic ages of humanity by my Guruji Sitara Devi,
I was fascinated by this ancient view of history in which
the goddess plays such a dominant role. Over the ensuing years,
as I continued my quest to uncover both the sacred mysteries
of the goddess and the feminine experience, I began to discover
that there were teachings comparable to these in the mystic
traditions of many of the world’s great religions. These
teachings bring to light a very different view of history
than the one we have been presented with in our schools and
universities. It is this alternative view of history that
I present to you in this chapter, which I offer as a conclusion
to Part I of The Path of the Priestess. Based upon
my years of research and experience in these sacred traditions,
it is designed to provoke contemplation about who we really
are by opening your eyes to an extraordinary metaphysical
perspective on history, spirituality, and the power of the
feminine principle that has been handed down to us through
the ages.
As you become acquainted with this traditional perspective
on the perpetual stream of human events please keep in mind
that they unfold over vast expanses of time, and that from
our current location in this unfolding the veils between the
spiritual and the material worlds have become so thick that
unless we have had the great fortune to be initiated into
the mystic teachings, we can only speculate on what has transpired.
Clearly these teachings counter our modern-day view of the
evolution of humanity.
Prior to the art of writing the history of humanity was
passed down through oral tradition from mother to daughter,
father to son, elders to community members. Today the only
remnants we have of these early events are the myths and legends
that have survived through time. The imparting and recording
of events is and has always been a relative activity based
on the social imprinting and unique perspective of the person
witnessing the events. Every culture has its own special view
and agenda. When we look back into what we know as documented
history, we can n see that stories were often written and
rewritten, tales were told, altered or repressed according
to the worldview of the dominant civilization. Many believe
that beneath the linear history of our material world lies
another story: the story of the sacred mysteries, the hidden
history of the human race. Our ancient ancestors from civilizations
the world over postulated that all life flows in great transformative
cycles, from the seasons of nature to the phases of the moon
and the birth, growth, maturation, and death of all living
creatures. They explained that just as we individuals experience
the ebb and flow of these smaller cycles, humanity as a whole
experiences the rise and fall of a larger cycle. In the Indo-Tibetan,
Bon, Zoroastrian, Greek, and alchemical traditions, this great
cycle was said to be composed of four yugas, or ages
of humanity.1
According to the ancient texts the cycle of the ages begins
with a Golden Age of beauty, harmony, and grace, an age in
which both female and male are fundamentally connected with
their own divinity and living lives of truth, fully aligned
with the universal spirit.2 But as the ages progress
metaphorically from gold to silver, bronze, and iron, humanity
draws farther away from the radiant light of spirit. We move
toward an age of total materialization and concretization,
a time of ignorance and delusion, a time in which the bright
light of spirit is all but extinguished. The ancients called
this age the Kali Yuga, the Age of Iron.
This is the age in which we now reside, and in keeping with
the teachings of a number of current spiritual groups, it
is the age from which we are now emerging.3 It
is the age in which the Tantric texts foretold that the great
dark goddess Kali would rise up and perform her powerful dance
of destruction and transformation. Through this transformative
dance she will draw all the dark and destructive energy of
this yuga into the secret core of her being. Then from the
depths of her heart, the source of infinite wisdom and compassion,
she will absorb and transmute this energy, cleansing and purifying
earth and mankind alike. Through this primordial dance, the
veils that have blinded us to our own radiance will be lifted.
Humanity will then awaken to its immortality and enter a new
Golden Age of divine insight and luminosity.
The texts tell us that as each of the four ages arises and
ripens faith, integrity, and allegiance to spiritual values
are decreased by one-fourth. A symbolic image that is often
given to illustrate the increasing loss of spirit and its
resulting acceleration of weakness and infirmity in humanity
is that of a cow who in the first age, or Satya Yuga is standing
boldly and resolutely upon its four legs. With the passing
of each of the yugas the noble cow forfeits the use of one
of its legs, as one-fourth of human virtue is lost. Therefore,
in the Silver Age, or Treta Yuga, the cow stands on three
legs. With the arrival of the Bronze Age, or Dvapara
Yuga, the troubled cow stands on only two legs, as
virtue and spiritual essence are now depleted by half. By
the appearance of the Kali Yuga, or Age of Iron, the barren,
tormented cow has only one leg left to stand on. Humanity,
shrouded in the increasing darkness of depravity and corruption,
retains only one-fourth of the original light of spirit.4
The cow is a symbol that can be found in cultures throughout
the world. Feminine in form, she stands for fertility, nourishment,
support, and preservation. She represents the mother, our
first teacher, and our eternal patroness of righteousness
and integrity. She is the strong and solid foundation upon
which the spiritual sustenance of humanity rests. Isn’t
it fascinating that a feminine symbol should be used to transmit
these teachings of the cyclic destruction of humankind? Could
this mean that, contrary to our contemporary Western indoctrination
of the spiritual power of women, it is women who hold the
primary responsibility for maintaining spiritual and moral
alignment? Could this also mean that as the light of spirit
diminishes and as women increasingly turn away from their
true spiritual natures and primary roles as teachers and nurturers,
all of us–both female and male--degenerate?
As the ages unfold, not only do we lose our spiritual luminosity
but also we become densified, more material and corporeal.
We are born fresh, pure, and newly formed, projected from
the formless heart of Divinity. In the beginning, at the instant
of creation, the moment that the divine androgyne reflects
on itself and divides into essence and energy, when Shiva
sends out his Shakti and the Lord God sends out his Shekhina,
we emerge from the heart of emptiness in an exquisite display
of vibration, sound, and light.5 Radiating with
the pure light of spirit, filled with endless vitality, we
are in tune with every subtle nuance of universal expression.
But according to this view, in this cyclic dance of creation
the time of harmony must end. From the exquisite radiance
of the first moment of creation the process of entropy ensues.
Entropy is the second law of thermodynamics, and it states
that everything in the universe is slowly disintegrating.
While it is true that matter cannot be destroyed, as time
passes it does move into a more ineffectual state. In our
reality all systems are prone to eventual breakdown, death,
or transformation to another mode of being. This is true of
the human body, the trees and plants, and the stars and planets.
For example, even though the matter that makes up a log is
not destroyed by a fire, it is reduced to ashes, which are
a disintegrated form of the wood. The key word here is disintegration–the
movement away from the integrated or unified state. As this
happens there is an incremental increase in the number of
souls born; a decrease in strength and longevity; and a proliferation
of disease, suffering, and madness.6
Through this entropic process of descent from the primordial
unity into separation and densification, spiritual authority
is traded for secular domination, quality is exchanged for
quantity, and the sacred vanishes into the profane. In fact,
the end of a cycle appears to be the inversion of the beginning,
and the world’s values are turned upside down.7
As a parallel to the fast-paced times in which we live, it
is also interesting to note that during the progression of
the cycle time literally speeds up, with life passing by at
an increasing velocity until time itself ends and the present
manifestation is dissolved and a new Mahayuga, or great cycle,
begins.8
How does this view of the development of the ages–with
its emphasis on the increasing loss of spiritual union, intimacy,
beauty, and truth–apply to our quest for understanding
of the feminine experience? Recently many scholars have postulated
that there was a time in which our current male and female
roles were reversed, a time in which women held dominion.
However, when one looks back in time from the perspective
of the continuous cycles of the ages, or yugas, new insights
into the relationship between woman and man and humanity and
Divinity begin to emerge.
Introduction
The
Bronze Age: The Age of Doubt
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