SECTION VI. THE SILVER AGE.
Thus, during the first quarter of the Golden Age, covering 1,000 divine years, which are equal to 360,000 lunar years, its predominant spirituality sustains itself in its full vigor. The next quarter is almost equally powerful in spirituality. But after the middle is passed, a little decline is perceptible, not so much in spirituality as in the outward habits of the people. During this period the Vedic truths reveal themselves through the mediums of the entranced minds of some of the highly illuminated men. Now, what is a Vedic truth? It is an expression in sound-form of one of the inmost laws of Nature. Before this period the Golden Age people breathe, move and have their being in these laws—as sensitive embodiments of these laws. They are, as it were, moving Vedas—human flesh-vehicles moved and manipulated from within by the basic laws of all Existence. The predominant Sattwa in its extreme purity, which is the essence of physical Nature in the Golden Age, blends with these laws so harmoniously that they form the self-acting mechanism of all motion of its materialized counterpart. So long as these people are in perfect unison with these inner laws, vibrating spontaneously with their vibrations, they are quite unconscious of the operations of these laws, or even of the laws themselves within them: so long they live as unconscious moving manifestations of the laws. But the moment they become conscious of them, then that consciousness expresses itself in the form of thoughts, and these thoughts find expression in words through the medium of some entranced minds. These are called the Eternal Truths of the Veda, truths which are the foundations and sources of all truths promulgated by the illumined sages of all climes and times ever afterwards.
Just as, so long as we are perfectly healthy, we remain unconscious of our health and enjoy the blessing of health most; but when some disorder creeps into our system, we become conscious of it and feel indisposed and try to adjust its lost equilibrium. Towards the end of the third quarter of the Golden Age, a slight disorder is felt in the spiritual health of the people. Then a readjustment of the slight loss of the equilibrium is made with the aid of contemplation of the meaning of these Vedic truths which are revealed through the still perfectly spiritual souls. Before this time all of them live the truths unconsciously; now they live the truths consciously. This indicates their fall from their absolutely healthy state of spirituality. The degeneration increases with time at a very slow rate, however, for Sattwa is still predominant, although Rāja (Activity) has begun to assert itself more and more until the end of the Golden Age is reached, when the action of Rāja becomes fully perceptible.
This pronounced assertion of Rāja within all Nature is betrayed by outward signs and symptoms. Distinct changes are observable in the thoughts and actions of men, while there is decrease in the wild natural growth and products of edible fruits, roots and corn. These main features of change mark the end of Satya Yuga (Golden Age) and the beginning of the Tretā Yuga (Silver Age).
From natural all-absorbing, inward concentration upon the basic principle of the Universe—Love—and drawing absolute never-failing happiness therefrom, most people now begin to look outwards for happiness, trying to draw it from the enjoyment of material objects. A small portion, however, still retains the same inward look and enjoys the primeval ecstatic condition of the mind. These still live in the Tree of Life. But those who look outwards and try to draw happiness from without, eat tor the first time of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, as indicated by the figurative language of the Christian Bible. So long as they do not look outwards, they do not know of material pleasure, pleasure which is mixed with pain, Rājasic pleasure, pleasure which lasts for only a short while, pleasure which has reaction of pain or cessation.
This knowledge of material pleasure and hankering for securing them is the fall of humanity. The cause of this outward-looking is to be traced to the assertion of the Cardinal Attribute of Activity (Rāja) within Nature rather than to any fault in her products themselves. Predominant Sattwa (Illumination) maintains the harmony in the mind induced by calm concentration upon one object and that object a steady, Changeless one. Predominant Rāja (Activity) destroys this harmony and calmness by making the mind active with thoughts of many objects. This state of activity itself turns the point of the mind's ken outwards and disturbs its harmony. The mind is active only when it has to deal with the impressions of more than one object. When the surface of a mirror is turned towards the sky, it reflects only that one blue sky. When it is turned towards the earth it reflects many objects. Such is the case with the mirror of the mind. When it is turned inwards to the soul, it reflects its one all-pervading, colorless radiance and is therefore tranquil and happy. When it is turned outwards, it reflects the many-colored objects and is disturbed by their conflicting attributes.
All through the Golden Age the mirror of the human mind is kept turned inwards to the soul and reflects nothing but the soul of things. At the end of that blessed period, the natural assertion of Rāja turns it outwards to external objects which at once reflect themselves in it. From this time people begin to take serious cognizance of their surroundings and privileges, and to think of material enjoyment, to taste material pleasures. Living the natural Love-Life of the Golden Age is living on the fruit of the Tree of Life. Love alone is life; it is the source of all life. The dawning of the knowledge of material pleasure is eating for the first time of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge—material knowledge. The first hankering for it is the persuasive voice of the Evil One, called in Sanscrit, Māyā. Māyā means illusion, that which is unsubstantial to the inner sight yet seems and looks substantial to our outer (material) sight. Good and evil may be called the equivalents of the two Sanscrit words "Sat" and "Asat." Good is "Sat" which means that which exists by itself, which has substance. Evil is "Asat" which means non-existent, which has no existence (substance) of its own. Good is God (Love). Evil is that which partakes of, or is related to, the phases of unsubstantial (changeful) manifestations which form the shroud of the only Reality—Love. To have our minds vision turned from this Reality to its Unreal Shroud and mistaking it as the Real, constitutes our fall—the Fall of Mankind spoken of in the Bible. As long as we know nothing but the Truth and live absolutely in that Truth, we have no idea of the False (evil), the deceptive real-looking Unreal. But the moment we are attracted by the Unreal and live in it, we begin to have knowledge of both Good (the Real) and Evil (the Unreal). We become so attached to the Unreal that we cannot leave it, although we know it to be Unreal (evil). Here is born what is called "conscience," which is the Warner of sin—this living in the Unreal though we know it is so and that we should not live in it.
This is the state of mind of the major portion of the Silver Age people. With this outward-looking of their mind begins the hunting for Absolute Happiness on the surface of life, instead of in its deepest depth where it dwells. This search for it through material pleasures ends in this real object of that search being lost from their view and the pleasures themselves taking its place. This last stage of mental degradation is not true, however, of all the people of the age. A small portion still retain much of the high spirituality of the Golden Age. Some are swayed by predominant Rāja, others are ruled by Rāja and Tama, while others are covered almost entirely by Tama. This leads to the division of the people into castes. Those who are uninfluenced by the assertive Rāja are called Brāhmans; those swayed by Rāja are called Kshatriyas; those by Rāja and Tama are called Vaishyas; those mostly ruled by Tama are called Sudras. I have treated the caste system at some length in the next section.
Tastes for material comforts involve housekeeping, and housekeeping is impracticable without a house. The people therefore build houses to live in for the first time in the Degeneration period of the Satya Yuga. The Tretā is called the Silver Age because gold, the spiritual metal, becomes less abundant with the decrease in spirituality in Nature, and silver is found in abundance. People in the Satya Yuga use gold for household utensils, hence the Satya Yuga is called the Golden Age. The period in which gold plates come into use does not belong to the Golden Age proper. It is used in what is called the Degeneration (Sandhyāngsa) period of the Golden Age. Every Age has a Junction period and a Degeneration period, called in the Hindoo Scriptures, the Twilight Periods. These periods are of equal length. The morning Twilight period of the Satya Yuga is 400 divine years, equal to 144,000 lunar years. Of the same length is its evening Twilight period. The morning Twilight period represents the Junction period, the junction between the previous Kali and the Satya Yugas. The evening Twilight period may be called the degeneration of the Satya Yuga. It is in this degeneration period covering 144,000 years, that Rāja asserts itself and people begin to turn to material pleasures, build houses, wear clothes, take to housekeeping, eat cooked food and generally use gold plates, gold being abundant and on account of its possessing pure (spiritual) magnetism, purer than that of other metals.
The average human height in the Silver Age is 14 cubit or 21 feet, average longevity of human life is 10,000 years; human vitality is centered in the strength of the bones; man lives as long as his bones sustain their strength. In the Golden Age men enjoy full measure of spirituality. Virtue resides in them, in the language of the Shāstras, in full four quarters. In the Tretā, owing to the decrease of spirituality, virtue loses one-quarter and retains three. In the Golden Age, they are natural embodiments of Vedic wisdom. In the Tretā, they have to study that wisdom, as it expresses itself through entranced Sages, to keep up spirituality. And as the Silver Age advances, the increased influence of more and more assertive Rāja within them makes it more and more imperative on all religious teachers and kings to direct people's attention to the necessity of wider and deeper study and practice of Vedic truths.
As I have said, in the Golden Age there are no carnal relations between man and woman, so is there none in the Silver Age, although man and woman as husband and wife live together in houses, have housekeeping and enjoy material comforts. Yet, strange as it will strike most of us here at this distance of time, the Golden Age and Silver Age women bear and give birth to children. The child is born in the womb of its mother at the wish and command of the husband. The wife asks her husband for a child, and the husband of the Golden Age, who is a miniature creator in the potency of his mind-force, says, "So be it," and the wife at once conceives. But she has no pain of child-bearing or child-birth to suffer from. The child is born soon after, and, at times, almost immediately. In the Tretā Yuga, the conception takes place in some cases in the same manner, and, in most cases, through the eating by the wife of "charoo," a mixture of boiled rice, milk, sugar and butter—magnetized by mystic words or the will-force of a psychic husband or a saint or a Brāhman—a magnetism which draws into the preparation a disembodied spirit who passes into the body of the wife through the food.
The difficulty in believing this process of child conception lies in the ignorance which now prevails in the minds of most people of the modern world, especially in those of Westerners, as to the origin of conception, as to how conception takes place. The prevailing idea, formed from the teachings of imperfect modern science, is that it is the male seed itself planted in the female soil that begets and develops into the child. No greater fallacy can exist than this idea. Modern science is progressive, and in the process of time that progress will surely open its eyes to the true fact in regard to this matter. It will then find that it is the invisible germ hidden inside the seed, the subtle form of organism encased in the thickened juice of the tree which the seed is, that develops into the shoot and the tree and not merely the juice itself. This subtle organism enters into the forming bud from outside. Without this incoming subtle organism no seed can germinate, neither does a seed germinate, as is well known, of which the germ has been destroyed. Similarly, no conception can take place without a disembodied soul—a human germ—entering the human seed when planted in the human soil. The juice of the seed and the juice of the soil form but the physical body of the child. The astral body, which is encased in this physical body, comes from without to dwell in that seed and leaves the developed physical body at death, which is nothing but the total disorganization of the physical body. The astral body never dies unless it is destroyed by bringing about absolute equilibrium of the three Cardinal Attributes, which form the Ego of man, through spiritual development. I have treated this subject more fully under the heading of "Reincarnation."
The length of the Silver Age proper is 3,000 divine years, equal to 1,080,000 human (lunar) years with the two Twilight (the Junction and the Degeneration) Periods, of 108.000 years each, in addition.