Acharya Prashant: The four yugas in the Vedic tradition have been Satyug, Treta, Dvapara, and Kaliyug. Now, what do they represent? Do they represent the passage of time? Do they represent something historical? We have been led to believe that way, right? We believe that time is something external that happens to us. It is something happening in the clock or in the watch and it’s happening in spite of us or outside of us. We take it as an objective entity, right? So, this is the mug outside of me and let’s say this is a watch; this too is outside of me.
So, we start thinking of the four yugas in the usual way. We say, “Satyug was ‘x’ years-long or ‘x’ thousand or ‘x’ million years long and stretched from this date approximately to this date.” And then we say, “Next came the next yug, and it dated from one particular point to the next one, then next one, almost like months in a calendar.” That is how we look at the concept of yugas, correct? Let’s say we are currently in December, let’s say; so, we like to say, “September was Satyug and then came October and then November and right now it’s Kaliyug running.” That’s the way we are accustomed to thinking.
Something is amiss here. That’s not the way Vedanta looks at time. Vedanta just does not look at time as an external entity. Vedanta talks only of two — the Atma and the Mind. If there is just Atma and Mind, what is this third thing called time? What is this third thing called time? Surely, this third thing has to be one of the two elements that Vedanta deals with. The time obviously is not Atma because Atma is changeless and time denotes change. So, time is mind.
So, these four yugas, surely are states of mind. Surely, they are not one particular linear progression as we traditionally believe. There is something else there. Are you getting it? So, then what is Satyug? Satyug is when the Mind is totally centered on the self, the Truth. Treta is when the Mind is identified with thoughts. Dvapara is the body and Kaliyug is sansar.
