Religion is in the air lately, hearkening back to the Great Awakening in the United States in the mid-18th century. From CNN to the musings of the maddening gadfly Christopher Hitchens — in town recently to tout his book on the subject — why we need religion or whether or not God is dead or merely ignoring us permeates the national dialogue, perhaps propelled by the religious nature of the war on terrorism. Watching Sunnis and Shias and Israelis and Palestinians go for each other’s collective throat is a mainstay of contemporary news coverage. Add in the internecine brawls among normally non-bellicose Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists and it is clear the nature of God is on the minds of many.
It follows then, we should take a look at Hinduism, the oldest continuous religion on earth, to ask what’s going on in the land of Shiva and Byzantine religious practices that remain the same since the 5th century BC. Little, it seems has changed. Cult after cult continues to undertake solemn pilgrimages to holy sites and worship local idols as manifestations of the thousands of forms taken by the gods. In this culture, government agencies and the Peace Corps have minimal impact. If you want to have children or exorcise the demons that cause life’s problems, you go to the same god your ancestors implored 7000 years ago.
And sure enough, in India you will find an answer of sorts to why the world is so tempestuous today, causing a mass movement to religion worldwide as if the last days were nigh. Maybe they are. According to Hindus, we are living in the fourth Yug of Kali, the last of the four great epochs of time. Yug is a throw of the dice by the great god Shiva, the nearest thing to a chief deity they have. The first Yug was thousands of years ago and established a tranquil and peaceful period for mankind. Now, after two yugs of increasing deterioration of social and moral values, the fourth Yug is here and with it “corruption, darkness and disintegration,” as explained by my favorite author and India expert, the British writer William Dalrymple. According to the doctrine, as the great gods Vishnu and Shiva sleep, conditions worsen until the final blinding light of the “fire of a thousand suns” is unleashed by the evil goddess Kali that will obliterate the earth. Time stops momentarily, and the cycle of yugs starts again.
The good news is these yugs go on for thousands of years so the end may not be near — yet. But it is interesting to note the leit-motif of “disintegration” in the world today, ironically occurring as globalization is bringing a vast integration to the people of the earth. Look no further than al-Qaeda for a ripened example. Not only are we in a war against terror, but the terrorists and their various fellow countrymen are also tearing each other apart with suicide bombs, kidnappings and beheadings — very fourth Yug behavior. The nature of terrorism creates global fear and apprehension, another notch in the eschatological dimension of Kali’s plan.
In the past decade, a miniscule period in Hindu time-keeping, the Roman Catholic Church was stained with a predatory homosexual scandal that continues to gnaw at its ability to keep whole. Big business suffered through a free-fall of dirty dealings — from Enron to cooking the books by prestigious accounting firms once considered the paragons of propriety. From the Balkans through Asia, political unrest — including genocidal ethnic cleansing — is the norm. And America’s alleged friends (with one exception, the UK) disassociated themselves from our lonely struggle to strike back at terrorism, in effect “disintegrating” the great alliances forged after World War II, the biggest conflict in human history.
In US politics, the events in Florida during and after the presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000 are unprecedented for their abandonment of civil conduct during an election. The Democrats in effect declared civil war that resonates today on Capitol Hill where the “loyal opposition” is attempting a coup d’etat rather than seeking principled compromise. The entire tone of civil discourse in America has been debased into screaming matches on cable news and insane accusations. Jimmy Carter’s latest embarrassing episode was actually par for the course in the context of the disintegration of good manners in American politics.
With all this going on, it’s easy to fall into a yug theory state of mind. Think of the disintegration of the former great empires of the world; the Nazi and Soviet monoliths; the demise of central control of information (the TV networks, the daily papers) and the rise of information fiefdoms such as cable, satellite, the Internet, iPods and personal computers that have replaced the early large “mainframe” control of data. To many, the collapse of public morality says it all, and consider the continuing crumbling of our cultural values by the onslaught of radical educational theory. Western civilization, the fortress of our self-esteem, is imploding into irrelevance at the hands of the multiculturalists and politically correct — the unwitting agents of Kali.
With disintegration has come political insanity. Who screams the loudest and demonstrates the most angst wins any debate. Facts and objectivity are ignored, as if relics from a previous yug. This is demonstrated vividly in the delusional advocacy to curtail productive output for to save the earth from man-made global warming. There is no dialogue about the subject, just zealous passion and the “disintegration” of factual inquiry and common sense.
Shiva and Vishnu sleep as Kali stirs.
Notes from La-La Land
Another example of disintegration is the condition of our roads. Streets in Raleigh have been ignored for so long that we’re becoming accustomed to Third World standards. All these national rankings for our vaunted quality of life will soon disappear unless action is taken, and soon.
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The news Down East is the valuation of real estate by resort counties, most notably New Hanover (home to Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, Figure Eight Island and other smaller family destinations) and Carteret where all hell is breaking out in Atlantic Beach, Morehead City and Beaufort. On the Crystal Coast everyone is hopping mad. Lower income permanent residents may have to sell out. Out-of-towners who own vacation property are angry because they pay the brunt of the tax load while barely calling on the local services they pay for, like schools. Property valuations have gone up 300 percent in many parts of the county, but the rate has not been set, meaning commissioners are realizing the need to cool their jets. But it’s their attitude that rankles. Word is the no-growth crowd east of Beaufort is pushing the outrageous tax hike to send a message to vacationers and developers. The message back might be the departure of the geese that lay the golden eggs.