In the net of black delusion, they fall down to a foul hell

 

In the Kali Yuga the Knowledge that is Wisdom has nearly vanished. The Sanskrit Puranas say that in the golden Satya Yuga, Dharma stands happily on four legs; but in the Kali, teeters on only one leg. In our current Kali Yuga greed is valued over truth and being successful is more important than being honest. The word integrity is seldom spoken and people ridicule the study of metaphysical principles.

 

The Kali Yuga is the time of the darkside; it is their ‘turn’ so to speak. In my lifetime (1945-) the pernicious and insidious influence of the dark forces has increased in ways I could never have imagined, and gets worse by the day.

 

In a culture where the moral imperative is that ‘greed is good’ and people have little faith beyond their selfish interests, most have come to feel that nothing matters beyond their own insatiable (duspuram) desires (kama).

 

The Vishnu and the Linga Puranas delineate the symptoms of the Kali Yuga. We are told that ‘thieves will be kings, and kings will be thieves.’ These days most people emulate the rich, those who by-hook-or-by-crook have grabbed the greatest wealth. Today a clever lawyer can make guilt irrelevant.

 

 

Hypocrisy & ‘Spin’

 

Another symptom of the Kali Yuga which I find stunning is that ‘people prefer false ideas.’ This fact is obviously well understood by people who hire public relations firms and consultants to ‘spin’ the truth and create acceptable images for those who are in the public eye. We no longer want the truth, we now ‘prefer’ a sugar coated lie.

 

This acceptance of ‘spin’ makes our leaders, and the others who were are supposed to respect, into nothing more than hypocrites. They say one thing and do another. We are lied to so that the agendas of the rich and powerful can be implemented using our money from taxes, or our savings as ‘investments’ in the companies of their rich cronies.

 

Krishna describes the people who have demoniacal characteristics as being hypocrites (dambha) who are intoxicated with arrogance (mada) and pride (mana). People who are living in demonic frequencies are deluded by their own ignorance (XVI.10). They actually seem to believe that it is fine to be totally selfish. Their creed is every man for himself and they don’t care who or what they harm to achieve their ends. They reason ‘better him or her than me!’

 

Krishna says that those who are delusional use impure (asuci) practices (vratah), which covers the spectrum from ritualistic black magic to propaganda and the ubiquitous mendacity if high-priced lawyers.

 

Surrendered to desires insatiable,

Full of deceitfulness, folly, and pride,

In blindness cleaving to their errors,

- Ibid. XVI.10

 

The trouble with living only to fulfill one’s own desires is that this thirst can never be quenched. The nature of desire (kama) is that it is insatiable. Even children become easily bored with their toys and demand the next new thing. So it is with grown-ups who become bored with whatever they have ‘gotten’ and must continually seek the new high, the next thrill and conquest.

 

Those who have no connection with the Eternal One that dwells in the Heart are driven by an insatiable urge to consume ‘stuff’ - the temporal illusions in the external hologram. This compulsion to consumption now appears to be leading mankind towards extinction. It seems we may eventually consume even the Earth herself.

 

 

Mother’s little helpers ...

 

This is an era of anxiety (cintam) when many people are taking one kind of ‘life-style drug’ or another. These manmade molecules regulate and modify moods, our feelings through manipulating and intruding on our delicate endocrine system.

 

Serotonin inhibitors - with their unintended consequences and bizarre side effects - are dispensed like candy to keep the population smoothed so we, like the comical Coneheads, will continue to consume mass quantities of manufactured products that are in turn cluttering and poisoning the planet and her oceans.

 

I suggest that depression might be considered as an opportunity to think and not something to be avoided with endless prescription drugs. Depression is the call from your soul to examine your heart and mind, to look within, and begin to wake up from this miasma of amnesia and the frequencies of delusion that have kept us bound in the temporal illusory hologram.

 

Krishna says that this anxiety (cintam) is beyond measure (aparimeyam) for those who have given in to the demonic frequencies and are convinced (niscitas) that their own self-gratification (upabhoga) is the goal of life (XVI.11). Abhinavagupta interprets this verse to mean that they will be tormented by anxiety and countless worries in lifetime after lifetime until the final Dissolution (B.Marjanovic).

 

... caught

Into the sinful course, they trust this lie

As it were true - this lie which leads to death -

Finding in Pleasure all the good which is,

And crying "Here it finisheth!"

- Ibid. XVI.11

 

 

Strangled with hundreds of nooses of expectation ...

 

‘Strangled with hundreds of nooses of expectation’ is J.A.B. van Buitenen’s translation of verse 12 - and my favorite. Somehow the imagery of the ‘nooses of expectation’ paints such a vivid picture for me. Perhaps this preference is my childhood influence, as I watched many hours of ‘Cowboy Thrills’ on 1950s American television and saw countless crooks and cattle thieves being hung from a rope noose on a lonesome half-dead tree in the wild desolate west.

 

Ensnared

In nooses of a hundred idle hopes,

Slaves to their passion and their wrath, they buy

Wealth with base deeds, to glut hot appetites;

- Ibid. XVI.12

 

People get angry when their desires (kama) are unfulfilled and frustrated. Anger (krodha) clouds the intelligence and skews judgment with delusion. In anger we become confused. We don’t see clearly. Our actions are motivated by the compulsion to gratify our insatiable desires. Anger destroys wisdom.

 

In such deluded states of desperation people will resort to any means to gratify their cravings (asa). They begin to bend the rules to suit their purpose. The end justifies the means and they will resort to any means - however wrong - to get what they want which usually involves money. Most people assume that only more and more money can relieve their despair and realize their fantasies. They are snared and bound by their own expectations.

 

"Thus much, today," they say, "we gained! thereby

Such and such wish of heart shall have its fill;

And this is ours! and th' other shall be ours!

- Ibid. XVI.13

 

Krishna gives us a glimpse of what the fat-cat businessman, despot tyrant, or criminal boss might say to him or herself. Cuban cigar and brandy in hand, deep in the privacy of their own thoughts comes --- ‘Today I closed the deal. A majority of the shares are mine. Tomorrow I’ll get more - one way or another. I’ll take over more companies and expand my control over more industries, more territories. My multinational corporation will be the biggest and I will be among the top billionaires in this world. Enormous wealth (dhanam) will be (bhavisyati) mine!’

 

Today we slew a foe, and we will slay

Our other enemy tomorrow! Look!

Are we not lords? Make we not goodly cheer?

Is not our fortune famous, brave, and great?

- Ibid. XVI.14

 

Perhaps the criminal kingpin will say to himself --- ‘Yesterday I killed (hatas) my enemies. Anyone who gets in my way will also be murdered (hanisye). I am the big man, the lord of my world, who enjoys power over everyone in it. Power is happiness.’

 

Rich are we, proudly born! What other men

Live like to us? Kill, then, for sacrifice!

Cast largesse, and be merry!" So they speak

Darkened by ignorance;

- Ibid. XVI.15

 

Ignorance is the fuel for all sin. Deluded (vimohitas) by ignorance the tyrants tell themselves that they are superior to others. To them people are like children who need to be told what to do and how to think. I once knew a man who watched a film on bee hives over and over, so that he might learn how to structure his companies and control his employees more efficiently. People are considered to be no better than sheep who require herding.

 

 

The Mechanics of the Kali Yuga, our current Age of Confusion

 

In a truly important book, ‘Taking the Risk out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty’ the author Alex Carey exposes the mechanics of propaganda and shows how we as Americans have been lied to and manipulated. Included in the symptoms of the Kali Yuga are:

 

· People will prefer to choose false ideas.

 

· Base [low minded] men who have gained a certain amount of learning (without having the virtues necessary for its use) will be esteemed as sages.

 

· Thieves will become kings, and kings will be the thieves.

 

· Rulers will confiscate property and use it badly. They will cease to protect the people.

 

Mr. Carey says that today the ‘common man … has never been so confused, mystified and baffled; his most intimate conceptions of himself, of his needs, and indeed the very nature of human nature, have been subject to skilled manipulation and construction in the interests of corporate efficiency and profit.’

 

Carey’s book says that the American people have been subjected to a 75-year long multibillion dollar intentional assault on our freedom to think and to choose: ‘... propaganda techniques have been developed and deployed (in the United States)... to control and deflect the purposes of the domestic electorate in a democratic country in the interests of the privileged segments of that society.’

 

 

What is propaganda?

 

‘Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols ... Collective attitudes are amenable to many modes of alteration … intimidation ... economic coercion ... drill. But their arrangement and rearrangement occurs principally under the impetus of significant symbols; and the technique of using significant symbols for this purpose is propaganda.’    (Laswell, Bradson, and Janowitz 1953:776-80).

  

People are polarized by symbols. They see life in terms of good and bad, black and white, and thus are more easily manipulated. The ‘enemy’ out there may indeed seem evil. But in the solitude of our own hearts, we know that we are all a mix of both. None of us is so clearly saint or sinner. Instead of emotionally polarizing, we could have a dialogue, a discussion; and yet, it seems we can be manipulated by propaganda into thinking almost anything.

 

 

‘Engineering consent - without their knowing it’

 

Walter Lippman (an eminent journalist), and Edward Bernays (who just happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud) were, according to Carey, two men who excelled in manipulating mass consciousness.

 

Bernays is famous for saying, ‘If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it.’ [from Toxic Sludge is Good for You! Common Courage Press]. Bernays called this ‘engineering consent.’

 

The World War I propaganda campaign of Mr. Lippman and Mr. Bernays ‘produced within six months so intense an anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolph Hitler, among others) with the potential of large scale propaganda to control public opinion.’

 

Bernays found a very practical use for his Uncle Sigmund's science of psychology. ‘When the war ended, Bernays later wrote, business realized that the general public could now be harnessed to their cause as it had been harnessed to the war, to the national cause.’ (Alex Carey).

 

 

‘The ways & means of changing minds or binding minds to their convictions’

 

Today we have far more efficient means of distributing propaganda than ever before. The television, the radio, the media in general, and now the computer have made it easy for the masters of ‘spin’ and the public relations firms with their armies of lawyers, lobbyists, and paid-for-scientists to tell us what to think so that we will all be good little consumers.

 

The true religion of the West is consumerism, and we are succeeding in spreading that cult around the world. Do not misunderstand me - I have nothing against commerce and I don’t want to return, as they say, to the Stone Age. But when consumption is valued above all else, even life, then it is time we re-examined our priorities. It is time to look deeply into our way of thinking.

 

 

Bamboozled & seduced!

 

In 1927, Harold Lasswell wrote ‘Propaganda Techniques in World War I’ and suggested that ‘familiarity with the behavior of the ruling public (meaning those who had so easily succumbed to the propaganda) has bred contempt ... as a consequence, despondent democrats turned elitist, no longer trusting intelligent public opinion, and therefore [decided that they] should themselves determine how to make up the public mind, how to bamboozle and seduce in the name of the public good...’

 

Alex Carey points out that ‘propaganda has become a profession. The modern world is busy developing a corps of men who do nothing but study the ways and means of changing minds or binding minds to their convictions.’ But they may find a surprise at the end of the road.

 

... and so they fall -

Tossed to and fro with projects, tricked, and bound

In net of black delusion, lost in lusts -

Down to foul Naraka [hell].

- Ibid. XVI.16

 

Deluded (moha) by their fantasies of imagined superiority, thinking only of what they want, these tyrants of clouded intelligence fall (patanti) into a foul (asucau) hell (narake).

 

 

The Mega-Rich

 

Did you ever wish you were one of the mega-rich? One of those billionaires with their 40,000 sq. ft houses hidden behind great walls of gated communities, those men and women who now control our world, oblivious to the toxic legacy they are leaving our planet - along with the destruction of what perhaps was once the world's most successful democracy.

 

The rich are praised and exalted in our culture. Such adulation naturally brings envy and the desire to be born into their world. However Krishna tells the warrior Arjuna the fate of these bloodlines.

 

Krishna describes them as self-centered and conceited (atma-sambhavitah), with an inflated opinion of themselves (XVI.17). They are intoxicated by their arrogance (mada). Grandiose wealth inflicts them with pride (mana). They are stubborn (stabdhah), obstinately they cling to a lack of humility. In their eyes, their success in accumulating piles of money makes them ‘better’ than others.

 

Whatever altruistic acts (yajante) they perform, whatever charity is given is done only for show (dambhena). When they give, it is most often to bolster their own self-esteem, to give more than their rivals. This is not charity – as Krishna says, this is vanity.

 

Conceited, fond,

Stubborn and proud, dead-drunken with the wine

Of wealth, and reckless, all their offerings

Have but a show of reverence, being not made

In piety of ancient faith.

- Ibid. XVI.17

 

Not all who are wealthy are bad. There are those who have learned to use the freedom and independence money can bring to further their own spiritual evolution and hopefully, the well being of others. They have developed humility and compassion. There are others however who have come to believe that ‘greed is good’ - and that their delusional sense of superiority to others, entitles them to use and abuse not only human beings, but also the Earth and her resources.

 

Krishna tells Arjuna that because these people resonate with the negative polarity, they have no understanding of their relationship to the universe. Their lives are not built on Eternal Truth – on Dharma. They are lost, living in a demonic hologram with little enlightenment and, as is all too evident from the recent poisoning of the planet, ‘their dreadful actions capable of destroying this world’ (XVI.9).

 

Thus vowed

To self-hood, force, insolence, feasting, wrath,

These My blasphemers, in the forms they wear

And in the forms they breed, my foe men are,

Hateful and hating;

- Ibid. XVI.18

 

Compulsively moving from one insatiable desire to the next, these sad beings are intoxicated by their ephemeral delusions of power. Think tanks daily produce new false doctrines to support the misdeeds of greed and avarice. Notions such as the bottom line, the trickle down theory, and the end justifies the means are spun into fresh webs of confusion to justify any action and bewilder the herd. Lies are truth and truth is a lie. And so it goes, spiraling down - ‘People prefer false ideas.’

 

 

Silent and cold, death waits for ...

 

Don’t imagine that those who are puffed up with their self-importance are happy and at peace with themselves. Addicted to power with the hounds of hell ever at their backs, these tyrants are ever aware that another warrior, someone younger and smarter, will come along one day and conquer their kingdom. So they worry, and to remain in the lead they become workaholics.

 

In their desire and anger those of a tyrannical nature are ‘strangled with hundreds of nooses of expectation’ and there is no escape, for there is never enough money and no relief for their fears. Indulging in consumption for reward and relief, they buy yet another villa, another yacht. Will one more do it for them? How many deals, takeovers, and whores will it take to make them relax, to forget, to satiate their desires for a New-York-minute? And all the while, Death is silently coldly breathing down their necks.

 

Every day tyrants count their victories – as the saying goes, money is the scorecard. Every act is justified by their delusional sense of power and importance over others. As masters of this world, they deserve what others do not.

 

 

They are hurled into the wombs of the demonic ...

 

Speaking as the God within us all, as Paramatman, Krishna tells Arjuna that he always (ajasram) casts (ksipami) these whose consciousness is deluded into the wombs (yonisu) of the demonic (asurisu). My understanding of this is based on the Laws of Magnetism. Like attracts like.

 

It’s not our parents, our families, and childhood environment that turn us into flawed creatures that become miserable self-pitying losers. The truth is bitter - but the truth is that we are born into circumstances that resonate perfectly with our own nature based on our past actions.

 

The people who we attract, and who are attracted to us, have similar natures and join in setting the stage for the drama that is of our own making. This self-scripted drama affords us with the opportunity to evolve. As Krishna Chaitanya/KK Nair says, ‘Punishment is built into the very process that moves towards higher possibility.’

 

... cruel, evil, vile,

Lowest and least of men, whom I cast down

Again, and yet again, at end of lives,

- Ibid. XVI.19

 

Magnetism is the Law in the Invisible Realms where like is drawn to like and Krishna ‘hurls them ceaselessly into demonic wombs,’ meaning they are drawn to similar bloodlines to be born into. Thus they are brought up with the same values, a reverence for power and control, and a lack of love that sadly leaves them empty, craving.

 

Into some devilish womb, whence - birth by birth -

The devilish wombs re-spawn them, all beguiled;

And, till they find and worship Me, sweet Prince!

Tread they that Nether Road.

- Ibid. XVI.20

 

आसुरीं योनिमापन्ना मूढा जन्मनि जन्मनि . 
मामप्राप्यैव कौन्तेय ततो यान्त्यधमां गतिम् .. १६- २०..

āsurīṃ yonim āpannā mūḍhā janmanijanmani
mām aprāpyaiva kaunteya tato yānty adhamāṃ gatim  16.20

 

Following the path of self-delusion, these unfortunates may, according to Krishna, eventually ‘lose their wits’ and fall into the temporal illusory holographic matrices of various Demonic Worlds, such as the Rasatala and Patala Lokas --- but not for all eternity.

 

The Doors of Hell

Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass, -

The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door

Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!

- Ibid. XVI.21

 

He who shall turn aside from entering

All those three gates of Narak [hell], wendeth straight

To find his peace, and comes to Swarga's gate [the supreme goal].

- Ibid. XVI.22

 

These Loka Worlds, the Phantasmal Hierarchies, are temporal. The Creator is Love and never so cruel as to doom any being forever. These arrogant deluded ones are, after all, playing their part, doing their job. They are serving to hold the temporal illusory hologram together until the time of the Dissolution.

 

But in the Twilight of the Kali Yuga, there most assuredly is no need to envy these who are strangled with the hundreds of ‘nooses of expectation.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking the Risk Out of Democracy,

Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty

Alex Carey, 1997; University of Illinois Press

 

Freedom & Transcendence

Krishna Chaitanya/KK Nair

Manohar, 1982, New Delhi