The Age of Theft

Over 4,000 years ago, Vedic priests made predictions about the current age of Kali. Everything they said about today turned out to be true. They really weren’t actually making predictions; they were just describing what it would be in this, the darkest of ages. The source of their knowledge was intimate understanding of each of the grand ages, called Yugas. One of the things they said, that I have become very aware of lately, is that, in this age of Kali, the way most people would make money was through theft and deception. I find that to be so true now.

Each day, I get probably 100 or more spam in my inbox. Most email programs, like Gmail, Hotmail and others filter these out but in my 7thunders account I get to see them all, before deleting them. A good number of these spam have attachments and others have links to click on. Some look very authentic, with titles of familiar companies, etc.  But I know to never open any of these emails, click on any links found inside, and never to open an attachment. These hackers go to great lengths to try and get us to click on their links so that they can install keyloggers and other harmful malware on our computers. They want access to your computer and phones, your passwords and other private information, they want to steal your money. They are persistent. And by the looks of things, no one seems able to stop them.

They are getting so bold, now they are hacking into the networks of large corporations and organizations and encrypting all their computers and demanding millions of dollars in ransom to get access to their data again. They often pay individuals within the actual organizations millions of dollars to just install their malware in their network so that they can make a hundred times more with their ‘ransomware’.  Of course, they probably have no trouble finding an employee willing to sell off his employer, if the price is right. It is greed upon greed.  If there really is a pandemic right now, it is truly a pandemic of greed and theft.

Some of these criminal enterprises are backed by their respective governments. Countries like China, North Korea, Russia and even the US, have hackers working for them to achieve their political and financial goals.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In the everyday life of people living all over the world, attempts at theft are so commonplace that we don’t even comment about it. False advertising, small print details, etc. give the impression of a good deal only to result in being ripped off. Misrepresentation of facts, the posting of false reviews, it is buyer beware everywhere. Deception is common along with businesses making decisions that are good for their profit but very bad for their customers, of course with covering up their misdeeds so that they are not discovered. Money and profit are priorities, and morality is the least important thing of all. Welcome to the age of Kali.

In some countries, like Costa Rica and other Latin American countries, everyday theft is common. If you are a foreigner there the locals will always be looking for a way to steal from you. In Costa Rica most people who have any money have a special room in their house. They call it the bodega. It is usually made of cement blocks and has no windows and a huge lock on the only door. When they go away from their home, they lock up anything of value so that their maids and helpers (and their friends and family) cannot steal it. The locals steal from each other just as readily.  A child growing up there learns stealing as a way of life. I have witnessed police there pull people over and demand a ransom while threatening arrest or worse. This is true in many of the other countries in Central and South America. The fantasy that many Americans have of retiring in such countries, because the cost of living is so low, is always tarnished when they realize this fact of living there.

In the previous grand age, or Yuga, there was no greed. Everyone had more than enough money and things to live a good life. Theft did exist then, however. But it was regarded as an art form. A good thief would be applauded by his contemporaries for his or her cleverness. But in the age of Kali, there is greed because there is so much poverty. Greed and theft as we know it today always stems from a sense of lack and poverty. People feel that theft is their only means for preservation or to achieve their goals of having so much. I am sure some of them just want to be rich. Because in this age, being ‘rich’ is the highest attainment one can wish for. This is represented in the cards, by the way, as the 10 of Diamonds in the center of the Grand Solar Life Spread. The most blessed person is the person with the most money. But underneath all greed is fear, the fear of not having enough or of not being enough, in the eyes of the world. And of course, greed and theft are not the only bad expressions of these fears. People kill each other every day with money and greed as the motive. Someone whose fear is really intense moves into ‘survival mode.’ And in survival mode any action, no matter how horrible, is okay, if it is saving your life in the process. Thus we see many now whose standard condition, at least in their mind, is survival. And in their mind that excuses them from any responsibility for their actions, regardless how heinous they are.

I have imagined at times, how things will get if there existed an actual breakdown of our society, perhaps by a nuclear war or other disaster. People here in America have guns, lots of them. If they and their family’s security was at risk, do we think they would hesitate to kill their neighbors. Would they hesitate to kill you if you had something they needed to survive? Would you hesitate to kill your neighbor if it meant your survival or the survival of your loved ones? I think not. I certainly do not wish for it to ever get that bad, but it is out of our control. It is the nature of the Kali Yuga for morality to be in constant decline, along with poverty, pollution and degradation of our food supplies, etc. It was said that towards the end of this age, which is more than 90,000 years in the future, the average life span would decline to less than 30 years of age.

So many of us from the 60s and 70s were hoping that the Age of Aquarius, another cosmological cycle, would usher in an age of enlightenment. That was not the case. The Age of Aquarius is here, and no one got enlightened by it. If anything, conditions worsened. Aquarius brought with it a reemergence of astrology and the mystic arts and computers, internet and very cool technologies. But as far as human behavior goes, it has only worsened.

 But it is the nature of the age of Kali that at any given time, it seems that morality has taken a nosedive. It was true 100 years ago and it is the same now. We all feel like, ‘what in the heck is going on? Can it get any worse?’ and ‘things were much better 30 years ago.’ As George Carlin wrote in his, “Things to Ponder”

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

We definitely live in interesting times now. And thing get stranger and more chaotic it seems every year. At the same time, many people, perhaps many more than in past eras, are moving into higher awareness and awakening from the dream of duality. It was also said of the Kali Yuga that many great souls would choose to incarnate then because it is the age in which someone can reap the most benefits from their efforts at spiritual attainment. And the other good news is, that at the end of Kali we move right into the brightest age of all, the Satya Yuga, and in that age all are enlightened and morality, along with all that is good and pure, returns in full measure.