2012 and the future

Well it is Thursday, December 20, 2012. Some people have predicted that something will happen on December 21, 2012 (tomorrow), saying it is predicted by the Mayan Calendar which ends a long count cycle around this time. Most professional Mayanists, however, say the Mayans had no expectation of anything significant happening on this date and their carvings imply dates beyond it. See the Wikipedia article for 2012 Phenomenon. I don't see anything wrong with hoping something exciting will happen tomorrow, but personally I don't think anything will.

What did Baba say about 2012? He never referred to it, nor to any precise date or year for any event in the future beyond dates that came to pass in his own lifetime.

What did Baba say about the end of this cycle of time? He said we are approaching the end of a "cycle of cycles," which will occur after seven hundred years.

My next advent, after I drop this body, will be after seven hundred years, and that will mark the end and the beginning of a cycle of cycles. All cycles of time in illusion end and begin after seven hundred to fourteen hundred years. There have been and will be millions and billions of such cycles in a cycle of cycles. Thus, there is no end to illusion, which always remains illusion. (Lord Meher, p. 4547)

Sometimes, I say things which you are at a total loss to understand. This is the last cycle of cycles, so I observe silence that it may bear fruit. I will speak only one Word. Innumerable such cycles have gone by, and innumerable are the times I have descended. It is not for the first time that I am observing silence. Such observance, and the subsequent breaking of the silence, is an occurrence in eternity from time to time. When an atom is split, an infinite amount of energy is released. Similarly, when my silence is broken and I utter the Word, infinite wisdom will be released. When an atom bomb strikes the earth, great upheaval takes place in the form of vast devastation. Similarly, when that Word will strike the universe, great upheaval will occur in the form of material destruction; but, above all, there will also occur a tremendous spiritual upliftment. (Lord Meher, pp. 5733 - 4)

Don't expect anything to be easy; life will be full of problems and the world even more so. In fact, in years to come the world will reach a zenith of anti-God thinking, immorality, lust and greed, because the ending of a vast cycle of cycles is taking place. But after the climax a new era of real brotherly love will be ushered in by God, who knows all that is going on. (Lord Meher, p. 3230, 1948)

What does Baba say about the end of the world? Baba said that there have been millions of Earths and will be millions more. When this Earth finally cools and expends itself another will take its place.

There is something called Mahapralaya, which Baba compares to a cyclic breath cycle of God breathing in and then back out the Universe. But this does not appear to be anything that we are now approaching in this time, at least that Baba mentioned.

For how Baba counted "cycles" and "ages" refer to God Speaks, p. 254. The following is a brief summary.

• A cycle is "about seven hundred to about fourteen hundred years."
• Each cycle is divided into eleven ages. Each age lasts 65 to 125 years.
• In a footnote on p. 254 of God Speaks it says, "In Vedanta a cycle of time is called yuga, and an age is called kal; the Sufis call a cycle daor or zaman and an age waqt."

Baba did say we are currently in the Kali Yuga, but never said when the Kali Yuga began or when it will end. The traditional date for the start of the Kali Yuga coincides with the death of Krishna. Thus Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammad all lived in the Kali Yuga. If this is correct, then this Hindu sense of Yuga is another sense of the word "yuga" than Baba uses in God Speaks, which describes only one avataric cycle of 700-1400 years. As far as I am aware Baba never talked about other yuga dates or other counts. Baba also was not very clear what he meant by a "cycle of cycles" except that it is a very long time.

In Hinduism, a final Avatar named Kalki comes at the end of the Kali Yuga to destroy the demons and end the dark age. As far as I know Baba never referred to himself directly as the Kalki Avatar. It is sometimes said he referred to himself as the "White Horse Avatar," which is apparently one meaning of the word "Kalki." However, I cannot find it in print where Baba said this of himself. It seems to have originated in a story about Mehera asking Hazrat Babajan for a white horse, which Babajan apparently promised her. This then was interpreted as a veiled allusion to 'the white horse avatar.' Please correct me if I am wrong.

In short Baba leaves us with no absolutely clear idea where we fall in the realm of the passage of time, simply that ages and ages have passed before us, and ages and ages shall yet come to pass, in what seems to be a never-ending ebb and flow of ages, cycles, and cycles of cycles.