My skepticism about Golden Age predictions where the rulers are enlightened beings or awakened souls; I think people powered movements can bring in better times for today's Left Outs

Last updated on 16th April 2019

Nowadays I don't have that much belief about these Golden Age predictions. Readers may not believe me but prior to Sathya Sai Mahasamadhi (April 2011), I honestly believed that there would be a golden age ***throughout the whole world*** in the lifetime of Sathya Sai Avatar where most people would be happy and content. I was living in my small Prasanthi Nilayam ashram/Puttaparthi focused world and was focused on my individual sadhana including my free service work at the Sai university, quite blissfully ignorant of the big issues that were being faced by the world outside Prasanthi Nilayam/Puttaparthi. The 2007-08 USA and later global financial crisis did stir me out of my protected cocoon a little. But overall I still had a really protected, happy and quite content life as a spiritual aspirant in Prasanthi Nilayam/Puttaparthi under the protective umbrella of my beloved and revered Gurudev, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, who I view as the Avatar of the age.

That Golden Age for the whole world did not happen in Sathya Sai Avatar's physical body lifetime. Undoubtedly Sathya Sai did a great amount of good in the world, and his legacy will do an even greater amount of good in the world in coming decades and centuries. I am sure of that.

However, my Internet based study of the state of the world over the past few years (after Sathya Sai Mahasamadhi in April 2011) informs me that the world is in quite a terrible mess now as compared to what it was, say in the 1980s. Perhaps the biggest concern is unprecedented levels of pollution that is threatening climate change which could be an existential threat to at least some significant percentage of humanity, if not humanity as a whole.

In the mid 2010s, religious extremism involving violence against those of other religions reached levels unthinkable in the second half of the 20th century! The world saw barbarism and savagery of the medieval ages happening in Iraq and Syria in the mid 2010s through videos easily available on the Internet. It took raw and brutal military power to defeat the regime that was promoting that barbarism and savagery. Nobody seriously viewed Ahimsa (non-violence) as a solution. I repeat, the solution came through raw and brutal military power which defeated that regime.

Perhaps now there is a growing backlash against that hard-core violence level of religious extremism. But then religious tribalism with lesser violence levels, is growing in many parts of the world, including in India.

Good quality higher education (professional degree education like medicine and engineering) has become very expensive in many parts of the world including India. That may involve parents and students taking on college education debt to finance students' education. If such debt-laden students don't get a good remunerative job after their education, they are faced with terrible prospect of decades of (student) debt which dominates their lives and ruins it.

Selfish pursuit of individual wealth and power - the good (material) life - dominates the thinking of most people in the world, including many that have been educated in human value based education systems where such selfish pursuit is viewed negatively and selfless service is praised. But the reality of at least one such human value based education system that I was familiar with, is that once that human value based education phase is over and the students become wage earners or business people in real life outside of the human value education system, barring a few exceptions, for the vast majority of such students, it is selfish pursuit of individual wealth and power that dominates their thinking and behaviour. I am not blaming such students. It is their life and so it is their choice. One should also not forget the expectations of the parents of these students with most parents wanting their children to succeed financially. Most such students choose to keep aside the human value based selfless service teaching, and go for accumulation of individual wealth and power. Once in a while they may participate in some social service activity or some cultural activity that has some drama on selfless service. And they may also contribute financially to the educational institute that provided them the education. But their social service activity in the wider world is typically either very limited or zero.

I think some such students may have the view that after they have earned lot of money they will do social service work. Perhaps Bill Gates is the person they would like to emulate by first becoming a very rich person and then doing lot of charity work (philanthropy). I respect the choice that they make to focus, at least initially, on accumulation of individual wealth and power. I repeat, it is their life and so it is their choice how to live their life.

The winners in the economic game enjoy material benefits. But what about the losers in this economic game? And there are many such losers. Losers is not a good word and so let me use the words, Left Outs. Not just in poor and developing countries (my country, India, is a developing country) but, to my great astonishment, today in the 2010s there are many number of such Left Outs in 1980s prosperous Western European countries and USA. The Yellow Vest movement in some parts of Western Europe is a manifestation of the anger of some such Left Outs. Talk of 1% elite and other 99% (one side of political spectrum in USA) and of the forgotten man/citizen (other and opposite side of political spectrum in USA) has been common in USA political discourse during the mid 2010s. That just shows that there have been (perhaps still are) lots of such Left Outs in USA during the mid 2010s, with almost all political parties in USA claiming to work to help such Left Outs.

I now have the view that it is up to the government/ruling regime (as some countries have monarchies with king/queen having real power) to create an economic system in their countries which gives the large majority of the people of their country a chance to be part of the economic life of their countries and have a decent livelihood, without being condemned to be a Left Out.

Human selfishness is such a powerful and driving part of human nature in general that if we simply expect people to be charitable towards others, teach them selfless service as a great ideal etc., at least in our early 21st century times, it just does not result in most people being charitable towards others and getting into selfless service.

How can changes be brought about so that we don't have many Left Outs in the world? I think that has to come from people powered movements for change. My familiarity is with democracy as I have lived only in democracies (even in my foreign assignment trips to Western Europe, USA and South Korea). In democracies, I think people need to use the power of the ballot to bring in representatives and leaders who will usher in government policies and laws which will address the very grave issue of large number of Left Outs and give them a good and effective path to become a healthy and happy part of the economic system of their countries.

In democracies if the Left Outs lose faith in the democratic process itself and don't bother about voting, then even 20th century history teaches us that it can lead to very sad outcomes from the viewpoint of freedom (fascism, dictatorship, authoritarianism etc.).

I am rather skeptical of Golden Age predictions where the rulers are enlightened beings or awakened souls who work selflessly for the good of the people. The political leaders may be good people who work for the good of a country. But when one says, enlightened beings or awakened souls, one is referring to spiritually enlightened beings/saints and not just good people.

But I would be so very happy and glad if my skepticism is proved wrong! In fact, let me pray to Almighty God that Golden Age predictions where the rulers are enlightened beings or awakened souls who work selflessly for the good of the people, are fulfilled as early as possible. What a wonderful thing that will be to behold! Jai Sai Ram!
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Given below are some comments from my Facebook post,  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2464260037123892, associated with this blog post:

In response to a comment, I wrote:
It is very difficult for me to understand any references Bhagavan may have made to Golden Age. BTW I don't recall me listening to Bhagavan saying that during my stint in PN from Oct. 2002 to Mar 2011 (he got admitted to hospital in late March 2011 and did not come back alive in physical body).

I recall hearing Sai orgn. leaders refer to Golden Age and/or Sai Age.

Bhagavan was a great optimist like I think all great leaders are. He would keep raising enthusiasm of devotees by talking about good and great things, in the past, present and what was to come in future.

After I had come to terms with Bhagavan's physical absence perhaps a year or two after his Mahasamadhi, as I looked back on the last few years of Bhagavan (physical form), I got the feeling that his attitude was that he had done his work of teaching the right way to live in Kali Yuga, demonstrating his miraculous powers, and founding the Sathya Sai orgns and institutions for benefit of mankind for decades and centuries to come.

It is my direct experience of Sathya Sai that he put in great efforts even as his body was really going down, to preach the right understanding of spirituality and correct views which he seemed to view as wrong. To me, Sathya Sai was/is the Great Preacher.

I felt that in his last few years, Sathya Sai looked at his devotees and his precious students to carry his mission forward. It was as if he would live on through the work done by his devotees and his precious students. He expected a lot from his precious students in this regard.

He even said that people should not take Padanamaskar of him as we are all God! I will never forget those words of his which I heard live sitting in Sai Kulwant Hall in PN. In hindsight, it seems to me that he was handing over the baton of his mission work to re-establish Sathya, Dharma, Shanti and Prema throughout the world, to his devotees and his precious students. He had done his work. Now it was up to devotees and students.

The above is very clear to me. No confusion. In contrast, the Golden Age thing is quite confusing to me. It is as if somebody else is going to come and do the job of re-establishing Sathya, Dharma, Shanti & Prema in the world. I don't think that is what Sathya Sai predicted or expected. He wanted devotees and students to ***work*** in the task of re-establishing Sathya, Dharma, Shanti & Prema in the world. That part was very clear. He had expectations of work from devotees and students.

And that is what is common to Great Preachers. They expect their disciples/students/devotees to carry their work forward after they pass on. Who established Christianity as a faith in the Roman world? It was the apostles. They even were willing to get martyred (and some did get martyred) in spreading the Christian faith. After the short period of Resurrection, Jesus Christ did not appear in his form to spread the Christian faith. It was the work of Peter and Paul and Matthew and Thomas ...

So I think that Golden Age expectation involving some new messiahs to come to the fore and establish it (other than Prema Sai Baba which Sathya Sai had clearly predicted) is somewhat confusing to me. But then I am not psychic and do not have any mystical powers whatsoever! So maybe I am simply not able to see some mystical things which some psychic and mystical people are seeing.
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And I should also say that in the latter part of his mission (from the mid 90s when I got associated with Sathya Sai movement), the emphasis was on collective spiritual growth rather than individual spiritual growth. In the Sai university, I think this message of emphasis on collective spiritual growth was very clear. Yes, Swami also talked about individual self-realization. But, overall, he was more interested in people contributing to collective spiritual growth.

All should be happy. Don't be selfish and want to be happy only by yourself ... The collective's happiness is your happiness - That's how I understood his instructions and teachings to Sai university students & staff.
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Human life is a journey from “I” to “We”, http://www.sathyasai.org/discourse/youth-should-transform-the-world.

The above sentence from Swami's discourse was the view in the Sai university. I to We - that's the journey. Not individual spiritual growth but work together as a team and achieve collective spiritual growth and experience that we are all ONE.

I must also say here that I did not follow that instruction so much. I did my bit of collective Seva but also did fair bit of individual spiritual sadhana in the period before Mahasamadhi.
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In response to a comment, I wrote (slightly edited):
Well, --name-snipped-- bro., I have not given up hope on re-establishment of Sathya, Dharma, Shanti & Prema. But I doubt whether that will happen due to enlightened beings assuming positions of power in governance and working selflessly for good of all people. Instead, I feel it may happen due to a bottom-up people's movement with people turning towards Sathya, Dharma, Shanti & Prema, and demanding the same from their leaders.

To achieve that, my view is that we all have to do our bit (within our limitations) to promote re-establishment of Sathya, Dharma, Shanti & Prema in society. I further think that Swami expects us to contribute to that, despite any flaws we may have (I certainly have some human flaws).
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