Integral-oriented Exploration of TheYugas/The Great Year/Precession of the Equinoxes, lost advanced ancient civilizations, and a smattering of non-linear/non-Darwinian evolution

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If you’re a bit of an iconoclast and you enjoy exploring pre-history, astronomy, ancient/classical wisdom, and/or Vedic thought, you may enjoy this.

With respect, this is not, however, an invitation to a debate.

I’d like to engage in a friendly exploration of the topics mentioned in the title - using Integral lenses and principles - with the intention of comparing notes and discovering/sharing any insights, breadcrumbs, or epiphanies, etc, that may be of value to us in our own lives and/or in helping to address the issues of today and the future.

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I have no particular thesis, no premise, etc, except that I personally hold TheYugas/The Great Year/Precession of the Equinoxes along with many other facets of ancient (‘prehistoric’) wisdom to be true (although some are clearly metaphorical). I’d like to apply the ‘Integral lens’ in community leveraging the contribution of different perspectives from IL members and see whether they are even relevant enough to draw any comparisons/conclusions!

New scientific evidence has been emerging periodically that actually supports the possibility of these extended astronomical cycles and lost advanced civilizations. To understand them more completely requires, among other things, a willingness to question and possibly reimagine linear evolution, i.e., are older developments always less sophisticated than how we live today?

Somewhere several years ago in one of his lectures, I’m sure I heard Ken Wilber refer to one or both of the higher Yugas: Satya and/or Treta. I can’t remember his take or even the context… I haven’t been able to rediscover where that was, so if you can help that would be wonderful! I’d ultimately like to discover whether he will revisit it and if he has any new thoughts on the topic.

References:

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BOOKS

  • The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Our Hidden Past, Emerging Energy Age and Enlightened Future (Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz, et al)

  • Lost Star of Myth and Time (Walter Cruttenden, Rhys David, et al)

  • Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time (Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend)

  • The Holy Science (Sri Yuktaswar)

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This post conjures up some nostalgic memories for me, @Robin_Villaverde. I studied the Yugas (Sri Yukteswar’s model) in college extensively with David Steinmetz, and actually won a poster prize at a Yuga conference in Sedona in 2011 (my project was on Jungian archetypes and Yuga cycles). I lived at the spiritual community Ananda for several years, and the Yuga system was their go to model for understanding history and the evolution of consciousness (I had some pretty intense debates with Steinmetz about Yuga cycles vs. Spiral dynamics/Wilber).

I am currently reading The Ever Present Origin by Jean Gebser, and I find that book pretty consonant with the Yuga model. Gebser talks about how man living in the magic era was actually more psychic and connected to a “group soul,” and how the modern, mental age is dominated by “perspective” in which space is understood, which of course correlates with the onset of the Dwapara Yuga. For Gebser, the Integral age is constituted by “time-freedom” and a deepening understanding/insight into time, with the past and future manifesting as the present, which seems to correlate with the Treta Yuga (Yukeswar talks about how in the Dwapara Yuga, space is annihilated, while in the Treta Yuga, time is annihilated). Just a start to this conversation :smiley:

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Hi, @HawaiianRyan - great to hear from you on this topic! And wow! You studied with one of the best and have some interesting experiences.

I watched a series on YouTube (from AnandaPortland I think) delivered by ‘Byasa’ David Steinmetz after reading the book he wrote w/ Joseph Selbie. I enjoyed his pedagogy as much as the subject matter.

Was the conference you were at in Sedona, CPAK? Walter Cruttenden has mentioned that one in a few of his interviews - it seems like it was pretty special…

You wrote: “I had some pretty intense debates with Steinmetz about Yuga cycles vs. Spiral dynamics/Wilber.” and I’d love to hear more about that! I’m really interested in the correlations…

Cruttenden’s book Lost Star of Myth and Time is a great companion (being about the possible cause for the Yuga’s and their influence, i.e., the binary star hypothesis) - have you looked at it? So along with The Holy Science (of course) and Hamlet’s Mill (both of which I’ve started but I don’t have a lot of time for the ones that aren’t really easily ‘digestible’…) I’ve covered all the directly related material I could find. I’ll definitely check out Gebser though, I have the Amazon page open now! I can see I need to finish Sri Yukteswar’s work to better understand what gets annihilated when!

There are so many fascinating aspects from anomalous archeological finds, to potentially ‘debunking’ linear evolution with evidence of what appears to be a more sophisticated ancient past than many archeologists and historians can stand, lol!

One of the suggestions I found really interesting (see if you’ve come across this) was that during what was probably late descending Treta into descending Dwapara, even the priests were forgetting the scriptures and rituals, etc, so that they had to keep making things more complex and elaborate in order to ‘fill the gaps’ and keep their followers ‘engaged’. I think this was Selbie/Steinmetz… and they referenced the Upanishads as an example where the earlier works were more concise or even elegant (my word) and the later scriptures were more complex and need so many additional commentaries, translations, etc to be understood.

OK, as you can see I’m passionate about how much this explains and how much we now have to look forward to. I’ll just hint at Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of our Nature, which explains how/why humans are actually less violent than ever before… (I’ve always wondered how we became so incredibly violent after early days, e.g., in Old European goddess cultures, living so harmoniously. It’s been rough slogging through his inventory of mostly Biblical violence, but worth the additional perspective on Kali Yuga (I hope - I’m about halfway through).

So, @HawaiianRyan… Anything else you have a chance to add will be great!