IN HINDU mythology, every great rotating circle of time is an inevitable and repeated sequence of the four world ages. In each cycle, the universe is created in perfect order, only to fall into renewed disorder.
In the first age, the newly created universe sits squarely on four legs. It is a sweet and easy, dependable time. Everything seems to go right and life seems to make sense. In the second age, life loses one of its legs, and now preserving balance is harder to do. Kindness calls for conscious effort. Duty and devotion no longer come naturally. Next comes the stage where life is tottering on two legs, increasingly unstable. Self-confidence and high ideals give way to panicky, mean-spirited grabbing for whatever we can get. Paradoxically, our opportunistic struggle to survive ushers in the next and still darker age. We lose it all and there is only the absolute awfulness of everything— total degradation when we are all at our worst. Life is totally disrupted.
The Hindu myths help us understand that life will continue to be a mixture of easy living disrupted by hard times. That’s just the way it is.
It’s harder to be loving when you’re losing.