The Cycle of Yugas — Cycles, Yugas or Eras in Cosmogony
Revelation of Master Sri Yukteswar, by Paramahansa Yogananda‘s disciple, Swami Kriyananda
And if the story doesn’t move in a straight line… But in a great cosmic cycle?
More than a century ago, the great Indian sage Sri Yukteswar made a startling claim: human civilization comes and goes in a predictable 24,000-year cycle calledYugas —and we are currently on the rise.
As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote:
“Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year equinoctial cycle to our present era.”
The Cosmic Engine Behind the Yugas
Every year at each equinox, we are in exactly the same position relative to our Sun, and yet we consistently observe that we are not in exactly the same position relative to the zodiac. This “precession of the equinoxes” takes 24,000 years to complete — and Sri Yukteswar associated it with the rise and fall of human consciousness.
He proposed that our Sun, “taking some star as dual, revolves around each other in about 24,000 years — causing the backward motion of the equinoctial points around the Zodiac.”
As this dual star system orbits closer or farther from the galactic center — Vishnunabhi, the seat of Brahma — humanity’s mental and spiritual capacities wax and wane accordingly. At the closest point: the peak of the Satya Yuga (11,500 BC). At the farthest point: the lowest point of the Kali Yuga (500 AD).
The Four Ages
Sri Yukteswar described four ages, each reflecting a level of human consciousness:
Kali Yuga (Iron Age/Material, 1,200 years) — “Man understands only gross matter.”
Dwapara Yuga (Bronze Age/Energy, 2,400 years) — “Man understands fine matter and electricity.”
Treta Yuga (Silver / Mental Age, 3,600 years) — “Man understands divine magnetism.”
Satya Yuga (Golden/Spiritual Age, 4,800 years) — “Man comprehends everything, even the Spirit beyond this visible world.”
These four eras constitute half of the cycle. Ascending and descending arcs together form the complete 24,000 – year revolution.
Where are we now?
The lowest point of the cycle occurred around 500 A.D. Since then we have been ascending. Around 1700 AD, we entered the rise of the Dwapara Yuga — the Energy Age.
As the master Paramahansa Yogananda wrote:
“This year ushered in the Dwapara Yuga, a 2,400 – year period of electrical and atomic energy developments, the age of the telegraph, radio, airplanes, and other space annihilators.”
In 2026, we are 326 years into this 2,400 – year energy age — still in its early stages, but signs of the era’s ascension are everywhere.
Evidence All Around Us
As Swami Kriyananda, a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, observed:
“Sri Yukteswar wrote — in 1894 — that matter is really energy. This fact was discovered by science only eleven years later, in 1905.”
As researchers and writers Selbie and Steinmetz wrote in their books:
“Swami Sri Yukteswar predicted that the main discovery of the twentieth century would be that all matter is composed of ‘fine matter and electricity’. Their prediction was made more than twenty years before Einstein’s theory of relativity.”
The hallmarks of the ascendant Dwapara Yuga are unmistakable: Einstein’s E=mc² (1905), the discovery and widespread use of electricity, the instantaneous communication from the telegraph to the Internet — Paramahansa Yogananda’s “space annihilators” — the perception of a vast universe far beyond our one star system (1920s), a growing awareness that reality is more subtle than what the senses perceive, and a worldwide shift from dogma to personal experience and inner exploration.
The Promise Ahead
The ascending arc holds extraordinary promise. Paramahansa Yogananda predicted:
“The 3,600 – year period of the Treta Yuga will begin in 4100 A.D.; its era will be marked by the common knowledge of telepathic communications and other temporal annihilators. During the 4,800 years of the Satya Yuga, man’s intelligence will be fully developed; he will work in harmony with the divine plan.”
Swami Kriyananda further added that:
“Paramahansa Yogananda sometimes remarked, quite casually, that in the future humanity would see numerous changes in the way it thinks, lives, and behaves: a shift toward international and interreligious unity, interplanetary travel, and countless new ways of dealing with reality.”
A comforting sight
“The Yugas Cycle shows us, reassuringly, that these changes are not random, but rather the unfolding of man’s innate potentials.”
Selbie & Steinmetz in, “The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Our Hidden Past, Emerging Energy Age and Enlightened Future“
“Man, one by one, escapes from the prison of the duality of creation by awakening to the consciousness of his inseparable divine unity with the Creator.”
Paramahansa Yogananda, from the book “Autobiography of a Yogi“
Sources:
Book “The Sacred Science“, written in 1894 by Sri Yukteswar
Book “Autobiography of a Yogi“, written in 1846 by Paramahansa Yogananda
Book “Conversations with Yogananda“, written by Swami Kriyananda
Book “The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Our Hidden Past, Emerging Energy Age and Enlightened Future,” written by Joseph Selbie & David Steinmetz
