Just as a sidebar to the Edg Meltdown, the "snapping point" at which I relaxed and began to laugh uncon- trollably at Edg rather than be peeved at him was when he used the term "Kali Yuga" as if it were a real thing, and furthermore a real thing that could be utilized as a kind of "thought stopper" in an online discussion.
That just blew my mind, and reduced me to howls of laughter. From my admittedly apostate and somewhat cynical point of view, "Kali Yuga," as a unit of time or a description of an era, is part of a myth promulgated by an ancient shaman-led society that wanted to promote the idea that things were better in a past era, and that the best we as humans could ever hope for was a "return" that that mythical golden era. Bullshit, sez I. There is no historical record of such a "golden era." The promotion of it, in my opinion, is a fiction proposed by those who want their followers to ignore the present and focus on a supposed future that is being sold to them. So when I encounter someone who claims to have walked away from many of his TM beliefs but who throws out "Kali Yuga" as a thought stopper, I cannot control my laughter. How does the greater audience at FFL react to that term? Have you ever challenged the existence of "Kali Yuga" or the other mythical "yugas" of the Hindu/Vedic time system? Do you still think they are accurate or viable? If so, do you have anything you can present as any kind of evidence *supporting* your view of these things as "real?" Just curious...
