Culture
Alice Bailey’s Prophecy about 2025 and its links to the Kalachakra Tantra
We are living in exceptional times. After trudging through the dense, materialistic, vibrations of the Kali Yuga (Iron Age) for nearly 5700 years, we have reached the crossroads of the Yugas once again, when the direction of our civilization will be altered forever.
The year 2025 signifies a watershed moment in our collective experience, for the Yuga Cycle framework based on the “Saptarshi Calendar” indicates that on 21st March, 2025, the Kali Yuga will end. This will be followed by a long transitional period of 1200 years – which the Greek philosophers called Ekpyrosis (meaning “Conflagration”) – when the decadent structures, philosophies and ideologies of the Kali Yuga will be entirely obliterated and a nascent civilization based on elevated spiritual principles shall take root, which will eventually grow into the enlightened civilizations of the ascending Yuga Cycle, culminating in the next Golden Age.
At the same time, my research also indicates that the destruction of the current Kali Yuga civilization is likely to be completed within a small window of time between 2025 and 2040, due to a combination of global wars and comet impacts. These are the end-times that the ancient prophecies warned us of, when the apocalyptic events described in the eschatological texts will be fulfilled and our reality will be drastically altered.
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| Figure 1: The 25,800-year Yuga Cycle, including the 1200-year periods of Kataklysmos and Ekpyrosis. Credit: Bibhu Dev Misra. |
In my book, YUGA SHIFT, I have provided a detailed explanation of the Yuga Cycle framework based on the Saptarshi Calendar with its 2700-year cycle, and I had outlined some of the essential points in my previous articles (link1, link2) on this topic.[1][2] Without getting into too many details, let me just point out that the upcoming period of transition in 2025 not only marks the end of the Kali Yuga – which is the current age of greed and lies, corruption and violence that we are living in – but the culmination of the entire descending cycle of consciousness that began in 9676 BCE, soon after the Ice Age came to an abrupt end. This amplifies the significance of the impending transition, when a series of transformative events will sweep over us, and alter our reality beyond recognition.
In my book, I have presented a gamut of scientific evidence from various disciplines – history, archaeology, anthropology and astronomy – which validates the essential tenets of the Yuga Cycle doctrine. At the same time, I was also interested in finding out scriptural confirmations of this timeline. To this end, I came across some very interesting information from the writings of Alice Bailey, and the eschatological vision outlined in the Tibetan sacred text, the Kalachakra Tantra.
The Prophecy of Alice Bailey and Djwal Khul
The year 2025 had been specifically mentioned by the theosophist Alice Bailey in some of her writings nearly a century ago, as being a herald of a period of impending transformation. Alice Bailey had written more than twenty-four books on various theosophical and esoteric subjects. She had claimed that the majority of her works – which were written between 1919 and 1949 – had been telepathically transmitted to her by the Tibetan Master Djwal Khul.
In a very well-researched article titled, “The Coming Avatar”, author Dorje Jinpa has quoted deeply symbolic passages from the writings of Alice Bailey and Helena Blavatsky, as well as other Hindu and Buddhist manuscripts, to present a picture of the Avatar who is expected to arrive at the close of this Yuga. Quoting from Bailey’s, “A Treatise on Cosmic Fire”, Dorje Jinpa writes,
“From the gates of gold down to the pit of earth, out from the flaming fire down to the circle of gloom, rideth the secret Avatar, bearing the sword that pierceth. Naught can arrest His approach, and none may say nay. To the darkness of our sphere He rideth alone, and on His approach is seen the uttermost disaster, and the chaos of that which seeketh to withstand…The noise discordant of the warring elements greets the oncoming One and deters Him not…Yet, He passeth on His way, sweeping the circle of the spheres, and sounding forth the WORD.”[3]
Bailey clarified that the “Word” that the Avatar sounds forth is “the vibration of His Silent Will, the Impulse of Synthesis – One Life, One Purpose, One Family.” She wrote that the Avatar is “coming to the earth in order to further the manifestation of unity, of oneness and of inter-relation, and He comes, therefore, to wield and apply first ray energy.”
She described the Avatar as an “extra-planetary avatar”, who will accomplish his purpose without taking a mortal form. She wrote that, “these Avatars appear rarely, but when they do, the effectiveness and results of their work is very great…They never descend lower than the mental plane…They bring about death – the death of the old and limiting forms and of that which houses evil.”
Bailey’s writings are closely aligned with the descriptions of the Yuga-ending avatar in many eschatological texts, in which the Savior arrives from the heavens wielding a sword, at a time when our planet is plagued by wars and disasters. The Yuga-ending avatars have an immensely transformative effect on the planet, and while they may use force when required, it is really the power of their spiritual energy and silent will that effects the greatest change.
What is probably most relevant for our times is Bailey’s statement regarding the date when the Avatar will manifest himself. She said that the reappearance of the Avatar and the externalization of the Hierarchy (i.e. the hierarchy of gods or angels who work for the evolution of human consciousness) would begin after 2025. In, “The Externalisation Of The Hierarchy”, Bailey wrote,
“In 2025, the date in all probability will be set for the first stage of the externalization of the Hierarchy. The present cycle (from now until that date) is called technically “The Stage of the Forerunner”. It is preparatory in nature, testing in its methods, and intended to be revelatory in its techniques and results.”[4]
I was amazed to learn that Bailey had explicitly identified 2025 as the cut-off date after which the manifestation of the hierarchy of gods will begin. This exactly matches the end date of the Kali Yuga in 2025, which I had arrived at by a very different method. Bailey brought up the prophetic implications of the 2025 date later in her writing career. In the article, “The Coming Avatar”, Dorje Jinpa writes that,
“In 1945, at a time when the enemy’s external threat through Hitler’s armies had just been averted, Bailey said that three recognitions must be evidenced by humanity before the year 2025, if the ‘destruction of mankind is to be averted.’ They are: 1. Recognition of the Christ spirit within. 2. Recognition of the Hierarchy. 3. Recognition of the Divine Plan. The destruction mentioned here could mean something like the great flood of the last days of Atlantis, although as Bailey points out some prophecies say that destruction by fire is also a possibility. “If humanity fails to unite under the banner of the Forces of Light against the forces of material aggression and selfishness, then the ‘fiery ordeal’ might be unavoidable.”
Apparently, the year 2025 is the cut-off date for humanity to recognize that we are divine souls, that the gods described in many ancient traditions are the guardians of the human civilization, and it is our sacred obligation to act in accordance with the divine plan, which is to live in peace and harmony, and to progressively purify our consciousness by following the ancient wisdom teachings. If we are unable to do so by 2025 – and, to be honest, that seems quite unrealistic at this stage – catastrophic changes will inevitably sweep over the earth.
It is interesting that Bailey mentions that a fiery ordeal” may be unavoidable, for, as per the Yuga Cycle framework, the 1200-year period of transition after the Kali Yuga is called “Ekpyrosis”, – a Greek term meaning “Conflagration” – when the world is cleansed by fire.
The question that was foremost on my mind as I read these prophetic utterings was, how did Bailey arrive at the 2025 date as a marker of the end-times? Since she claimed to be documenting the esoteric wisdom of the Tibetan Master Djwal Khul, it occurred to me that the end of the Kali Yuga in 2025 must have been known to certain Tibetan Masters, even though it was forgotten by the people at large. But from where did the Tibetan lamas get this date? After I bit of searching around, I realized that the Tibetan Kalachakra Tantra prophecy points to the year 2025 as the time of the apocalyptic end-time battle.
The Kalachakra Tantra Prophecy
The Kalachakra Tantra is a Buddhist sacred text, containing some of the most esoteric teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. In one of the chapters, it describes an apocalyptic end-time battle that parallels the Hindu prophecy of the Kalki Avatar appearing from Shambhala to eradicate evil. Since most of the scriptures that comprise the Tibetan Canon were translated from the ancient Sanskrit texts, this correlation is only to be expected.
As per the Kalachakra Tantra, 32 Kings shall rule in the hidden, mystical kingdom of Shambhala, after the time of the Buddha. Each of them will rule for a 100 years, adding up to a total of 3200 years. The first 7 kings will be called Dharmarajas (Truth Kings), while the next 25 will be known as Kalki Kings (Holder of the Castes). The final Kalki King will be called Rudra Chakrin (meaning, “The Wrathful One with the Wheel”), who will ascend the throne of Shambhala as the 25th and last king.
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| Figure 2: Rudra Chakrin, the final Kalki King of Shambhala, holding a spear (shakti) and a wheel (chakra). Image taken from Edward Henning’s website, Kalacakra.org. |
As the succession of the Shambhala kings takes place, corruption and deterioration will predominate on the earth. Victoria Dmitrieva, in her thesis titled, “The Legend of Shambhala in Eastern and Western Interpretations (1997)”, wrote that, as per the Kalachakra Tantra,
“Religions will no longer be duly respected, an aggressive materialism will rule the planet and spiritual attainments will be of no value. The barbarians (Kla-klo), fighting each other for power, will be finally united under an evil King. After the whole world has submitted to him, the hidden land of Shambhala will reveal itself and the (evil) King, overwhelmed with rage that he is not the only ruler of the world, will lead a war against Shambhala.
The Kla-klo king will have all kinds of mighty terrible weapons at his disposal. This final battle of Shambhala with the Kla-klo army will be held in 2425 CE. Then the 32nd Shambhala King, Rudra Chakrin, will lead his army against the barbarians and will destroy them, thus bestowing the “perfect age” for at least a thousand years. At that time the whole world will turn into Shambhala with no sickness or poverty, and no need to work to earn a living. Even great saints and sages of the past will return to life to teach true wisdom, and many will attain enlightenment through the practice of the Kalachakra.”[5]
The final battle between Rudra Chakrin and the barbarian rulers of the earth is prophesied to happen in 2425 CE, which is exactly 400 years after the 2025 CE date for the end of the Kali Yuga. The “perfect age” of a thousand years that will follow the end-time battle corresponds to the 1200-year period of Ekpyrosis after the Kali Yuga. Although the 1200-year period of Ekpyrosis will be a time of significant earth changes, which will purify, rearrange and renew our world, it will also be an amazing time to live for the survivors of the impending apocalyptic events, for a new, divine, energy will course through our planet, which will cleanse our minds of egoic dross and activate the dormant chakra centers and subtle mental abilities. As a result, the people of that period are likely to experience powerful feelings of bliss that are inconceivable today.
I was curious, though, as to why the apocalyptic battle in the Kalachakra Tantra was prophesied to occur in 2425 CE, exactly 400 years after 2025 CE. When I looked into the calculations in the Kalachakra Tantra a bit more closely, I realized that some amendments had been introduced into the text, either during the time of translation or at a later date, as a result of which the date of the end-time battle was extended by 400 years.
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| Figure 3: Rudra Chakrin, the final king of Shambhala, riding a white horse and killing the barbarians with his spear (shakti). Source: pbase.com |
As per the prophecy, the end-time battle will occur after each of the 32 Shambhala Kings have ruled for 100 years each, for a total duration of 3200 years after the time of Buddha. Within the Eastern Buddhist tradition of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, the traditional date for the death of the Buddha was 949 BCE.[6] Since the first Shambhala King Suchandra, was believed to be ruling during the time of Buddha, the period of Suchandra’s rule is assumed to have extended from c. 976 – 876 BCE. Thereafter, each King ruled for a hundred years.
This sequence should have taken us to 2225 CE for the end-time battle, but, for some inexplicable reason, the 3rd Kalki King named Bhadra has been assumed to rule for 300 years, instead of the usual 100. As a result, the date of the end-time battle got extended to 2425 CE.
As I went through the numbers in the Kalachakra Tantra, I was astonished by how closely the dates and time periods in the prophecy correspond to the Yuga Cycle framework based on the Saptarshi Calendar. Here are the primary correlations that took me by surprise:
- The first Shambhala King, Suchandra’s reign extended for 100 years from 976 – 876 BCE. Thus, the counting in the Kalachakra system begins from 976 BCE. In the Yuga Cycle timeline, the descending Kali Yuga ended in 976 BCE – the exact same date!
- As per the Yuga Cycle timeline, the end of the descending Kali Yuga in 976 BCE was followed by a 300-year period of transition and the 2700-year ascending Kali Yuga thereafter, adding up to a 3000-year Yuga. In the Kalachakra Tantra, the rule of the 32 Shambhala kings extend for a total of 3200 years, starting from 976 BCE.
- In the Kalachakra Tantra, each Shambhala king rules for 100 years, starting from 976 BCE, whereas the Yuga Cycle was tracked by the Saptarshi Calendar in which the Seven Sages spend 100 years in each nakshatra or lunar house, thereby completing a 2700-year cycle around the ecliptic. Thus, not only is the starting point of the current epoch same in both systems i.e. 976 BCE, they both use a 100-year tracking system.
These correlations clearly indicate that the Saptarshi Calendar served as the basis for determining the dates in the Kalachakra Tantra. The 100 years of rule of each Shambhala king was the 100 years that the Saptarshis spend in each nakshatra; while the beginning of the present epoch in 976 BCE in the Kalachakra system coincides with the end of the descending Kali Yuga in 976 BCE, and, effectively, the beginning of the next Yuga of 3000 years.
It is the Saptarshi Calendar that begins in the 76th year of each century BCE, and, therefore, a counting system that begins from 976 BCE and uses a 100-year reckoning must, necessarily, be based on the Saptarshi Cycle.
The reason why the end-time battle in the Kalachakra prophecy occurs in 2425 CE – exactly 400 years after 2025 CE – is because of a couple of deviations in the Kalachakra system. Firstly, as I have already mentioned, in the Kalachakra system, the 3rd Kalki King, Bhadra, has been arbitrarily assumed to rule for 300 years, instead of the usual 100. That’s 200 extra years, which should be rightly ignored for computing the date of the end-time battle.
Secondly, in the Kalachakra system, the current epoch starting in 976 BCE lasts for 3200 years, whereas in the Yuga Cycle doctrine each Yuga is of 3000-years durations. That’s another 200 extra years. It is rather odd why the Kalachakra considers the final epoch to be of 3200 years duration, when, both in the Indian and Persian doctrines, each Yuga extended for 3000 years. I wondered if the 200 extra years were added later to the Kalachakra text. My instinctive feeling was vindicated when I came across an intriguing piece of information in the Kalachakra.org website, which has been put together by Edward Henning, a renowned Kalachakra scholar, translator and Tibetan astrology expert, and the author of the book “Kalachakra Mandala”. Edward Henning observes that,
“There are some problems with the listing of the kalki-kings. The general list given in Tibetan texts, and used in the series of pictures shown here, contains 25 names, but the great Indian Kalacakra teacher Vibhuticandra pointed out to Tibetan colleagues that the names of the 18th and 19th in this list, Hari and Vikrama, belonged together as one name, Harivikrama. He also pointed out to them that some Tibetan lists similarly split up the name of number 24 in the list into two names, Ananta and Vijaya. This persists to this day. The advice of this great Kalacakra teacher was duly noted by the Tibetans but in practice ignored, and their misreading of the Sanskrit when translating into Tibetan was not corrected.”[7]
Now we begin to get an idea of what might have happened. A single name in the Sanskrit text was broken up into two different names in the “official” Tibetan list of Shambhala kings. This definitely happened in case of the king Harivikrama as noted by Vibhuticandra, and it is not unlikely that another error of a similar type was introduced into the Tibetan texts during the process of translation.
In other words, it is eminently possible that the original Kalachakra system had 30 Shambhala Kings (and not 32) ruling for 100 years each, adding up to a 3000-year Yuga. Thus, the date of the end-time battle in the original Kalachakra system was 2025 CE, but due to subsequent amendments – either during the process of translation or at a later date – this date got extended by 400 years.
Fortunately, the original date of the apocalyptic battle i.e. 2025 CE was not completely forgotten but was preserved by means of oral transmission within certain lineages of monks. This is the date that the Tibetan master Djwal Khul had conveyed to Alice Bailey, as being the time when the externalization of the “Divine Hierarchy” will begin.
Since the Tibetan Canon was largely translated from the ancient Sanskrit texts, it implies that, in ancient India, there was a system of tracking the Yuga Cycle using the Saptarshi Calendar, in which the current Yuga of 3000 years duration began in 976 BCE. The knowledge of this system was lost from India when the country came under a slew of external invasions from the 11th century onwards. This means, the Yuga Cycle timeline that I have proposed, is not a new interpretation of the Yuga Cycle. Rather, it is a “rediscovery” of an ancient method of tracking the Yuga Cycle using the Saptarshi Calendar. This method was prevalent in India for thousands of years, and then it was forgotten sometime during our long passage through the darkness of the Kali Yuga.
One of the questions that I had pondered over is, why did the Tibetan Buddhists extend the date of the end-time battle by 400 years to 2425 CE? It is quite clear that the end-date was deliberately extended and was not done inadvertently. My guess is that, there was an attempt to bring it in line with the Zoroastrian beliefs about the end of the current World Cycle.
The Persians, who were the neighbors of the Indus Valley civilization, and with whom the Indians had longstanding cultural and linguistic connections, not only believed in a World Cycle of 12,000 years, but they also divided it up into four equal Ages of 3,000 years each.[8]
As per the ancient Persian accounts, Zoroaster lived between the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, and had received his revelation from Ahura Mazda in the world-year 9000.[9] This takes the beginning of the current World Cycle, when Supreme Lord, Ahura Mazda, had recreated the world, to the period between 9600 BCE to 9700 BCE – the precise time when the last Ice Age had ended. As per the Yuga Cycle framework, the descending cycle of consciousness began in 9676 BCE, which is perfectly aligned with the Persian estimates.
The Zoroastrian tradition holds that, after Zoroaster began teaching the doctrine of Ahura Mazda, he initiated the final World Age of 3000 years, which will be followed by the final renovation of the world when the forces of light will triumph over evil. Thus, the 12000-year World Cycle is scheduled to end sometime between 2300 and 2400 CE. This is the approximate time that the Tibetan Buddhist might have “targeted” for placing their apocalyptic battle, in which Rudra Chakrin will emerge from Shambhala and vanquish the forces of evil and inequity.
Since the concept of the “transitional periods” between the Yugas is missing in the Zoroastrian doctrine, their belief was that, the bulk of the transformative changes are effected at the very end of a 3000-year Yuga. This belief is not correct, as I have shown in my book and previous articles, for there is always a period of transition spanning 300 years or so between the Yugas, when a series of cataclysmic events eradicate the older civilizations and a new wave of civilizations begin to appear in the archaeological records.
One of the key takeaways from this discussion is that, the end of the Kali Yuga is not some vague date hundreds of thousands of years into the future as many Hindus tend to believe, but is very close at hand. In many Puranas, the duration of the Yuga Cycle had been inflated to a humungous number (4,320,000 years) by multiplying the 12000-year half-cycle by 360, and this has now become the dominant idea, even though the 12000-year cycle has been explicitly specified in the Mahabharata and the Laws of Manu. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to dislodge an erroneous conception once people have become indoctrinated with it.
But, we cannot have different Yuga Cycles for different cultures, and my study shows that the Yuga Cycle and the earth’s precession cycle are one and the same, and the Kali Yuga ends on 21st March, 2025. I do hope that open-minded seekers of the truth will reflect on this information and re-evaluate their understanding of the Yuga Cycle, so that they can prepare themselves to deal with the transformative changes that are on the way, and that have, to some extent, already started to manifest.
References
[1] Bibhu Dev Misra, “The end of the Kali Yuga in 2025: Unraveling the mysteries of the Yuga Cycle”, Ancient Inquiries, July 15, 2012, https://www.bibhudevmisra.com/2012/07/end-of-kali-yuga-in-2025-unraveling.html[2] Bibhu Dev Misra, ” The Yuga Cycle and the 25,800-year Precession Cycle of the Earth”, Ancient Inquiries, March 18, 2024, https://www.bibhudevmisra.com/2024/03/the-yuga-cycle-and-earths-precession.html[3] Dorje Jinpa, “The Coming Avatar”, 2013, http://whenthesoulawakens.org/the-coming-avatar_448.html[4] Alice Bailey, The Externalisation Of The Hierarchy, Lucis Publishing Company, 1957.[5] Victoria Dmitrieva, The Legend of Shambhala in Eastern and Western Interpretations, Mc Gill University, November 1997, p. 11.[6] L.S. Cousins, “The Dating of the Historical Buddha: A Review Article”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6, 1 (1996), pp. 57 – 63.[7] “The Kings of Sambhala”, http://www.kalacakra.org/kings/skings2.htm[8] Mary Boyce, Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism, op. cit., p. 20.[9] “ASTVA?.?R?TA”, Enclyclopaedia Iranica, https://iranicaonline.org/articles/astvat-ereta-savior