A wise yogi who understands the nature of existence will tell us clearly and calmly: We should not fear the end of the world. For him, the apocalypse occurs in each and every passing moment. Everything is destroyed and reborn, reality flickers like a flame between existence and non-existence, and it is only language that deceives us into thinking that there is any permanence and stability in the world around us. According to traditional Hindu belief, the universe undergoes a cycle of cosmic creation and destruction, with each era lasting from thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. These days we are facing the end of Kali-Yuga, the worst era, the one in which violence, injustice, and immorality prevail. At the very end of this era, some catastrophe is expected to occur, one that will wipe out everything, or almost everything. So wait, how are we supposed not to fear, if the end is so certain and so close?
The cycle of ages is just one of many that the yogi experiences and is aware of. The universe is like a system of gears. In addition to the wheel of ages, there is also the wheel of birth and death, that is, the reincarnations in different bodies. This occurs alongside shorter cycles, such as the transition from sleep to wakefulness and vice versa, which is also perceived as a temporary departure from the body. The shortest and most elusive cycle however – Sukshma as they say in Sanskrit, meaning “thin and subtle” – is the cycle of the senses and the mind (Manas).
For example, in every blink of the eye, one’s sight rapidly shifts from complete blurriness to a clear, sharp image, and then in an instant the mind recognizes the objects and thinks of their names and concepts. Each time the eyelids are closed, everything is erased again, but still there is a feeling as if the external environment is concrete and continuous. In addition, with each inhalation and exhalation a certain thought arises, based on words and ideas, either as an inner voice or as vocalized speech. However, the yogi recognizes that in the silent gaps between breaths there is an empty space, without any thoughts or distinctions, and he learns to linger there, in order to rest from the fluctuations of consciousness.
Following his observation and analysis of mental, physical and transcendental processes, the yogi experiences the whole of reality as a kind of dream. Within this big dream, called “waking life”, other dreams are created, daydreams and night-dreams, constantly expanding and bursting like soap bubbles. We exist inside a Matryoshka doll made of dreams, and it is not clear where the universe begins and where it ends. Only the fact of our death is certain, however vague. So even if the apocalypse is imminent, approaching us with giant steps, it is nothing more than a slight ripple in the ocean of Saṃsāra, the cosmic cycle of births and deaths.
The yogi dedicates his life to prepare for the moment of death, in order to leave his body with a sense of equanimity (Samatva) and non-attachment (Vairāgya). What determines the next reincarnation is the Kratu, the last thought and intention, just before leaving the body. If the yogi manages to keep his mind empty, without any fears, desires or aspirations, he will be freed from Saṃsāra. That is, he will not be born again, and thus won’t have to suffer another incarnation. This liberation, called Moksha or Nirvāṇa, is not really the end, but a transcendent state in which concepts such as “end” or “beginning”, “death” or “birth”, no longer bear any meaning. Even the word “state” is not exactly appropriate to describe it. Absolute annihilation is more extreme than any possible end.
To illustrate this enigmatic cycle of existence, let us turn to a story-within-a-story from the Sanskrit literary masterpiece called the Yoga-Vasishtha. The text is a dialogue between the sage Vasishtha and Prince Rāma on the nature of Saṃsāra and the ways to release oneself from it. In one chapter, Vasishtha tells Rāma about a hunter who, many years ago, came to his hut in the forest, requesting to ask him some questions. The two discussed the mysteries of the universe and consciousness, and the hunter, who admired Vasishtha’s wisdom, decided to become his disciple. The hunter was curious about the life’s journey of his new guru, and wished to know how Vasishtha had learned everything he knew. Vasishtha in response told him a story:
Many years ago I decided to become an ascetic, and wanted to learn witchcraft. I abandoned my previous life, my wife and children, and moved to a hut in the forest by myself. I practiced meditation day after day, and recited the most powerful mantras, until I could leave my body at will and wander through the forest. One night I floated to the nearest village, and entered the body of another man while he was sleeping. I wandered around his body and saw all his internal organs, and then I went up and entered his head. In the space of his skull I found an entire universe, with a sun, an ocean, mountains, palaces, villages, animals and people. I realized that this world was his dream, and that I actually saw his dream as an independent reality, as if I were looking through his eyes.
After sunset, when it got dark, the man returned to his home, entered his bed and fell asleep inside his dream, and I fell asleep along with him. At that very moment, the world was struck by a huge flood that destroyed everything. I was immediately swept away, and while trying to hold on to a rock, a huge wave hit me and washed me back into the waters. Finally, I managed to climb to the top of a high mountain, and I looked at the utter destruction around me. When I saw this world destroyed to the very ground, I was filled with deep sorrow and cried for a long time. I became emotionally involved in his dream world, and completely forgot about my own previous life. Out of confusion, I merged with his soul and thought to myself: “This is my father, this is my mother, this is my wife and these are my children. This is my village, this is my home, this is where I live.”
After a few dreams, I again saw the end of the world coming. The entire universe went up in flames and became completely scorched. This time I was prepared, and even while the flames burned my flesh, I felt no pain at all, because I realized: “This is just a dream.” Not long after, I forgot my previous experiences once again. One day an ascetic came to my doorstep to collect alms, so I hosted him for dinner. When we talked after dinner, he suddenly said: “Don’t you know that this is all a dream? I am a person in your dream, and you are a person in someone else’s dream.” At that moment I sobered up, and then I remembered that I am a yogi myself. I replied: “I will now return to the world in which my own body exists.” I wanted to observe the body from which I had come out, and the body into which I had entered, and thus to return to the starting point.
The ascetic watched me close my eyes and make an effort in vain, and then he smiled and said: “Where do you think these two bodies are?” He was amused that I could not find my body, because I could not even get out of the head of the person whose dream I had entered. Confused and anxious, I asked him: “Well, where ARE those two bodies?” And he replied: “While you entered the other person’s body, a great fire broke out in the forest, destroying both your bodies. Now you are a villager, a family man and a householder. You are no longer a yogi.” When he told this to me, I was struck with astonishment. I tried to further question him in order to understand how he knew these details, but he just leaned back and closed his eyes, in deep silence that merged with the stillness of the night. From that day on I did not let him leave my house, he stayed with me until the moment of his death, and only then did he agree to tell me that in order for me to understand, I must become a yogi again.
The hunter interrupted Vasishtha’s story and said: “Dear Guru, I understand! So it means that you, me and everyone are actually characters in someone else’s dream.” The hunter did not understand the story correctly, and wanted to leave the hut, feeling that he had discovered the great secret. Vasishtha pleaded with him to stay by promising that he had much more to learn, and even offered to reveal his future to him, but the hunter refused. He left and moved on with his life. He went on to new reincarnations, until he finally became a yogi, and attained liberation.
What does this strange story try to teach us? What did the hunter misunderstand? What did Vasishtha understand? There is no doubt that this entangled narrative echoes the human confusion about the end. Of course, we are not just characters in someone else’s dream, but we also dream the other as the other, and then again dream ourselves as characters for the other, who is actually our own self, like an infinite fractal of empathy. The narratives we identify with are like a dream or a nightmare about an imagined event, and each new crisis causes us to quickly forget the previous one, even if its “fruits” are still being felt. Therefore, the more we are immersed in dreams – whether daydreams, nightmares, or god forbid, “scientific facts” – the greater is our self-forgetfulness.
But what does it actually mean to remember oneself? To observe one’s own gaze, to free oneself from the illusion of being “inside” the external world, and to see it as projected in consciousness from within. An apocalypse is a purely subjective experience. Each year, countless natural disasters, catastrophes, wars, and murders occur in the world. Yet, merely thinking about them does not resemble one’s own death, the first-person experience that erases everything. The entire universe turns off at once, like a phone that ran out of battery. It doesn’t matter how many apps were open at that time, who sent us a message or what was reported in the news. Suddenly, there is silence, until the next recharge. Therefore, the lucid and awakened yogi remains in equanimity even when flames consume his body, because he knows that the end already lies in each passing moment, and he is not afraid of it. For him, the end of the world already rests in its beginning, and is constantly present in the gaps that exist in-between.
Doron Peisic is a consciousness researcher, lecturer and PhD student in the Philosophy department at the Tel Aviv University. His research focuses on the Yoga and Tantra traditions of Ancient India, alongside a broader interest in Shamanism, Hypnosis, and Lucid dreaming.
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