Global Courant 2023-04-28 13:33:21
In the 1980s, the American futurist Lawrence Taub developed a macro-history based on Hindu cosmology that points the way to the end of the notorious caste system. His book The Spiritual Imperative Sex, Age, and the Last Caste maps actual linear history to the Varna cycle that forms the basis of Vedic cosmology, the root of the caste system.
The Indian (Hindu) worldview is personified by Brahma, the creator of the universe. Ancient Vedic sages predicted that mankind would pass through four different socio-economic stages before reaching the proverbial peace on earth. This prophecy has parallels with the prediction of the Second Coming in Abrahamic religions.
According to the Vedas, Brahma’s life is 311.04 trillion years. One day in Brahma’s life is one kalpa, or 4.32 billion years. The smallest unit in Brahma’s life is the yuga, which lasts just over a million years.
Mankind participates in Brahma’s life in this universe for only a short period. The astronomical numbers used in the Vedas suggest that the sages viewed the present universe as one in a series of endless big bangs.
The cycle of the four yugas began with the Satya Yuga, an age “ruled” by the Brahmins. The Hindu epic Mahabharata describes the Satya Yuga as a time of bliss on earth.
“There were no poor and no rich; there was no need to work, because everything that people needed was obtained by willpower; the main virtue was to give up all worldly desires.
“The Satya Yuga was without disease; there was no diminution with age; there was no hatred or vanity or evil thoughts; no sorrow, no fear. All of humanity could attain supreme bliss.”
The Satya Yuga was followed by three other eras: the Treta Yuga ruled by the Kshatriya (Warriors), the Dvapar Yuga ruled by the Vaishya (Merchants), and the Kali Yuga ruled by the Sudra (Workers).
The Brahmins, warriors, merchants and laborers are known as Varna. The four types probably emerged after the hunter-gatherer era and the development of agriculture and human settlement.
The cycle of the four Varna.
The formation of the first cities led to a division of labor and the sages identified four basic characteristics or generic types. They concluded that people have certain worldviews, inclinations and dispositions that fit into four categories which they called Varna.
The Varna are generic types rather than strict categories. A person can have the worldview and inclination of a merchant, but can also have a warrior impulse. A warrior can also have a merchant or brah inclination.
But one of the four Varna types typically predominates in each individual. It is the “cosmic imprint” – or dharma – that permeates all that exists.
Dharma means natural disposition, function or quality. The dharma of fire is to burn, that of water to flow, and that of air to be invisible. The warrior’s dharma is to fight and protect his people. Dharma is the twin of karma.
Dharma is the “duty” to which an individual is called by the cosmic imprint, and karma is the degree to which people adhere to their dharma.
The Varna prophecy was originally a cycle of four social types that were believed to be indispensable to the development of society. In later years, political leaders corrupted the Varna idea and turned it into a class system that would have horrified the ancient Vedic sages.
The cabinet model
In the mid-1970s, Lawrence Taub traveled to northeastern India to study at the ashram of Ānanda Mārga, a spiritual and social service organization founded by Indian spiritual teacher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. It offers socio-spiritual teachings and practices for individual emancipation, collective well-being, and the fulfillment of physical, mental, and spiritual needs.
While at the ashram, Taub attended a lecture on Sarkar’s Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT), a blueprint for a cooperative and decentralized economic theory based on social ideological concepts from the West and the ancient Vedic worldview, including the Varna cycle .
Initially, Taub rejected the Varna prophecy as mere myth-making permeating the Vedic classics. However, after his stay in India, he continued his travels and arrived in Japan, where he had an epiphany. He saw evidence in history that the Varna cycle takes place in actual history.
Taub defined the four Varna in contemporary terms.
Taub redefined the four Varna types in contemporary terms. He identified merchants as entrepreneurs, bankers, industrialists, and financiers, while workers were defined as those who worked for wages, whether factory workers, bureaucrats, or managers.
Taub then mapped the Varna cycle to actual history, both in time and space – specific years and specific regions. The West dominated the merchant era because its world view most closely resembled the merchant varna type, and East Asia will dominate the current working class era for the same reason; his worldview is closely aligned with the Worker Varna type.
Taub identified several Varna transitions. Spain was the last great power of the Warrior Age. Home to the world’s first stock market, Holland was the first power of the merchant era. It was replaced by England, which in turn was overtaken by the United States, the last great power of the merchant era.
Taub mapped the Varna cycle to actual history.
In Taub’s caste model, each Varna phase produces positive and negative changes. The Warrior Age perfected the art of warfare, but Warrior Age kings such as Constantine and Ashoka also spread spiritual awareness through religions such as Christianity and Buddhism.
Likewise, the merchant era saw colonial exploitation, but also launched the scientific revolution and shifted the focus of humanity from the next life to this world. The working-class era was hyper-materialistic but also developed solidarity, the first era that demanded basic human needs for all people, including food, housing, education, and medical care.
Overlapping Varna
Taub’s model describes the emergence of a new Varna in three steps: the pioneer phase, the revolutionary-evolutionary phase, and the peak phase.
In his model, the world is now approaching the peak phase of the working-class age. But remnants of the previous merchant era are still there: excessive concentration of wealth, environmental destruction, and a tendency to put profit before people.
The working-class era has yet to reach its peak, but the next Varna has already made its presence felt. It began in the second half of the 20th century, when a growing number of people began to reject the hyper-materialism that characterizes the working-class era.
It led to the rise of the hippie movement, New Age, and a growing interest in Eastern spiritual practices such as yoga and meditation.
Taub’s map of the next Satya Yuga.
Taub’s caste model explains a seemingly contradictory trend: the simultaneous rise of consciousness-raising movements such as the hippie movement and New Age, and the rise of fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. In Taub’s model, these trends are all part of the early phase of the next Varna era, the Satya Yuga.
Taub published his book after a series of lectures in Tokyo in the 1980s. The book did not attract much attention in the West, but a Japanese translation reached number 1 on that country’s bestseller list. It was followed by a Korean and a Spanish translation.
Takuya Murata, a Japanese scholar who reviewed Taub’s book for Futures magazine in 2007, acknowledged that Taub’s model sheds light on the contradictory developments in today’s world – secularity and religious fundamentalism. Murata wrote:
“Since today is the working-class era, according to Taub, the spiritual-religious era (II) should follow. According to this logic, events related to religion and spirituality should be currently emerging issues. This seems to be happening in different ways around the world. The Islamic revolution (in Iran) of 1979 took place against the secularizing trend of both capitalism and communism.”
Murata continued:
“In the 1990s, the collapse of the secular Soviet Union was followed by the return of Muslim practices to Central Asia. We are indeed seeing the rise of religio-political groups, for example the Christian right in Europe and the US and the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) in India.
“Taub’s prediction fits the intersection of the global reemergence of religion and the social search for meaning in this increasingly consumerist world.”
The end of work
In Taub’s model, the merchant age lasted about 300 years, from the 16th to the early 20th century. The current working-class caste era will last less than a century, from the early 20th century to about 2050. The working-class age will provide most of humanity with basic material needs, but it will lead to the end of (most) work . The only work left is work that requires human care and empathy.
The fourth industrial revolution now taking shape in China will see the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other forms of hyper-automation. The next stage in Varna, the Satya Yuga, will be marked by a shift in values and worldviews.
“By 2050, or a little later,” writes Taub, “machines and the energy to run them (usually light and solar power) will be so advanced that man and machine will be integrated. When basic needs are met, economic activity are no longer the center of human life.
“Because of the general trend of the new era towards religion and spirituality, economic activity – and related working class activities such as science, technology and materialism – will lose their central role anyway.”
Taub predicts the “spiritualization” of economic life through various movements: voluntary simplicity, suitable technology, the end of poverty and the end of (most) labor. These movements require a complete reorganization of the current system, which Taub says is beyond the capabilities of the current working-class era.
“Our present working age,” writes Taub, “is one of great spiritual as well as material development. But it is also the Kali Yuga, the most socially alienated, materialistic, spiritually dark and dreary, complicated, disorienting and dangerous of all caste ages. It is, in short, the best and the worst of all possible worlds so far.”
As we move from Kali Yuga to Satya Yuga, people need to mentally adjust to life without work. In the working-class era, our identities and social status are closely tied to our job, occupation, or skill, whether engineer, doctor, or accountant.
AI will reduce the value of professional knowledge, but it will give people more time for social, spiritual and leisure activities.
In the ‘post-fourth industrial revolution’ it will no longer matter what you know, but what you are. According to Taub, the currency of the new Satya Yuga will be self-knowledge rather than knowledge.
There will be no more workers, merchants and warriors. There will be only teachers and students and the caste system will become history.
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