Kalpa
BKs see time as a loop, with one endlessly repeating kalpa i.e. cycle, which consists of:
- Golden Age - paradise on earth - a Garden of Eden - one people, one language, no religion, no sorrow, no conflict.
- Silver Age - an age of invention and expansion of peoples and languages, with a slight degradation in perfection.
- Copper Age - an age of the establishment and growth of commerce and religion
- Iron Age - an age of degradation, decay, and death
This is in accordance with Hindu and Vedic beliefs, and is echoed in other ancient cultures (e.g. Greeks), but the BKs give a radically different timespan for the cycle, and are unique in believeing the cycle repeats identically each time. They teach that each quarter lasts 1250 years, giving a total cycle of 5000 years. there is a "fifth age' of 40 to 100 years, the Confluence Age which overlaps the end of the Iron Age and beginning of the Golden Age.
The BKs believe that we are at the end of an Iron Age, in the Confluence Age, and our next births will be in the next cycle, following a short period of Destruction or world transformation.
- Refers to the world cycle. The cycle is very much a part or Indian mythology and Hindu cosmology. However, Shiv Baba has pointed out that the major mistake made was to assign an extremely long duration to it - hundreds of thousands of years - whereas, as Baba explains, the duration of the entire cycle is only 5,000 years. The entire world drama plays out in that period - fifty centuries. Another mistake, according to Baba, is the placement of Krishna in Dwarpa yug, the third age of the cycle. Baba explains that Krishna is in fact the first prince of Sat yug, the Golden age - the first quarter of the cycle. There is also an illustration of a ‘Kalpa tree’ which shows the world cycle in the form of a tree, with the deity religion as the trunk, and other religions as branches of the tree.
See also: Gyan