Prophecy and the End of Days
A friend and I had an intersting email exchange recently after reading a website about "End-of-Days" prophecy derived from the Bible. I thought I'd have a quick look into what overlap might exist with eastern religions - DeeKnow
Ignoring the relatively more closely related Christianity, Islamism, Judaism, Mormanism religions for the moment, there are some common propecies shared by the Eastern and other religious bodies...
Theosophilists
Madame Blavatsky was born in Russia in 1831 and died in England in 1891. She launched the Theosophical Movement
and introduced knowledge of eastern religions to the West including the ideas of karma and reincarnation.
First showed that all major religions are derived from one original religious philosophy.
http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/madame-blavatsky.htm
"This cycle is known as the dark one; in Sanscrit, Kali Yuga, or the black age. It is dark because spirituality is almost obscured by materiality and pure intellectualism.....The cycle is closing, and everywhere unrest will prevail. As lands will disappear or be changed, so in like manner ideas will alter among men. And, as our civilization is based on force and devoid of a true philosophical basis, the newest race in America will more quickly than any other show
the effect of false teachings and corrupted religion."
the Path, October, 1892
In the introduction to the Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky boldly affirms the existence of a great Fraternity of Men, Adepts, who preserve the true philosophy through all changes, now revealing it, and again, at certain eras, withdrawing it from a degraded age; and emphatically she says that the doctrine is never a new one, but only a handing on again of what was always the system
Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky
The following isn't prophecy as such, but is from a Theosophical website and related to the 4 cycles mentioned in all the faiths on this page..
"The facts are these; the planetary chain consists of Globes A., B., Mars, Earth, Mercury, F., and G., and round these the great life-wave has swept three and a half times, reaching Earth for the fourth time; the mass of humanity passed from Mars to the Earth, and will pass from the Earth to Mercury. But the leading class of humanity -- and here is a fact that throws some light on the opposing statements -- did not share in this general evolution. It came directly to the Earth from another region at a much later period in evolution, and had never been on Mars at all."
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/mahatma/ml-marsm.htm
Baha'i:
Baha'u'llah, the founder of Baha'i Faith, does not just fulfill the Buddhist prophecies. He is also Promised One of Jews "the expected Messiah", for Christians and Muslims the awaited return of Christ, for the Zoroastrians (Parsees) the Saoshyant, for the Hindus the Kalki Avatar, as well as being for Buddhists the Metteyya Buddha.
http://www.twincitiesbahai.org/buddhasa.htm
Hinduism:
Hinduism teaches that the world is now at the end of the Cycle of Kali,
the final (and current) phase of 432,00 years in a sequence of four (the first
three being Satya, Treta, Dvapara). The Cycle of Kali is the time of darkness, and that an age of Enlightenment is soon to come
for mankind. Krishna is returning to bring in this New Age of peace and
brotherhood for all.
http://www.krsna.com/gita/main/topics/Kala/essay.htm
"In this age men are short lived and have less intelligence. They are especially lazy in performing their spiritual duties and exceedingly slow to surrender to the Lord. They are misled, frustrated and, above all, always disturbed. The qualities of religion (truthfulness, cleanliness, forbearance and mercy) and the qualities of life (intelligence, duration of life and bodily strength and beauty) all diminish. The maximum duration of human life is 100 years, and even that is rare."
Vaishnava Philosophy - The cycle of ages
http://www.iskcon.org/main/twohk/philo/roots/ages.htm
American Indian:
Keywords: Indian, Stone Tablets, White Brother, Hopi Prophecy Rock, Dagonnorida
The Hopi Indian's have a Prophecy of A Great World Cataclysm, "the Third Shaking of the Earth", followed by The Coming of A World Teacher, The Great "White Brother" and the time of "Purification."
At the beginning of this cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit came down and He made an appearance and He gathered the peoples of this earth together they say on an island which is now beneath the water and He said to the human beings, "I'm going to send you to four directions and over time I'm going to change you to four colors, but I'm going to give you some teachings and you will call these the Original Teachings and when you come back together with each other you will share these so that you can live and have peace on earth, and a great civilization will come about." And he said "During the cycle of time I'm going to give each of you two stone tablets. When I give you those stone tablets, don't cast those upon the ground. If any of the brothers and sisters of the four directions and the four colors cast their tablets on the ground, not only, will human beings have a hard time, but almost the earth itself will die."
To the Indian people, the red people, he gave the Guardianship of the earth. ....The stone tablets of the yellow race of people are kept by the Tibetans, in Tibet....To the West He gave the black race of people the Guardianship of the water and their stone tablets are at the foot of Mount Kenya kept by the Kukuyu Tribe....To the North He gave the white race of people the Guardianship of the fire, the guardians of the traditions of the people of Europe are the Swiss.
http://www.newage.com.au/library/hopi.html.
There is a sandstone cliff, near second mesa on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. On this cliff is etched a picture of the past, persent, and the future. This site is more commonly known as Hopi Prophecy Rock. The story depicted on the prophecy rock continues on by showing how the leading clans of the Hopi migrated in the 4 directions, then turned left---forming a Swastika symbol........you're going to see that things will speed up, that people on theearth will move faster and faster. Grandchildren will not have time for grandparents. Parentswill not have time for children. It will seem like time is going faster and faster. The eldersadvised us that as things speed up, you yourself should slow down. The faster things go,the slower you go. Because there's going to come a time when the earth is going to beshaken a third time. http://www.crystalinks.com/hopistonetablets.html
See Also:
Side-notes:
An 'End Times' FAQ The FAQ answers many of the commonly asked questions regarding the present End Times such as the rapture, the 3 days of darkness, the death of the present Pope, the return of Christ and many others.
The Ancient Mayan Calendar ends on December 22, 2012 AD and is said to bring the return of the god, Quezecoatal or Thoth.
Saint Malachy, a 12th Century Monk, predicted that there would be 112 Popes until Doomsday. Pope John Paul 2 is named as Pope 110 and is in failing health. The nature of the prophecies is well known. They consist of 111 mottos in Latin, plus a concluding epigraph. These items pertain to each of the popes (and apparently some of the antipopes) in a sequence stretching from Malachy's time until Judgment Day