hat the future holds for mankind, and if we are due for a world-changing global shift. Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the classic Autobiography of a Yogi) and his teacher, Sri Yukteswar (author of The Holy Science), offered key insights into this subject. They presented a fascinating explanation of the rising and falling eras that our planet cycles through every 24,000 years. According to their teachings, we have recently passed through the low ebb in that cycle and are moving to a higher age-an Energy Age that will revolutionize the world.

Over one hundred years ago Yukteswar predicted that we would live in a time of extraordinary change, and that much that we believe to be fixed and true-our entire way of looking at the world-would be transformed and uplifted. In The Yugas, authors Selbie and Steinmetz present substantial and intriguing evidence from the findings of historians and scientists that demonstrate the truth of Yukteswar's and Yogananda's revelations.

The Yugas explores the implications of Sri Yukteswar's yuga cycle for our emerging present. Sri Yukteswar explains that we fully emerged from the lowest age, or Kali Yuga, into our present energy age, or Dwapara Yuga, in 1900 AD. The subsequent twentieth century discoveries and knowledge have changed not only our understanding of the physical sciences, but have also profoundly changed our culture and society. Business, government, popular culture, religion-everything-is currently undergoing rapid change, and, according to Sri Yukteswar, will do so for some time to come.

The Yugas also explores the future. According to Sri Yukteswar, mankind as a whole will become telepathic, and in the highest age, or Satya Yuga, will be aware of the Divine consciousness underlying all reality. According to Sri Yukteswar, mankind is just emerging from the darkest of ages, and the future holds the promise of much greater things to come-not just in the realm of technology and invention-but in expansion of knowledge, awareness, and perception, that will usher in an enlightened future.

Many people lament the pace, and results, of the kaleidoscopic changes taking place in the world. Though our times show rapid changes, the cycle of the yugas shows us, reassuringly, that these changes are not random, but rather are the unfolding of man's innate potentials. And though mankind's future will bring lessons, some of them hard ones, we are moving forward into expanding awareness and undreamed-of potential.