¶7 What is most strange is that movement and change are truly sought for their own sake, and not with a view to any goal to which they might lead; and this fact results directly from the absorption of all human faculties by exterior action, whose momentary character we noted just now.1 This is again dispersion envisaged under another aspect, and at a more accentuated stage: it is, one might say, like a tendency towards instantaneity, having as its limit a state of pure disequilibrium, which, if it could be attained, would coincide with the final dissolution of this world; and this is again one of the clearest signs of the last period of the Kali Yuga.2
Summary
Guénon finds it strange that movement and change are now pursued for their own sake rather than for any goal, a fact resulting directly from the absorption of all human faculties by exterior action. He describes this as a form of dispersion tending towards instantaneity, whose limit would be a state of pure disequilibrium that, if reached, would coincide with the final dissolution of the world. Guénon adds that this is one of the clearest signs of the last period of the Kali Yuga.
General notes
- recherchés pour eux-mêmes — Rendered as ‘sought for their own sake’. Guénon denounces here the modern inversion of finality. Normally, movement and action are ordered to an end (telos) that transcends them. In modernity, agitation becomes autotelic: one moves for the pleasure of moving, one changes for change itself. This is the exact opposite of ancient ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) and Vedic śānti (inner peace). This quest for agitation for its own sake is a symptom of what Guénon elsewhere calls the ‘substitution of means for ends’. ↩︎
- instantanéité / Kali Yuga — Rendered as ‘instantaneity / Kali Yuga’. Instantaneity is the extreme form of dispersion: not only does one pass quickly from one object to another, but one stops at none, each ‘now’ cancelling itself in the next. The limit of this tendency would be a state where nothing endures any longer, where consciousness itself fragments into impulses without memory or project — a psychic dissolution corresponding to cosmic dissolution. Kali Yuga (Sanskrit: ‘age of discord’) is the last of the four cyclical ages (yuga) in Hindu cosmology, characterised by spiritual decadence, the loss of dharma, and the domination of matter. Guénon identifies the modern epoch with the terminal Kali Yuga, where all the signs of dissolution are visible. The quest for instantaneity is one of the ‘clearest’ signs of this. ↩︎