Is the End near? Understanding 'End of the World' Sayings within its Background and Purpose

Is the End near?

The answer would be conditional, because it will depend on the preparedness to recognise/ realise the Word in us and in the whole of creation.

If the world was created through the Word, and moves in the Word, it also will come to its actualisation in the Word, and through the Word. We cannot be sure that the catastrophes we see are signs of this completion. They are calamities in relation to human experience. Similar and more powerful ‘catastrophic’ events happen every moment as natural processes in the universe. These cosmic events are the shaping moments in the wisdom of the design of the Word through which even the life forms have emerged. These processes make the diversity of things each fulfilling the Word in their own way. Perhaps all creation together may recognise the presence of the Word within.

Does this realisation necessitate the cessation of creation? I do not feel so.

(Logos_Word_Christ)

Today, many are concerned about the end days. 

If it is in the next hour, let it be. 

But we must know that it is not just these days people have spoken about the end days. Whenever there is a time of crisis people tend to identify it to be sign of the end times, and use apocalyptic language to give some meaning to the phenomena which are difficult to explain. Apocalyptic prophesies have a history, and they have influenced history politically more than spiritually. Better to have a cultural and social analysis of these than a spiritual one.

These following works may be of help to understand some of them: 

Paula Clifford, A Brief History of End Time: Prophecy and Apocalypse, Then and Now

Arthur H. Williamson, Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World
Martha Himmelfarb The Apocalypse: A Brief History 

It would be interesting to consider this too: Michel de Nostredame was an astrologer and writer of Renaissance Europe. But Nostradamus as we know today is a creature of the modern West and today's interpreters of his writings. He was a healer of souls of his time, and he used the language of a prophet, as some reviewers of his writings like to put it.

__________

If we take the Hindu thought on Pralaya, it is not just a tragic flood, it is the well dissolving process where everything comes to rest after the rta is broken. It could also be a well dissolving into the true purpose of the Word.

A Malayalam version of this note is available at അന്ത്യങ്ങൾക്ക് ഒരു അന്തമുണ്ടാവുമോ?