In the age of Kali, hypocrites will dominate religious activity, and kings will behave like thieves while exploiting their subjects. Stealing, lying, and violence without cause will become common means of livelihood. As time progresses, dharma, truth, purity, forgiveness, compassion, physical strength, and memory will steadily decline. In Kali Yuga, the one who possesses wealth alone will be considered noble, virtuous, and respectable. Power will determine what is accepted as dharma and justice.
Marriages will be arranged solely based on personal desire, while deceit and manipulation will gain greater value in worldly dealings. The superiority of men and women will be determined only by their sexual skill. Brahminhood will be reduced merely to the wearing of a sacred thread. Outer clothing will decide one's spiritual status, and through outer clothing alone one may enter another āśrama. Justice will not be attainable without money. Skill in speech will be mistaken for scholarship. Poverty will be viewed as wickedness, while hypocrisy will be seen as saintliness. Cosmetics will replace bathing; long hair will be considered beauty. Feeding one’s stomach will become the highest achievement in life, and loud assertive speech will be taken as truth.
Rulers will be plunderers—greedy, cruel, and lustful—seizing the wealth and wives of their subjects. There will be times of harsh drought, oppressive taxes, severe cold, heavy snow, storms, extreme heat, and floods. Disasters will occur repeatedly, filling the age with suffering and instability. Earthquakes, meteoric disturbances, and crop failure will become common. Ancestral conflicts will intensify. The authority of the Vedas will diminish. People will face untimely death—some in the womb, some in childhood, some in youth, and some in old age without completing their natural lifespan.
The populace will lose virtue. The traditions of Vedic study and teaching will collapse. Shudras will take on the roles of Brahmins, and Brahmins will behave like Shudras. Rulers will carry themselves like outcastes. Men will abandon moral conduct; women will take to false speech, alcohol, and meat consumption. Across all castes and communities, men and women will be driven by greed for wealth. Dharma will be sold as a commodity, and robbery, assault, murder, betrayal, and arson will become frequent.
This condition of Kali Yuga cannot be reversed even by Brahma himself. Therefore, the Nath Panth had to be created — to safeguard dharma, assist troubled souls, and uphold spiritual order in a world where all other paths would fade.