We have already drawn attention to the facts that the record of the life
of a World‐Saviour is emblematical, and must be read by its mystic
meaning, and that the figures 432 have a cosmic evolutionary significance.
We find these two facts throwing light on the origin of the exoteric
Christian religion, and clearing away much of the obscurity surrounding
its beginnings. For is it not clear that the names and characters in the
Synoptical Gospels and in that of St. John are not historical? Is it not
evident that the compilers of the life of Christ, desirous to show that
the birth of their Master was a cosmic, astronomical, and divinely‐
preördained event, attempted to coördinate the same with the end of the
secret cycle, 4,320? When facts are collated this answers to them as
little as does the other cycle of “thirty‐three solar years, seven months,
and seven days,” which has also been brought forward as supporting the
same claim, the soli‐lunar cycle in which the Sun gains on the Moon one
solar year. The combination of the three figures, 4, 3, 2, with cyphers
according to the cycle and Manvantara concerned, was, and is, preëminently
Hindu. It will remain a secret even though several of its significant
features are revealed. It relates, for instance, to the Pralaya of the
races in their periodical dissolution, before which events a special
Avatâra has always to descend and incarnate on earth. These figures were
adopted by all the older nations, such as those of Egypt and Chaldæa, and
before them were current among the Atlanteans. Evidently some of the more
learned among the early Church Fathers who had dabbled, whilst Pagans, in
temple secrets, knew them to relate to the Avatâric or Messianic mystery,
and tried to apply this cycle to the birth of their Messiah; they failed
because the figures relate to the respective ends of the Root‐Races and
not to any individual. In their badly‐directed efforts, moreover, an error
of five years occurred. Is it possible, if their claims as to the
importance and universality of the event were correct, that such a vital
mistake should have been allowed to creep into a chronological computation
preördained and traced in the heavens by the finger of God? Again, what
were the Pagan and even Jewish Initiates doing, if this claim as to Jesus
be correct? Could they, the custodians of the key to the secret cycles and
Avatâras, the heirs of all the Âryan, Egyptian, and Chaldæan wisdom, have
failed to recognise their great “God‐Incarnate,” one with Jehovah,(634)
their Saviour of the latter days, him whom all the nations of Asia still
expect as their Kalki Avatâra, Maitreya Buddha, Sosiosh, Messiah, etc.?
The simple secret is this: There are cycles within greater cycles, which
are all contained in the one Kalpa of 4,320,000 years. It is at the end of
this cycle that the Kalki Avatâra is expected—the Avatâra Whose name and
characteristics are secret, Who will come forth from Shamballa, the “City
of Gods,” which is in the West for some nations, in the East for others,
in the North or South for yet others. And this is the reason why, from the
Indian Rishi to Virgil, and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl, all
have, since the beginning of the Fifth Race, prophesied, sung, and
promised the cyclic return of the Virgin—Virgo, the constellation—and the
birth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden Age.
No one, however fanatical, would have sufficient hardihood to maintain
that the Christian era has ever been a return to the Golden Age—Virgo
having actually entered into Libra since then. Let us trace as briefly as
possible the Christian traditions to their true origin.
First of all, they discover in a few lines from Virgil a direct prophecy
of the birth of Christ. Yet it is impossible to detect in this prophecy
any feature of the present age. It is in the famous fourth Eclogue in
which, half a century before our era, Pollio is made to ask the Muses of
Sicily to sing to him about greater events.
The last era of Cumæan song is now arrived and the grand series of
ages [that series which recurs again and again in the course of
our mundane revolution] begins afresh. Now the Virgin Astræa
returns, and the reign of Saturn recommences. Now a new progeny
_descends from the celestial realms_. Do thou, chaste Lucina,
smile propitious to the infant Boy who will bring to a close the
present Age of Iron,(635) and introduce throughout the whole world
the Age of Gold.... He shall share the life of Gods and shall see
heroes mingled in society with Gods, himself be seen by them and
all the peaceful world.... Then shall the herds no longer dread
the huge lion, the serpent also shall die: and the poison’s
deceptive plant shall perish. Come then, dear child of the Gods,
great descendant of Jupiter!... The time is near. See, the world
is shaken with its globe saluting thee: the earth, the regions of
the sea, and the heavens sublime.(636)
It is in these few lines, called the “Sibylline prophecy about the coming
of Christ,” that his followers now see a direct foretelling of the event.
Now who will presume to maintain that either at the birth of Jesus or
since the establishment of the so‐called Christian religion, any portion
of the above‐quoted sentences can be shown as prophetic? Has the “last
age”—the Age of Iron, or Kali Yuga—closed since then? Quite the reverse,
since it is shown to be in full sway just now, not only because the Hindus
use the name, but by universal personal experience. Where is that “new
race that has descended from the celestial realms”? Was it the race that
emerged from Paganism into Christianity? Or is it our present race, with
nations ever red‐hot for fight, jealous and envious, ready to pounce upon
each other, showing mutual hatred that would put to blush cats and dogs,
ever lying and deceiving one another? Is it this age of ours that is the
promised “Golden Age”—in which neither the venom of the serpent nor of any
plant is any longer lethal, and in which we are all secure under the mild
sway of God‐chosen sovereigns? The wildest fancy of an opium‐eater could
hardly suggest a more inappropriate description, if it is to be applied to
our age or to any age since the year one of our era. What of the mutual
slaughter of sects, of Christians by Pagans, and of Pagans and Heretics by
Christians; the horrors of the Middle Ages and of the Inquisition;
Napoleon, and since his day, an “armed peace” at best—at the worst,
torrents of blood, shed for supremacy over acres of land, and a handful of
heathen: millions of soldiers under arms, ready for battle; a diplomatic
body playing at Cains and Judases; and instead of the “mild sway of a
divine sovereign” the universal, though unrecognised, sway of Cæsarism, of
“might” in lieu of “right,” and the breeding therefrom of anarchists,
socialists, pétroleuses, and destroyers of every description?
The Sibylline prophecy and Virgil’s inspirational poetry remain
unfulfilled in every point, as we see.
The fields are yellow with soft ears of corn;
but so they were before our era:
The blushing grapes shall hang from the rude brambles, and dewy
honey shall [or may] distil from the rugged oak;
but they have not thus done, so far. We must look for another
interpretation. What is it? The Sibylline Prophetess spoke, as thousands
of other Prophets and Seers have spoken, though even the few such records
that have survived are rejected by Christian and infidel, and their
interpretations are only allowed and accepted among the Initiated. The
Sibyl alluded to cycles in general and to the great cycle especially. Let
us remember how the Purânas corroborate the above, among others the
_Vishnu Purâna_:
When the practices taught by the Vedas, and the Institutes of Law
shall have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali Yuga [the
“Iron Age” of Virgil] shall be nigh, an aspect of that divine
Being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of
Brahmâ and even is the beginning and the end [_Alpha and Omega_],
... shall descend upon earth: he will be born in the family of
Vishnuyashas, an eminent Brâhman of Shamballah ... endowed with
the eight superhuman powers. By his irresistible might he will
destroy ... all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will then
reëstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who
live at the end of the [Kali] Age shall be awakened, and shall be
as pellucid as crystal.(637) The men who are thus changed by
virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of human beings
[the Shistha, the survivors of the future cataclysm], and shall
give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita [or
Satya] Yuga [the age of purity, or the “Golden Age”]. For it is
said: “When the sun and moon and Tishya [asterisms] and the planet
Jupiter are in one mansion the Krita Age [the Golden] shall
return.”(638)
The astronomical cycles of the Hindus—those taught publicly—have been
sufficiently well understood, but the esoteric meaning thereof, in its
application to transcendental subjects connected with them, has ever
remained a dead‐letter. The number of cycles was enormous; it ranged from
the Mahâ Yuga cycle of 4,320,000 years down to the small septenary and
quinquennial cycles, the latter being composed of the five years called
respectively the Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idvatsara, Anuvatsara, and
Vatsara, each having secret attributes or qualities attached to them.
Vriddhagarga gives these in a treatise, now the property of a Trans‐
Himâlayan Matham (or temple); and describes the relation between this
quinquennial and the Brihaspati cycle, based on the conjunction of the Sun
and Moon every sixtieth year: a cycle as mysterious—for national events in
general and those of the Âryan Hindu nation especially—as it is important.