The doctrine of Cycles is one of the most important in the whole
theosophical system, though the least known and of all the one most
infrequently referred to. Western investigators have for some centuries
suspected that events move in cycles, and a few of the writers in the
field of European literature have dealt with the subject, but all in
a very incomplete fashion. This incompleteness and want of accurate
knowledge have been due to the lack of belief in spiritual things and
the desire to square everything with materialistic science. Nor do
I pretend to give the cyclic law in full, for it is one that is not
given out in detail by the Masters of Wisdom. But enough has been
divulged, and enough was for a long time known to the Ancients to add
considerably to our knowledge.
A cycle is a ring or turning, as the derivation of the word indicates.
The corresponding words in the Sanscrit are _Yuga_, _Kalpa_,
_Manvantara_, but of these _yuga_ comes nearest to cycle, as it is
lesser in duration than the others. The beginning of a cycle must be
a moment, that added to other moments makes a day, and those added
together constitute months, years, decades, and centuries. Beyond
this the West hardly goes. It recognizes the moon cycle and the great
sidereal one, but looks at both and upon the others merely as periods
of time. If we are to consider them as but lengths of time there is
no profit except to the dry student or to the astronomer. And in
this way to-day they are regarded by European and American thinkers,
who say cycles exist but have no very great bearing on human life
and certainly no bearing on the actual recurrence of events or the
reäppearance on the stage of life of persons who once lived in the
world. The theosophical theory is distinctly otherwise, as it must be
if it carries out the doctrine of reïncarnation to which in preceding
pages a good deal of attention has been given. Not only are the cycles
named actual physical facts in respect to time, but they and other
periods have a very great effect on human life and the evolution of
the globe with all the forms of life thereon. Starting with the moment
and proceeding through a day, this theory erects the cycle into a
comprehensive ring, which includes all in its limits. The moment being
the basis, the question to be settled in respect to the great cycles
is, When did the first moment come? This cannot be answered, but it
can be said that the truth is held by the ancient theosophists to be
that at the first moments of the solidification of this globe the mass
of matter involved attained a certain and definite rate of vibration
which will hold through all variations in any part of it until its hour
for dissolution comes. These rates of vibration are what determine the
different cycles, and, contrary to the ideas of western science, the
doctrine is that the solar system and the globe we are now on will
come to an end when the force behind the whole mass of seen and unseen
matter has reached its limit of duration under cyclic law. Here our
doctrine is again different from both the religious and scientific one.
We do not admit that the ending of the force is the withdrawal by a God
of his protection, nor the sudden propulsion by him of another force
against the globe, but that the force at work and determining the great
cycle is that of man himself considered as a spiritual being; when he
is done using the globe he leaves it, and then with him goes out the
force holding all together; the consequence is dissolution by fire or
water or what not, these phenomena being simply effects and not causes.
The ordinary scientific speculations on this head are that the earth
may fall into the sun, or that a comet of density may destroy the
globe, or that we may collide with a greater planet known or unknown.
These dreams are idle for the present.
Reïncarnation being the great law of life and progress, it is
interwoven with that of the cycles and karma. These three work
together, and in practice it is almost impossible to disentangle
reïncarnation from cyclic law. Individuals and nations in definite
streams return in regularly recurring periods to the earth, and thus
bring back to the globe the arts, the civilization, the very persons
who once were on it at work. And as the units in nation and race are
connected together by invisible strong threads, large bodies of such
units moving slowly but surely all together reunite at different times
and emerge again and again together into new race and new civilization
as the cycles roll their appointed rounds. Therefore the souls who
made the most ancient civilizations will come back and bring the old
civilization with them in idea and essence, which being added to what
others have done for the development of the human race in its character
and knowledge will produce a new and higher state of civilization. This
newer and better development will not be due to books, to records, to
arts or mechanics, because all those are periodically destroyed so far
as physical evidence goes, but the soul ever retaining in _Manas_ the
knowledge it once gained and always pushing to completer development
the higher principles and powers, the essence of progress remains and
will as surely come out as the sun shines. And along this road are the
points when the small and large cycles of Avatars bring out for man’s
benefit the great characters who mould the race from time to time.
The Cycle of Avatars includes several smaller ones. The greater are
those marked by the appearance of Rama and Krishna among the Hindus,
of Menes among the Egyptians, of Zoroaster among the Persians, and
of Buddha to the Hindus and other nations of the East. Buddha is
the last of the great Avatars and is in a larger cycle than is Jesus
of the Jews, for the teachings of the latter are the same as those
of Buddha and tinctured with what Buddha had taught to those who
instructed Jesus. Another great Avatar is yet to come, corresponding
to Buddha and Krishna combined. Krishna and Rama were of the
military, civil, religious, and occult order; Buddha of the ethical,
religious, and mystical, in which he was followed by Jesus; Mohammed
was a minor intermediate one for a certain part of the race, and
was civil, military, and religious. In these cycles we can include
mixed characters who have had great influence on nations, such as
King Arthur, Pharaoh, Moses, Charlemagne reïncarnated as Napoleon
Buonaparte, Clovis of France reborn as Emperor Frederic III of Germany,
and Washington the first President of the United States of America
where the root for the new race is being formed.
At the intersection of the great cycles dynamic effects follow and
alter the surface of the planet by reason of the shifting of the poles
of the globe or other convulsion. This is not a theory generally
acceptable, but we hold it to be true. Man is a great dynamo, making,
storing, and throwing out energy, and when masses of men composing a
race thus make and distribute energy, there is a resulting dynamic
effect on the material of the globe which will be powerful enough
to be distinct and cataclysmic. That there have been vast and awful
disturbances in the strata of the world is admitted on every hand
and now needs no proof; these have been due to earthquakes and ice
formation so far as concerns geology; but in respect to animal forms
the cyclic law is that certain animal forms now extinct and also
certain human ones not known but sometimes suspected will return again
in their own cycle; and certain human languages now known as dead will
be in use once more at their appointed cyclic hour.
“The Metonic cycle is that of the Moon. It is a period of about
nineteen years, which being completed the new and the full moons return
on the same days of the month.”
“The cycle of the Sun is a period of twenty eight years, which having
elapsed the Dominical or Sunday letters return to their former place
and proceed in the former order according to the Julian calendar.”
The great Sidereal year is the period taken by the equinoctial points
to make in their precession a complete revolution of the heavens. It
is composed of 25,868 solar years almost. It is said that the last
sidereal year ended about 9,868 years ago, at which time there must
have been on this earth a violent convulsion or series of such, as well
as distributions of nations. The completion of this grand period brings
the earth into newer spaces of the cosmos, not in respect to its own
orbit, but by reason of the actual progress of the sun in an orbit of
its own that cannot be measured by any observer of the present day, but
which is guessed at by some and located in one of the constellations.
Affecting man especially are the spiritual, psychic, and moral cycles,
and out of these grow the national, racial, and individual cycles. Race
and national cycles are both historical. The individual cycles are
of reïncarnation, of sensation, and of impression. The length of the
individual reïncarnation cycle for the general mass of men is fifteen
hundred years, and this in its turn gives us a large historical cycle
related closely to the progress of civilization. For as the masses of
persons return from _devachan_, it must follow that the Roman, the
Greek, the old Aryan, and other Ages will be seen again and can to
a very great extent be plainly traced. But man is also affected by
astronomical cycles because he is an integral part of the whole, and
these cycles mark the periods when mankind as a whole will undergo a
change. In the sacred books of all nations these are often mentioned,
and are in the Bible of the Christians, as, for instance, in the story
of Jonah in the belly of the whale. This is an absurdity when read
as history, but not so as an astronomical cycle. “Jonah” is in the
constellations, and when that astronomical point which represents man
reaches a point in the Zodiac which is directly opposite the belly of
Cetus or the whale on the other side of the circle, by what is known
as the process of opposition, then Jonah is said to be in the centre
of the fish and is “thrown out” at the expiration of the period when
that man-point has passed so far along in the Zodiac as to be out
of opposition to the whale. Similarly as the same point moves thus
through the Zodiac it is brought by opposition into the different
constellations that are exactly opposite from century to century while
it moves along. During these progresses changes take place among men
and on earth exactly signified by the constellations when those are
read according to the right rules of symbology. It is not claimed
that the conjunction causes the effect, but that ages ago the Masters
of Wisdom worked out all the problems in respect to man and found in
the heavens the means for knowing the exact dates when events are
sure to recur, and then by imprinting in the minds of older nations
the symbology of the Zodiac were able to preserve the record and the
prophecy. Thus in the same way that a watchmaker can tell the hour by
the arrival of the hands or the works of the watch at certain fixed
points, the Sages can tell the hour for events by the Zodiacal clock.
This is not of course believed to-day, but it will be well understood
in future centuries, and as the nations of the earth have all similar
symbols in general for the Zodiac, and as also the records of races
long dead have the same, it is not likely that the vandal-spirit of
the western nineteenth century will be able to efface this valuable
heritage of our evolution. In Egypt the Denderah Zodiac tells the same
tale as that one left to us by the old civilization of the American
continent, and all of these are from the same source; they are the
work of the Sages who come at the beginning of the great human cycle
and give to man when he begins his toilsome ascent up the road of
development those great symbols and ideas of an astronomical character
which will last through all the cycles.
In regard to great cataclysms occurring at the beginning and ending
of the great cycles, the main laws governing the effects are those of
Karma and Reëmbodiment, or Reïncarnation, proceeding under cyclic rule.
Not only is man ruled by these laws, but every atom of matter as well,
and the mass of matter is constantly undergoing a change at the same
time with man. It must therefore exhibit alterations corresponding to
those through which the thinker is going. On the physical plane effects
are brought out through the electrical and other fluids acting with
the gases on the solids of the globe. At the change of a great cycle
they reach what may be termed the exploding point and cause violent
convulsions of the following classes: (_a_) Earthquakes, (_b_) Floods,
(_c_) Fire, (_d_) Ice.
Earthquakes may be brought on according to this philosophy by two
general causes; _first_, subsidence or elevation under the earth-crust
due to heat and steam, _second_, electrical and magnetic changes which
affect water and earth at the same time. These last have the power
to instantaneously make the earth fluidic without melting it, thus
causing immense and violent displacements in large or small waves. And
this effect is sometimes seen now in earthquake districts when similar
electrical causes are at work in a smaller measure.
Floods of general extent are caused by displacement of water from the
subsidence or elevation of land, and by those combined with electrical
change which induces a copious discharge of moisture. The latter is
not a mere emptying of a cloud, but a sudden turning of vast bodies of
fluids and solids into water.
Universal fires come on from electrical and magnetic changes in the
atmosphere by which the moisture is withdrawn from the air and the
latter turned into a fiery mass; and, secondly, by the sudden expansion
of the solar magnetic centre into seven such centres, thus burning the
globe.
Ice cataclysms come on not only from the sudden alteration of the poles
but also from lowered temperature due to the alteration of the warm
fluid currents in the sea and the hot magnetic currents in the earth,
the first being known to science, the latter not. The lower stratum of
moisture is suddenly frozen, and vast tracts of land covered in a night
with many feet of ice. This can easily happen to the British Isles if
the warm currents of the ocean are diverted from its shores.
Both Egyptians and Greeks had their cycles, but in our opinion derived
them from the Indian Sages. The Chinese always were a nation of
astronomers, and have recorded observations reaching far back of the
Christian era, but as they belong to an old race which is doomed to
extinction—strange as the assertion may appear—their conclusions will
not be correct for the Aryan races. On the coming of the Christian era
a heavy pall of darkness fell on the minds of men in the West, and
India was for many centuries isolated so as to preserve these great
ideas during the mental night of Europe. This isolation was brought
about deliberately as a necessary precaution taken by that great
Lodge to which I adverted in Chapter I, because its Adepts, knowing
the cyclic laws perfectly, wished to preserve philosophy for future
generations. As it would be mere pedantry and speculation to discuss
the unknown Saros and Naros and other cycles of the Egyptians, I will
give the Brahmanical ones, since they tally almost exactly with the
correct periods.
A period or exhibition of universal manifestation is called a
Brahmanda, that is a complete life of Brahma, and Brahma’s life is
made of his days and years, which, being cosmical are each of immense
duration. His day is as man’s 24 odd hours long, his year 360 odd days,
the number of his years is 100.
Taking now this globe—since we are concerned with no other—its
government and evolution proceed under _Manu_ or _man_, and from
this is the term _Manvantara_ or “between two _Manus_.” The course
of evolution is divided into four _Yugas_ for every race in its own
time and way. These _Yugas_ do not affect all mankind at one and the
same time, as some races are in one of the _Yugas_ while others are
in a different cycle. The Red Indian, for instance, is in the end of
his stone age, while the Aryans are in quite a different state. These
four _Yugas_ are: _Krita_, or _Satya_, the golden; _Treta_; _Dvapara_;
and _Kali_ or the black. The present age for the West and India is
_Kali Yuga_, especially in respect to moral and spiritual development.
The first of these is slow in comparison with the rest, and the
present—_Kali_—is very rapid, its motion being accelerated precisely
like certain astronomical periods known to-day in regard to the Moon,
but not fully worked out.
TABLE.
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MORTAL YEARS.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
360 (odd) mortal days make 1
_Krita Yuga_ has 1,728,000
_Treta Yuga_ “ 1,296,000
_Dvapara Yuga_ “ 864,000
_Kali Yuga_ “ 432,000
_Maha Yuga_, or the four preceding, has 4,320,000
71 _Maha Yugas_ form the reign of one _Manu_, or 306,720,000
14 _Manus_ are 4,294,080,000
Add the dawns or twilights between each _Manu_ 25,920,000
These reigns and dawns make 1000 _Maha Yugas_,
a _Kalpa_, or Day of _Brahma_ 4,320,000,000
_Brahma’s_ Night equals his Day and Day and
Night together make 8,640,000,000
360 of these Days make _Brahma’s_ Year 3,110,400,000,000
100 of these Years make _Brahma’s_ Life 311,040,000,000,000
The first 5000 years of _Kali Yuga_ will end between the years 1897 and
1898. This _Yuga_ began about 3102 years before the Christian era, at
the time of Krishna’s death. As 1897-98 are not far off, the scientific
men of to-day will have an opportunity of seeing whether the close
of the five thousand year cycle will be preceded or followed by any
convulsions or great changes political, scientific, or physical, or all
of these combined. Cyclic changes are now proceeding as year after year
the souls from prior civilizations are being incarnated in this period
when liberty of thought and action are not so restricted in the West as
they have been in the past by dogmatic religious prejudice and bigotry.
And at the present time we are in a cycle of transition, when, as a
transition period should indicate, everything in philosophy, religion,
and society is changing. In a transition period the full and complete
figures and rules respecting cycles are not given out to a generation
which elevates money above all thoughts and scoffs at the spiritual
view of man and nature.