Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00082)

OCEAN14.TXT (The Ocean of Theosophy - W.Q.Judge)

CHAPTER XIV

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 Sanskrit 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 today 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 reappearance
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 reincarnation 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.

Reincarnation 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
reincarnation 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 more
complete 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 mold 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 reincarnated as Napoleon
Bonaparte, 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 reincarnation, of sensation, and of
impression. The length of the individual reincarnation 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 center 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
today, 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 Reembodiment, or Reincarnation,
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 center into seven such
centers, 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; Dwapara; 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 today in regard to the Moon, but not
fully worked out.

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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 Brabma's Year. . . . .  3,110,400,000,000
100 of these Years make Brahma's Life . . .  31l,040,000,000,000
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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 today 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.

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