____________
THE
OF
THEOSOPHY
A
Definitive Work on Theosophy
By
William
Quan Judge
CHAPTER 14
Cycles
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 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 be
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 Reimbodiment, 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; 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 today in regard to the Moon, but not fully worked
out.
TABLEMORTAL YEARS
360 (odd)
mortal days make1
Krita Yuga
has 1,728,000
Treta Yuga
has1,296,000
Dvapara Yuga
has864,000
Kali Yuga has
432,000
Maha Yuga, or the four preceding, has4,320,000
71 Maha Yugas
form the reign of one Manu, or 306,720,000
14 Manus are4,294,080,000
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 Night together make 8,640,000,000
360 of these
Days make Brahma's Year3,110,400,000,000
100 of these
Years make Brahma's Life311,040,000,000,000
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 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.
ARGUMENTS SUPPORTING REINCARNATION
DIFFERENTIATION
OF SPECIES MISSING LINKS
PSYCHIC LAWS, FORCES, AND PHENOMENA
PSYCHIC
PHENOMENA AND SPIRITUALISM
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Concerns are raised
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Three Fundamental Propositions
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THE BUDDHIC AND NIRVANIC PLANES
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An Outstanding
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Reincarnation
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From A Textbook
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How We Remember our Past Lives
Life after Death & Reincarnation
The
Slaughter of the
a great
demand by the public for lectures on Reincarnation
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
Quotes from
the Writings of
Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100
It is only by
the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented
together on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find
themselves wedded in Eternity.
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108
It is the
motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white,
beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the
slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and
forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as
by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend
themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14
Even ignorance is better than
Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.
The Voice of the Silence, Page 43
Annotation - The
Path, May, 1888
The Secret
Doctrine , Proem [Volume 1], Page 35
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 210
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 134
incarnation of
his God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 2, Page 374
It is the
motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 498
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
From strength to
strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the
greater beauty
and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh
knowledge and
power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus
becomes its own
saviour in each world and incarnation.
The Key to
Theosophy, Page 105
The Secret
Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69
The mind
receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 311
The Key to Theosophy, Page 228
An
Outline of Theosophy
Charles
Webster Leadbeater
Theosophy - What it is How is it Known? The Method of Observation
General Principles The Three Great Truths The Deity
Advantage Gained from this
Knowledge The Divine Scheme
The Constitution of Man The True Man Reincarnation
The Wider Outlook Death Man’s Past and Future
Cause and Effect What Theosophy does for us
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