Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00348)

Thursday, January 24, 2002

Dear CeeKaye:

I think the attached that I found among my old paper might be of
interest to you -- on this subject.

The paragraphs on astrology that you might be interested in
specifically may be just below the middle of this. but the whole
is worth reading.

Best wishes,



Dallas

========	CYCLES and ASTROLOGY	=======


CYCLES - WHAT ARE THEY ?

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. 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.

A cycle is a ring or turning, as the derivation of the word
indicates. By analogy it is found that certain events recur
which are similar to earlier ones. The best terms in existence
may be found in the Sanskrit astronomical and astrological texts
and 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, and 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 (monthly of 4 weeks, and that of
Meton, the ancient Greek of about 19 1/4 years), and the great
sidereal one (the annual Sun year, and, the Zodiacal Year of
25,868 solar years), but, it looks at both and upon the others as
mere 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 some 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.

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?


VIBRATION IS THE KEY

The ancient theosophists held the beginning of our World's cycle
to be that of the first moment of the solidification of this
globe. Then the mass of matter involved attained a certain and
definite rate of vibration. This 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.


REINCARNATION AND NATIONAL CYCLES

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 immortal 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.

Along this road are the points when the small and large cycles of
"Avatars" [divine incarnations] bring out for man's benefit the
great characters who mold the race from time to time.

Individual cycles are those of reincarnation, of moods and
emotional sensations, and of sensitivity to 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.


The CYCLE OF AVATARS [Prophets, Great Teachers]

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 Gautama Buddha to the Hindus and other nations
of the East.

Gautama 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. [ISIS UNVEILED
II 123-4, 290]

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.


WHEN CYCLES INTERSECT

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.

Man is especially affected by invisible cycles which are
spiritual, psychic, and moral. Out of these, grow national,
racial, and individual cycles. Race and national cycles are
historical.


WHY CYCLES END

We do not admit that the ending of the force is the withdrawal of
the force at work which 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.


CATACLYSMS, DELUGES, SHIFTING OF CONTINENTS

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.

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.

In regard to great cataclysms occurring at the beginning and
ending of large and important 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 as does 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 changes 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. This latter phenomenon, it is
prophesized will bring our Earth to its end. [S D I 371-3]

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.


ASTRONOMICAL AND SOLAR CYCLES

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 a redistribution 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 the center of which is located
in one of the constellations.

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.


THE GREAT ZODIACAL CLOCK

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, and those are exactly marked 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 certain cyclic events are sure to recur.
Then, by imprinting in the minds of older nations the symbology
of the Zodiac, they were able to preserve both the record and the
prophecy.

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 may not be admitted, or believed today, but it will be well
understood in future centuries, and as the nations of the earth
have similar symbols for the Zodiac in general, and as the
records of races long dead have the same, it is not likely that
the vandal-spirit of fanatics and dogmatists will be able to
completely efface this valuable heritage of our evolution.

In Egypt, for example, the Denderah Temple has an ancient Zodiac
[S D II 431-3] that 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.

Both Egyptians and Greeks had their cycles, but, Theosophy states
they derived them from the Indian Sages. The Chinese always were
a nation of astronomers, and have recorded observations reaching
far back, 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, because its
Adepts, knowing the cyclic laws perfectly, wished to preserve
philosophy for future generations. For this reason the
Brahmanical cycles are given, since they tally almost exactly
with the correct periods known to the great Occultists.


BRAHMANICAL CYCLES

A period or exhibition of universal manifestation is called a
Brahmanda, that is a complete life of Brahma. 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.

Considering our Globe -- since we are concerned with no other --
its government and evolution proceed under Manu or man, and from
this is derived 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 "American 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; (silver) Dvapara, (bronze); and Kali or the
black "iron" age. 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.

===================================================

TABLE ---------------------------------------------------------
Mortal Years

* 360 (odd) mortal days
make ------------------------------------- 1
*
* Krita Yuga
has -------------------------------------------1,728,000
* Treta Yuga
has -------------------------------------------1,296,000
* Dvapara Yuga
has ------------------------------------------864,000
* Kali Yuga
has ----------------------------------------------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 1,000 Maha Yugas,
* a Kalpa, or Day of Brahma -----4,320,000,000
* _________________
*
* Brahma's Night equals his Day & Night together-8,640,000,000
* _________________
*
* 360 of these Days make Brahma's Year -------3,110,00,000,000
* _________________
*
* 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 the period of 1897-98 is
recent, in retrospect, we have had an opportunity of seeing
whether the close of the five thousand year cycle was preceded
or followed by any convulsions or great changes political,
scientific, moral 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.



Hope this proves interesting,

Dal