Occult evolutionary cycles

An investigation of the great Cycles of Sleep and Waking to which our Earth and the Kosmos are subject


Introduction

As several readers have asked us to say something about the Kali Yuga or 'Black Age' (as it is also known), we have decided to devote part of this article to answering their questions and concerns. But our main aim is to introduce the subject of the great Cycles of Sleep and Waking, or inactivity and activity, to which every Kosmos (Solar System) is subject, of which the Kali Yuga forms but a very brief part. For although the 432,000 years the Black Age lasts may seem like an eternity to us, it is the blink of an eye to the great Beings who rule our Kosmos under God. In addition to these cycles we shall also touch on the subject of 'Manvantaras', 'Rounds', 'Planetary Chains' and 'Globes' in occult parlance. For these all play a vital role in the Grand Scheme of Evolution which we discussed in the fifth part of our Occult Studies Course, and which we are now extending and enlarging.

However, we must stress that this is a highly condensed overview of these complex subjects — a birds eye view if you wish — which cannot be distilled down into a short article. Nonetheless, what we shall put before you should fill in many blanks in your understanding that may have puzzled you before, as well as giving you some idea how very much older our Earth is than material science yet realises. We would add that nothing in this article has been invented. Neither are any of the facts given figments of our imagination. All rest upon the unshakeable foundations of the Ancient Wisdom, gathered together over uncountable Ages by the great occult scientists and Sages of the faraway past — much further away than you may now realise. Finally, don't worry if some of the terms we use are unfamiliar to you; we will explain them as we go along.

Cycles of Sleep and Waking

The immense time periods through which our Earth and our Kosmos pass, called 'Yugas' in occult parlance, were worked out many millions of years ago in Atlantis. From thence, they were carried to India, Egypt and other places. Now you should not suppose that these Ages change exactly at the end of their separate periods. They foreshadow and overlap one another just as night and day foreshadow and overlap one another on earth. But when we deal with such huge figures as those of the Yugas, a few thousand years of transition amount to very little when compared with the totals.

Before we give you the duration of these Ages, we wish to make it quite clear that the figures we provide, though exoteric, fit in almost correctly with those of the secret calculations of the Atlantean Sages. We say this because there are many websites and books in which these figures are given incorrectly, either because the authors do not know the full Scheme of Evolution to which our Kosmos is subject, or because they have interpreted them in their own way to suit their particular beliefs. An example of this are those who say that the Kali Yuga has either not yet begun, or lasts only 4,320 years. Some scholars and mystics assert that we are still in the previous Age — the Dvapara Yuga. All these and similar claims are wrong.

For once Wikipedia is correct when it states that: "Kali Yuga began at midnight on 18 February 3102 B.C." This date coincided with the death of the Holy Hindu Saviour, Krishna, as you can read in The Book of Sa-Heti published on this website. Wikipedia also says that the duration of the Kali Yuga is 432,000 mortal years. Again this is correct, as we shall see when we come to discuss the 'Black Age' later on. We now give the duration and names of the Yugas as they are known in the Aryan Philosophy of India.

NameDuration in mortal years
Krita or Satya Yuga:1,728,000
Treta Yuga:1,296,000
Dvapara Yuga:864,000
Kali Yuga:432,000
The total of these 4 Yugas constitute a Maha Yuga which adds to:4,320,000

71 of such Maha Yugas form the period of the reign of One Manu which adds to 306,720,000 years. The reign of 14 Manus embraces the duration of 994 Maha Yugas, which is equal to 4,294,080,000 years. Now we need to add what are called 'Sanhis', the intervals between the reign of each Manu, which amount to 6 Maha Yugas. This is equal to 25,920,000 years. The total of these reigns and interregnums of 14 Manus is 1,000 Maha Yugas, which constitute a Kalpa, or ONE DAY of BRAHMA, a period of 4,320,000,000 years.

As Brahma's Night is of equal duration, one Day and Night of Brahma contains 8,640,000,000 years. 360 of such Days and Nights make one Year of Brahma which is equal to 3,110,400,000,000 years. 100 such years constitute the whole period of Brahma's Age. This is called a Maha Kalpa and lasts 311,040,000,000,000 years. It is important to note that such Cosmic evolutions pertain to our Solar System only and not to the entire Universe as some scholars think. So a Yuga is simply an age, or cycle. A Krita Yuga is also called a Satya Yuga, which in both cases means 'the Age of Purity', or the 'Golden Age'. This Age always comes first in the series of four Ages or Yugas, and the Kali Yuga Age comes last. Consequently, a Maha Yuga is the aggregate of the Four Yugas, and forms a thousandth part of a Day of Brahma.

The Seven Root Races

As we discuss in our investigation of giants, Occult Science teaches the existence of Seven Root Races These have nothing whatsoever to do with the mad racial theories of Hitler and his deluded followers. Nor are they concerned with colour except inasmuch as they contain black, brown, red, yellow and white peoples among their sub-divisions and every shade in between. Moreover, each of the Seven Root Races lasts for countless millions years, and each overlaps the other.

tree

With the exception of the first Root Race, which had no physical bodies, and the second, whose bodies were more astral than physical. Each Root Race branches out into seven sub-races, which in turn produce countless family races, and it is from these that the various present peoples and nations of the earth are descended. H. P. Blavatsky likened the Root Races to a cactus 'tree' (A) of seven main stems, each of which is a Root Race (B), as you can see in the illustration from The Secret Doctrine shown at left. Each stem has seven shoots which constitute the seven sub-races of each Root Race (C), while the family races of each sub-race constitute the countless spines of the tree. On average, each sub-race, such as our present 'European' group of nations and peoples, lasts for roughly 210,000 years. From this you will gain some idea of the immense time periods covered by each of the Root Races, sub-races and family races, and how each overlaps the next, eventually merging and mingling with it. To sum up:

  1. There are Seven Root Races
  2. Each Root-Race has seven sub-races.
  3. We are in the fifth sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race at present
  4. Each sub-race in turn evolves seven family races

The individual nations, tribes and offshoots of each family race are countless as you can see from the countless 'spines' covering the branches of the 'tree' or 'cactus' in the above illustration. From this it will be obvious that it impossible attempt to provide accurate dates for the duration of the various sub-races, never mind family races and individual nations. As we have seen, all these overlap and are entangled with each other until it is nearly impossible to separate them. We only need to look at our own English nation to see this. When did it begin? Some will say with the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the 3rd and 4th centuries of our era. Others may say it began with their Celtic predecessors or even earlier. Yet others may choose the Norman invasion of 1066 A.D. as the date for the foundation of the English nation.

All we can say, as H. P. Blavatsky does in The Secret Doctrine, is that "our Fifth Root-Race has already been in existence — as a race sui generis and quite free from its parent stem — about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be inferred that each of the four preceding sub-races has lived approximately 210,000 years; thus each Family-Race has an average existence of about 30,000 years. Thus the European 'Family Race' has still a good many thousand years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines upon it, vary with each succeeding 'season' of three or four thousand years."

Rounds and Planetary Chains

In order to complete our overview of this important branch of the occult sciences, we shall now consider the subject of 'Manvantaras', 'Rounds', 'Planetary Chains' and 'Globes' mentioned in our introduction. Before we do so, some explanation of the terminology used so far will be appropriate, especially for those of our readers who know little or nothing about Occult cosmogony or the Aryan Philosophy of India. Brahma is the First Person of the Hindu Trinity or Trimurti (assuming three aspects) consisting of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu represents the idea of evolution — the process by which the inner Spirit unfolds and generates the universe of sensible forms. Shiva represents the idea of involution, by which thought and the sensible universe are indrawn again into quiescence; and Brahma represents the state which is neither involution nor evolution and yet is both — existence itself, now first brought into the region of thought through relation to Vishnu and Shiva.

A Planetary Chain is a series of seven Globes or worlds which form the field of evolution during the Planetary Cycle or Manvantara. The first three of these Globes form a descending arc, the densest physical matter of the descent being reached in the Fourth Globe, of which our physical Earth is an instance. The next three Globes form an ascending arc, during which matter becomes gradually more rarefied and spiritualised. The Globes on the descending and ascending arcs are invisible to physical sight and correspond to what is known as the 'Astral World' or plane. Actually, there are seven such 'worlds' or 'planes' (including our Earth) as you may read in The Quest of Ruru.

There is a correspondence between the Globes in the arc of descent and those in the arc of ascent. Those in the upward arc showing out in perfection that which those on the downward arc adumbrate embryonically, while the Middle Globe (our Earth) is the point of conflict and turning. Or we might say that it marks the halfway point in the evolution of our Earth and all that dwells within and upon it. The Nadir of materiality has been reached and now commences the path of ascent back to pure Spirit, enriched with all the experience gained during the previous descent. The diagram reproduced below should make this arrangement clearer to you.

globes, chains and rounds

A 'Manu' is the presiding Spirit, or if we wish to personalise it, the 'Creator', 'Ruler', and 'Guide' of a Round or a Globe. A 'Round' is the great 'Life-wave' from the Source of all Being, vivifying successively the seven Globes that constitute a Planetary Chain. As this creative energy passes on from one Planet to another, so does that Planet go into what is termed 'Pralaya' — the period when the life of a Globe, Planetary Chain or Solar System is partially or wholly 'indrawn'; activity or manifestation ceasing in part or in whole. The Pralaya of a Planet, the 'winter' between the Rounds of a Life-wave, is known as a 'Minor Pralaya'; and the Pralaya of a Solar System as a 'Kosmic Pralaya'. During the Minor Pralayas, the Planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught and embedded in Polar Ice, remains the same for ages. The planet Mars is an example of this in our Solar System. Dark nebulae such as the famous 'Pipe Nebula' (Barnard 59) in the constellation Ophiuchus are examples of galaxies in Pralaya. Thus material Science is gradually confirming what Occult Science has long known. When one Planet goes into Pralaya the next Planet awakes, and its latent activities begin to manifest. Seven Rounds constitute a Manvantara, or the complete evolutionary cycle of our Planetary Chain, as shown in the diagram above.

Esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphised Patron of his special Cycle, or Round, is but the personified idea of the Thought Divine. Each of these Manus, therefore, may be regarded as the special God, Creator, and Fashioner of all that appears during his own respective Cycle of Being or Manvantara. Each Round has two Manus, a Root Manu and a Seed Manu. A 'Root Manu' is the general term for the Great Cause from which life proceeds during the Round of a Planetary Chain; and a Planetary Chain is a series of seven Globes or worlds which form the field of evolution during the Manvantara. A 'Seed Manu' is a general term for the Great Effect into which humanity is gathered up at the close of each Round of a Planetary Chain.

We have now learnt that the complete Evolution of our Kosmos or Solar System is known as a Manvantara. That this comprises Seven Rounds, and that each Round consists of a Planetary Chain of Seven Globes successively brought forth, each Chain being, as it were, a reincarnation of the preceding one. Three of these Chains belong to the past; the Fourth and present Chain is the Terrene, of which the Earth forms the Fourth Globe. The remaining Three Chains have yet to appear. A Manvantara is thus the Cycle of Manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya or non-manifestation that includes the Seven Rounds of the great Life-Wave of the Creative Logos mentioned above. You may be asking at this point just when did the evolution of our own planet begin? We do not know, and we doubt that any living Adept does. For this would require a knowledge of the exact duration of the previous three Rounds which have already run their course as well as those yet to come. All we can say is that we are halfway through the evolutionary cycle of our planetary scheme, to which our present earth belongs.

This tells us two things. Firstly, that modern science still has a long way to go in estimating the true age of our earth and our Solar System, never mind the Milky Way Galaxy within which it is an infinitesimal speck, or the greater Universe of which our Galaxy is just one among countless billions of similar galaxies. The second is that the human mind reels at such figures and such enormities of scale. And yet, the same enormities can be found within our very own bodies if we but think of the cells within them. Each one a miniature universe in its own right comprised of billions of atoms just like the macrocosmic Atom of our Solar System. Some of these microcosmic universes exist for only a few days, others much less, before they are replaced by other cells as science teaches us. Were there intelligent beings dwelling upon the atoms within those cells (and no one can say there are not), and were they aware of our existence we should appear as veritable 'Brahmas' to them, and our lifetime, short as it may seem to us, would be an eternity of incalculable duration. Truly, our finite minds are incapable of grasping the full implications of this Grand Scheme, which extends in both directions — to the infinitely small and to the infinitely large; food for thought for several lifetimes!

The Kali Yuga

As we said earlier, the Kali Yuga began at midnight on 18 February 3102 B.C., and will last a total of 432,000 mortal years. This date coincided with the death of the Holy Hindu Saviour, Krishna, whose description of the conditions mankind will face during this Age can be found in chapter 39 of The Book of Sa-Heti published in full on this website. Thus we have roughly 426,800 years to go before the longed-for 'Golden Age' will arrive.

The first thing we would say is that the Kali Yuga is not one long descent into darkness, disorder and misery. Nor does it mean the end of all that is noble and good in man, or the complete destruction of our planet. There are many peaks and troughs along the way, or highs and lows if you like. We should think of this Age as a sine-wave, rather than a straight, linear graph. Though the overall direction is inexorably downwards there will be periods of lesser or greater stability, constituting mini 'golden ages' for some parts of the Earth and those who dwell in such spots. We emphasise 'some', for the dark conditions of the Kali Yuga are not uniformly distributed in either space or time as Eve Bennett explains in her article 'Bridge over Troubled Water'. We see the first proofs of this today when some portions of the globe are ravaged by wars, others by poverty and disease, whilst other parts, such as Western Europe and the United States are enjoying relative stability, prosperity and good health.

Here we have an example of the universal applicability of the Hermetic Law 'As above‒so below' for there is a correspondence between the Great Kosmic Cycles we discussed earlier and their reflected cycles in Man. We touched on this in our article on the Occult Sun, in which we told you that the human heart beats 4,320 times per hour. If we multiply this figure by 71 we obtain 306,720 — one hundredth of the reign of One Manu, or 306,720,000. Coincidence? Not at all. Remember, 'As above‒so below' always applies, but sometimes after another manner. You may profitably explore and extend the correspondences between the macrocosmic numbers we have given you to the microcosm — Man — and so enlarge your understanding further. Yet there is no escaping the fact that as the Kali Yuga proceeds conditions will grow progressively worse for all mankind as you may read in The Book of Sa-Heti mentioned earlier. It is an Age of very severe tests and trials during which many bitter lessons will have to be learnt and the world will suffer many catastrophes, both 'natural' and man-made. But this is all part and parcel of the grand Scheme of Evolution so that all things (man included) may evolve to a higher state, and this should afford us some comfort and consolation as you can read in our afterword in which we use a simple analogy to illustrate this process.

Depressing as the dystopian future depicted in The Matrix and similar movies is, and we are here thinking of such films as Mad Max and the Terminator series, they fail to convey the fact that all material life on Earth (or any other planet) is merely a very brief and transitory episode in the evolution of consciousness. We are all, as we have pointed out so many times in our articles, spiritual beings incarnated in material bodies to gain experience, leading to Wisdom in the end. Experience which cannot be gained by sitting on a cloud in 'heaven' strumming an out-of-tune harp whilst choirs of virginal female angels (or male if you prefer) minister to our every desire. We have deliberately mixed up the orthodox Christian conception of the afterlife with the Islamic version in this rather silly way to show you that a life of ease and plenty in which every desire is instantly gratified and there is nothing to aspire to or lose at any time is most unlikely to further our evolution.

Let us enlarge on this. We cannot think of a single reader of this website who has written to us over the years who has not, in one way or another, been through the earthly school of hard knocks in a very real way. Some have experimented with drugs and paid a heavy price for their indulgence. Others have suffered from depression, mental and physical abuse, bereavement, poverty, ill-health and persecution. Yet others have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, had their homes destroyed in earthquakes and floods, and even in some cases come close to taking their own lives, unable to bear the heavy blows of Destiny any longer.

With very few exceptions, each one of these individuals began their search for occult Truth and Knowledge after they had gone through these tests, trials and sufferings, not before! This is one of the meanings of the NT verses in which Jesus tells his disciples: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26). By 'cross' is meant the physical body and lower self as well as the many burdens earthly life imposes upon us all. The words "Deny himself" become self-evident once we know that it is the lower self that prevents us from obtaining any apprehension of Truth. In other words, it is by living the life of the Spirit in the way of good deeds, kind thoughts and aspiration toward all that is noble and wise that all the cares and illusions of earthly 'life' are lost and we find a new and better life immersed in God, which is our very own Soul.

Suffering, if born patiently without rancour, ennobles a man and leads to the awakening of our Higher Self, which will show us in no uncertain manner just what are our duties to our fellowmen and women and the best ways to fulfil them, so liberating ourselves and others by example. This is "taking up" our cross and walking bravely toward the Light in complete Faith that all that happens to us, however painful, is for our ultimate good. The opposite is to give way to self-pity, anger, fear and despair. In The Oera Linda Book, which we have mentioned in several articles, occurs the following passage: "This is my counsel: when in dire distress, and when mental and physical energy avail nothing, then have recourse to the spirit of Wr-alda (God); but do not appeal to him before you have tried all other means, for I tell you beforehand, and time will prove its truth, that those who give way to discouragement sink under their burdens."

It is the sum-total of the experience we gain from bravely enduring adversity, whatever form it may take, that leads to Wisdom in the end. Wisdom that no man can take away from us, for it is burned as an imperishable flame into our very mental and spiritual being. This brings with it forgiveness of others and understanding of the part good and evil play in the evolution and emancipation of all things. It brings certainty in the Goodness and Love of God who has ordered the Kosmos in just this way that we may profit by both the good and the evil which we encounter in our many cycles of incarnations. It brings gratitude that we have been considered worthy to be tested, so that the Light within us may overcome the darkness and transmute our dross into pure, spiritual, living Gold.

We hope that what we have said in this article has given you a glimpse of the Divine Wisdom which informs the great Cycles of Light and Darkness and the Holy Purpose behind them, a purpose far beyond and above the ken of lowly man whose brief span of life is over almost before it has begun; who sees nothing clearly and judges what he does behold by the illusions his erring senses convey to his unevolved, wandering mind. Such minds know naught of the Grand Design of the Gods who have Eternity at their disposal and Universes without end to bring it to its consummation to the Glory of the Unknown Deity who ruleth over all in unknown Majesty!

Conclusion

This birds-eye view of the Grand Scheme of planetary and Kosmic evolution must suffice for, as we said in our introduction, it is impossible to condense this important branch of the occult sciences into one article, or even several Those who wish to learn more will find further and fuller explanations of the great Cycles of Sleep and Waking — Manvantaras and Yugas — as well as Rounds, Planetary Chains, Globes, etc., in The Secret Doctrine. However, if you re-read what we have put before you in this investigation and study the accompanying diagrams you should have little difficulty in familiarising yourself with the rough outline of the Cycles of the Solar System and the Seven Root Races of Man. To say any more would constitute re-inventing the wheel — something we have been at pains to avoid in all our articles, as you can easily study the subjects we have discussed further in The Secret Doctrine. For there is no better or more accurate source to learn the Grand drama of Kosmic and planetary evolution than Madame Blavatsky's master-work.


© Copyright occult-mysteries.org. Article published 20 January 2018. Updated 1 December 2024.


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