{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/secret-doctrine/vol-1-cosmogenesis/48-xvi-cyclic-evolution-and-karma-634.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "vol-1-cosmogenesis",
    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "secret-doctrine",
      "name": "The Secret Doctrine",
      "url": "/sources/secret-doctrine/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 46,
    "slug": "48-xvi-cyclic-evolution-and-karma-634",
    "title": "XVI. CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 6914,
    "text": "## XVI. CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 1, bk 3, ch 16\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 634 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n[[This page continued from previous section]]\n\n##### XVI.\nCYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA.\n\n**I**T is the Spiritual evolution of the *inner*,*\n*immortal man that forms the fundamental tenet in the Occult\nSciences. To realize even distantly such a process, the student\nhas to believe (*a*) in the ONE Universal Life, independent\nof matter (or what Science regards as matter); and (*b*)\nin the individual intelligences that animate the various manifestations\nof this Principle. Mr. Huxley does not believe in \"Vital\nForce,\" others do. Dr. J. H. Hutchinson Sterling's work \"Concerning\nProtoplasm\" has made no small havoc of this dogmatic negation.\nProfessor Beale's decision is also in favour of a Vital Principle;\nand Dr. B. W. Richardson's lectures on the \"Nervous Ether,\"\nhave been sufficiently quoted from. Thus, opinions are divided.\n\nThe ONE LIFE is closely related to *the one *law which\ngoverns the World of Being -- **K**ARMA. Exoterically,\nthis is simply and literally \"action,\" or rather an\n\"effect-producing cause.\" Esoterically it is quite a\ndifferent thing in its far-fetching moral effects. It is the unerring\n**L**AW OF **R**ETRIBUTION. To say to\nthose ignorant of the real significance, characteristics and awful\nimportance of this eternal immutable law, that no theological\ndefinition of a personal deity can give an idea of this impersonal,\nyet ever present and active Principle, is to speak in vain. Nor\ncan it be called Providence. For Providence, with the Theists\n(the Christian Protestants, at any rate), rejoices in a personal\nmale gender, while with the Roman Catholics it is a female potency,\n\"Divine Providence tempers His blessings to secure their\nbetter effects,\" Wogan tells us. Indeed \"He\" tempers\nthem, which Karma -- a sexless principle -- does not.\n\nThroughout the first two Parts, it was shown that, at the first\nflutter\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 635 THE ROOTS AND CAUSES.\n\nof renascent life, Svabhavat, \"the mutable radiance of the\nImmutable Darkness unconscious in Eternity,\" passes, at every\nnew rebirth of Kosmos, from an inactive state into one of intense\nactivity; that it differentiates, and then begins its work through\nthat differentiation. This work is **K**ARMA.\n\nThe Cycles are also subservient to the effects produced by this\nactivity. \"The one Cosmic atom becomes seven atoms on the\nplane of matter, and each is transformed into a centre of energy;\nthat same atom becomes seven rays on the plane of spirit, and\nthe seven creative forces of nature, radiating from the root-essence\n. . . . follow, one the right, the other the left path, separate\ntill the end of the Kalpa, and yet are in close embrace. What\nunites them? **K**ARMA.\" The atoms emanated\nfrom the Central Point emanate in their turn new centres of energy,\nwhich, under the potential breath of *Fohat*,* *begin\ntheir work from within without, and multiply other minor centres.\nThese, in the course of evolution and involution, form in their\nturn the roots or developing causes of new effects, from worlds\nand \"man-bearing\" globes, down to the genera, species,\nand classes of all the *seven *kingdoms* (of which *we\nknow only four*)*. *For \"the blessed workers have\nreceived the *Thyan*-*kam*,* *in the eternity\"\n(Book of \"The Aphorisms of *Tson*-*ka*-*pa*\")*.*\n\n\"Thyan-kam\" is the power or knowledge of guiding the\nimpulses of cosmic energy in the right direction.\n\nThe true Buddhist, recognising no \"personal god,\" nor\nany \"Father\" and* *\"*Creator *of\nHeaven and Earth,\" still believes in an *absolute consciousness*,*\n*\"Adi-Buddhi\"; and the Buddhist philosopher *knows\n*that there are Planetary Spirits, the \"Dhyan Chohans.\"\nBut though he admits of \"spiritual lives,\" yet, as they\nare temporary in eternity, even they, according to his philosophy,\nare \"the *maya *of the *day*,\" the*\nillusion *of a \"day of Brahma,\" a short manvantara\nof 4,320,000,000 years. The \"Yin-Sin\" is not for the\nspeculations of men, for the Lord Buddha has strongly prohibited\nall such inquiry. If the Dhyan Chohans and all the invisible Beings\n-- the *Seven *Centres and their direct Emanations, the\n*minor *centres of Energy -- are the direct reflex of the\n**O**NE Light, yet men are far removed from these,\nsince the whole of the *visible *Kosmos consists of \"*self*-*produced\n*beings, the creatures of *Karma.*\"* *Thus\nregarding a personal God \"as only a gigantic shadow thrown\nupon the void of space by the imagination of ignorant men,\"**\nthey teach that only \"two things are (objectively) eternal,\nnamely *Akasa *and* Nirvana*\";* *and\nthat these are ONE in reality, and but a *maya *when divided.\n\"Buddhists deny creation and cannot conceive of a *Creator.*\"*\n*\"Everything has come out of Akasa (or Svabhavat\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Vide Stanza **VI**. (Book I.) and Commentary.\n\n*** Buddhist Catechism*,* *by H. S. Olcott, President\nof the Theosophical Society.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 636 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\non our earth) in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it,\nand after a certain existence passes away. Nothing ever came out\nof nothing.\" (*Buddhist Catechism.*)\n\nIf a Vedantic Brahmin of the Adwaita Sect, when asked whether\nhe believes in the existence of God, is always likely to answer,\nas Jacolliot was answered -- \"I am myself 'God';\" a\nBuddhist (a Sinhalese especially) would simply laugh, and say\nin reply, \"There is no God; no Creation.\" Yet the root\nphilosophy of both Adwaita and Buddhist scholars is *identical*,*\n*and both have the same respect for animal life, for both\nbelieve that every creature on earth, however small and humble,\n\"is an immortal portion of the immortal matter\" -- for\nmatter with them has quite another significance than it has with\neither Christian or materialist -- and that every creature is\nsubject to Karma.\n\nThe answer of the Brahmin is one which would suggest itself to\nevery ancient philosopher, Kabalist, and Gnostic of the early\ndays. It contains the very spirit of the Delphic and Kabalistic\ncommandments, for esoteric philosophy solved, ages ago, the problem\nof what man *was*,* is*,* *and *will be;\n*of man's origin, life-cycle -- interminable in its duration\nof successive incarnations or rebirths -- and finally of his absorption\ninto the source from which he started.\n\nBut it is not physical Science that we can ever ask to read man\nfor us, as the riddle of the Past, or that of the Future; since\nno philosopher is able to tell us even what man is, as he is known\nboth to physiology and psychology. In doubt whether man was \"a\ngod or beast,\" he is now connected with the latter and derived\nfrom an animal. No doubt that the care of analyzing and classifying\nthe human being as a *terrestrial animal *may be left to\nScience, which occultists -- of all men -- regard with veneration\nand respect. They recognize its ground and the wonderful work\ndone by it, the progress achieved in physiology, and even -- to\na degree -- in biology. But man's *inner*,* *spiritual,\npsychic, or even moral, nature cannot be left to the tender mercies\nof an ingrained materialism; for not even the higher psychological\nphilosophy of the West is able, in its present incompleteness\nand tendency towards a decided agnosticism, to do justice to the\ninner; especially to his higher capacities and perceptions, and\nthose states of consciousness, across the road to which such authorities\nas Mill draw a strong line, saying \"So far, and no farther\nshalt thou go.\"\n\nNo Occultist would deny that man -- no less than the elephant\nand the microbe, the crocodile and the lizard, the blade of grass\nor the crystal -- is, in his physical formation, the simple product\nof the evolutionary forces of nature through a numberless series\nof transformations; but he puts the case differently.\n\nIt is not against zoological and anthropological discoveries,\nbased on\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 637 THE SWING OF KARMA.\n\nthe fossils of man and animal, that every mystic and believer\nin a divine soul inwardly revolts, but only against the uncalled-for\nconclusions built on preconceived theories and made to fit in\nwith certain prejudices. Their premises may or may not be always\ntrue; and as some of these theories live but a short life, the\ndeductions therefrom must ever be one-sided with materialistic\nevolutionists. Yet it is on the strength of such very ephemeral\nauthority, that most of the men of science frequently receive\nundue honours where they deserve them the least.*\n\nTo make the working of Karma, in the periodical renovations of\nthe Universe, more evident and intelligible to the student when\nhe arrives at the origin and evolution of man, he has now to examine\nwith us the esoteric bearing of the Karmic Cycles upon Universal\nEthics. The question is, do those mysterious divisions of time,\ncalled Yugas and Kalpas by the Hindus, and so very graphically\n-- [[*Kuklos*]] -- \"cycle,\" ring or circle, by\nthe Greeks, have any bearing upon, or any direct connection with,\nhuman life? Even exoteric philosophy explains that these perpetual\ncircles of time are ever returning on themselves, periodically,\nand\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence\nor *irreverence *against accepted Science, to Mr. James\nHutchinson Stirling's work concerning \"Protoplasm,\"\nwhich is a defence of a *vital* Principle *versus *the\nMolecularists -- Huxley, Tyndall, Vogt, and Co. -- and request\nthem to examine whether it is true or not to say that the scientific\npremises may not be always correct, but that they are accepted,\nnevertheless, to fill up a gap or a hole in some beloved materialistic\nhobby. Speaking of protoplasm and the organs of man, as \"viewed\nby Mr. Huxley,\" the author says: \"Probably then, in\nregard to any continuity in protoplasm of power, of form, or of\nsubstance, we have seen *lacunae* enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley\nhimself can be adduced in evidence on the same side. *Not rarely\ndo we find in his essay admissions *of PROBABILITY, *where\nit is *CERTAINTY *that is alone in place. *He says,\nfor example: 'It is more than probable that *when* the\nvegetable world is thoroughly explored we *shall *find\nall plants in possession of the same powers.' When *a conclusion\nis decidedly announced*,* *it is rather disappointing\nto be told, as here, that *the premisses are still to collect*'*\n(!!)* . . . . . Again, here is a passage in which he is seen\nto cut his own '*basis*'* *from beneath his own\nfeet. After telling us that all forms of protoplasm consist of\ncarbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen 'in very complex union,'\nhe continues: 'To this complex combination, *the nature of\nwhich has never been determined with exactness (!!)*, the\nname of *protein *has been applied.' This, plainly, is\nan identification, on Mr. Huxley's own part, of protoplasm and\nprotein; and what is said of one, being necessarily true of the\nother, it follows that he admits the nature of protoplasm never\nto have been determined with exactness, and that even in his eyes\nthe *lis *is still *sub judice. *This admission\nis strengthened by the words, too, 'If we use this term -- *protein\n*--* *with such *caution *as may properly arise\nout of our *comparative ignorance *of the things for which\nit stands . . . etc., etc. (p. 33 and 34, in reply to Mr. Huxley\nin \"Yeast\").\n\nThis is the eminent Huxley, the king of physiology and biology,\nwho is proven playing at blind man's buff with *premisses *and*\nfacts. *What may not the \"smaller fry\" of science\ndo after this!\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 638 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nintelligently in Space and Eternity. There are \"Cycles of\nmatter\"* and there are \"Cycles of Spiritual evolution.\"\nRacial, national, and individual cycles. May not esoteric speculation\nallow us a still deeper insight into the workings of these?\n\nThis idea is beautifully expressed in a very clever scientific\nwork: --\n\n\"The possibility of rising to a comprehension of a system\nof co-ordination so far outreaching in time and space all reach\nof human observations, is a circumstance which signalizes the\npower of man to transcend the limitations of changing and inconsistent\nmatter, and assert his superiority over all unstable and perishable\nforms of being. *There is a method in the succession of events*,*\n*and in the relation of co-existent things, which the mind\nof man seizes hold of; and by means of this as a clue, he runs\nback or forward over aeons of material history of which human\nexperience can never testify. Events germinate and unfold. They\nhave a past which is connected with their present, and we feel\na well-justified confidence that a future is appointed which will\nbe similarly connected with the present and the past. This continuity\nand unity of history repeat themselves before our eyes in all\nconceivable stages of progress. The phenomena furnish us the grounds\nfor the generalization of two laws which are truly *principles\nof scientific divination*,* *by which alone the human\nmind penetrates the sealed records of the past and the unopened\npages of the future. The first of these is the law of evolution,\nor, to phrase it for our purpose, *the law of correlated successiveness\nor organized history in the individual*,* *illustrated\nin the changing phases of every single maturing system of results.\n. . . These thoughts summon into our immediate presence the measureless\npast and the measureless future of material history. They seem\nalmost to open vistas through infinity, and to endow the human\nintellect with an existence and a vision exempt from the limitations\nof time and space and finite causation, and lift it up toward\na sublime apprehension of the Supreme Intelligence whose dwelling\nplace is Eternity.\" (\"World-Life,\" p. 535 and 548.)\n\nAccording to the teachings, Maya, or the illusive appearance of\nthe marshalling of events and actions on this earth, changes,\nvarying with nations and places. But the chief features of one's\nlife are always in accordance with the \"Constellation\"\none is born under, or, we should say, with the characteristics\nof its animating principle or the deity that presides over it,\nwhether we call it a *Dhyan Chohan*,* *as in Asia,\nor an Archangel, as with the Greek and Latin churches. In ancient\nSymbolism it was always the **S**UN (though the Spiritual,\nnot the visible, Sun was meant), that was supposed to send forth\nthe chief Saviours and Avatars. Hence the connecting link between\nthe Buddhas, the Avatars, and so many other incarnations of the\nhighest **S**EVEN. The closer the approach to one's*\nPrototype*,* *\"in Heaven,\" the better for\nthe mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own *personal\n*deity (the seventh principle), as its terrestrial abode.\nFor, with every effort of will toward purification and unity\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"The Cycles of Matter,\" a name given by Professor\nWinchell to an Essay of his written in 1860.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 639 THE NETWORK OF DESTINY.\n\nwith that \"Self-god,\" one of the lower rays breaks and\nthe spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to\nthe ray that supersedes the first, until, from ray to ray, the\ninner man is drawn into the one and highest beam of the Parent-**S**UN.\nThus, \"the events of humanity *do *run coordinately\nwith the number forms,\" since the single units of that humanity\nproceed one and all from the same source -- the *central*\nand its *shadow*,* *the visible **S**UN.\nFor the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases\nof the Solar course, astronomically and numerically expressed,\nare only the concrete symbols of the eternally living verity,\nthough they do seem *abstract ideas *to uninitiated mortals.\nAnd this explains the extraordinary numerical coincidences with\ngeometrical relations, as shown by several authors.\n\nYes; \"our destiny *is *written in the stars!\"\nOnly, the closer the union between the mortal reflection MAN and\nhis celestial PROTOTYPE, the less dangerous the external conditions\nand subsequent reincarnations -- which neither Buddhas nor Christs\ncan escape. This is not superstition, least of all is it *Fatalism.\n*The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder power,\nand man is a free agent during his stay on earth. He cannot escape\nhis *ruling *Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths\nthat lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal of\nmisery -- if such is decreed to him, either in the snowy white\nrobes of the Martyr, or in the soiled garments of a volunteer\nin the iniquitous course; for, there are *external and internal\nconditions *which affect the determination of our will upon\nour actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two.\nThose who believe in *Karma *have to believe in* destiny*,*\n*which, from birth to death, every man is weaving thread by\nthread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny\nis guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible *prototype*\noutside of us, or by our more intimate *astral*,* *or\ninner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied\nentity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one\nof them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible\naffray the stern and implacable *law of compensation *steps\nin and takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations.\nWhen the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped\nin the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely\nunder the empire of this *self*-*made *destiny.\nIt then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable\nrock, or carries him away like a feather in a whirlwind raised\nby his own actions, and this is -- **K**ARMA.\n\nA materialist, treating upon the periodical creations of our globe,\nhas expressed it in one sentence. \"The whole *past *of\nthe Earth is nothing but an unfolded *present.*\"*\n*This was Buchner, who little suspected that he was repeating\nan axiom of the Occultists. It is quite true also, as Burmeister\n(quoted in \"*Force and matter*\")* *remarks,\nthat\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 640 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n\"the historical investigation of the development of the Earth\nhas proved that *now and then *rest upon the same base;\nthat the past has been developed in the same manner as the present\nrolls on; and that the Forces which were in action ever remained\nthe same.\"\n\nThe \"Forces\" -- their *noumena *rather -- are\nthe same, of course; therefore, the phenomenal Forces must be\nthe same also. But how can any one feel so sure that the attributes\nof matter have not altered under the hand of Protean Evolution?\nHow can any materialist assert with such confidence, as is done\nby Rossmassler, that \"this eternal conformity in the essence\nof phenomena renders it certain that fire and water possessed\n*at all times *the same powers and ever will possess them?\"\nWho are they \"that darken counsel with words without knowledge,\"\nand where were the Huxleys and Buchners when the foundations of\nthe earth were laid by the great Law? It is a fundamental principle\nof the Occult philosophy, this same homogeneity of matter and\nimmutability of natural laws, which are so much insisted upon\nby materialism; but that unity rests upon the inseparability of\nSpirit from matter, and, if the two are once divorced, the whole\nKosmos would fall back into chaos and non-being. Therefore, it\nis absolutely *false*,* *and but an additional demonstration\nof the great conceit of our age, to assert (as men of science\ndo) that all the great geological changes and terrible convulsions\nhave been produced *by* *ordinary and known physical\nforces. *For these forces were but the tools and final means\nfor the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting periodically,\nand apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up\nwith, but beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in\nevery important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical.\nBut spiritual Forces having been usually confused with the purely\nphysical, the former are denied by, and therefore, have to remain\nunknown to Science, because left unexamined.*\n\n\"The history of the World begins with its general aim,\"\nsays Hegel; \"the realization of the Idea of Spirit -- only\nin an *implicit *form (*an sich*),* *that is, as\nNature; a hidden, most profoundly hidden unconscious instinct,\nand the whole process of History . . . is directed to rendering\nthis unconscious impulse a conscious one. Thus appearing in the\nform of merely natural existence, natural will -- that which has\nbeen called the subjective side -- physical craving, instinct,\npassion, private interest, as also opinion and subjective conception\n-- spontaneously present themselves at the very commencement.\n*This vast congeries of volitions*,* interests and activities\nconstitute the instruments and means of the* WORLD\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Men of science will say: We deny, because nothing of the kind\nhas ever come within the scope of our experience. But, as argued\nby Charles Richet, the physiologist: \"So be it, but have\nyou at least demonstrated the contrary? . . . Do not, at any rate,\ndeny *a priori. *Actual Science *is not sufficiently\nadvanced to give you such right.*\"* *(\"La\nsuggestion mentale et le calcul des probabilites.\")\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 641 CYCLIC WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS.\n\nSPIRIT *for attaining its object; *bringing it to consciousness\nand realising it. And this aim is none other than finding itself\n-- coming to itself -- and contemplating itself in concrete actuality.\nBut that those manifestations of vitality on the part of individuals\nand peoples, in which they seek and satisfy their own purposes,\nare at the same time *the means and instruments of a higher\npower*,* of a higher and broader purpose of which they know\nnothing *--* *which they realise unconsciously -- might\nbe made a matter of question; rather has been questioned . . .\non this point I announced my view at the very outset, and asserted\nour hypothesis . . . and our belief *that Reason governs the\nWorld and has consequently governed its history. *In relation\nto this independently universal and substantial existence -- all\nelse is subordinate, subservient to it, and the means for its\ndevelopment.\"*\n\nNo metaphysician or theosophist could demur to these truths, which\nare all embodied in esoteric teachings. There *is *a predestination\nin the geological life of our globe, as in the history, past and\nfuture, of races and nations. This is closely connected with what\nwe call *Karma *and Western Pantheists, \"Nemesis\"\nand \"Cycles.\" The law of evolution is now carrying us\nalong the ascending arc of *our *cycle,* when the effects\nwill be once more re*-*merged into*,* *and re-become\nthe (now neutralized) causes, and all things affected by the former\nwill have regained their original harmony. This will be the cycle\nof our special \"Round,\" a moment in the duration of\nthe great cycle, or the *Mahayuga.*\n\nThe fine philosophical remarks of Hegel are found to have their\napplication in the teachings of Occult Science, which shows nature\never acting with a given purpose, whose results are always dual.\nThis was stated in our first Occult volumes, in *Isis Unveiled*,*\n*p. 268, Vol. II., in the following words: --\n\nAs our planet revolves once every year around the sun, and at\nthe same time turns once in every twenty-four hours upon its own\naxis, thus traversing minor circles within a larger one, so is\nthe work of the smaller cyclic periods accomplished and recommenced,\nwithin the Great Saros.\n\nThe revolution of the physical world, according to the ancient\ndoctrine, is attended by a like revolution in the world of intellect\n-- the spiritual evolution of the world proceeding in cycles,\nlike the physical one.\n\nThus we see in history a regular alternation of ebb and flow in\nthe tide of human progress. The great kingdoms and empires of\nthe world, after reaching the culmination of their greatness,\ndescend again, in accordance with the same law by which they ascended;\ntill, having reached the lowest point, humanity reasserts itself\nand mounts up once more, the height of its attainment being, by\nthis law of ascending progression by cycles, somewhat higher than\nthe point from which it had before descended.\n\nBut these cycles -- wheels within wheels, so comprehensively and\ningeniously symbolized by the various Manus and Rishis in India,\nand by the Kabiri in the West** -- *do not affect all mankind\nat one and the same*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"On World History\" in \"Philosophy of History,\"\np. 26. (Sibree's Eng. Transl.).\n\n** This symbolism does not prevent these now seemingly mythic\npersonages from [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 642 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*time *--* *as explained in the *Racial division\nof Cycles *(*See sub*-*section *6.) Hence, as\nwe see, the difficulty of comprehending, and discriminating between\nthem, with regard to their physical and spiritual effects, without\nhaving thoroughly mastered their relations with, and action upon\nthe respective positions of nations and races, in their destiny\nand evolution. This system cannot be comprehended if the spiritual\naction of these periods* *--* pre*-*ordained*,*\n*so to say, by Karmic law --is separated from their physical\ncourse. The calculations of the best astrologers would fail, or\nat any rate remain imperfect, unless this dual action is thoroughly\ntaken into consideration and dealt with upon these lines. And\nthis mastery can be achieved only through INITIATION.\n\nThe Grand Cycle includes the progress of mankind from the appearance\nof primordial man of ethereal form. It runs through the inner\ncycles of his (man's) progressive evolution from the ethereal\ndown to the semi-ethereal and purely physical: down to the redemption\nof man from his* coat of skin *and matter, after which\nit continues running its course downward and then upward again,\nto meet at the culmination of a Round, when the manvantaric \"Serpent\nswallows its tail\" and seven minor cycles are passed. These\nare the great Racial Cycles which affect equally all the nations\nand tribes included in that special Race; but there are minor\nand national as well as tribal cycles within those, which run\nindependently of each other. They are called in the Eastern esotericism\nthe *Karmic *cycles. In the West, since Pagan Wisdom has\nbeen repudiated as having grown from and been developed by the\ndark powers supposed to be at constant war and in opposition to\nthe little tribal Jehovah -- the full and awful significance of\nthe Greek **N**EMESIS (or Karma) has been entirely\nforgotten. Otherwise Christians would have better realized the\nprofound truth that Nemesis is without attributes; that while\nthe dreaded goddess is absolute and immutable as a Principle,\nit is we ourselves -- nations and individuals -- who propel her\nto action and give the impulse to its direction. **K**ARMA-**N**EMESIS\nis the creator of nations and mortals, but once created, it is\nthey who make of her either a fury or a rewarding Angel. Yea --\n\n\"Wise are they who worship Nemesis\"*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] having ruled the earth\nonce upon a time under the human form of actual living, though\ntruly divine and god-like man. The opinion of Colonel Vallancey\n(and also of Count de Gobelin) that the *names of the Kabiri\nappear to be all allegorical*,* *and to have signified\nno more (?) than an almanac of the vicissitudes of the seasons\n-- calculated for the operations of agriculture\" (*Collect.\nde Reb. Hibern.*, No. 13, *Praef. *Sect. 5) is as absurd\nas his assertion that OEon, Kronos, Saturn and Dagon are all one,\nnamely, the \"patriarch Adam.\" The Kabiri were the instructors\nof mankind in agriculture, because they were the* regents *over\nthe seasons and Cosmic cycles. Hence it was they who regulated,\nas planetary Spirits or \"Angels\" (messengers), the *mysteries\n*of the *art* of agriculture.\n\n* Who *dread* Karma-Nemesis would be better.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 643 KARMA-NEMESIS.\n\n-- as the *chorus *tells Prometheus. And as unwise they,\nwho believe that the goddess may be propitiated by whatever sacrifices\nand prayers, or have her wheel diverted from the path it has once\ntaken. \"The triform Fates and ever mindful Furies\" are\nher attributes only on earth, and begotten by ourselves. There\nis no return from the paths she cycles over; yet those paths are\nof our own making, for it is we, collectively or individually,\nwho prepare them. Karma-Nemesis is the synonym of **P**ROVIDENCE,\nminus *design*, goodness, and every other *finite *attribute\nand qualification, so unphilosophically attributed to the latter.\nAn Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or\ncruelty of Providence; but, identifying it with Karma-Nemesis,\nhe will teach that nevertheless it guards the good and watches\nover them in this, as in future lives; and that it punishes the\nevil-doer -- aye, even to his seventh rebirth. So long, in short,\nas the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even the\nsmallest atom in the Infinite World of harmony, has not been finally\nreadjusted. For the only decree of Karma -- an eternal and immutable\ndecree -- is absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is\nin the world of Spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards\nor punishes, but it is we, who reward or punish ourselves according\nto whether we work with, through and along with nature, abiding\nby the laws on which that Harmony depends, or -- break them.\n\nNor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in\nunion and harmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance\nof those ways -- which one portion of mankind calls the ways of\nProvidence, dark and intricate; while another sees in them the\naction of blind Fatalism; and a third, simple chance, with neither\ngods nor devils to guide them -- would surely disappear, if we\nwould but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right\nknowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction that our\nneighbours will no more work to hurt us than we would think of\nharming them, the two-thirds of the World's evil would vanish\ninto thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis\nwould have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through.\nIt is the constant presence in our midst of every element of strife\nand opposition, and the division of races, nations, tribes, societies\nand individuals into Cains and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is\nthe chief cause of the \"ways of Providence.\" We cut\nthese numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands,\nwhile we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high\nroad of respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways\nbeing so intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before the\nmystery of our own making, and the riddles of life that *we\nwill not *solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring\nus. But verily there is not an accident in our lives,\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 644 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nnot a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced\nback to our own doings in this or in another life. If one breaks\nthe laws of Harmony, or, as a theosophical writer expresses it,\n\"the laws of life,\" one must be prepared to fall into\nthe chaos one has oneself produced. For, according to the same\nwriter, \"the only conclusion one can come to is that these\nlaws of life are their own avengers; and consequently that every\navenging Angel is only a typified representation of their re-action.\"\n\nTherefore, if any one is helpless before these immutable laws,\nit is not ourselves, the artificers of our destinies, but rather\nthose angels, the guardians of harmony. Karma-Nemesis is no more\nthan the (spiritual) dynamical effect of causes produced and forces\nawakened into activity by our own actions. It is a law of occult\ndynamics that \"a given amount of energy expended on the spiritual\nor astral plane is productive of far greater results than the\nsame amount expended on the physical objective plane of existence.\"\n\nThis state will last till man's spiritual intuitions are fully\nopened, which will not happen before we fairly cast off our thick\ncoats of matter; until we begin acting from *within*,*\n*instead of ever following impulses from *without; *namely,\nthose produced by our physical senses and gross selfish body.\nUntil then the only palliative to the evils of life is union and\nharmony -- a Brotherhood IN ACTU, and *altruism *not simply\nin name. The suppression of one single bad *cause *will\nsuppress not one, but a variety of bad effects. And if a Brotherhood\nor even a number of Brotherhoods may not be able to prevent nations\nfrom occasionally cutting each other's throats -- still unity\nin thought and action, and philosophical research into the mysteries\nof being, will always prevent some, while trying to comprehend\nthat which has hitherto remained to them a riddle, from creating\nadditional causes in a world already so full of woe and evil.\nKnowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if --\n\n\". . . . virtue in distress, and vice in triumph\n\nMake atheists of mankind,\"*\n\nit is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the\ngreat truth that man is himself his own saviour as his own destroyer.\nThat he need not accuse Heaven and the gods, Fates and Providence,\nof the apparent injustice that reigns in the midst of humanity.\nBut let him rather remember and repeat this bit of Grecian wisdom,\nwhich warns man to forbear accusing *That *which --\n\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n\n\"Just, though mysterious, leads us on unerring\n\nThrough ways unmark'd from guilt to punishment . . .\"\n\n-- which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward\nthe great European nations. The Western Aryans had, every nation\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Dryden.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 645 ANCIENT AND MODERN PROPHECIES.\n\nand tribe, like their Eastern brethren of the Fifth Race, their\nGolden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility,\nor the Satya age of purity, while now, several of them have reached\ntheir Iron Age, the *Kali-Yuga*,* *an age **B**LACK\nWITH **H**ORRORS. . . . .\n\nIt is true, on the other hand, that the exoteric cycles of every\nnation have been correctly made to be derived from, and depend\non, sidereal motions. The latter are inseparably blended with\nthe destinies of nations and men. But in their purely physical\nsense, Europe knows of no other cycles than the astronomical,\nand makes its computations accordingly. Nor will it hear of any\nother than *imaginary *circles or circuits in the starry\nheavens that gird them --\n\n\"With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er\n\nCycle and epicycle, orb in orb . . .\"\n\nBut with the pagans, with whom, as Coleridge has it -- \".\n. . . . Time, cyclical time, was their abstraction of the Deity\n. .\" that \"Deity\" manifesting co-ordinately with,\nand only through Karma, and being that KARMA-NEMESIS itself, the\ncycles meant something more than a mere succession of events,\nor a periodical space of time of more or less prolonged duration.\nFor they were generally marked with recurrences of a more varied\nand intellectual character than are exhibited in the periodical\nreturn of seasons or of certain constellations. Modern wisdom\nis satisfied with astronomical computations and prophecies based\non unerring mathematical laws. Ancient Wisdom added to the cold\nshell of astronomy the vivifying elements of its soul and spirit\n-- ASTROLOGY. And, as the sidereal motions *do* regulate\nand determine other events on Earth -- besides potatoes and the\nperiodical disease of that useful vegetable -- (a statement which,\nnot being amenable to scientific explanation, is merely derided,\nwhile accepted) -- those events have to be allowed to find themselves\npredetermined by even simple astronomical computations. Believers\nin astrology will understand our meaning, sceptics will laugh\nat the belief and mock the idea. Thus they shut their eyes, ostrich-like,\nto their own fate. . . . . . .*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to\ntruth. This is what we read: \"Whatever way we turn our eyes\nwe encounter a mystery . . . . all in Nature for us is *the\nunknown*. . . Yet they are numerous, those superficial minds\nfor whom nothing can be produced by natural forces outside of\nfacts observed long ago, consecrated in books and grouped more\nor less skilfully with the help of theories whose ephemeral duration\nought, by this time, to have demonstrated their insufficiency,\n. . . . I do not pretend *to contest the possibility of invisible\nBeings*,* of a nature different from ours and susceptible\nof moving matter to action. *Profound philosophers have admitted\nit in all epochs as a consequence of the great law of continuity\nwhich rules the Universe. That intellectual life, which we see\nstarting in some way from non-being (*neant*) and gradually\nreaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to reappear only in\nthe infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is\nlittle probable.\" Therefore . . \"I [[Footnote continued\non next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 646 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nThis because their little *historical *period, so called,\nallows them no margin for comparison. Sidereal heaven is before\nthem; and though their spiritual vision is still unopened and\nthe atmospheric dust of terrestrial origin seals their sight and\nchains it to the limits of physical systems, still they do not\nfail to perceive the movements and note the behaviour of meteors\nand comets. They record the periodical advents of those wanderers\nand \"flaming messengers,\" and prophesy, in consequence,\nearthquakes, meteoric showers, the apparition of certain stars,\ncomets, etc., etc. Are they soothsayers for all that? No, they\nare learned astronomers.\n\nWhy, then, should occultists and astrologers, as learned, be disbelieved,\nwhen they prophesy the return of some cyclic event on the same\nmathematical principle? Why should the claim that they *know\nit *be ridiculed? Their forefathers and predecessors, having\nrecorded the recurrence of such events in their time and day,\nthroughout a period embracing hundreds of thousands of years,\nthe conjunction of the same constellations must necessarily produce,\nif not quite the same, at any rate, similar effects. Are the prophecies\nderided, because of the claim of the hundreds of thousands of\nyears of observation, and the millions of years of the human races?\nIn its turn modern Science is laughed at for its far more modest\ngeological and anthropological figures, by those who hold to Biblical\nchronology. Thus Karma adjusts even human laughter at the mutual\nexpense of sects, learned societies, and individuals. Yet in the\nprognostication of *such *future events, at any rate, all\nforetold on the authority of cyclic recurrences, there is no psychic\nphenomenon involved. It is neither *prevision*,* nor\nprophecy; *no more than is the signalling of a comet or star,\nseveral years before its appearance. It is simply knowledge and\nmathematically correct computations which enable the **W**ISE\n**M**EN OF THE **E**AST to foretell,\nfor instance, that England is on the eve of such or another catastrophe;\nFrance, nearing such a point of her cycle, and Europe in general\nthreatened with, or rather, on the eve of, a cataclysm, which\nher own cycle of racial *Karma has led her *to. The reliability\nof the information depends, of course, on the acceptation or rejection\nof the claim for a tremendous period of historical observation.\nEastern Initiates maintain that they have preserved records of\nthe racial development and of events of universal import ever\nsince the beginning of the Fourth Race -- that which preceded\nbeing traditional. Moreover, those who believe in Seership and\nOccult\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] no more deny the existence\nof Spirits than I deny soul while trying to explain certain facts\nwithout their hypothesis . . .\" \"The Non-Defined Forces,\"\nHistorical and Experimental Researches, p. 3. The above is written\nby A. de Rochas, a well-known man of science in France, his work\nbeing one of the signs of the time. (Paris: Masson, Boulevard\nSt. Germain, 1887.)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 647 ASTROLOGY A SCIENCE.\n\npowers will have no difficulty in crediting the general character,\nat least, of the information given, even if traditional, once\nthe latter is checked and corrected by the corroboration of clairvoyance\nand esoteric knowledge. But in the present case no such metaphysical\nbelief is claimed as our chief dependence, but a proof is given\non what, to every Occultist, is quite scientific evidence -- the\nrecords preserved through the *Zodiac *for incalculable\nages.\n\nIt is now amply proved that even horoscopes and judiciary astrology\nare not quite based on a fiction, and that stars and constellations,\nconsequently, have an occult and mysterious influence on, and\nconnection with, individuals. And if with the latter, why not\nwith nations, races, and mankind in bulk? This, again, is a claim\nmade on the authority of the Zodiacal records. We shall examine\nthen, if you please, how far the Zodiac was known to the ancients,\nand how far it is forgotten by the moderns.\n\n-------\n\n[[This page continued in next section]]\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}