The Cyclic Process Of Evolution

Another fact strikes the observer: the cyclic march of evolution.

After action comes reaction; after activity, rest; after winter,

summer; after day, night; after inspiration--the breath of life during

which universal Movement works in a molecular aggregate and there

condenses in the form of vitality--expiration--the breath of death,

which causes the individualised life to flow back into the ocean of

cosmic energy; aft r the systole, which drives the blood into every

part of the body, comes the diastole, which breathes back the vital

liquid into the central reservoir; after the waking state comes sleep;

life here and life hereafter; the leaves sprout and fall away

periodically, with the rising and descending of the sap; annual plants

die at the end of the season, persisting in germinal state within a

bulb, a rhizome, or a root before coming again to the light; in

"metamorphoses," we find that the germ (the egg) becomes a larva (a

worm), and then dies as a chrysalis, to be reborn as a butterfly.



Ideas also have their successive cycles of glory and decadence; is not

the present theosophical movement the renaissance of the Neoplatonic

movement which brought the light to Greece and Egypt fifteen hundred

years ago? In 1875 H. P. Blavatsky restored it to life, whilst its

previous birth look place in the time of Ammonius Saccas, the

theosophist, in the Schools of Alexandria. Those who have acquired the

power to read the cosmic records[44] will easily recognise amongst the

present pioneers of theosophy many a champion who in a former age

struggled and fought in the same sublime cause.



Races are born and grow up, die and are born again; pass through a

state of childhood, of youth, of maturity, and of old age. They

flourish in all their splendour when the vital movement which animates

them is at its height; when it leaves them and passes to other

portions of the globe, they gradually fall into old age; then the more

developed Egos--those incarnated in these races during their

maturity--come down into the advanced nations, living on the

continents animated by the "life-wave," whilst the less evolved go to

form the so-called degenerate races vegetating in obscure parts of the

world. Look now at the adolescence of Russia, the youth of America,

the old age of France, and the decrepitude of Turkey. Look backwards

at the glorious Egypt of bygone ages; nothing remains but deserts of

sand on which imperishable structures still testify to the greatness

of her past; the race that witnessed the majesty of the Hierophants

and the divine Dynasties is now inhabiting other lands.



Continents submit to the same law; history and science show how they

pass through a series of immersions and emersions; after Lemuria,

which bore the third race, came Atlantis, the mother of the fourth;

Europe and America now hold the various branches of the fifth; and

later on, when this old land of ours is again sunk beneath the waters,

new lands will have emerged from the ocean depths to bear the future

race, the sixth.



The very planets, too, come under this law; issuing as nebulae from the

great womb of the Universe at the beginning of the evolution of a

solar system they are absorbed back again when the hour of their

dissolution strikes. Finally, the very Universes go forth from the

breast of Brahma when he out-breathes, and return to him when he

in-breathes again.



Everything, then, in appearance is born and dies. In reality, each

thing springs from its germ, makes an effort--the effort of the divine

Will incarnated in this germ--develops its potentialities up to a

certain step in the ladder of evolution, then garners the acquired

qualities and again returns to activity in continuous cycles of life

until its full development is reached.