The Repeating Cycles of Time From Buddha, To The Bible, & Back Again

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

– Ecclesiastes 1:9, King James Bible

Time is indeed a most fundamental element of the Law of Vibration. While discussing this critical subject of time, there is another similarly interesting perspective that this science forces the consideration of, which is the cyclical nature of time.

This is a different hierarchical positionality of consideration than the prior theories of the multidimensionality and simultaneity of time. For this perspective deals not with hyper-dimensional abstractions beyond the perception of most humans, but instead relates to the fundamental structure of the common sense of time experienced every day by every human and by society in general.

This common perspective of time is generally perceived as and considered to be linear, with time progressing from the past into the future in a straight line, generally referred to as the “arrow of time”.

Spiralling time. There is an age-old alternative to the linear conception of time, which is that time is not linear, but is circular or cyclical.

In fact, this assumption is so prevalent in the mind of man, that most people have never even so much as considered that there may be an alternative possibility to something that seem so utterly obvious in our conscious experience.

However, there is an age-old alternative to this linear conception which is the idea that time is not linear, but is circular or cyclical. The Biblical quote above demonstrates that this cyclical concept of time is as old as our written history, and that such fundamental temporal considerations are as old as humanity itself. For such considerations have a significant meaning to us as individuals and as societies, for the implications of concepts have a potential affect upon our understanding and experience of reality itself.

Concepts of Circular Time in the Everyday

However, taking a step back from such philosophical ponderings, circular time is a concept that we are all so experientially familiar with that we actually take it totally for granted. In actuality, ALL concepts and calculations of time are based upon the purely cyclical perspective. That is because our time is determined by nothing but astronomical phenomena.

The Wheels of Planetary Time

The day is but one rotation of Earth on its axis, a year one revolution around the sun, a minute a division of the size of the Earth by the rotational period, where it rotates 1 degree every 4 minutes. The 7 days of the week are derived from and named after the 7 traditional planets: Sun (Sunday), Moon (Monday), Mars (Tuesday - “Martes: in Spanish), Mercury (Wednesday or Mercoles in Spanish), Jupiter (Thursday, Jeudi in French), Venus (Friday, Viernes in Spanish), Saturn (Saturday).

A weekday planetary heptagram depicting the planetary association to days of the week.

The Circle of Seasons

Similarly, the cycles of time profoundly affect us every ongoingly throughout the year. The never-ceasing progressing of the seasons from Spring to Summer, to Autumn to Winter effect our work, our play, our vacations, our schooling, our planting, our harvest, our holidays, and every pattern of living on the most fundamental level in our lives. Entire industries are governed by this cyclical sequencing, and the accompanying weather patterns provide one of the most fundamental influences in human existence. Indeed, our lives can be seen to be almost totally controlled by astronomical cycles, even though few people naturally think of it in this way… anymore.

Circular time. An illustrated diagram of the Mayan zodiac calendar. Originally published in “Carl Nebel, Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la partie la plus intéressante du Mexique par C. Nebel, Architecte. 50 Planches Lithographiées avec texte explicatif” 1836

But to go back to a more expansive perspective, the meaning of the fundamental principle of cyclical time is that rather than existence being a progressive movement in a linear direction, there is a repetitive process that is experienced in both the life of man and of civilizations that has definitive elements which, when understood, can provide a context and a deeper understanding of the world we are mysteriously born into without instructions or explanation.

Cyclical Time & The Human Race

A Tibetan buddhist mandala of the Forms of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Transcendent Wisdom, Tibet. Late 14th century. Tibetan buddhism believes in cyclical time through reincarnation.

In this context, there is a pattern to all experience that falls into a structure that is definable according to the periodic sequence of events as they progress in time. Every person has particular experiences in their life that are consistently time determined, like stages or growth and development as a child, puberty, high school, college, job, marriage, career, retirement and death. These may not be experienced as cycles by an individual, but if you now zoom out and look at a wider body of individuals characterized as generations, you will see that the “cycles of life” are continuously repeated in the same way for each new generation, though with a slightly different background context.

Generational Cycles

The science of demographics is based upon this principle, looking at the stages of development of generations of people, and the phases of their life, which then also have a direct experience upon the nature of the society within which they exist. When we look at systems like Social Security, it is common knowledge that the productive output of each new generation is intended to help support through taxation the older generation which preceded them. In fact entire systems of government policy, taxation, and incentives for marriage and family are based upon the evolving cycles of generations and demographics.

Fads, Trends & The Development of Religions

Similarly, expanding our focus again to look at civilizations, it has been determined that all social structures, whether they fads, styles, movements, religions, or even civilizations have cycles of life and decay that can be calculated and potentially predicted when studied across history.

Modern Day Islam

As an example if one looks at religion, and considers perhaps the current problems in Islam with the radical extremists causing violence across the world and fighting and killing amongst their own internal factions, and one considers the age of Islam from its founded in the 7th century C.E, one would call that religion approximately 1400 years old.

The wheel of fortune from the Burana Codex; The figures are labelled “Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno, Regnabo”: I reign, I reigned, My reign is finished, I shall reign.

Christianity

Now if one looks at Christianity when it was at an age of approximately 1400 years old, one sees prior to that the violent wars ranging from the earlier Crusades, to the development of the Protestant Reformation wherein Catholics and Protestants were violently at war with each other for generations, slaughtering each other in the name of god. Or the advent of the Catholic Inquisition which ruthlessly tortured and murdered its own people under the name of spiritual purity, not unlike the actions of ISIS or the Taliban today. It does not take a genius to see that religions, like people grow through phase of development and maturity according to their age.

The Great Cycles: The Precession of the Equinoxes

Civilizations similarly go through these phases of immaturity, growth, flowering, decay and death as has been demonstrated by numerous historians, like Oswald Spengler, Anatoly Fomenko, and Francois Masson. These studies have shown that there are correlative cycles between the periods of different civilizations throughout history, for instance, with the phases of Rome’s development being correlative to those of the United States.

And as one zooms out further, these cycles becomes even more dominant affecting the whole of humanity as the planet progresses through different cycles. The most dominant and famous of historic cycles are what are called the cycles of the Great Year.

The Four Stages of Civilisation

Throughout all of history and across all civilizations there is a story of the four ages of civilization, the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. In the Golden Age, mankind achieves a height of intellectual, spiritual and societal evolution and these states degenerate through a sequence of the ages until in the Iron Age (in which we are currently considered to be since somewhere around couple thousand years B.C.E.).

#1

The Yuga Ages. Yuga in Hindu is an epoch or era within a four-age cycle. A complete Yuga starts with the Satya Yuga, via Treta Yuga and Dvapara Yuga into a Kali Yuga. Our present time is a Kali Yuga, which started at 3102 BCE.

This history is detailed in the famous work by MIT professor Giorgio De. Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend called Hamlet’s Mill which traces the historical mythology of these four cycles of life and their relations to the astronomical phenomena of the Precession of the Equinoxes, a 25,900 year cycle supposed caused by the “wobble” of the Earth’s axis. This great cycle, called the Great Year was tracked and calculated by all great ancient civilizations, who recorded it and even aligned their great monuments according to particular astronomical positions relating to different phases.

#2

Diagram depicting the tilt in the earth’s axis. This “wobble” is also known as the Precession of the Equinoxes and takes 25,900 years to complete.

The Age of Aquarius

It is most commonly known today by references to the Age of Aquarius into which we are currently transitioning in a 2160 year cycle from the Age of Pisces. Each of these 12 cycles of 2160 years is said to possess a different energetic quality which informs the nature of civilization for that cycle, causing predictable elements to manifest in the world according to each particular phase. This Great Cycle is considered to be of the most importance in the determination of the nature of reality over massive spans of time, affecting the rise and fall of civilizations and phases of development of humanity. It is even known to affect the transition between periods of geophysical upheaval and stability like earthquakes, the rising and sinking of continents, ice ages, and other forms of geophysical upheaval or stability.

Smaller cycles within his Great Cycle are further calculated by harmonics of this great cycle, giving numerous divisions of time with different kinds of meaning and influence. These smaller time cycles can be seen to affect various elements within society from political trends, to religions change, to economic development, scientific progress, industrial innovation, artistic inspiration, and, of course, financial market highs and lows.

Without making any kind of assumption of a connection between the astronomical events which define these cyclic periods and the cycles which are seen in society and civilization, even simple calculations by academic historians will show that the periods where these kinds of trends tend to recur are strikingly similar to the harmonics of these astronomical cycles.

Coincidence? Perhaps… But even so much as a minor sense of correlation should be enough to provide significant food for thought in any curious person to warrant a further investigation.

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