Time is usually conceived of as a quantitative or linear succession of uniform instants, indistinctly linking past, present and future.
According to the Eastern and Western esoteric philosophy, time can also be recognized as a ‘succession of states of consciousness’[1], each of which is unique and unrepeatable in its own quality.
The essence of qualitative time is unveiled by the idea of the cycle.
Cycle is a word that comes from the Greek kýklos which means circle, round. It contains in itself the idea of circularity, that is of return, but actually being a spiral, each coil will never see its end match its beginning. This gap or difference, which is the ‘step’ of the spiral, represents the progress achieved from the qualitative point of view, that is, it expresses the evolutive advancement of the cycle.
According to this understanding the cycle, or cyclical time, is a rhythmic vortex of energy bestowed with quality, the spatial expression of the motion of the ‘states of consciousness’ of universal and particular evolution.
Below is the basic hypothesis, synthetically expressed, of the esoteric philosophical thought:
Life, which persists everywhere and always, is the energy that self-generates incessantly, without limits in space or time. In its nature it is live Space, the universal container, and in essence vital Motion (or Fire).
Such primordial, igneous and dynamic living essence, multiplying or dividing itself unceasingly, moves every point in Space. It advances, rotates and therefore spirals.
Yet the essential nature of Life is to impulse more than evolve; what moves, expands and improves is Consciousness, the supreme relation between Life and Space, spirit and substance, energy and matter.
Life, or spirit/energy is unceasingly pulsing, dynamic, propulsive.
Space, or substance/matter, co-vibrates, oscillates, rotates.
Consciousness evolves following a spiral cyclical motion.
Thus the creative vortexes, or cycles, cannot be but vital, spatial and conscious entities, that is, they are able to realize evolution.
The cycle is the breath and arch of consciousness.
‘Churning is a symbol of cosmogony. He who has accepted so simple a process as the symbol of a great action, has verily understood the correlation between microcosm and Macrocosm. On the physical plane spiral rotation is the basis of the accumulation of substance, and thought also acts in an identical way. From the Summits down to chaos, Space is intensified by the spirals of consciousness. Thought spirally transforms itself into substance, permeating all Cosmos. One must understand and accept the transformation of thought into substance. This welding preserves the supply of substance, for thought is inexhaustible. On Earth much benefit may be reaped from the realization of the substantiality of thought.’[2]
According to this initial hypothesis, each cycle is moved by a unit of conscious life, it has its own field or sphere of influence and it has a purpose, which is achieved through an organized, rhythmic and sequential plan.
In other words, the cycle is the creative spiral of Life that introduces into Space the energies necessary for evolution, different and qualified, which each form living in it will express in its own way, depending on its degree or power of responsiveness.
The cycle, among its main qualities, has an infinite capacity for ‘containing’. For example each day, which is a cyclical rotation of the planet, contains all the other past days since the ‘mists of time’. Therefore it operates a continuous and progressive action of updating, another name for evolution.
Furthermore, despite each cycle in its structure being basically identical to any other, there are countless hierarchies of evolution among them. We can recognize greater cycles that contain lesser cycles.
To study the cycles means to think of the purpose, nature and essence of Life.
It also leads to the supposition that the energy of Life has its own plan or evolutionary project, carried out to reach the purpose through the constant yet rhythmic production of forms and the progressive evolution of their quality.
(Extracted from From Linear to Cyclical Time).
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