The future lies in the present and both include the Past. With a rare occult insight Rohel made quite an esoterically true remark, in saying that "the future does not come from before to meet us, but comes streaming up from behind over our heads." For the Occultist and average Theosophist the Future and the Past are both included in each moment of their lives, hence in the eternal PRESENT.

—H. P. Blavatsky

In a single life, a person is under the influence of numerous cycles—daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal, annual and, proceeding further, of larger ones. He has his own individual cycles pertaining to his bodily transformation, to his psychic nature, etc. Likewise, there are cycles which affect the life of groups of men and women—family, community, nation, race, and Humanity as a whole.

Each person, therefore, is influenced by his own particular cycles, as well as by those pertaining to the complex Nature without. He is affected by the changing seasons of the year, while he has his own incarnational seasons—the spring of youth, the summer of manhood, the autumn of adult years, and the winter of old age. Moreover, he has his own psychological seasons: every year he passes through the repetitive changes in his moral-mental nature which correspond to the seasons of Mother Nature. Further still, just as a single day has its changing phases, from dawn to twilight, from twilight to dawn, so also with man.

One fundamental difference is this: the cycles of Nature are a rhythmical procession; but man's free-willed actions make his own cycles erratic, in the sense that they often do not coincide with those of Nature. Human pain and suffering may be said to be the result of the personal cycles not synchronizing with those of and in Nature. When we are asked to "help Nature and work on with her," it is implied that our human plans should go by nature's dependable clock. Motion there always is, everywhere. Rhythmic motion spells order, progress, harmony and peace, as erratic movement, action contrary to Nature's law of Universal Brotherhood, spells chaos, retrogression, discord and strife.

In the life of Nature and of Man certain days have a special significance. In Nature there are the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the summer and winter solstices, and so on. These are conjunctions of cycles—the closing of one cycle when its influences have completed their decline, and the opening of another with the rising of its influences. Similarly, there are important days in national and racial cycles; and likewise in the lives of individual human beings.

The earth's journey round the sun brings us back once more to the Winter Solstice, the New Year according to Nature's clock. Each turn of this annual cycle, which is not a circle but rather like a spiral should bring us to a higher level. It should be a different man or woman in each case from the one who joined last year in the exchange of greetings and felicitations appropriate to the day. A year is an appreciable part of the time available for our life's journey. Has it seen us marching on, or sitting by the road, or perhaps even falling behind?

Mankind in its totality, in fact, should be much farther on than it is. Ignorance about man's own nature, mental laziness and the selfishness engendered by a false sense of separateness—these are largely responsible for the retardation of the race as a whole. But the whole is a sum-total of its parts. Individuals rousing themselves to effort can help all, for "no man can rise superior to his individual failings without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is a part."

Theosophists have a great responsibility; theirs is a many-sided mission; but the most important aspect of that mission is his own self-elevation by the individual student of the Esoteric Philosophy. The many make the One, and every single member of a unit, such as the human family, makes or mars its fate. Keeping this philosophical principle in mind, the Theosophical aspirant must acquire, as quickly as possible, the cosmopolitan outlook. Rising above creedal and communal, national and racial prides and prejudices, he must try to evaluate events and problems from the point of view that the world is one, that humanity is a family. To become a real cosmopolitan he must have discernment to eschew that which is bad or ugly or weak in the habits and customs, manners and methods, of his own people, to adopt better substitutes, learning from those of other lands and other nations. Neither political action nor social reform, neither legislation nor administration, neither science nor religion, neither philosophy nor art, by itself can bring enlightenment. Lop-sided development and one-sided consecration will not aid the right unfoldment necessary for world improvement. Every organ of the whole man must be brought into action.

Similarly, we require a knowledge which synthesizes all branches of learning and all methods by which such learning is acquired. This is impossible if by synthesis we mean a complete collection and collation of all knowledge so far acquired by the researches of men. But in reality synthesis does not mean that. Just as mind is not a collection of the activities of the five senses of knowledge and the five organs of action but is superior to and the controller of them, so also there is that learning which is superior to all knowledge developed by the senses and the emotions. This synthesis is the soul of knowledge, and Theosophy is that synthesis. But the student must acuire the art of applying Theosophy in understanding and expounding all worldly learning. What is true and what is false, what is good and what is bad, what is beautiful and what is ugly—this should be decided with the help of Theosophy. Theosophy is the refuge of the devoted and the earnest who desire to save not only their own souls but also the souls of those who are eager to participate in the work of world upliftment.

To each earnest student of life, which every practitioner of Theosophy is, these days of December-January offer a suitable opportunity for renewing the resolve to be a real friend and comforter to all his fellow men. The 20th-century world would have been different had the majority of those who came into the Theosophical Movement in the 19th century been truly loyal to their ideals and ideas, devotedly faithful to their doctrines and teachings, and had studied sufficiently to make adequate applications of what H.P.B. and her Masters set forth. Shall we not learn the lesson that Theosophical history teaches, and makes practical applications of it, keeping ever in view that Theosophy is in the world to effect the leavening of the race-mind?

With every man that is earnestly searching in his own way after a knowledge of the Divine Principle, of man's relations to it, and nature's manifestations of it, Theosophy is allied. It is likewise the ally of honest science, so long as the latter does not poach on the domains of psychology and metaphysics.

And it is also the ally of every honest religion—to wit, a religion willing to be judged by the same tests as it applies to the others. Those books, which contain the most self-evident truth, are to it inspired (not revealed). But all books it regards, on account of the human element contained in them, as inferior to the Book of Nature; to read which and comprehend it correctly, the innate powers of the soul must be highly developed.

—H. P. Blavatsky