The law of cycles functions in nature, and it is an infallible law. The difference between manmade laws and the laws of nature is that while human laws are incomplete, have exceptions and must be revised, the laws of nature are ever the same, are exact in their operations, have no exceptions, and therefore can be relied upon. Every natural phenomenon occurs under the law of cycles, not only in the visible, but also in the invisible universe.
A cycle is a circle—a circle of time. A circle may be small, it may be large, it may be immense. The main characteristic of all circles is that the curved line comes back to the point from which it started. For instance, a day is a cycle of 24 hours. It starts at a point called sunrise, and the cycle is completed when the point of another sunrise comes. There is a somewhat larger cycle called the month—lunar month, from new moon to another new moon; or solar month, based on the movement of the sun in the great belt of the zodiac. A still larger cycle is the year; and so they grow large and larger till what commences in a second, the 60th part of a minute, goes on till we come to immense cycles, not of millions but of billions and trillions of years.
The ancient Hindu sages, taught by Narada, knew the ultimate divisions of time and therefore also knew the immensity of the great cycles. To pass on a bit of their knowledge to the multitudes, these sages used the symbol of the circle, Chakra. The Chakra of Vishnu or of other personifications all teach of the many and varied cycles, large and small. Our day is of 24 hours; Brahma's day is called a Kalpa—8,640,000,000 years!
Of what use is the knowledge of old religious philosophies if it cannot be applied to our problems day by day! This knowledge of the law of cycles can be so applied. A little understanding of this universal law comes through study; and when we catch even a glimpse of the true knowledge, we can utilize it. To understand this, we must grasp the next principle connected with our subject.
Each man, each woman, makes his or her own particular cycles. Take a simple example: Each day the sun rises at its fixed moment, but we do not wake up at that moment. Some are already awake, ready to welcome the rising sun; others are still snoring away when the sun is rising! This is a point to be noted. There are general cycles of nature and there are particular cycles made by each one of us.
The law of cycles is operating everywhere, all the time. Therefore there is nothing in human experience which is not rooted in and which does not result from that law. We are hungry, we eat, and become hungry again, according to our cycle, made by ourselves. Some people want to eat several times a day, others eat only two or three times. Some need only five or six hours' sleep; others require eight or nine hours. For everything there is a beginning and an end, and that end is the starting point of a new beginning. We begin to die the moment we are born. We begin to get hungry the moment we have finished eating. Sounds strange, but it is true. And because there are cycles for everything, they overlap and intersect one another. Some of the actions of the law of cycles are more easily understandable, like the rising of the sun and the cycle of sleeping and waking. But there are cyclic activities that are complex and difficult to understand.
If we were to tell a person that his moods of irritability and anger also are cyclic, his reaction probably would be that of disbelief. It only means he has not studied himself; he has not questioned how these moods arise. They are so irregular that he refuses to believe that they are the result of the law of cycles. To one who has not studied astronomy, the rising and setting of the sun seems most irregular. But if he perseveres in his observations over a long period, he will find out that the sun is very regular indeed and has a method in its irregularities! So also a person will find out by study and observation that his moods, good or bad, are regular in arising and subsiding and that they do occur according to the law of cycles. Not only our bodily activities, like sleeping and waking, eating and digesting, are cyclic, but our thoughts and feelings, our moods and habits too are cyclic.
Once this fact is well understood, we find ourselves in a position to use the law of cycles. To make use of it, we have to find the answer to the most natural question: Who is the maker and the creator of the cycle? Who makes the cycle of waking and sleeping, eating and digesting, depression or exhilaration, and so forth? Let us face the fact that each person makes his own particular cycles. One might say, "But that is not true; surely I did not make my sleeping requirements to be so many hours; do not remember doing any such thing." Do we remember crying at the moment of our birth? Yet we did cry, otherwise we would not be breathing now. Similarly, we do make all our personal cycles, but as we do it unconsciously to ourselves, we do not know that we are responsible for those cycles. Knowing that each one creates his own particular cycles, let us ask the next question: How does one create them?
To understand this, we must go to the simple figure of the circle which the old sages gave as the symbol of the law of cycles. A circle presupposes two things—a centre and a radius. Without these two there could be no circumference. Mathematically speaking, a circle is composed of a centre, a radius and a circumference. Of these the centre is the most important; there can be a centre without radius and circumference, but not vice versa. Next, there can be a centre and a radius, i.e., a straight line without the circumference, but again not vice versa. So the centre is the most important, next the radius, and then only the circumference.
Now our own soul, our self-consciousness, is the centre; our mind rooted in the soul is like the radius. The soul and the mind acting in the world of matter make the cycle. We can immediately see that each one of us draws innumerable circles. Every time a thought is generated, a circle or cycle is made. We can use this figure of the complete circle to know about the law of cycles; the symbol yields very useful and practical information when thought about.
The human soul, the thinker, is the creator and maker of his own cycles. But a circle or cycle has a starting point to which its curved line returns. The soul thinks, i,e., uses his mind, uses a radius; some are small and petty thoughts and others are noble, elevating ones. According to the subject on which the soul dwells, will the length of the radius be determined, and this radius in turn determines the size of the circle. Next, the circle starting curves back and returns on itself to meet that very starting point. So there are two factors—the starting point and the ending point. The end is the effect of the cause, which was the starting point.
Take again the example of sleeping and waking. We sleep at a particular moment; then according to our habit, temperament and circumstances we wake up at another particular moment; these two moments meet in what we call our memory. We wake up because we went to sleep; waking up is the result. When we wake up we may have no memory of our sleeping through the night. This is exactly what happens with innumerable events and experiences of our lives. A hundred things happen to us, and we wonder why. The principle of the law of cycles needs to be understood. As we have forgotten about the starting point from within the mind, the result that comes at the end of the cycle puzzles us. All of us are concerned about the results, the effects of our visible, active life.
We are so accustomed by habit and education to look outside of us for the cause of what happens to us that we fail to relate effect to cause, to see our own part in the unfolding drama of our life. Our circumstances, and the day-to-day happenings which improve or worsen those circumstances, are only the results of causes generated by us in the past. It should also be noted that now and here we are starting new circles or cycles by our own thoughts and feelings. What forms the basis, the foundation of our present thinking is our attitude towards our environment and the events taking place in them. Besides our attitude there is the use we make of those events. It is important to note these two factors.
So, we are feeling, experiencing, encountering the results of what we ourselves started by our own thoughts in the past, and which we do not now remember. Next, now and here we are starting new cycles by our thoughts, our present ideation and imagination, but in doing this we neglect to take into account the fact that they will produce their own results in time.
We should make good use of whatever comes to us in our lives. Whatever our environment, whatever events take place, whatever experiences come to us, can be used and have to be used. People do not use them in the right way, therefore they do not learn. The correct method of using them lies in our own attitude. We will improve our environment and our circumstances not by trying to change them, but by forming and holding the right attitude to them in our own mind. Present attitude produces future environment; present circumstances are the result of our past attitude. We may say that mental attitude is the soul and physical use is the body. If we have the right attitude, we shall soon find out the right use to improve our circumstances.
The practical lesson that we can learn is not to give too much attention to outer circumstances, but to watch our thoughts, our feelings, our moods; watch carefully our own mind—for in the mind is the formation of the attitude. Our usefulness to others, our happiness, our calm, contentment, strength, do not lie in our outer environment, but in our inner attitude which soon reveals to us the right use we can make of wealth and poverty, of health and disease, of elation and depression, of knowledge and ignorance. People pray to some outside god to give them wealth, health and happiness, yet they do not get it because they do not know what god is or how to pray.
What connection has any one of us to the great cycles in nature? As a human being grows more and more, he creates hiw own individual cycles to coincide with those of nature. An evolving soul perceives that his connection with nature is most intimate; that he possesses in latency all the powers of nature, both visible and invisible. This evolving soul thus finds that real freedom, true emancipation, profound and unalloyed bliss and wisdom, are his if he works with the laws of nature and creates his own cycles, first to approximate and then to coincide with those of nature.
The cycles of life of a Jivan-Mukta, a Mahatma, a Master, coincide, mathematically, with those of nature. The Master is one who has conquered nature by understanding and by obedience. Therefore these Great Ones, in conformity with the law of cycles, endeavour to help humanity. By their ideation—and more, by their incarnation in our midst—they teach us the great truths of the Science of Life. Krishna says that he comes from age to age not by some whim, caprice or fancy, but under the law of cycles. So with other Great Souls who have come amidst us.
The first thing which it is necessary for the soul of man to do in order to engage in this great endeavour of discovering true life is the same thing that the child first does in its desire for activity in the body—he must be able to stand. It is clear that the power of standing, of equilibrium, of concentration, of uprightness, in the soul, is a quality of marked character. The word that presents itself most readily as description of this quality is "confidence."
To remain still amid life and its changes, and stand firmly on the chosen spot, is a feat which can only be accomplished by the man who has confidence in himself and in his destiny. Otherwise the hurrying forms of life, the rushing tide of men, the great flood of thought, must inevitably carry him with them, and then he will lose that place of consciousness whence it was possible to start on the great enterprise. For it must be done knowingly, and without pressure from without—this act of the new-born man. All the great ones of the earth have possessed this confidence, and have stood firmly on that place which was to them the one solid spot in the universe. To each man this place is of necessity different. Each man must find his own earth and his own heaven.
—Through the Gates of Gold