Pralaya

Wisdom Teachings
Eternal Wisdom
Dissolution and Creation

Everything that is exists forever. According to the esoteric understanding, the cosmos is eternal in the sense that it exists either potentially or in manifested form. Souls are eternal; they do not die; only bodies die. Pure existence is eternal, but consciousness is periodic. It comes out for a certain time and then withdraws back into existence.

The consciousness which we enter in the morning when we wake up has a temporal duration. In the evening, when we fall asleep, it goes back into existence. In sleep nature merges with us and when we awaken nature becomes awake in us again. Every night during the sleep we forget everything about objectivity; there is nothing left of what we know. But even in sleep we exist without being aware that we exist, and when we awaken we return to our nature. We awaken into that state of consciousness in which we fell asleep, with all that we knew, and continue the day.

Our awakening from sleep is a symbol of the beginning of creation. During creation consciousness comes forth and during the pralaya, the dissolution, nature merges with existence. One cannot say that nature is sometimes there and sometimes not. Only sometimes it is expressed. There is only a change of state happening.

Unlimited space is understood as the background upon which a creation awakens from time to time. It is compared to an egg from which the birth of the cosmos happens. It is also said that from time to time the circle appears as a symbol of the entire creation when space is in an active phase. The point in the middle of the circle represents the awakening of consciousness from the sleep of subjectivity. It also represents the awakening of individuals, whether human beings, planets or suns.

The cosmic principle that enables the birth of creation and awakens us from sleep is called Narayana. The Narayana centre is located in us in the higher heart centre. The cosmic Narayana principle contains all the details of creation in a seed form. His exhalation is the phase of creation; his inhalation is the phase of dissolution. This is followed by a pause, a period of pralaya. This pause is of the same length as the inhalation phase. Before our creation there was a pause and before that there was a phase of inhalation. Each phase of manifestation alternates with a phase of dissolution and merging. There are smaller and larger forms of pralayas. There is a daily pralaya with sleep and there is also the individual pralaya between one incarnation and the next birth. The same happens with the dissolution of civilizations and races that are extinguished because they are not fit to continue. Souls come back in a new form. The same happens on a larger scale. Through smaller pralayas, the sub-racial pralayas are subjected to purification processes; larger pralayas happen when a new race appears and an old one passes away.

The Secret Doctrine says that in this round our globe will go through seven periodic, complete changes that will take place simultaneously with the races, and that in this round there will be seven terrestrial pralayas. This is done in accordance with the karmic law; it is called the Great Adjuster. Obstacles to progress are removed. Progressive seeds are preserved.

Four changes have already taken place through such destructions. The face of the globe has changed completely each time. The entire continents, except the very first, sank in the seas. Countries and mountains appeared where there were none before. The survival of the fittest nations and races was ensured by timely help; they were consciously brought to a new place. The unfit ones were swept off the earth, but they returned on different continents. Such sorting does not happen often; it often takes thousands of years before the new house is in order.

When a planetary pralaya happens, the other planets do not dissolve at the same time; they have their own lifespan. When our solar system dissolves, it is called a solar pralaya. And after the pralaya, the system returns and slowly reappears in the same order as the previous creation that was dissolved. Then a descent begins again over three planes to the physical plane, the fourth plane or the D-Globe, and later it retreats again to the finer planes. According to Indian calculations of the world ages, such a day of Brahma, the Creator, lasts 4,320,000,000 years and the time of dissolution lasts the same.

At the beginning of a new creation, an impulse emerges which is also called the Word of God. It is based on the collective pressure of the countless beings who entered the pralaya during the dissolution of the last creation without having fulfilled their evolution and reached the state of pure awareness. For these unfulfilled beings, creation continues.

After the dissolution, the souls have to wait for a very long period for a new opportunity to continue their development. To become active again, they need a foundation and a suitable body. It is an act of compassion in the divine plan that the souls are transferred from a dissolved globe through the pralaya to a new globe. Until a new planet is ready on the physical plane and suitable bodies are provided, the souls lie in unconscious activity in a deep sleep. Madam Blavatsky says that the souls are in the “spheres of expectation”. Gradually, the souls are released again into the new creation with the purpose of continuing and completing their unfulfilled tasks.

We incarnate with a purpose, but in creation we are then attracted to things that distract us from our purpose. If we do not know how to behave, we cause unintended consequences and the related events through ignorance. There are more failures than successes, and so creation goes on for the unfulfilled beings.

The stories of Noah's Ark and of Vaivasvata Manu in the Indian Puranas tell about this. They have several dimensions. One dimension is that Manu rules over the pitris, the lunar devas, and leads souls from one incarnation to the next. A second dimension is that Manu transfers human seeds from Atlantis to the Aryan race. A third, cosmic dimension is about the souls that are transferred from a dissolved globe through the pralaya to a new globe. Noah's Ark is not a ship made of wood; the boat denotes the moon, the crescent moon, with which the living beings are brought through the pralaya to the new globe, the earth, with the help of the lunar devas.

According to the Eastern scriptures, the beings brought with the ark are the seven seers. They are the original seeds that are supposed to enable the future formation of the seven races. They are called “Sishta” in Sanskrit; the Secret Doctrine poetically calls them divine mortals. The Sanskrit word Sishta literally means: what remains. The Sishtas are sublime beings who became divine during the last chain. They continue to serve the mortals so that they can also become divine. They were originally mortals, too, but they do not belong to that category of beings who had not completed their development in the preceding chain and slept in unconscious activity during the pralaya. The Sishtas went consciously into the phase of dissolution and also consciously came out again. They function as principles in creation which remain eternally so that they may be able to produce the seven races and transmit the seven rays.

In the Indian scriptures it is said that even while this whole earth submerges in the water, there is a boy swimming on a banyan leaf in the water. He is called Syama Bala, the blue boy. He is the future seed of the mankind of the earth. The cradle of the first man and the home of the last divine mortal is the “White Island”. The indestructible holy island is said to be the land around the original North Pole and is referred to in the Puranas as “Meru”. This place is now in the Himalayas and north of it. It is said that in the cave temples around this place there is a great White Lodge that directs the destinies of the planet and its beings. The members of this lodge are called inhabitants of the White Island; their main place is believed to be in Shamballa. They remain on the first land of the planet.

Besides the described types of pralayas, there is another type of pralayas; it happens when a yogi perceives himself in others. He moves into others to lift them up. It is a kind of pralaya of light. The recognition of “others” is dropped and everything is dissolved into the I AM. Through the touch of consciousness of a Master, we enter into the hearts of the others and begin to live in them as their inspiration and not as anything else. The Hierarchy intends this pralaya of light; it is a consciousness like a river that floods and sweeps everything away. This spreading at the plane of the mind is nothing more than becoming one with the omnipresent principle in others, the community of souls.

Sources used: K.P. Kumar: The Theosophical Movement. Notes from seminars / E. Krishnamacharya: Spiritual History of Mankind. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India.