Cycle of the Great Year and Ages
Cycle of the Soul
After the Iron Age we enter the Golden Age
Hindu Texts state that Kalki is the final avatar of Vishnu who arrives on a white horse with a blazing sword to rid the earth of degeneracy, wickedness and filth. He will be accompanied by his three brothers and will be the last messenger of God, once he has restored justice on earth he will usher in the Satya Yuga, Golden Age.
His swift white horse Devadatta and, sword in hand, travel over the earth exhibiting His eight mystic opulences and eight special qualities of Godhead (8 Messiahs).
He will make his apprerance at the conjunction of two yugas [Kali Yuga and Satya Yuga],
The Vishnu Purana, Book Four, Chapter 24 also explains that, “When the practices taught in the Vedas and institutes of law have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being who exists of His own spiritual nature, and who is the beginning and end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon earth.
The Padma Purana prophesies that Lord Kalki will end the age of Kali and He will kill all the wicked barbarians and, thus, destroy the bad condition of the world. He will gather all of the distinguished brahmanas (divine) and will propound the highest truth. He will know all the ways of life that have perished and will remove the prolonged hunger of the genuine brahmanas (divine) and the pious. He will be the only ruler of the world that cannot be controlled, and will be the banner of victory and adorable to the world. At this time of the Kali Yuga (Iron Age) the planet will be filled with people who will be unable to understand logical conversations. They will be too slow-minded and dull-witted, not capable of being taught much, especially in the way of high philosophy regarding the purpose of life. They will not know what they need to do or how to live. And they certainly will be unable to change their ways. Therefore, Lord Kalki does not come to teach them, but simply to chastise, punish, and cleanse the planet.
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling centuries begins anew:
Justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden race arise,
Befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own
Apollo reigns. And in thy consulate,
This glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin,
And the months enter on their mighty march. - Virgil, 37 BC
“The tradition is also universal of the collective soul of the human race having sustained a “fall,” a moral declension from its true path of life and evolution, which has severed it almost entirely from its creative source, and which, as the ages advanced, has involved its sinking more and more deeply into physical conditions” - W.L. Wilmshurst (The Meaning of Masonry)
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THE OUROBOROS SYMBOLISING THE CYCLE OF THE SOUL
God is in the Mind, the Mind in the Soul, the Soul in the Matter, all things by Eternity. - Hermes, The Divine Pymander
The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?" Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."- The Gospel of Thomas
The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. - The Gospel of Mary Magdalene
“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.” - Voltaire
"Men do not know how the souls revolve like a stone which is thrown from a sling." - (ii. 99). The Zohar
"The souls must reenter the absolute substance whence they have emerged. But to accomplish this, they must develop all the perfections, the germ of which is planted in them; and if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence another, a third, and so forth, until they have acquired the condition which fits them for reunion with God." - (ii. 99). The Zohar
"The soul has neither beginning nor end. [They] come into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of their previous lives" - Origen, 183-253 A.D.
Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes, believe me, but things vary, and adopt a new form. The phrase being born is used for beginning to be something different from what one was before, while dying means ceasing to be the same. Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this, yet the sums of things remains unchanged. - Ovid
How wilt thou, then,— Knowing it so,—grieve when thou shouldst not grieve? How, if thou hearest that the man new-dead Is, like the man new-born, still living man— One same, existent Spirit—wilt thou weep? The end of birth is death; the end of death Is birth: this is ordained! - Bhagavad-Gita
"I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence." - Socrates
"The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew… it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing and that his present birth is his first entrance into life." - Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th-century German philosopher
"The soul is not the body and it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body." - Giordano Bruno (Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist.)
Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off. (Proverbs 24:14)
“Sorrow, suffering and the afflictions which beset men are not sent wilfully; they are necessities for existence, without which the slumbering Soul could not awaken. They are needful for its development; therefore is it not in vain hope and foolishness to expect some miracles to protect you and prevent you from deriving the benefit of these experiences? Is it reasonable to expect exemption from the things you were born to experience? Therefore, accept with good grace that, which life bestows on you, for it conforms with the Law. Is it not better to endure manfully the things which are unavoidable?” “The scales are never wholly unbalanced; a loss is recorded to adversity, and a gain is recorded to experience. Joy is taken from the body, and strength is added to the Soul”. - The Kolbrin Manuscripts (Chapter 35: The Nature of a Man's Soul: Adversity - Book of Morals and Precepts)
“It remains immortal and indestructible throughout the Ages. Its splendour is displayed in noble deeds, and its glory in works of art and craftsmanship. It will survive your bodily disintegration. It was not created by the quickening of the flesh, nor conceived within the womb. Its seed existed before the body and preceded the thinking heart. The Great God sows Soul seeds into earthly flesh, as man sows barley seeds in the fields of black soil. The Soul is yours to fashion; it can be made radiant by goodness, beautified by virtue and glorified by love. It can be hideously deformed by vices and passions and twisted into a form of distorted horror by meanness and hatred.” - The Kolbrin Manuscripts (Egyptian Texts of the Bronze Book - Chapter 3: The Nature of a Man's Soul)
“There is no constant state of life; all is movement and change. Therefore, it is well to build the structure of your life on a foundation of things, which are not easily removed. These are wisdom, skill and knowledge, which once possessed cannot be taken away, as can hoarded gold and cherished chattels in the ebb and flow of life's fortunes. Gold and silver are uneatable stones, but wisdom is the food of the gods. Skill and knowledge define the difference between the ox with the yoke and the plowman with the whip” - The Kolbrin Manuscripts (Egyptian Texts of the Bronzebook - Chapter 4: The Nature of a Man's Soul)