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The Tenth Lesson: Spiritual Evolution.865
waves of the great wave pushed in and then receded, only to be followed
by still higher waves. The story is most interesting.
The Yogi Teachings inform us that the Grand Cycle of Man’s Life on the
Earth is composed of Seven Cycles, of which we are now living in the thirdseventh
part of the Fifth Cycle. These Cycles may be spoken of as the Great
Earth Periods, separated from each other by some great natural cataclysm
which destroyed the works of the previous races of men, and which started
afresh the progress called “civilization,” which, as all students know, manifests
a rise and fall like unto that of the tides.
Man in the First Cycle emerged from a gross animal-like state into a
condition somewhat advanced. It was a slow progress, but nevertheless a
distinct series of advances were made by the more progressive souls who
passed over on to the Second Cycle, embodying themselves as the ruling
races in the same, their less progressive brothers incarnating in the lower
tribes of the Second Cycle. It must be remembered that the souls which do
not advance during a Cycle reincarnate in the next Cycle among the lower
races. So that even in this Fifth Cycle we have remnants of the previous
cycles, the lives of the members of which give us an idea of what life in the
earlier cycles must have been.
The Yogi Teachings give us but little information regarding the people of
the First and Second Cycles, because of the low state of these ages. The tale,
if told, would be the story of the Cave-dweller, and Stone-age people; the
Fire-peoples, and all the rest of savage, barbarian crew; there was but little
trace of anything like that which we call “civilization,” although in the latter
periods of the Second Cycle the foundations for the coming civilizations
were firmly laid.
After the cataclysm which destroyed the works of Man of the Second
Cycle, and left the survivors scattered or disorganized, awaiting the touch
of the organizing urge which followed shortly afterward, there dawned
the first period of the Third Cycle. The scene of the life of the Third Cycle
was laid in what is known to Occultists as Lemuria. Lemuria was a mighty