the nations and races, symbolizes the battle between unselfish and
selfish impulses, which takes place in a man, who tries to follow the
higher purposes of Nature, until the lower animal tendencies, created by
selfishness, are completely conquered, and the enemy thoroughly routed
and annihilated. It has also been often put forth in various
Theosophical and other occult writings that the only difference between
an ordinary man who works along with Nature during the course of Kosmic
evolution and an occultist, is that the latter, by his superior
knowledge, adopts such methods of training and discipline as will hurry
on that process of evolution, and he thus reaches in a comparatively
short time the apex which the ordinary individual will take perhaps
billions of years to reach. In short, in a few thousand years he
approaches that type of evolution which ordinary humanity attains in the
sixth or seventh Round of the Manvantara, i.e., cyclic progression. It
is evident that an average man cannot become a MAHATMA in one life, or
rather in one incarnation. Now those, who have studied the occult
teachings concerning Devachan and our after-states, will remember that
between two incarnations there is a considerable period of subjective
existence. The greater the number of such Devachanic periods, the
greater is the number of years over which this evolution is extended.
The chief aim of the occultist is therefore to so control himself as to
be able to regulate his future states, and thereby gradually shorten the
duration of his Devachanic existence between two incarnations. In the
course of his progress, there comes a time when, between one physical
death and his next rebirth, there is no Devachan but a kind of spiritual
sleep, the shock of death, having, so to say, stunned him into a state
of unconsciousness from which he gradually recovers to find himself
reborn, to continue his purpose. The period of this sleep may vary from
twenty-five to two hundred years, depending upon the degree of his
advancement. But even this period may be said to be a waste of time,