stanza 1, slokas 1-2

STANZA I.

1. THE ETERNAL PARENT WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES.

2. TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.

 

“Mr. Keightley:  Before we leave the subject, I would ask, is the relation of Pralaya and Manvantara strictly analogous to the relation between sleeping and waking?

 
Mme. Blavatsky:  In a certain sense only, of course. It has that relation, if you take it in the abstract. During night we all exist and we are, though we sleep and may be unconscious of so living.

 
But during Pralaya everything disappears from the phenomenal universe and merges in the noumenal. Therefore, de facto there is a great difference.

 
Mr. Keightley:  You remember you gave us a very remarkable thing about sleep, saying that “it was the shady side of life”. Then is the Pralaya the shady side of cosmic life?

 
Mme. Blavatsky:  You may call it so. It is a time of rest. Even cosmic matter, indestructible though it be in its essence, must have a time of rest, its Laya condition notwithstanding.

 
The absoluteness of the eternal all-containing one essence has to manifest itself equally, in rest and activity.”

 

H. P. Blavatsky