To calculate its age, however, as the pupil is asked to do in the Stanza, is rather difficult, since we are not given the figures of the Great Kalpa, and are not allowed to publish those of our small Yugas, except as to the approximate duration of these. “_The older Wheels rotated for one Eternity and one‐half of an Eternity_,” it says. We know that by “Eternity” the seventh part of 311,040,000,000,000 years, or an Age of Brahmâ is meant. But what of that? We also know that, to begin with, if we take for our basis the above figures, we have first of all to eliminate from the 100 Years of Brahmâ, or 311,040,000,000,000 years, two Years taken up by the Sandhyâs (Twilights), which leaves 98, as we have to bring it to the mystical combination 14 x 7. But _we_ have no knowledge at what time precisely the evolution and formation of our little Earth began. Therefore, it is impossible to calculate its age, unless the time of its birth is given—which the Teachers refuse to do, so far. At the close of this Volume and in Volume II, however, some chronological hints will be given. We must remember, moreover, that the law of analogy holds good for the worlds, as it does for man; and that as “_The One [Deity] becomes Two [Deva or Angel], and Two becomes Three [or Man]_,” etc., so we are taught that the Curds (World‐Stuff) become Wanderers (Comets); these become stars; and the stars (the centres of vortices), _our sun and planets_—to put it briefly. This cannot be so very _unscientific_, since Descartes also thought that “the planets rotate on their axes, because they were once lucid stars, the centres of vortices.” (_b_) There are four grades of Initiation mentioned in exoteric works, which are known respectively in Sanskrit as Srotâpanna, Sakridâgâmin, Anâgâmin, and Arhan; the Four Paths to Nirvâna, in this our Fourth Round, bearing the same appellations. The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the Adept himself, the _initiated_ candidate, becomes Chelâ (Pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three higher grades have still to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. There are those who have reached it even in this Fifth Race of ours, but the faculties necessary for the attainment of these higher grades will be fully developed, in the average ascetic, only at the end of this Root‐Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh. Thus, there will always be Initiates and the Profane until the end of this minor Manvantara, the present Life‐Cycle. The Arhats of the “Fire‐Mist,” of the Seventh Rung, are but one remove from the Root‐Base of their Hierarchy, the highest on Earth and our Terrestrial Chain. This “Root‐Base” has a name which can only be translated into English by several compound words—the “Ever‐Living‐Human‐Banyan.” This “Wondrous Being” descended from a “high region,” they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of sexes in the Third Race.