Mythic shapes of things to come…and go…432,000 ways to leave your universe
The sum of all four is 4,320,000 years, the length of the “Great Yuga.” At the end of that time the sun’s heat will supposedly ignite everything and a cosmic deluge dissolve all back into its source, the cosmic sea- whence, after another 4,320,000 years, a new universe will arise, unfolding like a lotus.
The number 432,000 is in itself of considerable interest. In the Icelandic Eddas it is told that in Odin’s geat hero hall, Valhalla, there are 540 door, and that on the last day of this world 800 warriors will go through each to meet the antigods in mutual slaughter. But 540×800=432,000 warriors: exactly the number of years in the Indian Kali Yuga. The ancient Babylonians believed that from the day of the rise of the first Sumerian city, Kish, to the coming of the mythological flood, a period of 432,000 years elapsed, during which there reigned only ten kings, whose lives were all of enormous length. In the Bible it is recorded that from the time of Adam to that of Noah’s flood there lived ten patriarchs whose lives were also long, the whole span of their antediluvian period being 1,656 years: that amounts to 86,400 seven-day weeks, or twice 43,200.
Slyly hidden as the number is in both its Eddic and its Biblical occurrences, it must have signified to ancient sages some mystery- and indeed it did: the mystery of an amazing cosmic harmony that today we can partially document in scientific terms.
We know for example, that even in the time of Berrosos, the Chaldean priest, astronomical observations had revealed the phenomenon known to us as the “procession of the quinoxes.” According to this there is a lag of about fifty seconds a year in the cycling of the zodiacal signs. In seventy-two years this amounts to one degree; in 2,160 years, to one Zodiacal sign; and in 25,920 years, to a complete round of all twelve signs- one “Great” or “Platonic Year,” as it is called. Divide that Platonic year by the smallest division of time, the sixty seconds in the minute, and the result is…432.
Furthermore, it is known, to quote Kenneth H. Cooper, that “A conditioned man, who exercises regularly, will have a resting heart rate of about 60 beats per minute or less…Sixty per minute, times 60 minutes, equals 3,600 beats per hour. Times 24 hours equals 3,600 beats per day”; or, in twelve hours 43,200 beats. In other words we carry this cosmic rhythm with us, not only on our watches, ticking away 43,200 seconds twice a day, but in the beat of our hearts.