Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00295)

Aug 31 2002

Dear Friends:
The following is of importance in understanding the OCEAN OF
THEOSOPHY chapter on Evolution’

These are some answers made by Robert Crosbie to a OCEAN OF
THEOSOPHY class 


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15	CHAPTER	15

   
CHAPTER XV

DIFFERENTIATION OF SPECIES—---MISSING LINKS

ULTIMATE origin of man not discoverable. Man not derived
from a single pair, nor from the animals. Seven races of men
appeared simultaneously on the globe. They are now
amalgamated and will differentiate. The Anthropoid Apes.
Their origin. They came from man. They are the descendants
of off spring from unnatural union in the third and fourth
rounds. The Delayed Races. The secret books on the question.
Human features of apes accounted for. The lower kingdoms
from other planets. Their differentiation by intelligent
interference by the Dhyanis. The midway point of evolution.
Astral forms of old rounds solidified in physical rounds.
Missing Links, what they are and why Science cannot discover
them. The aim of Nature in all this work.


Q. If scientists will admit the existence of the astral
plane, would they not be able to make great strides in their
investigations

A. Unfortunately, those scientists of the present day who do
admit it relate it only to post-mortem existence. With them,
it is a mere sentimental consideration. If they would give
the astral plane true scientific consideration, they would
discover a great many truths. They will never understand
evolution, for instance, until they admit the astral plane,
as all the “missing links” are to be found there.

Q. In what state of matter do the monads from the fanner
chain begin work on this chain?
p.198

A. They begin in the first or highest state of matter, but
that first state is quite different from the subsequent
states. It is a state of amalgamation which pertains to
Globe I of the earth chain in the first round, and in the
early part of the second round. Then begins a
differentiation. All the 
kingdoms begin their work along the lines they had been
following on the moon. Condensation begins and consequently
the first solidification of the human form also begins here.

Q. Why do we find the fossil relics of mammals, and not of
man?

A. The mammals are caught, as it were, in the
solidification. Fossils are the real astral forms.

Q. Is “the alteration of the forms” by the Dhyanis, spoken
of on page 132, done by thought?

A. Certainly. With knowledge and wisdom comes the power to
add to, or subtract from, any given form, and this is done
chiefly in the astral period of evolution. The kingdoms
coming over to the earth chain would remain just what they
were on the moon, if it were not for the beings who have
become perfected spiritually, intellectually, and
physically, and who guide the whole evolution. They map out
the field, as it were. The lower kingdoms begin their work
as such, with no connection between them, and no touch with
the higher beings. They are all working for themselves, on
their own basis. Then comes the time when the whole
evolutionary scheme is brought into tune through the forms
of the higher beings. When once all the kingdoms have become
fully amalgamated, then comes solidification, and the
beginning of the general earth cycle.

Q. Are the organs of perception formed by consciousness

A. They could not be formed in any other way. They do not
make themselves. They are evolutions.
p.199

We must remember that the seven classes of beings who
deserted the moon as a worked-out planet, so far as they
were concerned, had their own organic forms, and carried
forward the type of humanity. They represented the humanity
of the moon, and the highest expression, according to the
class, of all the other classes. All were in the finer state
of matter. The seven classes work first each in its own way,
that is, there is a separation into classes; then with the
guidance of the higher classes, they come to work together,
that is, there is a gradual amalgamation. Finally, comes
perceptive differentiation, that is, each to its own class
again, plus all it has gained from the other classes. Thus
Consciousness progresses, by contact with others and
spreading the knowledge of the whole.

Q. What is meant in the last paragraph of the chapter by
“inorganic material”?

A. We must remember that the Master in talking to us uses
the words with which we are familiar, such terms as are in
common use among scientific men. All Their teaching declares
that there is nothing unconscious, and matter may be
inorganic only in the sense that it does not have the same
organs of perception which other life has. So, here it is
not meant that the power of consciousness is not present in
“inert material”, which is “inorganic” only to our
perception, and “inert”, as compared with the power of
thought and action possessed by the higher kingdoms.

Q. Is there, in reality, any sharp line of demarcation
between the vegetable and the animal?

The line of demarcation may be observed in the power of
locomotion. The vegetables do not move about consciously.
When they have their own motive power in any given element,
they are no longer classed as vegetables. They come into the
animal kingdom.

Q. Is there any object in evolution?

p.200

A. Intelligence is always reaching out, and it makes its own
object. It is its own object. And that object is
unattainable, because that which is itself is unattainable.
We can never encompass our own consciousness, no matter what
we might be able to do on this or on ten thousand other
planets.

Q. Please explain the meaning here: “The varieties of
character and capacity which subsequently appear in man’s
history are the forthcoming of the variations which were
induced in the Egos in other and long anterior periods of
evolution upon other chains of globes.”

A. It means that all exhibitions of the power of knowledge,
or progress, or qualities are the coming out in man of
qualities and powers acquired long, long ago. It is
conditions which make possible their coming out. If we were
conscious, as in fact we were, when we began this earth, we
must have had inherent all those qualities that we now
possess. They have been added to and changed, but the
qualities were there. We simply make the conditions wherein
the qualities may manifest.

According to this chapter, let us bear in mind the fact that
we have come down the stairs of seven grades of substance,
and that each grade of substance has been formed by the
beings operating in the previous grades of substance.

Q. What is meant by the moment of choice for humanity as a
whole?

A. It is the old story in the Bible of the separation of the
sheep from the goats. The time must come in the progress of
humanity when there are two divisions,—that of the
right-hand path, and that of the left, or, when, as the
Secret Doctrine says, one part of humanity goes north, and
the other south. Beings of the same kind move by them
selves. When that division comes, there are many earthly
cataclysms which serve to make physical disruptions of
humanity, such as the disappearance of old continents, and
the establishment of new ones.
p.201

The moment of choice exists all the time for every
individual. In that moment he may take any path but when the
general moment of choice comes, he takes the path to which
he has become addicted by his nature and disposition. We are
constantly following the line of separateness, or of unity,
choosing one way or the other, and the time must come when
the differences between those who take the right-hand path,
and those who take the left, are so great that there is no
possible conjunction between them.

Q. On page 730, it reads: With these the later Atlanteans
renewed the sin of the “Mindless”—this time with full
responsibility. What makes the responsibility?

A. The Atlanteans of the Fourth Race were Manasic beings,
and, in repeating what was done in the Third Race by the
“Mindless Men”, incurred full karmic responsibility, which,
as the Chapter states, will have to be worked out at a very
much later period than now. The mass of men will have to
meet this karma in its full strength, but for individuals
the opportunity is always present of drawing away from the
mass karma, of paying our debts, as it were, as we go along,
and coming out from among those who will not. If we fulfill
our whole duty along the lines that the Masters have pointed
out, it will necessarily follow at the time of separation
that we shall not meet the full destructive karma which must
come upon those who have taken the other side. For they will
meet with a destruction of all their works and begin over
again in the new evolution.

Q. Then they will not have in the new evolution the benefit
of their past knowledge?

They lose the power. They may not lose the disposition. Yet
they have the power to change the disposition, and they have
help in the fact that they 

p.202
are thrown together with other beings of a different
disposition in the period of amalgamation. Beings with the
proper kind of attributes are there, and they have the
opportunity of the example.

Q. Why is it that this earth has but one moon while Jupiter
has four.

A. If we take a moon to mean a deserted planet, we could
imagine a period in the evolution of a planet when there
might be rapid births, as we might say, several kama rupas
remaining instead of only one. Our moon is a kama rupa of
the former earth; the four moons of Jupiter are likewise
kama rupas.

Q. Does the term ‘traces” refer to the forms or to the Egos?

A. It refers to the forms. Consciousness evolves its own
form as It sees the necessity, and arrives at its own
particular degree of intelligence. Now, there are seven
degrees, or hierarchies, of intelligence. To which hierarchy
he tends would depend upon the kind of evolution chosen, or
upon the basis of thought and action taken by the Ego. He is
really using all the hierarchies in his inner and outer
sheaths, or bodies.

Q. Then we have to make our various sheaths homogeneous?

A. Consideration of our septenary nature should help us on
this question. There is no form of nature, however low, that
has not now present with it the homogeneous state. The
homogeneous state is behind and within every form. It would
follow, then, that we are homogeneous ourselves, in that
respect, and so are in contact with the homogeneous state in
everything in nature. It is through that homogeneity that we
can know and understand nature, because there we are in
contact with any given point. All the processes in every
direction from that point can be found, whether they be
those of a sun, of a planet, of a plant, an animal, or of a
human being.

p.203

Q. Might it be said, then, that the ultimate end of man is
the realization of his own nature?

A. To use a term, we may say that “the ultimate end” is the
realization of man’s own immortal, eternal nature. We reach
that realization only through experience, through contact of
almost every kind, but we have to see that we are not the
contacts, nor all of them put together, nor are we the
experience gained by the contacts. Man can not realize his
immortal nature until he sees that he, as Perceiver, is
absolutely separate and non-identified with all that he goes
through. None of these perceptions are himself. He looks at
them all, experiences from them, uses them as a basis for
further action, gets results, good or bad, from them; but He
is none of them.

Q. What is the meaning of the word “Nature”, as used by the
Master in the closing paragraph of the chapter?

A. In this particular sentence of the Master, written in
reply to a scientific thinker in India, He used the term as
the scientist would use it, but ac cording to the
philosophy, Nature does not consciously prefer anything,
because there is nothing to prefer, and there is no Nature,
of itself. “Nature” means merely the aggregation of an
interdependence and inter-relation of all beings. It is a
term for the perception of the inter-relation and
inter-connection between beings and the force that springs
from them; it is an aggregation of the effects of all the
forces set in motion by intelligent beings of different
degrees. So, we may not imagine that “Nature” is something
which exists outside of mankind.

Q. By what process is Consciousness developed through the
different races?

p204

A. The philosophy shows that Consciousness is not developed;
Consciousness always is. It is intelligence which is
developed in different ways, in different degrees of
substance, on different planes of being. The intelligence
gained is an understanding of externalities in their
relation to Consciousness itself. After the completion of
the rounds of any globe, the intelligence that has been
gained in every kingdom is what remains as the type for the
next planet. This acquired intelligence is the basis of the
Archetypal World, in which types are formulated; in which,
let us say with 
reference to this earth, all the intelligence gained on the
moon is formulated, in which all the various degrees of
intelligence are contained and are existent before the world
is formed. When the day for manifestation comes again, and
when the dawn appears, then each form of intelligence
differentiates and moves forward until it reaches that state
where it can manifest on the basis already gained in the
past evolution. So, it is Consciousness first, last, and all
the time at the root of all manifestation. Always the
Perceiver is behind every form. 1 is learned in regard to
externalities or any instrument is the amount of
intelligence gained, and as that intelligence increases it
becomes the basis on which better instruments are formed.

Q. Are the seven races each seven-principled?

A. Certainly; everything is seven-principled.

Q. Then, only one or two principles were fully developed in
the earth races?

A. Let us look at it this way. The Egos—Atma
Buddhi-Manas——have the septenary basis in them selves, but
they work with other grades of intelligence lower than
themselves. They existed as Egos, but their work was with
the various types which constituted their physical
expressions, and that work was done on the seven-principled
basis. To illustrate. 1 now have a physical body, but there
was no physical body in those earliest races. What was to be
worked out was not then present. 
p.205

The principles were in embryo, or latent, until the seven-
principled basis was brought to bear upon what ever bodies
were to be evolved during the process of the world growth.
The body itself, as now evolved and constituted, has its
seven divisions and is the lowest principle.

Q. As seven-principled beings, were their bodies of the same
general type.

A. Yes, for differentiation had not then begun. When
differentiation does proceed, however, it is in a septenary
way—one principle evolving from the other, one principle
following the other. Let us say, then, there was only one
principle, but the possible differentiations were seven.
>From that highest principle the second principle was
evolved; from these two, the third; from the third, the
fourth, and so on. As a matter of fact, there is just one
Consciousness in all of us, and there is just one highest
form for all of us, which might be called homogeneous
matter; with these two in conjunction the septenary division
goes on.

Q. Why did the seven races appear at the same time?

A. There is a septenary division as soon as differentiation
occurs. All the classes of Egos that were self-conscious at
the conclusion of the moon’s cycle differentiated into seven
classes, or degrees, as did all the other classes of beings
connected with that evolution. Together these constitute the
seven great hierarchies of being, which furnish the Ego his
seven classes of instruments, for we are connected with
those hierarchies through our 
instruments.

Q. Mr. Judge says: “By methods known to themselves (the
Dhyanis) and to the Great Lodge they work on the forms so
brought over, and by adding here, taking away there, and
often altering, they gradually transform by such alteration
and addition the 
p.206

kingdoms of nature as well as the gradually forming gross
body of man”. Why could not this transformation be left to
the natural impulse of the kingdoms?

A. The differentiation of the animals and other species
began and was carried on to a certain point within their
experience. But that experience is limited. Hence, at the
point of that limitation, intelligent interference from a
mind or mass of minds is absolutely necessary, if old types
are to be changed for better types. If old types remained,
there would be no external progress, and no better
instruments would be brought about. Intelligence must be
active to produce evolution.

Q. Is not intelligent interference going on now?

A. Of course, it is. How did Luther Burbank produce the
spineless cactus? First, he found a cactus with very few
spines, and obtained seeds from it. From the cactus grown
out of that seed he took one with the least spines and
continued to work out the elimination of the spines. There,
human intelligence was brought to bear upon that cactus—its
forces used to produce quite another variety—the spineless
cactus.



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Best wishes,

Dallas






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