Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00191)

Oct 23 21002

Dear Friends:

Tasmanians -- a "dying race"

To begin with, in no way does H P B exonerate the atrocities whereby
the white settlers of old islands and continents enslaved or
exterminated the indigenous or aboriginal populations. The Karma so
generated will have to be balanced eventually, one by one, as
individuals reincarnate. All Karma is so harmonized by Nature.

The Theosophical doctrines that seem applicable to this matter seem to
be resolved in an understanding of the nature of the Ego of each
individual involved, whether it was using an "aboriginal" body or that
of one of the invaders. Theosophy holds that the inner, the Spiritual
Ego (Atma-Buddhi-Mana) is immortal, and reincarnates under Karma, in a
succession of bodies down the ages and will so continue to reincarnate
into the future. If this is denied or not understood as a basis, the
whole Theosophical answer that might be adduced will be
incomprehensible.

Let us see what Theosophy offers:

Historically it has been noted that contact with the European sailors,
and later, the invading conquistadors and settlers, brought the
hitherto isolated tribes and indigenous peoples of Australia,
Tasmania, Ceylon, New Guinea, the Polynesian isles, Americas, etc.
into contact with diseases for which they had no immunity. This alone
brought about the death of many thousands, as they had built up no
natural resistance to common Western European diseases, such as the
common cold, influenza, diphtheria, measles, chicken pox, etc....

The policy used by the invading European traders and later, the
conquerors, of subjugation, proselytism and enslavement greatly
assisted that which would have occurred gradually and naturally, as
the power of life working through the race bodies of those ancient
tribes ebbed towards a natural cyclic close. The intervention of the
invaders hastened and accelerated the process. Under reincarnation the
Egos using the last series of bodies made available in those races
doomed to die out, would come back into a fresh series of new race
bodies, even those of the conquerors or the metisos, with greater
vitality to pursue their own evolution there. H P B in The SECRET
DOCTRINE speaks in several places of this [ S D II 168, 249fn,
421fn, 676, 721-2, 738fn, ]

The S D makes it clear that there were no "primeval savages" (S D
II 722)

Savagery and civilization have always co-existed in the past as it
does today. ( S D II 317-8, 522, 715-7, 722-3) Hence relicts and
artifacts are no sure guide to the period at which savagery existed.
It has always been with us.

Savages are never found to imitate the Apes. ( S D II 676fn). In
other words the theory of evolution that Man and Ape had some hitherto
undiscovered "common ancestor" does not form part of the History of
the Evolution of Man, as taught by the Great Lodge, members of which
were "on the scene" during those early days, and left their records
thereof. Theosophy states H P B is a condensed version of this
record. Theosophy (the S D) teaches HISTORY.
( S D I 267 top).

H P B in The SECRET DOCTRINE, speaking of the Tasmanians, used them as
an illustration of a line of physiological heredity ( a "race" line
that was very ancient -- going back to the Lemuro-Atlanteans), and
whose time (as a race) under Karma was to cease. (S D II 195, 332,)
Some of those savage remnants traced their physical heredity of bodily
form back to the Third Race the last sub-races of the Lemurians and
the first sub-races of the Atlanteans (S D II 318)

The Egos using those bodies, would reincarnate, of course, as the EGO
is deathless. Some of those (using hereditarily "savage" bodies) are
the latest human Monads. They are just beginning their cycle of
human experience for the first time in this Manvantara, and it is they
whose "minds" were "lighted up" a little over 18 million years ago.
( S D II 150fn, 168, 721-2) Other Monads are "returning Nirvanees"
from older cycles of evolution where they had not yet completed their
own evolutionary progress -- they resumed it in this one. (S D II
79-80, 93-4 )

The physiological line (of the heredity of form) in several cases was
coming to an end, and one of the final signs was the sterility of
their women. ( see S D II p. 195-6, 725 )

In Ceylon the remnants of a similar ancient race stock the VEDDHAS
came to its time of extinction. (see S D II 421fn, 195-6fn, 286-7,
723) In India are also even today to be found "savage tribes" whose
origins are different from the "Aryan invading races. ( S D II 676fn)

It must be clear by now that Theosophy looks at three lines of
evolution inextricably entwined and operating in human races: In the
S D, Vol.. I, p. 181-2 she explains that there are:

1. The Spiritual (ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS)

2. the Intellectual ( Lower Manas and Kama), and

3. the Physical ( physical and Astral bodies, Prana (life-principle)
and Kama (developed instinct, desire, passion and all emotions).

Our present day education. basing itself largely on the HYPOTHESIS
(still unproven) of the ascent of Man from the Apes, and the gradual
ascent from a general savagery to civilization, has only some
scattered fossils and relicts from which to construct and support this
theory.

Intelligence cannot be measured by fossils nor by this theory. It
evolution leaves no traces, yet its antiquity can be traced in the
ancient Theogonies, legends, myths, and the metaphysics of the "inner"
Schools and the "Mystery" Schools of the past, in all nations and
civilizations. H P B has done this for us in ISIS UNVEILED and The
SECRET DOCTRINE. We need to become familiar with those statements,
and with the HISTORY of our past, as they alone will reconcile the
gaps left in Scientific speculation. We have to test and prove to
ourselves the validity of the Theosophical scheme offered. It will be
found to be coherent in all respects.

Let me add a few words on what I have found in the Theosophical
teachings: (Mr. Judge wrote)

The vast array that surrounds us all of objects and men are not mere
collections of atoms fortuitously thrown together and thus without law
evolving law, but down to the smallest atom all is soul and spirit
ever evolving under the rule of law which is inherent in the whole.
Theosophy teaches that the course of evolution is the drama of the
soul and that nature exists for no other purpose than the soul's
experience.

SCALES OF INTELLIGENCE -- THE SAGES

The Theosophist agrees with the wise Prof. Huxley in the assertion
that there must be beings in the universe whose intelligence is as
much beyond ours as ours exceeds that of the black beetle, and those
possessing such advanced intelligence naturally take an active and
cooperative part in the government of the natural order of things.
They are the active, and wise assistants of Nature, [the UNIVERSE] as
a whole. The Theosophist adds that such Wise Sages are Intelligences
which were once human, and came like all of us from other and previous
worlds.

The most intelligent being in the universe, man, has never, been
without a friend, but has a line of elder brothers who continually
watch over the progress of the less progressed, preserve the knowledge
gained through aeons of trial and experience, and continually seek for
opportunities of drawing the developing intelligence of the race to
consider the great truths concerning the destiny of the soul.

We are therefore not appearing for the first time when we come upon
this planet, but have pursued a long, an immeasurable course of
activity and intelligent perception on other systems of globes, some
of which were destroyed ages before the solar system condensed.

UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION -- ITS RECORDS

This immense reach of the evolutionary system means, that this planet
on which we now are, is the result of the activity and the evolution
of some earlier one that died long ago. It left its energy to be used
in the bringing into existence the earth. Further, the inhabitants of
the Earth, in their turn, came from some older world. They are now
proceeding with their destined work in the "matter" we are familiar
with here.

The Elder Brothers (the Masters of Wisdom) of the human race, keep the
knowledge they have gained of the laws of nature in all departments,
and are ready when cyclic law permits to use it for the benefit of
mankind. They have always existed as a body, all knowing each other,
no matter in what part of the world they may be, and all working for
the race in many different ways. [see ISIS UNVEILED, Vol. 2, pp.
98-103] [ S D I 272-3 ]

They have stood by the cradle of nations and seen the vast
achievements of the ancients, watched sadly the decay of those who had
no power to resist the cyclic law of rise and fall; and while
cataclysms seemed to show a universal destruction of art,
architecture, religion, and philosophy, they have preserved the
records of it all in places secure from the ravages of either men or
time. They have made minute observations, through trained psychics
among their own order, into the unseen realms of nature and of mind,
recorded the observations, and have preserved the record. And,
greater feat than all -- one which implies a knowledge of the very
foundations of nature -- they know what the ultimate divisions of time
are and what are the meaning and the times of the cycles. [ see SECRET
DOCTRINE Vol. I, pp. 272-3 ]


CYCLES OF KNOWLEDGE AND EVOLUTION

The periods, when out of the Great Unknown there comes forth the
visible universes, are eternal in their coming and going. These
alternate with equal periods of silence and rest in that Unknown. The
object of these mighty waves is the production of Perfect Man, the
evolution of Soul, and they always witness the increase of the number
of Elder Brothers. The Elder Brothers are the highest product of
evolution through whom alone, in cooperation with the whole human
family, the further regular and workmanlike prosecution of the plans
of the Great Architect of the Universe can be carried on.


SEVEN-FOLD NATURE AND MAN -- " 7 PRINCIPLES"

The universe evolves from the unknown, on seven planes, and in seven
ways in all worlds. And this sevenfold differentiation causes all the
worlds of the universe, and the beings thereon, to have a septenary
constitution.

These are, roughly: The Absolute, Spirit, Mind, Matter, Will, Akasa or
AEther, and Life. In place of "the Absolute" we can use the word
"Space." For "Space" is that which ever is, and in which all
manifestation must take place. The most that can be said of the
Absolute" is that IT periodically differentiates itself, and
periodically withdraws the differentiated into itself. As to "the
Absolute," we can do no more than say IT IS. None of the Great
Teachers of the School ascribe qualities to "the Absolute," although
all qualities exist in It.

Our knowledge begins with differentiation, and all manifested objects,
beings, or powers are only differentiations of the Great Unknown.

The first differentiation -- speaking metaphysically as to time -- is
Spirit, with which appears Matter and Mind. This is a Unit, and,
called the "Monad." [ In manifestation, it is a triune Unity,
consisting of: ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS, or, Spirit - Wisdom - Mind] Of
these three BUDDHI occupies the position of Monad for us. Our Higher
Manas - mind - is associated with it. The Monad is held to be immortal
throughout the great life-cycle, whether Manvantara or Kalpa. It is
the basis for human Individuality. It is the Reincarnating entity.

The term "Akasa," taken from the Sanskrit, is used in place of AEther,
to properly designate that tenuous state of matter which is now
sometimes called "Ether" by modern science. Akasa is produced from
Matter and Spirit.

Will is the force of Spirit in action. And Life (Jiva) is a resultant
of the action of Akasa, moved by Spirit, upon Matter.

But the Matter here spoken of, is not that which is commonly known as
such. It is the Real Matter which is always invisible, and has
sometimes been called Primordial Matter. In the Brahmanical system it
is called "Mulaprakriti" (or "Root Matter"). And it is sometimes
referred to as "Maha-Buddhi." [In considering this, one may think of
an "atom" as essentially an eternal, individualized field of
electro-magnetic Force. Physical material (also immortal Monads of
"lesser experience") is condensed in and around it by attraction. The
formation of worlds, and the reincarnation of human Souls, may be
thought of in similar terms, and follow a similar pattern.]

The ancient teaching always held, as is now admitted by Science, that
we see or perceive only the phenomena but not the essential nature,
cause or being of Matter.


UNIVERSAL PLAN OF MANIFESTATION

Mind (the Universal Mind or Mahat) is the intelligent part of the
Cosmos. In the collection of seven differentiations roughly sketched
above, Universal Mind is that in which the Plan of the Cosmos is fixed
or contained. This Plan is brought over from a prior period of
manifestation, which added to its ever-increasing perfectness as it
proceeds. No limit can be set to its evolutionary possibilities in
perfectness, because, as there was never any beginning to the
periodical manifestations of "the Absolute," there never will be an
end, but forever the going forth and withdrawing into the Unknown will
go on.

Wherever a world or system of worlds is evolving there the Plan has
been laid down in Universal Mind, the original force comes from
Spirit, the basis is Matter -- which is in fact invisible -- Life
sustains all the forms, and Akasa is the connecting link between
Matter on one side and Spirit-Mind on the other.


END OF A CYCLE -- CATACLYSMS - DELUGES

When a world or a system comes to the end of certain great cycles, men
record a cataclysm in history or tradition. These universal traditions
abound, all pointing to early teaching and dim recollection of
periodical destructions and renovations. Just as there are periodical
minor cataclysms or partial destructions, so, the doctrine holds,
there is, as a prototype, the universal evolution and involution.

Forever the Great Breath goes forth and returns again. As it proceeds
outwards, objects, worlds and men appear; as it recedes all disappear
into the original source.

This is the waking and the sleeping of the "Great Being;" and is
symbolized as the "Day" and the "Night" of Brahma. It is the
prototype of our waking days and sleeping nights as men, and, of our
disappearance at the end of one short human life, and, it also implies
our return (through reincarnation) to take up our unfinished work in a
new body, in a new day.


HOW OLD IS OUR EARTH?

The real age of the world has long been involved in doubt for Western
investigators, who up to the present have shown unwillingness to take
instruction from the records of Oriental people much older than the
West. Yet with the Orientals is the truth about the matter.

It is admitted that Egyptian civilization flourished many centuries
ago, and there are no living Egyptian schools of ancient learning to
offend modern pride. The inscriptions cut in rocks and written on
papyri or ancient books, obtain a little more credit today than the
living thought and record of the Hindus, Tibetans, Mayans and Chinese
Those races and their traditions, are still among us, and it would
never do to admit that such ancient, and recently conquered races,
possesses knowledge respecting the age of man and his world which the
"West" still knows nothing of.

But the Master Theosophists know what is to be the resurrection of the
old pyramid builders of the Nile valley, and where the plans of those
ancient master masons have been hidden from the profane eyes until the
cycle should roll round again for their bringing forth. When Egypt and
India were younger there was a constant intercourse between them. They
both, thought alike, but fate ruled that of the two the Hindus only
should preserve the old ideas among a living people.


EVOLUTION RECORDED IN BRAHMANICAL RECORDS

No mind can comprehend the "Infinite and Absolute Unknown," which IS,
has no beginning and shall have no end; which IS both last and first,
because, whether differentiated or withdrawn into ITSELF, IT ever is.
This is the "God" spoken of as the one around whose pavilion there is
darkness.

This cosmic and human chronology of the Hindus may still be laughed at
by western Orientalists and Scientists, yet they can furnish nothing
better and are continually disagreeing with each other on the same
subject. As years pass since Theosophy was promulgated, Science has
come closer in their estimates to the figures of the Oriental
chronology. The Brahmanical records of Hindustan, and their doctrine
about the days, nights, years and life of Brahma, who representing the
universe and the worlds, at once upset the interpretation so long
given to the Mosaic tradition, insofar as time is concerned.

A Day of Brahma is made up of what are called Manvantaras -- or period
between two men -- fourteen in number. These include four billion
three hundred and twenty million mortal, or earth years, which is one
Day of Brahma. [4,320,000,000 years] And Brahma's "Night" is of
similar duration, when all is periodically withdrawn into the "Unknown
Absolute." The "Life of Brahma" is 100 of his years and amounts to
311 trillion and 40 billion years. (S D II 68-70)

When this day opens, cosmic evolution, so far as relates to this solar
system, begins and occupies between one and two billions of years in
evolving the very ethereal first matter before the astral kingdoms of
mineral, vegetable, animal and men are possible.


PLANS AND MATERIAL IN EVOLUTION

In these the, very distant and very silent past, Man could not have
his bodily temple to live in, until all the matter in and about his
world had been found by the Master, the spiritual and eternal Inner
Man. Once found, the plans for working it required to be carried out
in detail, until all the parts should be perfectly ready and fit for
placing in the final structure.

This is the gradual coming forth of the known and heterogeneous from
the unknown and homogeneous. The ancient Egyptian and Hindu
Theosophists never admitted a creation out of nothing, but ever
strenuously insisted upon evolution, by gradual stages. All the
various powers and potentialities needed, had to be well worked out in
this slow but sure process. At last man is put upon the scene: a
sevenfold being, a miniature of the universe and earth, which are
sevenfold.

Each of Man's seven principles is derived from one of the great first
seven divisions. And each relates to a planet, by analogy, or a scene
of evolution; and to a race in which that evolution was carried out.
This is spoken of in Theosophical literature as the Sevenfold
Planetary Chain, and is intimately connected with Man's special
evolution. [see SECRET DOCTRINE Vol. I, pp. 570-574]


CONSOLIDATION OF MATERIALS AND FORMS

During all these ages before man's physical body came into being,
evolution was carrying on the work of perfecting various powers which
are now our possession. This was accomplished by the Ego or Real Man
going through experience in countless conditions of matter, all
different one from the other, and the same plan in general was and is
pursued as prevails in respect to the general evolution of the
universe.

That is, details were first worked out in spheres of being very
ethereal, metaphysical, in fact. Then the next step brought the same
details to be worked out on a plane of matter a little more dense,
until at last it could be done on our present plane of what we miscall
"gross matter." This is called the "descent of Spirit into Matter."
Theosophy alone, inclusive of all systems and every experience, gives
the key, the plan, the doctrine, the truth of these great natural
processes.

The Plan comes first in the Universal Mind, after which the astral
model or basis is made, and when that astral model is completed, the
whole process is gone over so as to condense the matter, up to the
middle of the Fourth Round. [ S D I 200-2 ]

In the vast stretch of time which began after the first almost
intangible matter had been gathered and kneaded, the material and
vegetable kingdoms had sole possession here with the Master -- man --
who was hidden from sight, within, carrying forward the plans for the
foundations of the human temple. All of this requires many, many ages,
since we know that nature never leaps.

It is stated that the stream of Monads begins first to work up the
mass of matter in what are called elemental conditions when all is
gaseous or fiery. For the ancient and true theory is that no evolution
is possible without the "Monads" as the innumerable vivifying agents.
In this first stage there is no animal or vegetable. Next comes the
mineral when the whole mass hardens, the Monads being all imprisoned
within. Then the first Monads emerge into vegetable forms which they
construct themselves, and no animals yet appear. Next the first class
of Monads emerges from the vegetable and gradually produce the animal
forms. Then, the human astral and shadowy model is constructed, and
we have minerals, vegetables, animals and future men, for the second
and later classes are still evolving in the lower kingdoms.

Upon this earth and upon the whole chain of Globes of which it is a
part seven races of men appeared simultaneously, coming over to it
from other globes of an older chain. And in respect to this earth --
the fourth of this chain -- these seven races came simultaneously from
another Globe of this chain. This appearance of seven races together
happens in the first and in part of the second Round of the globes. In
the second round the seven masses of beings are amalgamated, and their
destiny after that is to slowly differentiate during the succeeding
rounds until at the seventh round the seven first great races will be
once more distinct, as perfect types of the human race as this period
of evolution will allow.

At the present time the seven races are mixed together, and
representatives of all are in the many so-called races of men as
classified by our present science. The object of this amalgamation and
subsequent differentiation is to give to every race the benefit of the
progress and power of the whole derived from prior progress in other
planets and systems.

When the middle of the Fourth Round is reached no more Monads emerge
into the human stage, and will not until a new planetary mass,
reincarnated from ours, is made. This is the whole process roughly
given, but with many details left out.

What has become at last "man" is of vastly greater age, for before the
present two sexes appeared, the human creature was sometimes of one
shape and sometimes of another, until the whole plan had been fully
worked out into our present form, function, and capacity.

This is found referred to in ancient books, where man is said to have
been at one time globular in shape. This was at a time when the
conditions favored such a form, and of course, it was longer ago than
eighteen millions of years. And when this globular form was the rule,
the sexes as we know them, had not differentiated and hence there was
but one sex, or if one prefers, no sex at all.

Human beings did not appear here in two sexes first. The first were of
no sex, then they altered into hermaphrodite, and lastly separated
into male and female. And this separation into male and female for
human beings was over 18,000,000 years ago. For that reason is it
said, in these ancient schools, that our humanity is 18,000,000 years
old and a little over. (S D I 150 fn)


SENSES OF PERCEPTION AND ACTION

The outer organs of sight, touch and hearing, smelling and tasting,
are often mistaken by the unlearned or the thoughtless for the real
organs and senses; but he who stops to think, must see that the
senses are interior, and that their outer organs are but mediators, or
links, between the visible universe and the real perceiver within.


MONADIC EVOLUTION

Considering our Earth, the view put forward by Theosophy regarding its
genesis, its evolution and the evolution of the Human, Animal and
other Monads, is quite different from modern ideas, and in some things
contrary to accepted theories.

We find that the Scientific theories of today are not stable. They
change with each century, while the Theosophical one never alters. It
is the result of age-old and continuous verification by the Elder
Brothers. These have now caused its repromulgation and pointed to its
confirmation in ancient books and traditions.

To them, it is a statement of facts in nature. The modern Scientific
theories in an attempt to speculatively rebuild an unknown past, are,
on the contrary, always doubtful, changeable, and continually altered.
There are continuous attempts to secure proof of these theories, but
nothing has proved conclusive so far.


"RACES"

The Race, is the racial development on one of those seven. [This has
nothing to do with our modern definition of ethnic "races," or of the
color of the skin.] "Race" as used in Theosophy is a period of time.

There are seven Races for each Globe, but the total of forty-nine
Races only makes up seven Great Races, (the special septenate of Races
on each Globe or planetary center composing in reality one race of
seven constituents or special peculiarities of function and power).

As no complete Race could be evolved in a moment on any Globe, the
slow, orderly processes of nature, which allow no jumps, must proceed
by appropriate means. Hence Sub-Races have to be evolved one after the
other before the Perfect Root Race is formed. Then the Root Race
sends off its offshoots while it is declining and preparing for the
advent of the next Great Race.

Illustrating this, it is taught that on the Americas is to be evolved
the new -- sixth -- Race; and here all the races of the earth are now
engaged in a great amalgamation from which will result a very highly
developed Sub-Race, after which others will be evolved by similar
processes until the new one is completed.

Between the end of any great Race and the beginning of another there
is a period of rest, so far as the globe is concerned, for then the
stream of human Egos leaves it for another one of the chain in order
to go on with further evolution of powers and faculties there.


PERFECTION AND THE END OF EVOLUTION

Each one of the Globes is used by evolutionary law for the development
of seven "Races," and of senses, faculties and powers appropriate to
that state of matter. (the experience of the whole seven Globes being
needed to make a perfect development in man's consciousness and
character).

But when the last, the seventh Race has appeared and fully perfected
itself, in the 7th Round and the 7th Globe, a great dissolution comes
on, similar to that which preceded the birth of the earth's chain.
Then the world disappears as a tangible thing, and so far as the human
ear is concerned there is silence. This, it is said, is the root of
the belief so general, that the world will come to an end, that there
will be a judgment-day, or that there have been in the past, universal
floods, earthquakes, submergences of continents, or fires.

Subsequent to that, which is our future, the whole mass is
spiritualized with full consciousness and the entire body of globes
raised up to a higher plane of development.

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I hope this may prove useful.

Best wishes,

Dallas