Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00173)

Dec 2 2002

Re: Evolution of INTELLIGENCE under the tutelage of
the HIGHER SELF.

Dear Eldon:

Apparently the early 3 ROUNDS ( and the 7 GLOBES each consisting
of 7 “races,” and, these in turn, of 49 sub-races ) may have been
traversed by the Monads that entered the human stage in the 3rd
Race of the present 4th ROUND, in forms of matter other than the
physical matter we know. The SECRET DOCTRINE in considering
cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis speaks of this as a fact.

1. The “spiritual” is pure, stable and permanent.

2. The INTELLIGENCE ( Intellectual, mind, memory) is continually
developing and active.

3. The Material, whatever kind of matter is used, forms the
basis for experience, and includes desire,
selfishness, passion, etc…

In this, the 4th Globe of the 4th ROUND, we seem to have already
experienced and have had a rapid recapitulation of the earlier
processes in forms of matter analogous to those in use in
earlier ROUNDS. Our matter, in the here and now of this
incarnation, is a condensation of astral matter, and therefore it
embodies, as memory and experience, the whole vast chain of past
development.

The earlier ROUNDS saw apparently (from The SECRET DOCTRINE) the
development of the various ELEMENTS. This was succeeded by the
development of the “KINGDOMS.” [3 elemental kingdoms, mineral,
vegetable, animal and finally human (matter of a highly
sensitized kind)]

Apparently the Monads that were destined by Karma to go through
the stage of HUMANITY passed through all those early forms,
kingdoms and types of matter, in succession. They are, as all
other Monads are, immortals. So the conditions of matter were
not relevant.

It appears that the development is always one of the experiences
of the ONE CONSCIOUSNESS, and its seemingly fragmented experience
as an “individualized” INTELLIGENCE associated with one of the
“Rays” of the UNIVERSAL HIGHER-SELF, the ATMA. It is this “ray”
in us that gives us our independence and sense of free-will. It
reposes primarily in the full development of the Kama
intelligence of selfishness as to desire, passions, lusts, urges,
etc… but lacks the balancing power of Manas conjoined to wisdom
(Buddhi) where true discrimination resides as a portion of its
spiritual experience (and memory) and its universal pure
nature -- which enables instant communication with all other
spiritual beings.

The principle that (for us) retains this experience is that one
in which MEMORY plays a most important part the MIND. MANAS.
This is what provides “intelligence” in any “form,” and to
provide “Human” intelligence to a form of sensitive matter (the
human brain) in our race and round.

Sp when we speak thosophically about ”development” and
“evolution” we are really speaking of CONSCIOUSNESS.

Development of the Monads S D I 173
Development of the elements S D I 250-2, 253
Development of the Kingdoms S D I 175-6, 246-7, II
185-7


Let me add this as these words of an elder student have
significance:


EVOLUTION OF MONADIC EXPERIENCE (Causes RACES & ROUNDS)

The Over-Soul MAHAT, is universal intelligence or knowledge, the
knowledge of all considered as one. What is the Universal Sixth
Principle? The Over-Soul, is Buddhi. Now, we have an idea of
“my” knowledge, and “your” knowledge, as if it were our own is,
in a way personal, yet as knowledge is ONE, we share. An idea of
unity must prevail in a consideration of all these subjects and
ideas. There is one knowledge; it is the knowledge of all
considered as one; our knowledge is our own knowledge. Over-Soul
is another word for that one body of perfected knowledge. The
soul of each one is his hold on that.

Now, what is it that goes through all this process of evolution?
It is the Monad. Mr. Judge in the Ocean calls it the germ of
self-consciousness. He does not say that is the Monad, but that
is what the Monad is. The Monad is Life in manifestation,
manifested Life. The term “Monad” has been used as if it were a
differentiated something, but H. P. Blavatsky says it is used for
convenience only, that it would be better to say, the Monad, or
Life manifesting in the mineral kingdom, in the vegetable
kingdom, in the animal kingdom, and so on.

In the lower kingdoms, the “monad” is like a wave in the ocean of
life. When the man stage is reached, there is a self-conscious
Monad; the germ of self-consciousness has ripened. But it is not
fully aware, yet it is aware of itself, and awake; that is so
with each one of us. The Monad in the human kingdom is that
ripened germ or sprouting germ of self—consciousness, that which
wells up in each one and says, “I am my self.” This does not mean
that any of the lower kingdoms become man— they are like grades
in school through which life passes, to finally differentiate and
act as a self-conscious Ego in the man form.

But if the “spark,” as used in the Third Fundamental, does not
change, what is the use of the Pilgrimage?

We fail to see that it is the finite which constitutes our
experience; it is the Infinite which has the experience.

Each one of us is both the finite and the Infinite. As the
perceiver, we are the Infinite; we are forever unchanging. Each
one of us can perfectly well answer that our experience
constantly augments; there is no end to the growth of Soul, if we
use the word “Soul” in the meaning of experience. What is the
highest form of experience? Self-realization. The time must come,
then, when a man realizes that in him and in everything else are
both the finite and the Infinite, and that all finite or
manifested existence has but one object—an ever—increasing
realization of the nature of the Infinite, which is All.

Do those Great Beings who represent the perfected product of a
former period of evolution also have to pass through every
elemental form of the phenomenal world of the next manvantara?
That is not the statement of the Third Fundamental.

The Third Fundamental says that no purely spiritual Buddhi—that
is, no primary form of life—can have a completely self-conscious
or a perfected existence until It has passed through every
elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara. There
could be no babies unless there were adults; there could be no
eggs unless there were the chickens that laid them. The eggs do
not lay the chickens; the chicken lays the egg. The analogy,
then, is that action or evolution or manifestation begins in
Spirit, not in matter. What is meant by “Spirit”? A collective or
universal term for consciousness and that which issues from the
pure essence of the universal Over-Soul has no consciousness of
its own. The Secret Doctrine makes a graphic statement of the
very beginning of Evolution. It calls the beginning “the descent
of souls”—conscious and unconscious atoms. The greatest beings,
says the Secret Doctrine cannot avoid reincarnation. But that’s
quite different from descent through the elemental forms of the
phenomenal world.


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

Self-consciousness is quite a wonderful thing -- to think of a
man form, to recognize in one form all that there is in Nature.
The human form represents a sample lot of the whole of Nature.
Only through and in such a form could self-consciousness well up;
it is a fitting instrument for a self— conscious life. In such a
form, through such a combination of instruments, man can stand
aside and look at himself; that is what self-consciousness means.

The beings below man represent varying degrees of consciousness
and intelligence, but they are like beings in a “state.” Their
range is that state of intelligence, that state of
consciousness — there is no individuality there.

There is an incipient individuality as far below as the vegetable
kingdom, so it is said; but not until the man stage is reached
through natural impulse—the great give-and-take of Nature, with
the higher forms of intelligence clothing themselves in the low
ones and thus impressing them—only when the man stage is reached,
is a universal instrument available, one that could be made
universal because the whole of Nature is represented therein.
Then there is a fitting instrument for the use of the
self-conscious man.

Think how it is with ourselves in a dream. In a dream we are the
state, ordinarily speaking; we are involved in the state;
usually, we can step aside and look at ourselves. We can think of
that, then, as representing a state of consciousness. But in
normal wakefulness, we can examine our works, we can examine our
thoughts, our feelings, our attitudes—step away from ourselves
and look it all over. That is self-consciousness. Now, evolution
means the expansion of that. Finally, not only is the universe
our instrument, but we know it is. The consciousness of any being
in it is, if we like, our consciousness, without our losing
ourselves or our sense of Self.

What is it that comes up through the lower kingdoms and acquires
individuality? In other words, were we ever animals, vegetables,
minerals, elementals and what not? Well, we really ought to
answer that in this way. If the First Fundamental is true, this
is a Universe of Life, no matter what kingdom it is. Now, lives
exist in a state of unity; lives exist in an unorganized state;
lives exist in an organized state; there are the three classes of
lives or souls or monads. So, then, if we use the words of the
Third Fundamental, and call it a Buddhi—a purely spiritual
soul—then there is a purely spiritual soul in every atom of dust,
just as much as there is in the greatest Mahatma, because it is a
life beginningless and endless.


Notice that no principles of manifestation are active in the
purely spiritual Buddhi. After endless transmigration through
induced activities, one principle of action wakes up; it was
there latent all the time—it could not have been aroused if it
had not been there. But, from the manifested stand-point, it had
no existence. After a while, two principles of action are
aroused; after another while, three elements of action, and then
we have the mindless man.

It is Life which travels through the kingdoms in a given state,
with no activity whatever, any more than there is mobility in
this paper. This paper is not active—but we can move it around.
The air is not active in any conscious sense, but we are using it
constantly, and in time that which we call air will have one
element or principle of action of its own. Now, when three
principles of action have been developed, we have the highest
form of matter; then it is possible for another kind of induction
to be set up. What is it? A life or soul in which all seven
principles of action are active, can coalesce with it or
incarnate in it, and then we have a human being.

So it is Life, Life unorganized which moves from below up, and
when finally three principles are active, it means an organized
life, but with no consciousness of Self. The fully organized form
of matter, makes it possible for a spiritual soul—that is, a
self-conscious being, call it a reincarnating Ego—to enter
incarnation. Then you have once more a seven-principled being
here on earth. But remember that so far as the lower principles
are concerned, it is induced action; so far as the higher
principles are concerned—the Ego—it is a will action. In time
this Life which constitutes what we call our body, the cells of
our body, the molecules of our body, the atoms of our
body—whatever we choose to call them—will have all the principles
of action waked up, and when this obtains, you have the human
being. After that, the progress is of necessity self-induced and
self-devised.


On the downward sweep of evolution, the incarnation of Spirit
into matter, is the same amount of self-induced and self-devised
effort required as on the upward sweep? Isn't it far easier to
fall than it is to climb? Evolution, in the sense of the
initiation of a period of universal manifestation, must
necessarily proceed from the collective action of all the
spiritual beings; but evolution, as applied to the individual
being, at once calls for self—induced and self—devised exertion.
It takes no effort for any being to move with the mass, no matter
in what direction the mass may be moving—up, down, or otherwise.
The effort comes in when the individual desires to pursue a
course which is at variance with that pursued by the mass, and
that is in the fourth stage of evolution.

What is meant by “an independent conscious existence”? H.P.B.
defines what an. “independent conscious existence” is: It is
self-consciousness or individuality; once acquired, it can be
maintained by the individual himself, regardless of whether
bodies come or go; regardless of whether universes come or go; it
is a combination of intellect and will. We are self-conscious,
but only in a limited way. We lose our self-consciousness every
night when we go to sleep and we pick it up again in the morning.
So it is as if we died at night and were re-manufactured every
morning, just as at the time of our birth. Why? Because our
self-consciousness is objective; it cannot be complete, so long
as anything can even temporarily interrupt its continuity.

If our consciousness were like the Mahatma’s, it could not be
interfered with by sleep; if it were like the Mahatma’s, it could
not be interfered with by death. The continuity of consciousness
means Life plus Will, plus knowledge or understanding, and that
means the control of memory, so that memory becomes a faculty
like our physical sense of sight—we can exercise it or refuse to
exercise it, at will. No matter what we wished to look at, we
could look at it, and if we wished to stop looking at it, we
could stop looking at it. Memory is only a form of perception
(17) that is, the power of seeing. There has not yet been
acquired in matter the full self—consciousness that sooner or
later we all must acquire in matter. We have it on the plane of
Spirit; we lose it every time we leave the plane of Spirit; we
need not, but we do.

What is meant in Theosophy by “Soul”? Is man, as a Soul, the same
as the Ego; that is, are Soul and the reincarnating Ego the same?
Suppose we take the statement made on the second page of the
Ocean that, even down to the minutest atom, no matter how we
regard it or what we may name it, what visible or what changing
appearance may present — actually, “All is Soul and Spirit.” If
the question is, “What is Soul?” Soul is everything; — there is
nothing that is not Soul and Spirit in its basic nature. Then
the question naturally arises, What is the distinction between
the Soul and Spirit?

It would be worth while to look in The Theosophical Glossary for
a brief memorandum by H.P.B. under the word Spirit She says that
the word “Spirit” ought in fact never to be used except in direct
relation to the Universal Consciousness, but that a great
confusion is due to warring conceptions, so that the words “Soul”
and “Spirit’ are used in discriminately. Now, if we take “Spirit”
to refer first, last, and all the time to Consciousness from the
Universal point of view, just as we use the word “Matter” for the
universal basis of all form then, with Spirit as the universal
basis of all consciousness, Soul would be the individual form of
Spirit—just as we say “matter” and “body,” not meaning two
different things, but one, matter being the universal stuff from
which all bodies are formed. Then we would have in “matter” and
“body” a perfectly good analogy to what is metaphysically meant
by the words “Spirit” and “Soul.”

If, then, we take man as a Soul-Life or Consciousness, which, as
Mr. Judge says, is “ever evolving under the rule of law which is
inherent in the whole” — man represents a Soul which has reached
a given stage in the evolution of individual consciousness. The
animal below us is no less Soul than we are; the Life in the
vegetable and the mineral kingdom is no less Soul than we are;
but their stage of evolution, their stage in the gradual progress
towards individualized permanent consciousness, is behind ours.
Using “Soul” in that sense, man as a Soul and as the
reincarnating Ego mean one and the same thing.


LEARNING and CONSCIOUSNESS


Do we learn from observation and experience, or do we learn from
experience only? Is there one of us but knows, if he asks
himself, that we gain knowledge both by experience and from
observation? It is only when we look wholly outside that we ask
such a question as that. In fact, in reading the Ocean or any of
the other Theosophical books, we might try to bear in mind that
there is that in us, a department of our nature, where the
knowledge actually exists of anything and everything that the
Teachers write about; then, we would begin to look within
ourselves to corroborate, from the harvest of our own past
experience, our observation of what the Teachers say. There is,
however a vast difference between a man asleep or a man
dreaming, and a man awake. The thing to observe is that it’s the
same man, regardless of what state he is in. Let us apply that to
knowledge: if this teaching is true, we have been active and a
part of this solar system ever since it had a beginning—not to go
farther back. There isn’t a single state, a single condition, a
single form of life and being in this solar system that every one
of us has not been through tens of thousands of times in all the
kingdoms below as well as in the present human kingdom; in all of
the seven states of consciousness, not merely the one we are
aware of now.
Where is this experience? It is asleep in us, and, in the
religious man and the scientific man, it’s dreaming. Our
business, then, is to awaken to the same kind of consciousness
that we have here and now in other states of matter and on other
planes of life and being. Only a part of our nature is awake. At
other times, in the past, other parts of our nature have been
awake. We identify ourselves with the part of our nature that is
awake; we do not recognize our whole nature, and so make no
effort to rouse that part of us which is present but not active.

The purpose of Theosophy, then, is to arouse man, that is, to
waken him out of the psychic somnambulism which we call human
nature, to shake him up from this waking dream, to the reality of
his own being, and then he is on the plane of Higher Manas. What
then? Why, with respect to that, H.P.B. says that it is only by
means of the Higher Mind that we can ever hope to reach into the
depths of the all-pervading Absoluteness; that is to say, once in
the true awakened state of mind, we can reach into the
all-pervading depths of Absoluteness. The whole of Theosophy is
merely an attempt to wake men up by turning their attention to
the fact that there is something higher in them than they can
ever dream of. No wonder people say, “Wake up”.


Chapter 2 says that each of the seven principles of man is
derived from one of the seven great first divisions of the
Universe. What are the seven great divisions of the Universe? Do
we not recall the statement of the seven great divisions of the
Kosmos given by Mr. Judge in this chapter? Does he not say that
the universe evolves in seven ways and seven planes in all
worlds, and that the divisions may be thus roughly stated: The
Absolute, Spirit, Mind, Matter, Will, Akasa add Life? These are
represented in everything that is, with this distinction, that in
the Kosmos as a whole, all seven of these great Principles are
inherently universal and therefore un-personally active; in the
case of the beings below Man, they are not individually active
but sporadically active, as in the four lower human principles;
while in any man, whether considered as a human being or as a
Mahatma, all these seven principles are actually active
individually; that is, he can operate them, divert them, direct
them himself.


Great Breath goes forth and returns again” What is meant by that
term as here used? Let us seek an analogy in our own experience:
We say, “He gave up the ghost.” That is, he gave up the breath;
he breathed his last breath. What does that mean? Dissolution,
the death of that which was an active form. We say, “He drew his
first breath”; he took breath. If the newborn babe does not do
that, he does not become viable; he is dead at the beginning of
the journey instead of at the end. Apply that to the whole
universe: There is the birth of a universe: that is the beginning
of the Great Breath; there is the life of the universe, or the
continuance of the breathing; and then there is the death of the
universe, or the dissolution of the Breath, the return of life to
its original condition.

What might we denominate the Father and the Mother of the
Universe? The incoming and the outgoing Breath. All breath
consists first of an inception, next of a retention, and finally
of an exhalation; then of a new inception, a new retention and a
new exhalation, and so on, over and over again. There is
reincarnation, or re-embodiment, or change, applied to everything
that is, from a solar system down to the minutest conceivable
atom. What causes this? Polarity, attractive and repulsive
forces, the affinities of Nature, positive and negative
attractions; and those are personified as “Father” and “Mother.”
In everyone of us there are positive forces; in every one of us
there are negative forces; we are anon active and anon passive —
receptive in this, that or the other direction. Personify that
and you have the “Father” and the “Mother.” They are both in us
and may alternate; that which is at this moment positive may the
next become passive.


UNIVERSAL MIND

What is meant by the term “Universal Matter”? It is that
substance of which all bodies are composed, but the bodies are
not one thing and the matter something else. So Universal Mind is
that which consists of and includes all intelligence of every
degree in the manifested universe, high or low visible or
invisible.


PRELIMINARY EVOLUTIONARY WORK IN MATTER

It is found written: “And when the rough work was completed,
when the human temple was erected, many more ages would be
required for all the servants, the priests, and the counselors to
learn their parts properly so that man, the Master, might be able
to use the temple for its best and highest purposes. Would you
please say something about the meaning of the expression
“servants, priests and counselors”? Imagine a condition similar
to space as we see it now, in which there is no manifestation at
all; in which all life, all consciousness, all matter, is in one
homogeneous condition. What steps would be necessary with that
cosmic dust, what work would have to be gone through, before a
universe such as we have now would be evolved? Manifestly, we
would have to separate or differentiate that immense mass of
inchoate matter into seven distinct streams, and then we would
have to take the Monads or lives or embryonic souls that make up
those seven streams of matter and use them until their ancient
knowledge returned.

KINGDOM OF THE ATOMS, MOLECULES AND CRYSTALS

In other words, we would have to set up the atomic kingdom, the
molecular kingdom, and the intermediate or astral kingdom out of
which to erect the cellular and the crystalline kingdom——four
immense steps. That takes between one and a half to two billion
years. Not till then would we be able to constitute a mineral
kingdom, even in its incipient rudimentary state, the chemical
elements. Next, we would have to combine and recombine those
lives or forces of nature in the state we now know as the
mineral kingdom — combine and recombine them until we could form
out of the most advanced of them a vegetable kingdom; then erect
an animal kingdom; and then take the organic structure, the
cellular and crystalline basis of all three kingdoms, and erect
out of that a form that we could use as a sending and receiving
instrument — an acting instrument — in every one of the seven
kingdoms.

That is what is meant by the “priests” and the “counselors” and
the “servants’ training of the non—self—conscious lives, their
combinations in the kingdoms of the forces or elementals, and in
the kingdoms of nature known to us, until it would be possible to
build out of them one single form in which all the activities of
the whole solar system could be independently reproduced; and
that is the body and nature of man.


THREE STATES OF LIFE

Three primary divisions of Life are spoken of: Spirit, Mind and
Matter. Do these represent unvarying qualities, or does man
become spirit or matter, and vice versa? Matter never becomes
man; man never becomes spirit; and spirit never becomes matter.
These are just terms for the three great states of Life. What is
it that becomes matter? Life. What is it that, when it knows
enough, becomes mind? Life. What is it that, when it knows still
more, becomes spirit? Life. It is Life that passes from spirit to
matter to mind and returns again to spirit, just as it is man who
passes from waking to dreaming to deep sleeping and back to
waking again; but the waking state never becomes the dream state;
the dreaming state never becomes the deep sleep state, or vice
versa.


WHAT STARTS EVOLUTION?

In the Ocean I found it said: “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 forms
requiring life, and Akasa is the connecting link between matter
on one side and spirit—mind on the other.”

H.P.B. says that Spirit is always descending into matter and
matter is always evolving into Spirit. Is not original or
primordial matter in reality Spirit? Could you amplify that
quotation as to how Universal Mind evolves these worlds?

Analogy is always the rule in Nature, says H.P.B., our best
guide. What do we consider as the final form that all experience
takes with us? It is one of two things — knowledge or memory, and
either the knowledge or the memory, or both of them, may be
latent or active. Suppose we substitute for the words “Spirit and
Matter,” “knowledge and memory” and there is the final form into
which everything is resolved.

Now, at the beginning of manifestation, Spirit, which is
knowledge, stirs up Matter or memory, and thus the plan is
brought over, since nothing perishes either in the form of
Spirit, Consciousness, or knowledge, or in the form of latent
memory or Matter. Memory as the basis of action is merely the
tendency to repeat.

All mechanical action, all chemical action, all electrical
action, is the clearest picture in the world of the action of
memory. If we study the question from this stand-point, into what
is everything finally resolved with us? Into memory or knowledge.
Memory takes many forms when stirred up — tendency, habit,
instinct, impulse, the imitative faculty. What stirs up memory?
Consciousness or knowledge.


7-FOLD NATURE AND 7- FOLD MAN -- GLOBES


At the bottom, Mr. Judge writes:— “The earth is one of seven
globes in respect to man’s consciousness only, because when he
functions on one of the seven he perceives it as a distinct globe
and does not see the other six.” What is meant by “in respect to
man’s consciousness only”? When we are in another state of
consciousness, are we on another globe? What we can see is one
thing at a time, and what we are now seeing is the universe, isn’
t it? But we are in fact seeing the universe, so to say, through
the eyes of only one of our seven principles; that is, the fourth
one.

Whenever the opposite principle becomes active, the fourth
principle goes to sleep, and then we see the universe with the
eye of Spirit instead of with the eye of desire. We can’t see the
universe, except from one point of view at a time. At present we
are seeing the universe from the human point of view—waking human
consciousness.

Now, tonight we go to sleep; it is the same “we,” and we see the
universe, but we do not see nearly as much of it; we do not even
know that we are looking at something else. In fact, we aren’t
looking at something else—we are looking at the same universe
from the point of view of the astral consciousness instead of the
waking consciousness. After we die, it is the same “we", the same
universe, but we are looking at it from a different point of view
and we see another world.

As a matter of fact, the universe can be looked at in seven
different ways, and those seven different ways are called the
seven globes of our planetary chain. The universe is always a
study in consciousness, and nothing else. An ant is as much Life
as we are and in a sense is much more intelligent, because it has
no politics, no government and no religion, and—it knows its
business

How different this same universe of ours must seem to an ant How
different this universe must seem to the Life locked up in the
stone—the same universe, the same consciousness, in a stone. How
different this universe looks to us when we are happy, from the
way it looks when we are unhappy; how different it looks when we
are in love, from how it looks when we think nobody cares for us,
nobody loves us. It is the same universe all the time, the same
Self all the time, but the universe looks utterly different
according to the point of view, or the state of consciousness.


Mr. Judge says that everything in nature is sevenfold. But the
statement is not that everything in the universe has all its
seven principles active at the same time.

It is in man alone that all the seven principles may become
active, but in order for all seven to become active at once, they
must be unified. How many principles has a Mahatma? One. He has
Atman, and since Atman is the source of all the principles, he
emits the principles as the occasion requires. How many kinds of
lever is our body? All kinds of levers. Is our body a lever? No,
but it can at once be used as a lever of the first, the second,
or the third class.

Take, say, what we call. the mineral kingdom: only one principle
is active, and that principle is active only as our body is
active when we are asleep—it is only breathing. Take the
vegetable kingdom; it is clear to one who studies it from the
stand—point of consciousness that the same consciousness which,
in the mineral kingdom, is sound asleep— externally—is, in the
vegetable kingdom, beginning to dream. Then take the animal
creation as a whole; it has identically the same consciousness as
manifests in the other kingdoms. At times it is asleep and at
times it is dreaming. Animal consciousness is mostly dreaming;
but fitfully, under shock, it will wake for a second, like a
flash of lightning. We know electricity can make a flash of
lightning, or the steady glow of lights in a room. Come to man:
he has his period of waking consciousness, that is,
self-consciousness, and his period of animal consciousness; but,
when his human consciousness is active, his animal consciousness
is dreaming or asleep. When his animal consciousness is active,
his vegetative and human aspects of consciousness are asleep or
dozing. We pass up and down the four states, mineral, vegetable,
animal and human, and don’t notice that we are doing it.


What is meant by a Manvantara being “a period between two men”?
To answer that question, we have but to turn back to the first
chapter of the Ocean to where Judge says that the one object of
these mighty waves of evolution called Manvantaras is the
production of perfect man. So a Manvantara, the whole vast
panorama, is soul and spirit ever evolving towards one object,
and when that object is achieved for as many as possible—then,
according to the second chapter, that Manvantara is over: its
crop is perfected men or Mahatmas. Next is a period of rest, and
again there is a new mighty wave of evolution, all being soul and
spirit, once more evolving with the same object of producing a
new crop. So there is a crop of men, meaning perfected men, in
this Manvantara and a crop of perfected men in another
Manvantara—the period between one crop of men and another being a
“Manvantara.”


RACE -- WHAT IS IT ?

Mr. Judge states: “Between the end of any great race and the
beginning of another there is a period of rest” . What is the
nature of that rest, and are there any records of it?

Between the great races, of which there are seven in each Globe
(and of these there are seven in each Round), there is a period
of rest, when all the active principles of this plane cease to be
active, and this plane goes to sleep. The analogy between Pralaya
and this period about which the question is asked—which H.P.B.
calls “obscuration”— is the same analogy as that between death
and sleep.

Our Earth Chain “dies” every so often; when it dies, it
dissolves, just as our body does, to be re-formed just as a
reincarnating body is formed. But the earth, so far as we know,
sleeps between the great races. What becomes of US? We go to
another globe, just as we go to another globe or state of
consciousness in dream, in sleep and after death. We may go to
the globe below this or we may go to the globe above this, as the
case may be; but the self-conscious egos leave the globe between
races.


KAMA AND KAMA-MANAS

If we regard the universe and man as consisting in their
perfection during manifestation of seven elements, and all the
beings in that universe as seven-principled beings, then it can
be seen that these seven globes relate to the seven fundamental
elements into which everything can be reduced and to the seven
fundamental principles — our basis of collective action or
manifestation. The principle that is now active—Kama-Manas—did
not exist on Globe A; Kama-Manas did not exist on Globe B, or on
Globe C, or D, or E, or F, or G during the first three Rounds,
and it did not exist in this Round until we reached Globe D; Kama
was then utterly different, just as, say, the flesh of our
bodies, although matter, is just as different as can be from the
chemical elements from which it has been derived.

So Kama, the principle of action, in the kingdoms below man, is
just as different from that same Kama in man, as our flesh is
different from the chemical elements. Until the two lines of
evolution, the physical and the spiritual, were conjoined in the
same form, we had no Kama-Manas; we had the active principle,
memory, in the form of impulse, desire and habit in the three
lower kingdoms; the Monad, Atma-Buddhi, represents the spiritual
line of evolution; the two lines conjoined by the descent of the
reincarnating Ego — Manas — into a form of matter, and we have
the universe as it is now.


How can such a process be a matter of knowledge to us? Several
statements are made suggestively in The Secret Doctrine as that
the collective consciousness of the Manus—or call it Universal
Mind, which is the same thing—embraces the interminable
eternities of all the past; also that there must be beings so
high that they can view in retrospect, that is, from the stand
point of what we would call memory, the whole period of evolution
of a given solar system.


MATTER -- WHAT IS IT ?

What is meant by Mulaprakriti? Literally, it means the root of
matter. Oftentimes, you know, you can get at the truth by a
process of elimination as well as by a process of addition. Now
consider the universe; it is enormously compound, whether
regarded physically or metaphysically; it is highly complex.
Suppose we begin dissolving it just as we dissolve things
chemically. Into how many elements can we dissolve it? According
to the teachings of Theosophy, the whole universe and everything
in it can be finally dissolved into seven elements. How about
those seven elements? Can they be dissolved? Yes, they also can
all be dissolved or resolved; into what? Into one element only.
If this is the case at dissolution, reverse the process, and we
have manifestation.


MATTER IN EVOLUTION

>From the One Element proceed successively seven modifications of
that Element, and we, looking at it from this side and not seeing
what is on the other side of the seven elements, call the
modifications “seven elements.” It is seven different
modifications within, or aspects of, one and the same Element.
Then what? Then we begin making combinations of those same
elements, and finally we have what we have—a great series of
“elements.”

We can get at the problem decimally very easily, and in truth
that is the right way. But view it, if we want to view it, both
physically and metaphysically or spiritually. Suppose we use
mathematics on the universe, and not any other system of
mathematics than the decimal system. (You know some ancient
peoples used to have 7 as the basis for their arithmetic, and
others have had 9 as the basis. A great many people have had 11,
and 12, and 16, and a few have had 13 — of which one of the
survivals is our idea of unlucky numbers.) We now generally use
10

Let’s take the universe as a decimal system. Would anybody object
to this statement? “It makes no difference to me whatever what
number you give me; it can consist of ten digits variously
combined and variously repeated.” No matter how big the number
is——it is made up of ten simple elements or digits. And what did
all those digits proceed from? From zero, which is no number they
all return into zero. The ten elements of arithmetic, 0, 1, 2, 3,
4,5, 6, 7, 8, 9. When we come to examine the digits, we find that
the digits are not actually simple integers; 9 is a combination
of 8 and 1; also of 7 and 2; also of 6 and 3; also of 5 and 4; 8
is not a simple indissoluble number; 8 is a compound of 7 and 1,
6 and 2, and 3, 4 and 4. So we can treat every one of our
so-called digits. There is only one number and that which is no
number; but the combination of no number and one number gives us
the digits and the combinations of digits, gives us, in fact, all
the field of mathematics.

Apply the same thing precisely to our universe: the One Element
never was, never will be anything but the One Element. But seven
forms of perception are possible in every part of that One
Element; seven forms of action are possible; therefore, seven
forms of results are possible. While we cannot define the
Absolute, yet, if we apply this same process and reverse the
Three Fundamentals, we shall not find it difficult to realize
that, no matter what we do, behind our doing is That.

No matter what we think, behind our thinking are three
things—ourselves, what we know, and what we assume. There is the
eternal trinity in us. Many people assume that the source of
Nature is different from the source of themselves, and they act
on that basis; they do not know it; they believe it. Many people
think there is no source to Nature, and they act on that basis.
So there is themselves, what they know, and what they believe or
assume to know, or not know. Very well. How are we to know the
First Fundamental? How are we to realize it? Through the Second;
how else? What is the Second Fundamental? It is Nature’s law of
equilibrium. If I act in equilibrium with Nature, if, in the
words of The Voice of the Silence then, I -- “help Nature and
work on with her,” I will understand the First Fundamental; I
will know the First Fundamental; I will realize the First
Fundamental, because I will consciously be the First Fundamental.


MAHATMAS ARE UNIVERSAL -- SO IS ATMAN

In the first letter of the second volume of Letters That Have
Helped Me, Judge makes a truly wonderful statement. He speaks
about the Masters, out the natural desire of everyone to have
some consciousness of contact with the Masters, and of our way of
going about it. He discusses that; then he turns around and says,
The fact is that the Masters are active all the time; they are
“in every phase of our changing days and years.” He says they are
“the very law of Karma, because they are Atman itself;” they are
Atman, and realize it.

We are Atman and talk about it, believe about it, hope about it,
fear about it, discuss about it, and—to use H.P.B.’s own word—”
wrestle" about it, but all the time the only way that we can ever
realize the “First Fundamental” is through the Second.
Manifestly, our actions, which is what the Second Fundamental is
concerned with, have led us further and further from the
realization of the Self, until finally we are at the point where
our realization of Self is that we are separate from all other
selves Masters have reversed that. On the basis of the unity of
all in Nature, they work for Nature; they live for Nature, and so
they realize in themselves all there is in Nature


PERFECTION

In the middle paragraph on p. 27 is the statement that there
comes a time of perfection; that is, when progress stops in that
particular cycle spoken of, and then the earth disappears as a
tangible thing. It isn’t annihilated, we know that, but the
statement is made that it disappears as a tangible thing. What is
meant by that? Let’s go on in the greater cycle until the same
stage is reached again. What will happen to this earth that will
have disappeared as a tangible thing? What will become of it?
Will it not once more reappear as a tangible thing, going through
its again on this plane, and then once more—having achieved as
much perfection as possible what will it do? Disappear as a
tangible thing, and once more reappear. It is nothing but the Law
of Reincarnation. “Cycle” means reincarnation, only this word is
used to show that it means the reincarnation of a mass of Monads
or egos, whereas we use the word “reincarnation” as applied to
one single individual. Yet we say that there is a cycle of
reincarnation. For the man of today we know that the average
duration of that cycle is 1,500 years.


WHAT AND HOW DO WE PERCEIVE? [ PLANES AND STATES ]

Now, after we have seen that the Ocean says the world, or our
earth, disappears as a tangible thing, the question is, “How do
you account for the moon still being visible?” Suppose we change
that word “still” to the word “now.” How do you account for the
moon now being visible? Well, one way we can understand it is
this: When the old moon chain disappeared as a tangible thing it
disappeared, but when the same stage was reached in the new
evolution, its ghost or Kama-Rupa materialized. Any Kama-Rupa is
on the fourth plane of evolution, is in the fourth stage of
existence. Remember that the fourth stage is the stage of
formation, or re-formation, and it is also, of necessity, the
opposite—the stage of disintegration. When this earth had once
more reached the fourth stage, its effect on the moon may well
have been such as to precipitate the kamic moon onto our plane.
H.P.B. says in The Secret Doctrine—and Mr. Judge says the same
thing on p. 26 (p. 2 Am. Ed.) that the reason we can see the moon
is that it is on the same plane of perception as ourselves.

Venus is said to be in the Seventh Round, but we can see Venus.
How can we do that when we are in the Fourth Round? Because Venus
is in the fourth stage of her Seventh Round. We are in the Fourth
Round and Venus in the fourth stage, so both are on the same
plane of perception. The statement is made that both Mercury and
Mars have been in obscuration— that is in Pralaya—and that
Mercury is only beginning to come out of obscuration, yet both
are visible. How explain that? Why, they are fourth-plane globes,
which, during a minor Pralaya remain intact, though dead. Being
on the fourth plane of perception, they are visible to us. We do
not see the moon, say, of the Third Round; why not? Because that
moon is on the third plane of perception. If we could transfer
our consciousness to the centre of the Third Race or the centre
of the Third Round, then, says Mr. Judge, we would see the
corresponding moon, that is, the moon in her third stage, and so
on endlessly.

If one saw the moon in a dream, what globe of the moon would that
be? How many remember the eighth Chapter of the Gita It says
that those dying in the fortnight of the waning moon and while
the Sun is in the path of his southern journey, return again to
mortal birth. Now, when we go to sleep, we go through the same
process that a man goes through when he dies—up to a certain
point, at least. We pass through the same steps. If we had an
atavistic dream, and descended in our dream, let us say, to the
Fourth Race of this Round or to the Third Race of this Round
(instead of remaining in the Fifth to which we belong), we should
be, in our dream, on the plane of nature that was tangible in the
Third Race or in the Fourth Race.

The corresponding moon would be there, and we would see the
astral moon in one of its stages; we would see its astral
photograph, certainly. Why, the air around us is full of
elementals and of Kama—Rupas, all forming and disintegrating
stages of anything and every-thing that has been in existence on
this plane, both that which has died and is therefore on its way
out, and also that which is on its way back here. If we, then,
awake or asleep, get on to the astral or kamic plane, we shall
see the corresponding moon, or—what is the same thing—the
reflection of the moon, in her astral envelope instead of in her
physical envelope.

That raises a most interesting question, one that each student is
at liberty to think about for himself. First, the statement is
made in the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge that the sun is
older than any of the planets in this solar system, and yet
H.P.B. turns around in the same sentence and says that the moon
is older than the sun. That can mean only one thing, that this
moon which we see is a relic of a former solar system, of a
planetary chain in a former solar system, because any and every
planetary chain is but a portion of the mass of matter and of the
monads engaged in any solar system.

H.P.B. makes a number of curious statements in various foot-notes
of the S.D. For example, she says that, when the end of a solar
system comes, there is what is called a universal Pralaya; that
is, absolutely every thing is disintegrated and returns to the
primordial condition.

Naturally, no lives or Monads are lost. Once there is a new
evolution of the solar system, it must be that those Monads which
were in the former solar system or planetary chain once more
reassume their ancient place.

She says that nought remains during a solar pralaya but the
Akasic photographs of all that have been. Now, if we were on the
seventh globe or the sixth globe of this chain, according to Mr.
Judge, we should see the corresponding moon. What moon would we
see? We should see its Akasic photograph, shouldn’t we?
Successively, as evolution goes on in this Solar System or in
this planetary chain, condensation and expansion and
re-condensation, without a complete dissolution, goes on, because
there are minor Pralaya and minor Manvantaras within the greater
cycles.

Finally, in a footnote on another subject, (p. 68 of the Second
Volume) and again on page 730 of the same 2nd volume, H.P.B.
solves the puzzle of the scientists, explaining how it was that
man came first in this Round, and yet there are relics of flora
and fauna reaching back for hundreds of millions of years and no
relics of man beyond a certain period. What is the explanation?


PERCEPTION IN EARLIER ROUNDS AND GLOBES

This is H.P.B. answer: That innumerable forms which were alive in
the Third Round left their etheric photographs when they died
and, when the stage of condensation was reached in this Round,
those photographs were precipitated into our matter, and that is
why we find the fossil remnants in our matter of beings that
never lived in our matter.

If we applied that same reasoning to planets and planetary
chains, bearing in mind the statements that after a solar system
there is an absolute dissociation and return to the primeval
condition, and the other statement that the moon is older than
the sun and that the sun is older than any of the planets—the
only logical explanation is that those degraded lives, those
forms which took the back road that made the degraded part of the
former moon chain, when the precipitating stage is reached,
condense, coalesce, or precipitate on this plane.

There is still another way to look at this question. Every one of
us has heard of spiritualistic seances where they materialize
spirits. We are familiar with the Theosophical teaching that the
materialized form is not the dead man at all, but is his
discarded astral body, his Kama-Rupa, in short; and that, because
of the nature of the thoughts and feelings of the sitters and of
the medium, the Kama-Rupa, or dead astral body, is coated with
matter of this plane so that it reflects the light of this plane
and appears to be just as much physical matter as the bodies of
the medium and of the men and women at the seance But in a few
minutes this materialized ghost will disappear, dissolve and go
back to its own place, whereas the sitters don't dissolve. Yet
the statement is made that it is possible, through a process of
precipitation, to fix those images.

Now, if that occurs in the case of Third Round flora and fauna
which never existed in this Round on this earth, although we have
their physical “remnants if that kind of precipitation is
possible, isn’t it possible that the moon we see is, in fact, not
a physical thing, as, say, the sun or this earth is? That it is
some kind of Kama-Rupa brought to life again, so to speak, by the
thoughts and feelings of men?

The statements are, first, that the moon is older than the sun,
which means that it is a relic of a former solar system;
secondly, that it is on the same plane of perception as our
earth; thirdly, that the Moon Chain is the parent of the Earth
Chain. H.P.B. states over and over again that there are great
mysteries connected with the subject of the moon. Mr. Sinnett and
Mr. Hume were literally wild to find out all about the moon—why?
They never asked themselves why they should be so interested in
the moon. But H.P.B. says that the Adepts would not give out any
other information than that which is contained in the S.D. on the
subject.

In view of what was said regarding Mars, is there any hope of
success in the efforts of scientists to get in touch with Mars?
Science is just as much in touch with Mars as it is with the
earth; that is to say, with the physical appearance of it. And
all that science is in touch with, anywhere, at any time, is the
physical appearance of things. This recalls a peculiar thing in
regard to the moon. We can’t get a spectrum of the moon as we can
get a spectrum of the sun, or of any other self-luminous body. We
never see the moon except by reflected light; it doesn’t shine of
itself. Without the light of the sun and of the earth and the
sidereal light falling on it, we should never know there was a
moon—and that itself might tell us something.

When we evolve to the fifth globe, will our state be one of the
following: (1) illusionary, in the same way as in deep sleep or
in Devachan; (2) a subjective state; or (3) Manasic? Let us
first make a correction. The first alternative given is: will we
be in an illusionary state “in the same way as deep sleep”? Man
is in an illusionary state when he is in Devachan, if he does not
know it is Devachan, and when he is in Nirvana and doesn’t know
it for what it is, is he not still in an illusionary state?

But remember, what we call “deep sleep” merely means that the Ego
drops the four lower vestures; it is once more Atma-Buddhi-Manas
outside of incarnation. That state is the only chance it has of
being free from illusion. But that doesn’t do the Ego any more
good than the intervals of sobriety do good to a drunkard if he
gets drunk again. Every time Atma-Buddhi comes down into matter
once more—whether at waking up in the morning, or at birth—we
know that we are all overcome by the illusion of matter. This is
an illusionary world, because how many people in the world today
regard matter for what it is, or human life for what it is?
Scarcely one.

To answer the question, we may say that on the fifth globe we
shall be in the three states, an illusionary state, a subjective
state and a Manasic state, just as we are now—unless what? Unless
we overcome the illusions of matter, and none of us have
succeeded in doing that. The teaching is that the fifth globe of
any Round, the Fifth Race on any globe, and the Fifth Round of
the whole period of evolution, is the final precipitant. Then the
ego either is completely overcome by the illusions of matter, no
matter on what plane or in what state he may be, or he is on the
way to complete emancipation from illusion.

We might put it this way: here we are, spiritual beings of the
same nature as the Masters of Wisdom. The Master of Wisdom is
Atma-Buddhi-Manas, but he is nothing but Atma-Buddhi-Manas,
asleep or awake. On this globe or any other globe, this plane or
on any other plane, he is Atma-Buddhi-Manas. We are
Atma-Buddhi-Manas, but when we are on this plane or any other
plane, on this globe or any other globe except the highest, we
think we are something else than Atma--Buddhi--Manas. Our sense
of reality does not reside in Atma- Buddhi-Manas --- it is
outside of us, in the world, in the state, in the condition. We
find the term “centre of consciousness” in this chapter. That
centre is shifted up and down. Have we given thought to what that
means? Where is our sense of reality located? If it is located in
this body, we know where we are; if it is located in our desires,
we know where we are; if it is located in our feelings, we know
where we are; if it is located purely on the plane of thought,
that is, in pure ratiocination, we know where our sense of
reality is.

There are seven conceptions of reality—that’s what the seven
planes are—and not one of those conceptions is true. There never
was anything real but Self; there is not now any-thing real but
Self. There could not be two Absolutes. Anybody can see that. So,
how could there be two realities? Yet the S.D. tells us whatever
plane our consciousness is functioning on, both we and the things
of that plane appear to us to be for the time being the only
realities.

Always we are afflicted with a double or triple sense of reality,
whereas reality never could be but one thing. According to the
teachings, Self is the reality, no matter what the globe, what
the solar system, what the world, what the round, what the race,
what the condition. The Self is the real; all else is Maya and
illusion; yet self thinks that something else than the Self is
the real.


FIFTH ROUND PERCEPTION -- REALITY

The Fifth Round closes the gates, so to speak. After the middle
of the Fourth Round, no more Monads come from below into the
human kingdom. So, after the middle of the Fifth Race of the
Fifth Round, no more human beings can return to the divine
kingdom as self-conscious entities.

Sometimes we fail to realize the force of accumulation—momentum
it is called in physics, mass multiplied by motion. There is
momentum or accumulated force, moral or spiritual, also. How
difficult it is for us to energize ourselves, and keep ourselves
continuously energized, on the plane of the higher mind Yet
Masters live in spirit and work in matter. That is what we ought
to do, but we both live and work in matter, and all our past, the
momentum of the race, tends more and more, as the increasing
acceleration of the vast cycles goes on, to make us choose
between spirit and matter. When the great time of choice comes in
the Fifth Round, many people will have lost all belief in the
reality of Spirit, they will be so absolutely convinced that life
in matter is the only life—the only life they know, or care for,
or are interested in. When the time of choice comes, what will
they choose? They will choose the old familiar road, and, instead
of their becoming one of the new crop of Mahatmas, all their work
and suffering for that Manvantara will go for nought. They have
to begin all over again, from the beginning, in a new Manvantara,
after a Pralaya of complete individual unconsciousness.

---------------------------------------------------

I hope this may be of help. It is a different and more
penetrating point of view. It suggests we sand aside fro our
usual filter focus of the Kama-Manasic view of things.
Best wishes,

Dallas

==========================

-----Original Message-----
From: Eldon B Tucker [mailto:eldon@theosophy.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 9:05 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Rounds, Globes, Races and Sub-Races

Blavatsky speaks of the first Root Races as being astral or
semi-astral, and becoming physical around the time of the middle
of the Third Root Race. During the process of becoming
increasingly physical, the physical senses are developed at the
expense of the astral. She says, "The ancients divided the senses
into five, simply because their teachers (the Initiates) stopped
at the HEARING, as being that sense which developed in the
PHYSICAL PLANE (got dwarfed rather, limited to this plane) only
at the beginning of the Fifth Race." (SD I 535 fn)

My thinking is that we start out with all seven senses in the
First Root Race. We and all our senses are astral. We eventually
get physical forms. With each Root Race, one of our astral senses
is lost as it is superceded by a corresponding physical sense
being developed.

-- Eldon

-----Original Message-----
From: Cuttersail@aol.com [mailto:Cuttersail@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 4:09 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Rounds, Globes, Races and Sub-Races

In a message dated 11/30/02 6:55:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,
dalval14@earthlink.net writes:


Ans. —We are in the Fifth Sub-race of the fourth state;
therefore we
have four of the senses complete and one of the senses very, very
little developed


May I ask, which of the senses is not developed as yet? With
another sense, the Sixth I think, to come, in what timeframe is
that to happen.
Best wishes, Klaus ---



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]