Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00179)

Dec 2 2002

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

Part I -- 



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.


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