Theos-Talk Archives (December 2003 Message tt00332)

Dec 22 2003


HPB and the SECRET DOCTRINE on Darwinism

Counter questions: (serious) 


Do the atoms not roam and join now here, now there various living
things? How and why?

Does the air we breathe and the water we drink have a nationality or is
it a universal and borderless commodity of life? Why is sharing a
natural event, and communal, religious and national selfishness
universally decried?

Is a living plant or animal not evidence of a resident intelligence ?
Why are the forms of life shaped and .live as they do? We examine and
measure the phenomena of living things that NATURE has already
installed. How is it that this enormous harmony called a planet or a
galaxy exist? Who shapes it, maintains, it, includes numerous species
and elements and compounds and sets them in motion and in living?

Is the aggregation of atoms, molecules, cells, etc haphazard or are we
examining life supporting processes large and small with a purpose?

Does each human have a purpose other then the "have fun" concept?

If astro-physics, chemistry, engineering , biology, ecology, economics,
mathematics, physics etc show there are laws in our world and universe
that guide evolution, why would there not be a philosophical science (
which THEOSOPHY is) to measure and explain them ?

Best wishes,

Dallas

PS: I would like you to read (or skim ?) the 2nd Vol. of the SECRET
DOCTRINE if you wish to secure an over-view of the evolutionary process
and laws that rule it. It fills the gap of the "missing species" or the
"a common ancestor, still to be found" .

D


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

The following might help:


DIFFERENTIATION OF SPECIES -- MISSING LINKS

	

COMPLEXITY OF MAN

How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are
questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive answer to. 

This immortal thinker having, such vast powers and possibilities, all
his because of his intimate connection with every secret part of Nature
from which he has been built up, stands at the top of an immense and
silent evolution. 

He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its aim, how
that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both fail to give a
reasonable reply. 

Science does not pretend to be able to give the solution, saying that
the examination of things as they are is enough of a task. 

Religion offers an explanation both illogical and unmeaning and
acceptable but to the bigot, as it requires us to consider the whole of
Nature as a mystery and to seek for the meaning and purpose of life with
all its sorrow in the pleasure of a God who cannot be found out. The
educated and enquiring mind knows that dogmatic religion can only give
an answer invented by man while it pretends to be from God. 

What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man the
immortal thinker here in evolution? 

It is all for the experience and emancipation of the soul, for the
purpose of raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the
stature, nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood. 

The great aim is to reach Self-Consciousness; not through a race or a
tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the perfecting, after
transformation, of the whole mass of matter as well as what we now call
soul. Nothing is or is to be left out. 

The aim for present man is his initiation into complete knowledge, and
for the other kingdoms below him that they may be raised up gradually
from stage to stage to be in time initiated also. This is evolution
carried to its highest power; it is a magnificent prospect; it makes of
man a god, and gives to every part of nature the possibility of being
one day the same; there is strength and nobility in it, for by this no
man is dwarfed and belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he
cannot rise above all sin. 

Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution takes in
but half of life; while the religious conception of it is a mixture of
nonsense and fear. 

Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time imagine
that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but this and has to
govern this one very imperfectly. But the old theosophical view makes
the universe a vast, complete, and perfect whole. 

Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and spiritual,
we have at the same time to admit that it can only be carried on by
reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by science. It is shown
that the matter of the earth and of all things physical upon it was at
one time either gaseous or molten; that it cooled; that it altered; that
from its alterations and evolutions at last were produced all the great
variety of things and beings. [ see also:  
Triple evolution: S D I 181 ]

This, on the physical plane, is transformation or change from one form
to another. The total mass of matter is about the same as in the
beginning of this globe, with a very minute allowance for some star
dust. Hence it must have been changed over and over again, and thus been
physically reformed and re-embodied. Of course, to be strictly accurate,
we cannot use the word reincarnation, because "incarnate" refers to
flesh. Let us say "embodied," and then we see that both for matter and
for man there has been a constant change of form and this is, broadly
speaking, "reincarnation." 

As to the whole mass of matter, the doctrine is that it will all be
raised to man's estate when man has gone further on himself. There is no
residuum left after man's final salvation which in a mysterious way is
to be disposed of or done away with in some remote dust-heap of nature.
The true doctrine allows for nothing like that, and at the same time is
not afraid to give the true disposition of what would seem to be a
residuum. It is all worked up into other states. 

The philosophy declares there is no inorganic matter whatever but that
every atom is alive and has the germ of self-consciousness, it must
follow that one day it will all have been changed. Thus what is now
called human flesh is so much matter that one day was wholly mineral,
later on vegetable, and now refined into human atoms. 


EVOLUTION A MIXTURE OF ALL EXPERIENCES

But as the human mind cannot go back to any beginning, we shall start
with this globe. 

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. For Nature
never does her work in a hasty or undue fashion, but, by the sure method
of mixture, precipitation, and separation, brings about the greatest
perfection. 

Hence man did not spring from a single pair. Neither did he come from
any tribe or family of monkey. It is hopeless to look to either religion
or science for a solution of the question. If we take up one of the
hypotheses of Science and admit for the moment that man and monkey
differentiated from one ancestor, we have then to decide where the first
ancestor came from. 

The first postulate of the Lodge on this subject is that seven races of
men appeared simultaneously on the earth, and the first negative
assumption is that man did not spring from a single pair or from the
animal kingdom. 

The varieties of character and capacity which subsequently appear in
man's history are the forthcoming of the variations which were induced
in the Egos in other and long anterior periods of evolution upon other
chains of globes. These variations were so deeply impacted as to be
equivalent to inherent characteristics. For the races of this globe the
prior period of evolution was passed on the chain of globes of which our
Moon is the visible representative. 


WHERE DID THE ANTHROPOIDS COME FROM?

The question of the anthropoid apes as related to man is settled by the
Masters of Wisdom, who say that instead of those being our progenitors
they were produced by man himself. 

In one of the early periods of the globe the men of that time begot from
large females of the animal kingdom the anthropoids, and in anthropoid
bodies were caught a certain number of Egos destined one day to be men.
The remainder of the descendants of the true anthropoid are the
descendants of those illegitimate children of men, and will die away
gradually, their Egos entering human bodies. 

Those half-ape and half-man bodies could not be ensouled by strictly
animal Egos, and for that reason they are known to the Secret Doctrine
as the "Delayed Race," the only one not included in the fiat of Nature
that no more Egos from the lower kingdoms will come into the human
kingdom until the next Manvantara. But to all kingdoms below man except
the anthropoids, the door is now closed for entry into the human stage,
and the Egos in the subordinate forms must all wait their turn in the
succeeding great Cycle. And as the delayed Egos of the Anthropoid family
will emerge into the man stage later on, they will thus be rewarded for
the long wait in that degraded race. All the other monkeys are products
in the ordinary manner of the evolutionary processes. 

The words of one of the Masters of Wisdom, giving the esoteric
anthropology from the secret volumes, are thus: 

"The anatomical resemblance between Man and the higher Ape, so
frequently cited by the Darwinists as pointing to some former ancestor
common to both, presents an interesting problem the proper solution of
which is to be sought for in the esoteric explanation of the genesis of
the pithecoid stocks. We have given it so far as was useful by stating
that the bestiality of the primeval mindless races resulted in the
production of huge man-like monsters -- the offspring of human and
animal parents. 

As time rolled on and the still semi-astral forms consolidated into the
physical, the descendants of these creatures were modified by external
conditions until the breed, dwindling in size, culminated in the lower
Apes of the Miocene period. 

With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the "Mindless" --
this time with full responsibility. The resultants of their crime were
the species now known as the Anthropoid. . . . Let us remember the
esoteric teaching which tells us of Man having had in the Third Round a
gigantic Ape-like form on the astral plane. And similarly at the close
of the Third Race in this Round. Thus it accounts for the human features
of the Apes, especially of the later Anthropoids, -- apart from the fact
that these latter preserved by heredity a resemblance to their
Atlanto-Lemurian sires."

The same teachers furthermore assert that the mammalian types were
produced in the fourth round, subsequent to the appearance of the human
types. For this reason there was no barrier against fertility, because
the root-types of those mammals were not far enough removed to raise the
natural barrier. 

The unnatural union in the third race, when man had not yet had the
light of Manas given to him, was not a crime against Nature, since, no
mind being present save in the merest germ, no responsibility could
attach. 

But in the fourth round, the light of Manas being present, the renewal
of the act by the new race was a crime, because it was done with a full
knowledge of the consequences and against the warning of conscience. The
karmic effect of this, including as it does all races, has yet to be
fully felt and understood -- at a much later day than now. 


EVOLUTION IN FORMS LOWER THAN THE HUMAN

As man (the Monad) came to this Globe from another Globe-chain, though
of course then a being of very great power before being completely
enmeshed in matter, so the lower kingdoms came likewise (as Monads of
lesser experience) in germ and type from the same earlier Globe-chain,
and carry on their evolution step by step upward by the aid of man, who
in all periods of manifestation, is at the front of the wave of life. 

The Egos (Monads) in these lower kingdoms could not finish their
evolution in the preceding Globe-chain before its dissolution, and
coming to this, they go forward age after age, gradually approaching
nearer the human stage. One day they too will become men, and act as the
advance guard and guide for other lower kingdoms of this or other
Globes. 

And in the coming from the former planet (Moon-chain) there are always
brought with the first and highest class of beings some forms of animal
life, some fruits and other products, as models or types for use here.
It will not be profitable to go into this here with particularity, for
being too far ahead of the time it would evoke only ridicule from some
and stupidity from others. But the general forms of the various kingdoms
being so brought over, we have next to consider how the differentiation
of animal and other lower species began and was carried on. 


GREAT MINDS ASSIST MONADIC EVOLUTION

This is the point where intelligent aid and interference from a mind or
mass of minds is absolutely necessary. 

Such aid and interference was and is the fact, for Nature unaided cannot
do the work right. But I do not mean that God or angel interferes and
aids. It is Man who does this. Not the man of the day, weak and ignorant
as he is, but Great Souls, high and holy men of immense power,
knowledge, and wisdom. Just such as every man would now know he could
become, if it were not that religion on one hand and science on the
other have painted such a picture of our weakness, inherent evil and
purely material origin that nearly all men think they are puppets of God
or cruel fate without hope, or remain with a degrading and selfish aim
in view both here and after. 

Various names have been given to these beings now removed from our
plane. They are the Dhyanis, the Creators, the Guides, the Great
Spirits, and so on by many titles. In theosophical literature they are
called the Dhyanis. 

By methods known to themselves and to the Great Lodge they work on the
forms so brought over, and by adding here, taking away there, and often
altering, they gradually transform by such alteration and addition the
kingdoms of nature as well as the gradually forming gross body of man. 

This process is carried on chiefly in the purely astral period preceding
the gross physical stage, as the impulses thus given will surely carry
themselves forward through the succeeding times. When the midway point
of evolution is reached the species emerge on to the present stage and
not showing the connection to the eye of man nor to our instruments. 

The investigations of the day have traced certain species down to a
point where, as is confessed, it is not known to what root they go back.
Taking oxen on one side and horses on the other, we see that both are
hoofed, but one has a split hoof and the other but one toe. These bring
us back, when we reach the oldest ancestor of each, to the midway point,
and there science has to stop. 

At this spot the wisdom of the Masters comes in to show that back of
this is the astral region of ancient evolution, where were the
root-types in which the Dhyanis began the evolution by alteration and
addition which resulted in the differentiation afterwards on this gross
plane into the various families, species, and genera.
[SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol. II, pp. 735-6]

A vast period of time, about 300,000,000 years, was passed by earth and
man and all the kingdoms of nature in an astral stage. Then there was no
gross matter such as we now know. This was in the early rounds when
Nature was proceeding slowly with the work of perfecting the types on
the astral plane, which is matter, though very fine in its texture. 

At the end of that stretch of years the process of hardening began, the
form of man being the first to become solid, and then some of the astral
prototypes of the preceding rounds were involved in the solidification,
though really belonging to a former period when everything was astral.
When those fossils are discovered it is argued that they must be those
of creatures which co-existed with the gross physical body of man. 

While that argument is proper enough under the other theories of
Science, it becomes only an assumption if the existence of the astral
period be admitted. But it may be said that neither the bee nor the
wheat could have had their original differentiation in this chain of
globes, but must have been produced and finished in some other from
which they were brought over into this. Why this should be so I am
willing to leave for the present to conjecture.
[SECRET DOCTRINE Vol. II, pp. 373]

To the whole theory it may be objected that Science has not been able to
find the missing links between the root-types of the astral period and
the present fossils or living species. Neither class of missing link
will be discovered by Science under her present methods, for all of them
exist in the astral plane and therefore are invisible to the physical
eye. They can only be seen by the inner astral senses, which must first
be trained to do their work, and until Science admits the existence of
the astral and inner senses she will never try to develop them. Always,
then, Science will be without the instruments for discovering the astral
links left on the astral plane in the long course of differentiation.
The fossils spoken of above, which were, so to say, solidified out of
date, form an exception to the impossibility of finding any missing
links, but they are blind alleys to Science because she admits none of
the necessary facts. 

The object of all this differentiation, amalgamation, and separation is
well stated by another of the Masters, thus: 

"Nature consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible in
organic rather than inorganic forms, and works slowly but incessantly
towards the realization of this object -- the evolution of conscious
life out of inert material." 


PROGRESSIVE REFINEMENT OF MATERIAL VEHICLES

At a point of time very far from now the present vegetable matter will
have been raised to the animal stage and what we now use as our organic
or fleshy matter will have changed by transformation through evolution
into self-conscious thinkers, and so on up the whole scale until the
time shall come when what is now known as mineral matter will have
passed on to the human stage and out into that of thinker. Then at the
coming on of another great period of evolution the mineral matter of
that time will be some which is now passing through its lower
transformations on other planets and in other systems of worlds. 

This is perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the men of the present day, who
are so accustomed to being called bad, sinful, weak, and utterly foolish
from their birth that they fear to believe the truth about themselves,
but for the disciples of the ancient theosophists it is not impossible
or fanciful, but is logical and vast. Therefore as to reincarnation and
metempsychosis, we say that they are first to be applied to the whole
cosmos and not alone to man. But as man is the most interesting object
to himself, we will consider in detail its application to him. 


ORIGINS OF MAN

Between Science and Theosophy there is a wide gulf, for the present
unbridged, on the question of the origin of man and the differentiation
of species. 

The ultimate origin or beginning of man is not to be discovered,
although we may know when and from where the men of this globe came. Man
never was not. If not on this globe, then on some others, he ever was,
and will ever be in existence somewhere in the Cosmos. 

Ever perfecting and reaching up to the image of the "Heavenly Man," he
is always becoming. 


EVOLUTION A MIXTURE OF ALL EXPERIENCES

But as the human mind cannot go back to any beginning, we shall start
with this globe. 

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. For Nature
never does her work in a hasty or undue fashion, but, by the sure method
of mixture, precipitation, and separation, brings about the greatest
perfection. 

Hence man did not spring from a single pair. Neither did he come from
any tribe or family of monkey. It is hopeless to look to either religion
or science for a solution of the question. If we take up one of the
hypotheses of Science and admit for the moment that man and monkey
differentiated from one ancestor, we have then to decide where the first
ancestor came from. 

The first postulate of the Lodge on this subject is that seven races of
men appeared simultaneously on the earth, and the first negative
assumption is that man did not spring from a single pair or from the
animal kingdom. 

The varieties of character and capacity which subsequently appear in
man's history are the forthcoming of the variations which were induced
in the Egos in other and long anterior periods of evolution upon other
chains of globes. These variations were so deeply impacted as to be
equivalent to inherent characteristics. For the races of this globe the
prior period of evolution was passed on the chain of globes of which our
Moon is the visible representative. 


EVOLUTION IN FORMS LOWER THAN THE HUMAN

As man (the Monad) came to this Globe from another Globe-chain, though
of course then a being of very great power before being completely
enmeshed in matter, so the lower kingdoms came likewise (as Monads of
lesser experience) in germ and type from the same earlier Globe-chain,
and carry on their evolution step by step upward by the aid of man, who
in all periods of manifestation, is at the front of the wave of life. 

The Egos (Monads) in these lower kingdoms could not finish their
evolution in the preceding Globe-chain before its dissolution, and
coming to this, they go forward age after age, gradually approaching
nearer the human stage. One day they too will become men, and act as the
advance guard and guide for other lower kingdoms of this or other
Globes. 

And in the coming from the former planet (Moon-chain) there are always
brought with the first and highest class of beings some forms of animal
life, some fruits and other products, as models or types for use here.
It will not be profitable to go into this here with particularity, for
being too far ahead of the time it would evoke only ridicule from some
and stupidity from others. But the general forms of the various kingdoms
being so brought over, we have next to consider how the differentiation
of animal and other lower species began and was carried on. 

[Extracts from OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY - W Q Judge ]

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

-----Original Message-----
From: alden_parent
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2003 12:09 PM
To: 
Subject: Darwinian questions



Good day to all,

Why haven't all those Darwinian sea creatures
become human after these millions of years?

Are we swimming and don't realize it, because
we are dumb sea creatures?

Was fish profiling part of the law of "Natural
Order" that Darwin spoke of?

Why didn't the ape & monkey make it all the way?
Did their genes form a union and go on strike?

Was the Alaskan salmon I ate last night
a distant relative?

Were Darwins' relatives blubber whales,
to match his blubber brain?

Could it be that all mankinds knowledge &
wisdom originated from a fish; but could
never have originated from God?

That's a pathetically "fishy" thought isn't it!

Is there a theosophical explaination without
having to flap your gills ?


Just having fun,

Alden