Theos-Talk Archives (December 2004 Message tt00186)

Dec 14 2004

RE: Yours of Dec 2nd, Love (and assistance )
are the LAWS of NATURE

Sorry delay in answering. Just returned from a week in hospital.

To be brief:

The whole pilgrimage of man as a "Life-Atom Of Individual Consciousness"
that NEVER DIES has to be grasped. This is the basis for BROTHERHOOD.  

Also the basis for the statement that the MONADS (and this means all the
beings in the entire Universe) are on this common "pilgrimage". 

Remember, our Science has already taken this as their basis: 

1	The "atom" is perpetually in motion.  

2	By its inherent properties it is of one kind of physical nature or
another, but that nature only changes if the basic inner nature and
composition of the "atom" is altered. Then Science says, you get a new
"substance." This is how alloys of metals are made, or how drugs and
chemicals are produced.  

3	This has also a direct bearing on Karma in humans, as our feelings,
desires, mind-thoughts and finally will, make those changes in our own moral
and also in our physical nature. This, in turn, gives rise to the concept
of the 

(1) Higher (Divine Individual) Nature and Mind, and 

(2) the Lower or selfish, personal and evil mind (and its actions).

3	It (the "atom"), is not "physical," but is entirely made up of
energies, and 

4	of intelligent, well-regulated and lawful forces.  

5	It is well to remember that NATURE, or (the Divine Universe as a
whole) has organized these matters for billions of years.  

Our Science is only re-discovering that which Nature (acting as DEITY which
is the ONE SPIRIT) has established.  

We may say here that this very intricate and cooperative process she had
installed, is always life-supporting for everyone.  

If by chance or choice anyone violates her laws she instantly takes note and
reacts to teach the interloper that this is wrong and harmful. There fore
in calling this vast self administering system KARMA we are only
acknowledging 

6	So, every being and every "form" is made up of billions of such
"life-atoms" all cooperating and working together to construct the forms we
are familiar with. Nature does this for us. We have to learn how this is
done, if we desire to intelligently progress. This need makes of each one
of us "Monads" immortals and the pilgrimage we are involved in is a very
long one, life after life.

7	Behind the physical, logically, there has to be an intelligent and
well coordinated electro-magnetic "form." 

8	On this energy-life form, the "atoms, molecules, etc.," arrange
themselves to form the energic basis for the physical structures (and the
processes of life - breathing, blood circulation, muscular control through
nerve impulse, brain as coordinator for the body, eating and excretion,
etc.) we are familiar with: -- organs, veins, arteries, nerves, heart,
brain, bones, muscles, etc.

The human body, as an example, is a marvelous organism, and it is a good
analogy as it illustrates the forces and properties of a small "universe"
alive and always corresponding to, and interacting in itself and with others
-- like the GREAT UNIVERSE which is outside of it. 

9	This may seem to be difficult to grasp. But it is a fact, and it
works in the MORAL as well as the physical world. 

The "moral" world is the one in which we choose our thoughts, feelings, and
acts. It is here and now, that we are all struggling to understand our
ATTITUDE towards others -- whether they be humans of other beings,

There is always a broad division between friendship, cooperation and
brotherhood and the opposite, which is selfishness and isolationist. 

This has to be taken as a basis for understanding the difference between
virtue and vice, and thus, the difference between the Higher and Lower Mind.
That is, between Mind-MANAS united to BUDDHI - or the wisdom-Mind, or MANAS
united to Kama - or the thousands of unbridled desires -- and make up our
ordinary embodied mind which is mainly FOLLY. As such it "dies" with the
dissolution of the body, only the good and the virtuous impulses and deeds
survive as part of the REAL, PERMANENT IMMORTAL MAN.). 

In the human sphere we have to learn to control the unregulated desires, and
live a regulated spiritual life.  

If anyone desires to test this proposition they need only try to mentally
develop any one of their desires to the utmost. See if it can survive
ALONE, in a universe that becomes (under KARMA) non-cooperative and
obstructs it. 

Let us realize that the cooperative and interactive will of the UNIVERSE is
always active to support us and all other beings. It is we, who cause by
our selfishness, all the evils and pains that beset us with suffering. But
they are not responsible for that. We are. And if we suffer from some
others' acting , it is our own Karma returning to us.  

The evil we may do, is always purged, adjusted and mitigated under Karma
through successive lives. The process is always painful as we are made to
suffer the same situations we may have caused to others to endure unfairly. 

The whole point of decision is the morality of our choices. If it is fair
and just and helpful, we can say "good Karma" is performed. If it is
selfish and careless of the rights and privileges of others (un-brotherly)
it is "bad Karma," and eventually, we suffer. 

There is no separateness between us and "others." If GOD is universal, then
IT has decreed that other religions and peoples have as much right to live
peacefully as we do. No man, or priest has the right to say otherwise,
because that would make GOD less than universal, and less than honest and
fair.

Many people have been taught, that prayers for forgiveness may seemingly be
answered (or not, = as GOD wills). But consider that if GOD is just, and
the UNIVERSE is TRUE and fair to all, IT cannot favor us, and neglect those
whom we have wronged. 

Whenever we do evil or harm, we know it is so. (Otherwise, why should we
ask for forgiveness? Why should we ask GOD to shield us from the evil
consequences that we already know will come back to us? Why do we ask GOD
to be unfair and unjust to others (and also to ourselves) ? Why do we not
make restitution to those we have harmed? ) 

The WILL (also the power to IMAGINE) is a colorless force directed by the
MIND. Mind is influenced by selfish desires (KAMA) or by altruism and
nobility. We, the immortal, Divine MONAD (HIGHER MIND) are the Chooser and
our progress goes up or down the ladder of progress according to our moral
choices. 

That is the basis for THEOSOPHICAL philosophy and doctrines, and it will be
found to be a true and universal basis logically for all such questions.  

Please see Notes below.

Dal

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Dallas
 
-----Original Message-----
From: cassilva48
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 8:51 PM
To: 
Subject: [bn-study] RE: Love

Dear Dallas
Thanks again for your help. Could you please clarify that what I have
said is in agreement with your understanding?

C
LOWER IMAGINATION: By this I meant Fancy
The mind (working through lower manas) will construct an image
(subjective) as if it were a tangible thing. Imagination connected with
fancy or desire. The desire and the image and the mind are all mixed
together, and the result, instead of being a training of the image making
power, is to bring on a decay of that power and results only in a
continual flying to the image of the thing desired.
DTB: “Imagination. In Occultism this is not to be confused with fancy.
 
C
HIGHER IMAGINATION: Imagination under control of the will (working through
Higher Manas) has to be able to make a picture of anything at any time,
And if this power has not been trained the possession of other sorts of
knowledge will not enable one to perform certain classes of occult
phenomenon.
( DTB It does so in obedience to an irresistible force - the Will: Will
in accordance with divine law. It is concrete going and returning in
obedience to this force, bringing little with it from intermediate spheres
other than that for which it is seeking.)
 
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DTB	Moral condition of desire and use of consequent will-power
determines either the (1) Lower (selfish and untrue, vicious) or (2) Higher
(generous and true, virtuous) use of imagination.

FANCY is a desire that is speculative, selfish, usually
entertaining, time-wasting and unreal. Hence pertains to the Lower.

IMAGINATION is colorless and may be used by Higher (virtuous) or
Lower (vicious) MIND -- and be motivated by vice or virtue. The results
(Karma) will be either good for many, or harmful for many and/or for few;
but in this last case, they will always be harmful to the individual who
generates them with a vicious or selfish objective.. 

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C: I believed this to be the method, although I could have misinterpreted
it. The imagination (Higher imagination under control of Higher Manas) makes
a picture of each word (or thing) of each letter of every line in every
letter and having made that picture it is held there by the will and the
imagination acting together for such a length of time as is needed to
permit the carbons or other substances to be strained down
through this matrix and appear in another location. Sending messages by
words which the receiver is to hear is done by making an image of the
person who is the recipient is to be made and held in place - you have to
become a camera.

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DTB	This method of precipitation can be used by either Higher
or Lower MIND and DESIRE. Motive determines all effects, and Karma.

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Unless the man's thought and motive are pure, he is incapable of using the
true will, 

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DTB	NO -- "Will" is colorless. It is the MOTIVE that
determines the Karma. (see above) . One has to know KARMA in full to make
will-actions pure and generous for all. Without such divine knowledge and
pure motive all will-actions are selfish and faulty.

The practice of BROTHERHOOD is enjoined by THEOSOPHY for this reason.

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C: and therefore incapable of direct contact with Higher Imagination?
 
KARMA: Karma is not a doctrine of an eye for an eye. It is a doctrine of
learning. If you think, act, or desire harm or happiness towards others,
it is returned to you. If you harm someone, then to understand the harm
you caused you need to experience it for yourself. In that way you, are
knowledgeable, and if you are open and accepting of it – by not
regenerating or retaliating against it, and don’t want to feel that pain
again, you will learn from the experience and the karma is harmonized
between cause and effect.

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DTB	It is so foolish to deliberately do wrong things, knowing
that eventually we will have to be the sufferers. Further, our Higher Self
through the Voice of Conscience (Buddhi-Manas) warns us -- DO WE LISTEN ?

But as reincarnation is rarely taken into account (by the foolish Lower
Mind) , many think they can hide their wrong-doing and reap stealthy,
ill-gotten profits from deceits of all kinds.

Everything revolves around the matter of our decisions - it is the
MORAL FACTOR.

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DTB: There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither
punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides
unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain
effects
along the grooves of their respective causations. 

When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which
alone survives death and continues in transmigration" or, reincarnation, it
simply means that there remains nought after each Personality but the causes
produced by it; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated
from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out
by them, so to speak, and such causes—unless compensated during the life of
the person who
produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnating Ego, and
reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects
and causes is fully reestablished. 

C
Yes if we are energy, is it SUCH A LEAP OF FAITH, to think that our mental
thoughts are made up of energy, and if you can accept that, then you
should be able to accept that like attracts like, and if you have a
thought that corresponds with the thinking of others in the universe, wont
that
energy attract itself to like. If you don't have a corresponding attitude
then
the thought will not be attracted to you.  

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DTB	LEAP OF FAITH ? The whole of our Science is based on
energy. From the most minute of energies, to the electron, to the ion, to
the atom, molecule, cell, etc., -- everything is electricity and
magnetism, always, and ever in perpetual motion. No "leap of faith" =
FACT.

To recognize KARMA and Nature's exactitude is for us an effort.
But then logic demands exactly that, as the UNIVERSE continues, as it always
has in the past. 

It is the false idea of "forgiveness" that has blurred
understanding. Of universal LAW.  

Nature (GOD) has no power to "forgive." It ADJUSTS, and moves on
constructively.

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C
By this I meant that not only every action we do but every thought we have
generates, firstly, a thought form, ( a cause) and every thought has an
(an effect) Karma. I was specifically referring to “copy cat” events
that occur in the world. If an (evil) act is produced this act is always
preceded by an (evil) thought, this thought then manifests itself in the
mental plane and attaches itself to people of like thought and reinforces
them to again, commit (evil) acts upon others. Likewise if you have a
pure humanitarian act (Live Aid concert, eg. )Then this pure thought form
attaches itself to thinkers of the same ilk, and a corresponding good
effect occurs.

DTB: KARMA IS UNIVERSAL LAW – it is Brotherhood in action everywhere. All
beings are subject to Karma. It provides life and environment to all. It is
universally sensitive and adjusts all wrongs. 

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DTB	"Though Form" is another word for an "idea," or a "fancy,"
or a "desire" -- but have we developed the power to frame these fully and
accuracy and without careless faults? 

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C
There are many reasons, as they are equally involved (as immortal monads)
In evolution. Our own body is an "animal." It is informed by a "god-like
consciousness" in potential. We share our monads with the animals and thus
our Karma affects them. The great gap between us is the nature of the
MIND. They are still to acquire it. 


C
KARMA OF ANIMALS

"Animals have Karma, or consequence of act, but they have not man's
responsibility. While they seem to suffer and enjoy, it is all without any
self-consciousness, and hence is less in itself and less lasting in
effect. Their karma is bound up with man; and he is the responsible one and
will
have to bear the responsibility, although they feel the burden directly."
WQJ Art II 566 


"...the effect of Karma upon the animals...(15) the whole of creation
waits upon man and groans that he keeps back the enlightenment of all. What
happens when...you crush out the life of a common croton bug ? Well, it is
destroyed and you forget it. But you brought it to an untimely end, short
though its life would have been. Imagine this being done at hundreds and
thousands of places...Each of these little creatures had life, and energy;
each some degree of intelligence, The sum total of effects of all these
deaths of small things must be appreciable. If not, then our doctrines are
wrong and there is no wrong in putting our the life of a human being ...
[animals] killed for sport..." WQJ Art I 14-5


"The brutes unconsciously are aware of the general human opposition, which
in each human being they see focalized." WQJ Letters 87.  

C: I do not understand this concept, if they are unconsciously aware?, if
they are unconscious of it how are they aware of it?

C: I also do not understand how my karma can affect my animals?

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DTB	The feeling is an electro-magnetic effect. It works on the
life-atoms, molecules, etc...

Karma (including ours as humans) envelops and includes all beings including
animals. Anything we may affect becomes attached by karmic links to us.
Nothing is excluded.

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C
The intellectual potentialities of the two differ as the Sun does from the
Glow-worm ? And what is it that creates such a difference, unless man is
An animal plus a living god within his physical shell ?"

"...(the) animal soul (Nephesh of the Hebrew Kabalist)...the ray which
emanates from the Higher Manas or permanent EGO, and is that "principle"
which forms the human mind--in animals instinct." Trans. 59

"...man has one "principle" more than the tiniest insect, but because man
is a perfected animal, the vehicle of a fully developed monad,
self-conscious
and deliberately following its own line of progress, whereas in the
insect, and even the higher animal, the higher triad of principles is
absolutely
dormant." Trans. 14-15

The rudiments of hope, patience, faith, fidelity, confidence, etc., are
found in the animal kingdom." -- HPB Theosophist 5- p. 223 


C
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANIMALS AND MEN

"The difference between animals and men is this: the former are ensouled
by the "principles" potentially, the latter actually." Key 104.

C: So, as we are gods in the becoming, animals are men in the becoming and
then gods in the becoming?

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DTB	Correct. The immortal "life-atom" or MONAD passes through
those various stages of evolution one after the other.

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C
MAN'S FORM IS AN ANIMAL

the "Ego-Sum," necessitates self-consciousness, and an animal can only
have direct consciousness, or instinct.

C: I find it interesting that HPB refers to direct consciousness in
animals as instinct. She also commented that the reason why whales and
dolphins beach themselves is because instinctively they are returning to
what was once submerged. The dolphins remember when the earth was in a
different shape and what is now land was then sea.

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DTB	I am not quite sure about that. Do you have an exact
reference? Certainly the dolphins and whales have a higher kind of
intelligence than fishes, but they are still a part of the animal kingdom.

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C
"The soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethereo-substantial
envelope, could die, and man be still living on earth--i.e., the soul
could free itself from and quit the tabernacle for various reasons--such as
insanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc."

C: Again, very interesting, as HPB is saying that there are soul-less men
who walk the earth, which can explain the evil administered by them.

LIGHTING UP OF THE MANAS (MIND)

It is only at the (255) mid-point of the 3rd Root-Race that man was
endowed with Manas. (18,000,000 years ago). Once united the two and then
the three made one; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba to man,
received their monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential,
all have to remain dormant till each reaches its human form,
before which stage manas (mind) has no development in them. In the animals
every principle is paralyzed, and in a fetus-like state, save the 2nd
(vital) and the 3rd (the astral), and the rudiments of the 4th (Kama,
which is desire, instinct) whose intensity and development varies and
changes
with the species." S D II 254-5

PHYSICAL MAN

But for the real SELF, that which emanated its own shadow, or the lower
thinking personality, that enacted and pulled the wires during the life of
the physical automaton, will have to suffer conjointly with its factotum
and alter ego in the next incarnation." Trans. 67.

C: By this, I take it HPB means by way of our SKANDAS.

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DTB	The Skandhas are defined below:


"SKANDHA (Sk.). Lit., “bundles”, or groups of attributes; everything
finite, inapplicable to the eternal and the absolute. There are
five—esoterically, seven—attributes in every human living being, which are
known as the Pancha Skandhas. 

These are 
(1) form, rűpa; 
(2) perception, vidâna;
(3) consciousness, sanjnâ; 
(4) action, sanskâra; 
(5) knowledge, vidyâna. 

These unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After the
maturity of these Skandhas, they begin to separate and weaken, and this is
followed by jarâ-marana, or decrepitude and death." T Glos. Pp. 301-2



"SAMSKÂRA (Sk.). Lit., from Sam and Krî, to improve, refine, impress. In
Hindu philosophy the term is used to denote the impressions left upon the
mind by individual actions or external circumstances, and capable of being
developed on any future favourable occasion—even in a future birth. 

The Samskâra denotes, therefore, the germs of propensities and impulses from
previous births to be developed in this, or the coming janmâs or
reincarnations...

It is, strictly speaking, a metaphysical term, which in exoteric
philosophies is variously defined; e.g., in Nepaul as illusion, in Tibet as
notion, and in Ceylon as discrimination. The true meaning is as given above,
and as such is connected with karma and its working. "	T Glos. pp.
288-9

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C: Do animals feel pain?    	

YES. All beings feel pain. But not necessarily as we who have MINDS feel
it. 
 
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C
Isis P 263, “Plants and vegetation reveal a multitude of forms because of
their precedent actions’ they are surrounded by darkness, but are
nevertheless endowed with an interior soul, and feel equally pleasure and
pain” (Manu, book i).

C: The reason I enquired about Animals and Karma, is that I lost my 15
year old lab and my 3 month old Chihuahua to poison. They suffered with
convulsions and (what I think were hallucinations) for many hours, and
finally I had them put to sleep to relieve their pain (neither would have
survived the medications to revive them.) I believe, they knew what was
happening to them but didn’t understand why. I also couldn’t understand
why these two innocent souls who never harmed anyone or anything would
have to die in such a way.

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DTB READ THIS PLEASE


Reincarnation of MIND (EGO) in animal bodies ?

Briefly:

It is impossible in the progressive stream of evolution for the MIND
(EGO) , the ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS (or MONAD) of man, to retrogress and
reincarnate into an animal body that is not designed to contain a MIND
and provide adequate support for such an entity as MIND is.

So where does the idea arise?

It lies in the ancient teaching about the transfer of life-atoms (skandhas,
samskaras) that goes on perpetually in all of nature.  

In other words, the atoms and molecules we receive from food, air,
water, and contact with others are temporarily used in our physical
bodies and then, when that use is over, they are passed on, and some of
those go into the animal forms, others to the plants, and still others
to air, water, etc... 

There is an old aphorism: Once a Man, always a man.

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

	


REINCARNATION OF ANIMALS

VERY little has been said on the question whether or not the theory of
Reincarnation applies to animals in the same way as to man. 

Doubtless, if Brahman members well acquainted with Sanscrit works on the
general subject were to publish their views, we should at least have a
large mass of material for thought and find many clues to the matter in
the Hindu theories and allegories. Even Hindu folk-lore would suggest
much. 

Under all popular "superstitions" a large element of truth can be found
hidden away when the vulgar notion is examined in the light of the
Wisdom-Religion. ... In the same way the folk-lore of such an ancient
people as the Hindu deserves scrutiny with the object of discovering the
buried truth. If they are possessed of such notions regarding the fate
of animals, careful analysis might give valuable suggestion.

Looking at the question in the light of Theosophical theories, we see that a
wide distinction exists between man and animals. 

Man reincarnates as man because he has got to the top of the present
scale of evolution. He cannot go back, for Manas is too much developed.
He has a Devachan because he is a conscious thinker. 

Animals cannot have Manas so much developed, and so cannot be
self-conscious in the sense that man is. Besides all this, the animal
kingdom, being lower, has the impulse still to rise to higher forms. But
here we have the distinct statement by the Adepts through H.P.B. that
while possibly animals may rise higher in their own kingdom, they cannot
in this evolution rise to the human stage, as we have reached the middle
or turning-point in the fourth round.

On this point H.P.B. has, in the second volume of the SECRET DOCTRINE
(Vol., II.) p. 196, a foot note as follows:

"In calling the animals "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast, from
the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul," but only of a
conscious surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which survives after
a man and reincarnates in a like man.".

The animal has an astral body that survives the physical form for a
short period; but its (animal) Monad does not reincarnate in the same,
but in a higher species, and has no "Devachan" of course. It has the
seeds of all the human principles in itself, but they are latent
.
Here the distinction above adverted to is made. It is due to the
Ego-Soul, that is, to Manas with Buddhi and Atma. Those principles being
latent in the animal, and the door to the human kingdom being closed,
they may rise to higher species but not to the man stage. Of course also
it is not meant that no dog or other animal ever reincarnates as dog,
but that the monad has tendency to rise to a higher species, whatever
that be, whenever it has passed beyond the necessity for further
experience as "dog." Under the position the author assumes it would be
natural to suppose that the astral form of the animal did not last long,
as she says, and hence that astral appearances or apparitions of animals
were not common. Such is the fact. I have heard of a few, but very few,
cases where a favorite animal made an apparitional appearance after
death, but even the prolific field of spiritualism has not many
instances of the kind. And those who have learned about the astral world
know that human beings assume in that world the form of animal or other
things which they in character most resemble, and that this sort of
apparition is not confined to the dead but is more common among the
living. It is by such signs that clairvoyants know the very life and
thought of the person before them. It was under the operation of this
law that Swedenborg saw so many curious things in his time.

The objection based on the immense number of animals both alive and dead
as calling for a supply of monads in that stage can be met in this way.
While it is stated that no more animal monads can enter on the
man-stage, it is not said nor inferred that the incoming supply of
monads for the animal kingdom has stopped. They may still be coming in
from other worlds for evolution among the animals of this globe. There
is nothing impossible in it, and it will supply the answer to the
question, Where do the new animal monads come from, supposing that all
the present ones have exhausted the whole number of higher species
possible here? It is quite possible also that the animal monads may be
carried on to other members of the earth-chain in advance of man for the
purpose of necessary development, and this would lessen the number of
their appearances here. 

For what keeps man here so long is that the power of his thought is so
great as to make a Devachan for all lasting some fifteen centuries--with
exceptions-- and for a number who desire "heaven" a Devachan of enormous
length. 

The animals, however, being devoid of developed Manas, have no Devachan
and must be forced onwards to the next planet in the chain. This would
be consistent and useful, as it gives them a chance for development in
readiness for the time when the monads of that kingdom shall begin to
rise to a new human kingdom. They will have lost nothing, but, on the
contrary, will be the gainers.

William Brehon	PATH, April, 1894

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