Cosmic Evolution Anthropogenesis INTRODUCTION Notes of a class given by Manly P. Hall Believing that we show the greatest appreciation to those who labor with us and for us when we assist them to accomplish that work which they desire to do, we feel that we best serve our Beloved Teacher Helena Petrovna Blavatsky when we carry to the greatest number of people the message which was her life work. Her monument among men is the labor which she accomplished for men. Surrounded by selfish and misunderstanding persons who hindered her at every step, she gave to the world two great books, THE SECRET DOCTRINE and ISIS UNVEILED. Through the pages of these she taught the world those things which had been given to her as her great work and great responsibility. Today the disciples of Madame Blavatsky are not true either to her or the ideals which she sought to give them. As they wrangled during her life, so they wrangle now that she is dead. They cast lots for her garments and spend entirely too much time deciding as to which among them is the holiest and entirely too little time studying, living and promulgating the magnificent storehouse of wisdom which lies open to their hand. It is not the question of who does the work that is most important; it is the great question, Is the work done? Hundreds of thousands of people need the light which THE SECRET DOCTRINE is capable of giving them. Wisdom is not the property of any person, for those things which man must have in order to survive belong first and by right to man. The sin of omission is as great as the sin of commission, and every moment wasted in wrangle is a moment wasted to opportunity. Heavy and terrible is the debt which man incurs when he fails to do the work that is at his hands. All the world should read THE STANZAS OF DZYAN, for they are the most remarkable history of life that is in existence. It is in the service of Madame Blavatsky that we have prepared this manuscript for you, offering with the Stanzas a Simple Commentary, fragmentary and incomplete but possibly a slight help in their understanding. The Stanzas are taken verbatim from THE SECRET DOCTRINE, as written by H. P. Blavatsky. She secured them while studying in Tibet. They are probably the oldest Sacred Book in the world and have been the property of the race since the dawn of time. We sincerely hope that you will gain benefit from them and learn to understand, by a perusal of them, some of the great mysteries of Nature which are concealed therein. Nothing can speak as well for Madame Blavatsky as her own work, and in the presence of it let all remain silent. We have tried to secure copies of the Stanzas in large enough number to meet our need, and it is only because of the fact we have been unable to do so that we have mimeographed them for our students. They accompany Part II of our SECRET DOCTRINE CLASS. This class is our simple way of expressing the respect and admiration we feel for the woman and her work. Like the Ancient Wisdom itself, we are presenting this class in a non-sectarian way for the good of those it may help. All true students should be glad to have the work of this great mind given to as many as possible. Those who are not show a spirit unworthy of consideration. Original stanzas and verses are numbered; indented text is commentary by Manly P. Hall. In Seven Stanzas translated from the Book of Dzyan. STANZA I.
The Eternal Parent is the Absolute, the one cause of the endless diversity. Her ever invisible robes are Space, the ultimate extension of substance in every direction. Space is the substance from which all corporeal bodies are made. It is the common denominator of all form. This substance is gathered together periodically to serve as a vehicle for the manifestation of life. When this life is withdrawn or ceases to directionalize its energies, the form then returns again to its primitive essence, Space. The Seven Eternities are periods of mental differentiation in order that students may comprehend the fact that, as it requires seven so-called days to outbreathe a universe, the law of periodicity requires that the inhaling or drawing in of a universe to its abstract source is accomplished in seven hypothetical periods, called here eternities of time. As man's concept of time is merely a measurement of events based upon the periodicity of some natural function (such as the motion of the sun), and is merely used as a method of establishing sequential relationship between incidents, it cannot survive the destruction of its environment. Remove comparative things and you remove all standards which exist in the physical world. Time is merely a concept of eternity, created by a temporal condition. Remove the condition and you remove the products of it. When you remove manifestation and return the manifesting elements to their bare state of existence, you not only remove material function but you remove even consciousness itself. Therefore it is said, "The Absolute knows itself only through its not-self or reflection." Remove the mental world of Nature and you remove thought. Remove the astral world of Nature and you remove feeling. Remove the physical world of Nature and you eliminate all bodies and forms. The mind has a body as well as any other part of the system. Remove the mental body of the universal God, and universal mind ceases to function. Remove the entire septenary chain of bodies, and all manifestation ceases in Nature except the one indestructible function of bare existence. This does not mean that universal mind is dissolved. The mind itself does not change in any way, but for lack of a body it remains in abscondito, present but without function. In the same way, you do not kill a man because you destroy his body, but he vanishes from those environments with which the body was a link. The seven ways of bliss are the Paths of Attainment. When there is nothing to attain, there is no need of method. The great causes of misery, all of which are artificial and the result of inharmonious adjustment between things, cease to function when there are no things to create these maladjustments. Therefore all the reactions of pain and pleasure cease when the friction of the striving atoms, be they physical, mental or spiritual, no longer cause suffering or make use of methods to escape that suffering. Darkness is the natural condition; it is light not manifesting. All manifestation is artificial. The eternal darkness is real. The Father, Mother and Son are the three spirits that are the cause of the three great worlds of manifestation, namely, the spiritual, the material and the intellectual. The wheel is the universal chain revolving around its great central axis. It is symbolic of the circle of creation upon which the gods walked during the days of manifestation and from which they retire when the night descends. The seven sublime Lords in this solar system are the spirits of the planets, and the seven Truths are the seven great lights to which they bear witness. The Son of Necessity is the physical, material universe created so that you and I and other living creatures might gradually unfold into dynamic powers the latent qualities which can only be fully developed under such environments as those with which we labor. It is said that all this visible universe had ceased to be. It was absorbed into the great Deep, there to remain until the immutable laws of Nature ordered it to come forth again and wander through that great period of time which we call existence. The causes of existence are the centers of spiritual force which descend from the Ark, as in the story of Noah. At the end of a day of manifestation these lives are withdrawn into that vale which lies above the world of men. When these centers of power are withdrawn, the atoms which composed the bodies through which those lives functioned, no longer having a central cohesive power, disintegrated or separated and returned to their basic formations, the effect being that worlds and stars vanished gradually in space. At a certain time even the great Above, or the inner universe as it is called, also dissolves; and everything rests or exists in its most primitive state, consciousness in sleep regaining its lost position as part of the functioning body of the Absolute, and form re-absorbed into space, which is the negative pole of the all-pervading consciousness. The Absolute in its abstract sense and Space in its abstract sense are absorbed into each other, becoming the one form of existence. The endless ebb and flow of infinite being was the one and only manifestation of life. Universal space enfolded the sleeping multitudes that had but a short time before lived and moved in temporary formations composed of these infinite ingredients. The all-seeing eye of the Absolute, the unmeasurable and the unformed—eye being merely in this case a symbolic figure of speech used to express the infinite sense of itself which the All-Pervading manifested in the night of the gods—is called the opened eye of the Dangma. This is in the form of a question, for it asks where the Eternal was when His body was absorbed in space; when his universe was without form and the great circle of his manifestation was resolved back again into the perfect homogeneity. The mystic would answer, He is unchanged, for when all things are removed He remains. Men sleep, gods sleep, universes sleep; but in sleeping and in waking He remains unchanged.
This is also a question, for it asks where were the spirits of the dawn, the luminous creatures who build worlds and universes. And it answers, They are returned again to their formless bodies. They are asleep with the wheels upon which they work. The Great Intelligence, who is the root of the worlds, the gods and goddesses, the planes of Nature, the saints and sinners, have all returned again to the great sleep where they rest awaiting the voice of the Builder to call them back to the labor of existing. All opposites are absorbed in the Infinite. In illustrating this, the ancient Tibetans used sound and silence, one of which cannot exist without the other. They explain that all of these things have passed away and nothing remains except the great vibratory rate of the Absolute itself, which is called here the Eternal Breath, which knows itself not for the Absolute only knows Himself when He sees His powers reflected from the surface of the not-self. The time predestined by the laws immutable for the re-awaking of the worlds had not come. The great spiritual spark which touches the slumbering germ had not yet impregnated the world seed. The Mother Lotus, growing in the waters of eternity, had not yet opened its petals. Space had not yet felt the urge of the Absolute to enter again the artificial state of becoming. Space, the Great Mother, was not ready for the ray to enter. Three is symbolical of spirit. Four is symbolical of matter. The ray had not as yet fallen or descended as the Three into the Four. Maya is the world illusion, the substance from which the dream of creation is made. The seven planetary Lords or their celestial archetypes were not yet born from the twisting, swirling nebula impregnated with the thousands of criss-crossing threads of light, for the darkness was still the androgynous parent containing within itself the man child who was to redeem the world. The spirit and its workers were in darkness, and darkness was supreme. The Father and Mother are the root of the world, and the root is now one, for until the creation of the worlds of form all things are one. Confusion is born of difference. Creation is the confusion of the atoms. Order is born of unity, and in dissolution unity is established. The universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought (the Absolute) and the Divine Bosom (Space).
The end of the great rest comes. The law of periodicity demands that the night of sleep shall give place to the day of waking. The world spirit is to come into incarnation and assume one after another the world bodies. The world granule swells like a seed in the ground, expanding from the within outward. We know that all growth takes place as an expansion. Evolution is really expansion outward over the area of the not-self. The eternal granule floating in the sea of space feels the thrill and hears the call of the thing that has been done before, and following the habit of eternity begins the process of creating a world. Creation, according to the occult theory, is not spontaneous or miraculous, but is rather periodic, taking place thousands of times, so that the birth of a world is merely one appearance of a chain of things that have been born and have died a million times and will be born and die a million times again. The radiant spirit of the dawn of life sweeps over the sleeping granule and impregnates the surrounding area of space with its light and power. The millions of tiny germs of life that have been sleeping feel the thrill of the spiritual ray and, awaking from their unconsciousness, begin the process of re-establishing the Kosmos. The light is born out of the darkness, for the darkness is the Absolute and light is the Son of the Absolute that bears witness unto its Father before all men and all worlds. The Mother is Space, the World Virgin; and the Sons of God, the rays of light, move Space, as is said in the Book of Genesis where it states: "And the spirits of God moved the face of the waters." This is the occult interpretation, which alone brings order out of chaos in the old Jewish cosmogony myths. This ray of light striking the life germ causes it to open, as in the case of the seed of any plant, and from the eternal germ, which is permanent, descends the non-eternal germ, which is impermanent. This germ descends into space, which is the world substance, and there begins the process of building the world egg, which it makes by impregnating and fructifying the granules of space. The three germs which represent the eternal life principle of the world intelligence descend into the Four, which is the body of space. Vitalized and empowered by its spiritual origin, the germ radiates light and life, and its radiations become the worlds. It becomes seven planes from the surface outward, and seven bodies from the surface inward. This luminous egg germ is called Three, for it contains the world spirit, the world soul and the world body. It curdles the surface of space for in moving the Deep it begins the process of forming physical bodies such as we see here; but first they are gassy and nebulous. These curds spread through that area of space which is set aside for this particular scheme of manifestation. Later these curds become the bodies of the planets, the atmosphere, and all the manifesting elements of the sidereal universe. In the next verse it explains that while all of these differentiations are taking place the compound Lord, whose name is made up of many sounds (Oeaohoo), remains one. He is not divided. Differentiation is taking place within him. He is neither greater nor lesser as the result of it. The impregnating germ had sent its rays into the many worlds, and its rays were gathering a universe together. It had turned the darkness of rest into the flame of unrest and friction, and the eternal darkness had become fire, heat and motion, which is interpreted to mean that it had become spirit (fire), soul (heat) and body (motion). Darkness had been absorbed by the light, for light and darkness are one substance. The fire above was the Great Father. The water and darkness below was the Great Mother. These two had united and given birth to the child, Creation. Here it says, "Behold, oh student, the radiant child, the universe born out of the invisible Father and Mother." He is called Bright Space (nebula), Son of the Dark Space (the great void). He emerges from the deep waters of uncreation. He is Oeaohoo the younger (the lesser universe made in the image of the greater). The blazing dragon in this case is the swirling fire mist. Out of the One comes the multitudes by the uniting of spirit and substance in its various combinations. The veil which is lifted is separateness, for crystallization gradually separates the Above from the Below. The Above becomes the Great Reality, for it is the spiritual world; while the Below, or Nature, is the Great Shadow. The sea of fire is the glory and radiance of the invisible planes, while the Great Waters are the forms through which the fire manifests, for as the alchemists have well taught, man is a fire burning in the waters. The question is here asked as to what has become of the germ and the darkness, and the student is asked where the spirit is which manifests as the flame burning in his lamp. The student is expected to understand that the germ and the spirit are unchanged, that the germ is everywhere and the spirit is everywhere. The germ is as it always was, but the glory of its manifestations had destroyed the light, for the germ is the cause of the light, the spirit is the cause of the flame, for all life, all consciousness and all manifestation bear witness to the invisible spiritual thing which gave birth to it. In this verse some information is given concerning the universe and its formation, based upon ancient occult chemistry. Fire is invisible. It is neither hot nor cold, light or dark. Light bears witness of it. Flame bears witness of it. Heat bears witness of it. It is the sum of all these, and yet none of them. Heat striking the cold darkness of chaos produces moisture or humidity, and from this humidity by crystallization is created the earth. Around the earth as veils the humidity remains—that part which does not crystallize entirely becoming the atmosphere. Spirit and substance, as Father and Mother, spin a web (create a body—See Spindle in Embryology). One end of it is attached to the spirit; we call it the consciousness and the higher mind. The other end is fastened to the shadow world, substance; we call it the animal world and dense physical chemical matter. It is said that this web is the universe, composed of one substance that has placed itself against itself and become two. As the spark that exists between the positive and the negative pole of an electric circuit, so manifestation is a spark born in space between the Shining Father (the positive pole) and the Dark Mother (the negative pole). This substance expands or radiates when the great light is turned upon it, for it absorbs this light into itself and then pours it out from the center over its area. It contracts and crystallizes, becoming death-like, when the cold darkness (referred to as the Great Mother) envelopes it. It then states that the luminous suns (the great lights), who up to this time have been in conscious unity, disassociate and scatter. By this it is meant that they enter into the form world, or the Great Illusion. When they have done this, they cease to recognize each other and to realize the cause world from which they came. They enter into the concept of separateness, where they must remain until the dissolving of the universe at the end of the day of manifestation returns them again to the great all by liberating them from the sheaths of substance. The spirits then begin to mold the creation, passing the radiant light mist through their own bodies in the form of the great figure Eight, which is the symbol of regeneration. They then become the planetary bodies, who do in a smaller way what the great light accomplished first. They embrace the infinitude and send infinitude into the darkness by impressing the atoms with the consciousness of the finite. Then the Lord of the entire scheme (the concrete expression of the Absolute), Svabhavat, sends Fohat (the Lord of Form) to crystallize the atoms. He is the third Logos, or rather a manifestation of the third Logos. Each of these groups of atoms reflects the self-existent Lord, Svabhavat, and as they crystallize to form the world each of them crystallizes into the image of their Creator. So are planets, men and gods made, each in a different proportion but all according to one law.
The Sons of the Earth are those who reach mental individualization during the present earth change, while the Sons of the Fire reached their individualization in the mental world. They are the superior illuminating qualities and powers who express themselves in man through sense and mind centers within his own bodies. The statement that there is neither first nor last is used to remind the student that everything in the universe is an embodiment of the abstract, incomprehensible Absolute; and in eternity all things are equal, while in time, differentiation has established the system of relative comparisons greater and lesser, larger and smaller. All similar standards of comparison exist only in those planes of Nature where matter, in one of its many forms, has obscured the consciousness and rendered the Ego incapable of self-analysis. All things came from nothing, and to nothing they return; for to the occultist nothing is the sum of all things. Wisdom is not evolved within any part of creation as we know it; it descends from the unknown causal worlds. The gods learned it from their fathers, and men learn it from the gods. Wisdom is part of the consciousness of the primordial One, who brings it with him out of no-thing. Wisdom, like life itself, is without beginning and without end. When men unfold their minds, they become philosophers, for wisdom is incarnated into the mental environment prepared to receive it. The minds come and go, but wisdom is permanent, unmoved. The power to think is ever present, thought is ever present; but only those who have evolved their mental organisms to a certain degree are capable of receiving the impulses from the ever-existing thought world. As the universe begins its descent downward into the form worlds it assumes ever denser and more crystallized bodies. It awakens in its passage downward, or as occultists would say outward, hierarchy after hierarchy of celestial beings who have remained unconscious and insensible, but ever present, until Nature formed environments for their manifestation. At last it reaches that stage of crystallization which we know as the visible universe. In the environment thus formed are evolving a multitude of creatures who remained out of manifestation until they were awakened by the new world formed to receive them. In this way the created worlds, which first existed as thought forms in space peopled with hierarchies of mind-born sons, became dense chemical globes inhabited by spirits functioning through dense physical bodies. As the animals poured from the Ark when the waters subsided, so the great Shadow World (physical universe) was peopled with creatures who, while themselves sons of the Reality, descended into the Illusion, assumed bodies formed of the Illusion, and animated these bodies within and without with their own consciousness. These messengers are the individualized manifestation of the Holy Four, namely, the unformed Lord himself and His three witnesses. These sacred sparks, born out of the Great Reality, have become the multitude of lives evolving around us. They were formless and belonged to the Arupa worlds, but they have become creatures of form. These Rupa bodies have gradually been molded by their environments. At the present time these bodies are those most suitable for the growth and unfoldment of the Divine Germ imprisoned within their atoms. The servants of the third Logos are called the army of the Voice. The first Logos is the Eye of the Infinite. The Nostrils are symbolical of the second Logos, while the Mouth is the third Logos. From this Mouth comes forth the army of the Voice. The vowel sounds formed by the Great Mouth are the sacred Seven. The Voice speaks forth its army, and the rates of vibration surge through infinity. The sparks and atoms dance and thrill in space, animated and vivified by the sacred Seven which as sounds issues from the Divine Mouth. The spheres, triangles, cubes and lines spoken of refer to the atoms of which the Seven Worlds are composed. The base substance of each of the Great World planes is composed of geometrically shaped granules. These differ in shape according to the plane to which they belong. The army of the Voice, under the control of the Seven Great Lords, molds these geometric granules into orderly strata to be later used as bodies for the World Spirit coming into incarnation. Nidana is the thread of life which fastens the universe together. It is the invisible thread of life along which crystallization takes place. The three Great Steps are established: first, Adi-Sanat, the One, who is called the Old and the Elder; then the Voice of the Numbers, which is known as the Desire to Be and is the function of the second Logos; and lastly, the formless Square, which is the material universe in its Arupa or Archetypal condition. These three Logi within the body of the One make the Four. They are the Divine formless ones. In the second world dwells the Decimo, while from the Mouth of the third world come forth the Seven Fighters to whom is given the labor of organizing the inferior worlds that they may become suitable bodies for the Lord Blessed-Be-He. These seven and the one who refused to come forth, or more correctly the one who was left out, are also the great spiritual beings who form the Suns of the Kosmic Chain. Our own Sun, who makes light with his breath, is the eighth left out, in the sense that he was the first cast off from the dark swirling mass from which our manifold universe was produced. The second Seven are the Lords of Karma, who record and note the destiny of the universe. They are the historians of Kosmos and are, in one sense of the word, the seven planes of Nature which record in their subtle substances the actions and reactions of all created things. As an example of this, we may say that our thoughts are recorded in the mental world; our feelings in the astral world; and our actions in the granules of physical substance. The rejected one became the center of our solar system, and is the only great illumined presence which descended low enough to be sensed by chemical elements and bodies.
The seven breaths poured out from the Mouth of the third Logos create the first principle of friction. The third Logos is the one here referred to as the Dragon of Wisdom. The seven spirits before his throne, by their strivings, create Fohat, the fiery whirlwind. It is a mistake to say that Fohat is electricity; but he is certainly the thread of vitality running through all the universe. It is said in the ancient writings that the worlds are knots upon the cord of Fohat. In one sense of the word they are plexi. Electricity is one of the manifestations of Fohat. The gods make Fohat the messenger of their will, and He goes forth. The great latent wisdom, which is called Dzyu, becomes active and operative through the medium of Fohat in the same way that thought becomes activity through the medium of the nerves. Fohat, the universal nerve fluid, is called the Steed, or Vahan, and thought or intelligence becomes the Rider. Fohat passes, in the form of nerve impulses, through the fiery mass of the world to be. In this way the gods gain control of the atoms, for they can later send their orders along the threads of force spun by Fohat. He passes with three, five and seven strides through the worlds and cosmic planes which constitute the Three Worlds, for the Three, Five and Seven of Free Masonry are the same as those referred to in this ancient Tibetan book. His voice is his activity. He calls the sparks from primordial substance, and they gather round his threads of activity. An endless droning sound, like the purr of a great engine, is heard. It is Fohat, born of the friction of space. Fohat is the power that rules the sparks, as the nerves rule the organs of the body. He separates the denser particles that dwell in the darkness below and forms of them nerve plexi or seed atoms which will later become planets. He places them in the six directions in the form of an interlaced triangle, and in the center he places the seventh; and this seventh is one of the great Seven. So the body of the universe is ordained. As all parts of the body are connected with the brain, so the Lords of the Six Angles are connected with spiral threads to the crown who dwells in the center. The builders, who are called the Sons of Light, take their places upon the Six Great Atoms, while the ruling hierarchy dwells in the center. Thus the abstract body of the Logos is made. This body is invisible and intangible to such senses as we now possess, but was nevertheless far denser than its preceding state. Condensation had begun in space, and the Formless Lord assumed his first body and began the process of being enmeshed in the Great Illusion of Creation. The process of descending into the denser substances continues. Fohat builds the four great thrones or centers for the Maharajas of the Four Angles. They are the Lords and Kings of the Dhyan Chohans and rulers of the four cardinal angles of Kosmos. The are the Beasts of Revelation who bow before the throne of the Infinite. The Rosicrucians called them the Lords of Form. They are the Lion, the Bull, the Man and the Eagle. They are the four great body centers in man. They are also the winged wheels filled with eyes, referred to in Ezekiel. The Lipikas begin the process of organizing. They also separate the permanent from the impermanent, giving to each its appointed place. They build the ring "Pass Not," which is to separate Cause and Effect. This ring also is the outer boundary of Kosmos, and separates the gleaming, glistening bubble from the dark space that surrounds it. It can be called the Invisible Shell, which nothing can pass through until the Great Day be with us. Each of the primitive Seven Great Lights casts off seven Suns. Each of these casts off seven planets. Each of these planets differentiates seven globes within their own bodies. The globes and the wheels face the ring, prepared to follow the orders of the Central Light, which is their Cause and Ultimate.
By means of the invisible, concealed Mother of Nature, Kwan-Yin and the material body of Nature, her consort, and Fohat, the child of their frictions, the shadow of the material universe was called forth out of the lower abyss, and the seven material elements appeared as crystallizations of their spiritual causes. The previous stages discussed were invisible, and while they dealt with substances these substances were too fine and attenuated to be cognized by such senses as we possess today. The subtle elements of Nature were moved long before the dense physical particles could be made to respond. The Seven Laya centers were formed by Fohat as the germs of the coming planets. They were vortices, low-pressure areas, which ever moving, spinning and twisting later gathered the worlds about them, veiling themselves in planets and other celestial bodies. Nothing will prevail against these centers until the Great Day of Dissolution. The physical universe is built around these germs, which are its true foundation. Each of these series of wheels consisted of seven large wheels, each with its seven smaller globes within itself. Thus forms were established. Gradually these wheels unfolded and the Spirit of the Globe took up its dwelling in them, one after the other. By means of these seven stages that are called the Days of Creation, the Spirit of the Globes gradually passed from its invisible source to its invisible ultimate. Each of these globes was born out of the preceding one, and became the parent of the next. The hosts of lives evolving through and upon these globes passed from one to another in their endless search for the Promised Land. Fohat, the Voice of the Progeny, built these wheels in the likeness of the Great Wheel, and according to the plan that had been established aeons before. The imperishable center he used as the axis or thread, and upon these centers he strung the wheels or beads. They were capable of being destroyed, but the thread was imperishable. Fohat gathered the flaming sparks of space; he made balls of fire (nebulae); he ran through them, impregnating them with his energy; he gave them his power, which is motion; they turned in different directions, according to the work they had to accomplish. They were cold and dark (the mental air mist); he made them hot (the astral fire mist). He made them moist (humid water ether). He cooled them into solids (chemical dense substances). Thus acts the spirit of Fohat, the Lord of Change, from the dawn of creation till the twilight, his labors taking seven eternities. The fourth round of every chain is that of greatest density. At that time the sparks individualized from the body of the Logos must assume their fourth rate of consciousness. In the case of our chain of globes the fourth round was the beginning of human life, as we know it today. Some of the spiritual globes of light, which we call spirits, refused to come in, and upon them was pronounced a curse. The curse was the reaction of the law upon those who refused to obey it. They became the Red Men, who were born in the Fourth Race, which we know as the Atlanteans, and were the most warlike and destructive of all nations. The older wheels referred to are the first three globes of our own earth chain, upon which man passed through the mineral, plant and animal stages of his growth. The Mother's Spawn are the world Germs. They battled in space for a right to exist. Many were destroyed, but finally the stronger gathered themselves into comets and became the wanderers. These comets later became suns and planets. In embryology we can see one of the most remarkable examples of primitive life and its battle for existence; in this microscopic war many lives are lost, rather it would be better to say many little creatures lose the opportunity to live in order that one may survive. The Great Ones have explained to us that our system of worlds is made up of Seven Wheels. Each of these wheels is spinning on one of the major spokes, which are the Seven born out of the One. The fourth spoke is the parent of our globe, for we are on the fourth of the lesser wheels. We are in the fifth division of the fourth wheel, for our present race is the fifth division of the human world period; and the human world period is the fourth spoke of the Great Wheel composed of seven world periods. It is by this rather abstract method of calculation that man is able to determine his true position in the Great Plan.
The one light of the Solar Logos breaks up into many parts. These parts become the differentiated portions of the solar system, for every atom and granule of the solar space is impregnated with the consciousness and power of Ishvari. His life courses through everything, like the thread upon which beads are strung. Saptaparna is a sacred plant, the seven leaves of which are said to represent the seven-fold constitution of man. The one—consciousness—becomes the two—sense; and they become the three—activity; and the three are one, and that one is a triple thread, and that thread is the basis of the growth of the triune constitution of man. This thread is called the Root that never dies. The three-tongued flame, called Atma-Buddhi-Manas, bears witness to the three divinities and blazes forth from the interior constitution of all things. This is the true Three-headed God. The sparks are the human monads, but in reality as used here the term means all the germs of life evolving in the solar system. The moon is the last incarnation of the Earth Spirit, and still has charge over the building of physical bodies. The spirit hangs by a spiral thread from the flame which is its source, this flame being the solar Logos. United to its source by a tiny thread, it wanders through the Seven Worlds which form the body of the material universe. In the first globe it was mineral. In the second globe it was a plant. And in the third globe it became a sacred animal. The fruitage of all this previous work combined together, with the addition of Manu the Thinker, resulted in the individualization of the human kingdom. The seven superior rays of force formed Him. The Lords of Mind completed Him. And Fish, Sin and Soma will complete the process of unfolding Him. The Fish is symbolic of the earth swimming in the waters of space. Sin is the symbol of the soul, which is built by the reactions of evil deeds; while Soma, an intoxicating liquor, represents the spirit, for the power to ferment is a Divine attribute. The Silent Watcher is the spirit of man that never really enters into the bodies at all but sends a ray of itself into the form. This ray is connected by a shadowy thread with the true consciousness itself. The shadow referred to is the chain of bodies which bear but imperfect resemblances to the life itself. The dawn of creation has given place to the noonday of accomplishment. "This is thy world," the flame is supposed to have said to the spark; "I have clothed myself in thee." The flame, of course, is the Logos. The spark is the spirit individualized. The Logos has broken Himself up and veiled Himself in the bodies of the sparks, where He must remain until the Great Day be with us. The builders who don their first clothing were the great spiritual Beings who descended on the north polar cap of the earth and ruled over men. These men themselves were great spiritual beings in disguise. Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan Stanza I. The great spiritual Being (Lha) who rules our globe (the Fourth) is a servant to the Lord of the Seven. These Seven drive the chariots of the planets around the shining eye of the Sun, who is symbolical of the spiritual body of the Logos. The rays of the Sun give life to the seven planets, and from the Sun came the life which animated the first globe of our world chain. The Lord of the Earth said to the Sun that His house was empty; He asked that spirits might be sent to His wheel as they had been sent to the others. He said that the Sun had sent his seven children to the sphere of Mercury, and He felt that some should come to him. The Lord of the Sun answered him, saying: "I will send thee life when thou art ready for it; cease thy complaints, for the Lord of the Lotus (the Moon) shall send you sons. Thy sons shall be under the rule of the Old Ones (the Lords of the Moon). Cease thy complaining; thy seven worlds have not yet been formed; thou art not ready to receive life." After passing through many strange cataclysms the planet prepared itself for the coming of life. The seven globes of her first chain were ready. The planet therefore continued in its endless course for many millions of years. It began to build bodies. The gases gathered and gradually the mineral kingdom became ever more crystallized and the etheric stones became dense chemical rock. Therefore it is said "There were soft stones that hardened." The hard plants that softened began as moss and semi-crystal things: as they evolved through the eternities the life within them evolved; they softened, and from an almost mineral condition they evolved their present supple bodies. Whenever the earth became overrun with any of these groups, great cataclysms destroyed them all. During the ages the inclination of the polar axle changed many times, and as its angle is the key to the lives that evolve upon the planet the lives changed with each new position of the axle. As in the story of the Scandinavian creation, the earth began to form creatures out of itself, but they were soulless for the spirits of heaven had not entered into them. The earth became overrun with these creatures. The substances they were created from were the remains of the previous rounds or periods. They were strange, gaunt, misshapen creatures, supposedly covered with scales like fishes. A host of great creatures came from the Father, which is the Sun, and the Moon, which is the Mother. From the superior worlds they came and gazed upon the works of the earth. These spirits were displeased, for they found no bodies there for the spirits that were to come in; so they decided to destroy them all. A great host of spiritual beings, called the Flames, the servants of the Sun and the servants of the Moon, came down like a cloud upon the earth. They destroyed the false creatures and cleansed the earth very similarly to the story related in the flood of Noah. The half ether, half water, which is called the Mother Waters, rose as a great cloud from the earth unto the Moon, which had given her birth. When all of these things had passed away, the earth remained a void. She asked to be crystallized into a more solid and compact mass, in order that she might be the home of true living things and not false creatures of the mist. The Regent appointed by the Solar God, who is here called the Lord of Lords, now descended from the Sun unto the planet. He molded the body of the earth; he divided the Above from the Below, creating the heavens and the earth as we know them now. Plans were then made to bring forth nobler creatures in the image of the gods themselves. The Great Lights were to form the spiritual centers of these bodies, and the Mother Nature was to build coverings that these lives might manifest in substance. By this means were to be developed creatures who were to be great as the gods themselves, because the gods dwelt within them and were the source of their life. So each of the great group of Lords went into that type of bodies which had been prepared for Him, all except the Lords of the Flame. They would not go in; they rebelled against the law that had built the bodies for them. The seven hosts then gathered groups of the embryonic men together, differentiating them one group from another, placing each in his own zone. They accomplished this with the assistance of Fohat, who acted as messenger and vitalizer. Many times the Lords tried to build a body, but being themselves without experience in physical substance they could only build shadows, for they who were without bones could not build bones and they who were without minds could not build minds. Therefore the race they gave birth to was a race of shadowy images lacking many things which were necessary to their human manifestation. The question is asked how the creatures with minds were born. In order to accomplish this, the Lords who were building them and who had come over from the Moon called the planetary fire, somewhat similar to electricity, to their assistance; they also called to the Sun and asked Him to lend His immortal light to become the consciousness of things. As a result of this, through the co-operation of all these elements, the Archetype of man was made. The process took hundreds of millions of years. All this occurred before man or the planet itself had actually been differentiated from the sun. While its center had been established in space, it was still enveloped by the radiance of the Great Father. The human spark, called the breath, needed a form, so the Lords of the Moon gave it an etheric double. It needed a physical body, so the earth molded it into the etheric double. The germ needed a life spirit, so the Solar Angels gave it to it. The germ needed an astral body, and a vehicle of desires, so the Lords of the Astral World and the Drainer of Waters, who is the Spirit of Passion, supplied one. All that man now needed was a mind; but the Lords of the Moon had none; the Spirit of the Earth had none; the Great Mind said, "Mine is so great that if man should have it it would destroy him"—so even in the Third Race, or the early Lemurian World, man wandered mindless over the prehistoric planet. It is said that the First Race were the self-born, while the second were the fruitage of a union between the Spirits of the Sun and the Spirits of the Moon. They have vanished forever from the surface of Nature. Only the Akasic records remember them. The Second Race, still dwelling in the Spirit of the Sun, was globular in shape. It reproduced itself by budding and expanding and by a process of fission. It existed for many ages and was known as the Hypoborean specie. In this specie the first principles of sex were manifesting, although the invisible form was sexless. They were the children of the self-born. They were shadows from the brilliant bodies of the Lords their Fathers,—Their Fathers being the Pitris, which issued from the dark body of Brahma. The First Race outlived the period of its usefulness. The labor it had come to do was accomplished, and gradually it was absorbed into the Second. The dark air-born became the flaming light-born. The subtle bodies which had been the exterior vehicles of the First Race withdrew into the organism and their places were taken by newer and denser vehicles. Thus the external spiritual bodies of the First became the internal spiritual bodies of the Second, and so on. From the Second was evolved the Third Race, the early Lemurian, part of which was capable of reproducing itself by fission while another part came forth from eggs and were able to run and walk from the moment of birth. During this period the race actually assumed its present form. Also during this period the sexes where divided. The earlier races could not be destroyed, because their bodies were composed of super-physical elements. They were absorbed from one race into another, and at certain periods great cataclysms, caused by the gods, annihilated them; but the Lemurian Race having built true physical bodies, were capable of being destroyed. At this time the great spiritual lights again viewed the Sons of Men. They said, "We can choose whether we shall enter these forms or not." Some entered and became the great and wise Arhats. Others said, "We will wait until the Fourth Race." The Seven Dark Lords chose their bodies, descending as they saw fit. You and I are more than merely forms. Our consciousness is really part of these great groups of celestial beings who, at different periods in the history of man, descended into the vessels of clay prepared for their coming. The fruitage of the first planetary chain had waited long for bodies. They rejected the self-born as being unfit. They also turned away from the sweat-born. Nor would they enter into the earlier egg-born. When, however, the Third Race had assumed its human shape and had become of upright stature, the Lords said, "Now we shall enter in." Therefore the Third Race furnished bodies to the Lords of Wisdom. The Lords of Wisdom, speaking through the Third Race, made it a great people, for they gave it wisdom, this wisdom being the knowledge of good and evil. The animal wave of life began in the second round, where it assumed the material discarded by the men of the first round. From this it produced its bodies, which were then composed also of astral substance. As man was a fantastic creature during his early stages of growth, so during the early development of the animals form ran riot. Great creatures existed. These were well known to Science, but were absolutely unrecognized by any except Initiates at the time when these Sacred Stanzas were written. During the third round the animals changed. They became creatures with bones. Forms had they. And their shadows became solid. These shadows were molded according to the fantastic pattern of the super-physical worlds. Therefore the dinosaur and other strange prehistoric creatures owe their shape to the invisible worlds which patterned it. The animals began to breathe and to reproduce their specie, and men did likewise during the Third period. From the invisible records of Nature we have the story of the inter-breeding of men and beasts which produced great races of unintelligent giants, but like all hybrid creatures they did not continue and history bears no record of them. It is possible that certain forms of apes bear some record of this condition. When the Divine Hierarchs who had not descended into the world or become ensouled in the bodies of men beheld this chaos upon the earth, they were very unhappy, for it was not according to the Plan They said, "These creatures without minds have defiled our future dwelling places; let us not dwell in them—let us dwell in others. Let us instruct them concerning their great sin, lest worse shall happen." Then the Race received minds and beheld the sin of the mindless and realized what a great sin had been committed. The Fourth Race was the first one to use true speech. Before that time they copied the sounds of Nature, making known their feelings and desires by imitating the voice of the storms, the rustle of the wind through the trees, and other natural noises. Man developed the larynx after the division of the sexes, for as all scientists know there is a direct connection between the throat and the generative system. Even after the sexes had been divided, there were still certain forms of life which remained androgynous. The seven zones are the areas of the earth's surface which have been set aside for the development of the seven races. The Third Race gave birth to the Fourth, the Atlantean. The colors of the races are explained in this verse. It is the combining of these colors which is the base of all the differences existing in the world today. Of course, the First and Second Races have entirely vanished. The Lemurian and Atlantean Races were of great size. They are the giants who walked upon the earth. From them has come most of the legends concerning the gods who walked upon the earth. The Atlanteans took wives from among the Lemurians, and also from some of the races of the mindless. The result was monsters, wicked creatures of all kinds and beings of little intelligence. Some races still exist in the world today that are unions of Atlantean and Lemurian stock. They are the very lowest form of savages. They are the ones (the Atlanteans) who began the process of building temples after the pattern of the human body. It is also during their day that Phallic worship was supreme. When the extreme materiality began to be felt and man built senses connected him with the objective worlds, he gradually lost contact with his invisible progenitors. Therefore it is said the third Eye closed. The late Lemurians built great cities, and also began the process of tempering metals. They also began to cut images of heroes and gods and worshiped them. Here and there even to this day are to be seen relics of the Lemurian days. Many of these creatures reached a height of a hundred feet, but as the intelligence increased the bodies grew smaller. A concrete example of that can be seen in the animals. Today they are small, but they are all descendants of gigantic creatures. A yatis is a measurement said to correspond to our yard. The Lemurian world was destroyed largely by volcanic eruptions, and now, because of their degeneracy and crystallization, the Atlantean world was threatened by water. The floods that destroyed the great Atlantean world are here described. They destroyed the seven sacred centers, around which the Atlantean world was built. The last to go was a great island in the Atlantic Ocean, which in sinking carried with it sixty million people. That which was good was led out of Atlantis, while that which was unholy was destroyed. The Sacred Wisdom was carried into Egypt and into India. The sinking of Atlantis is the origin of the story of the flood. At this time most of the prehistoric animals that had survived the Lemurian cataclysms vanished from the face of the earth. The Ancient Wisdom, with its priests, was spared, but the Atlantean Empire, which had become wicked beyond all hope, was practically destroyed. The race was not entirely destroyed, however. Some of the yellow, some of the brown, some of the black, and some of the red remained. The very early races, however, entirely vanished. A special group of people, what the Jews called the Chosen People, were separated from the Atlantean stock to form the nucleus of the Fifth Root Race. These were led out of Atlantis before its destruction, and, passing over to Central India, are the progenitors of all the white races. They were ruled over by the first Divine Kings, great spiritual beings who assisted them in their struggles for existence. These are the serpents (Divine Kings) who redescended from the heavens to make ready the bodies of another great race of creatures who incarnated into our people. These were largely the Initiates (serpents) who had been developed by the previous races, and are the demigods of mythology. Such is the history of the universe. |