| 86 | 86 |
§§ (14) Creation of men. (15) They are empty shadows. (16) The Creators are perplexed how to create a Thinking man. (17) What is needed for the formation of a perfect Man.
- 14. The Seven Hosts, the “ Will (or Mind)-Born ” Lords, Propelled by the Spirit of Life-Giving ( Fohat ), separate men from themselves, each on his own Zone (a).
(a) They threw off their “ shadows ” or astral bodies — if such an ethereal being as a “ lunar Spirit ” may be supposed to rejoice in an astral, besides a hardly tangible body. In another Commentary it is said that the “ Ancestors ” breathed out the first man, as Brahmâ is explained to have breathed out the Suras (Gods), when they became “ Asuras ” (from A su, breath). In a third it is said that they, the newly-created men, “ were the shadows of the Shadows.”
With regard to this sentence — “ They were the shadows of the Shadows ” — a few more words may be said and a fuller explanation attempted. This first process of the evolution of mankind is far easier to accept than the one which follows it, though one and all will be rejected and doubted even by some Kabalists, especially the Western, who study the present effects, but have neglected to study their primary causes. Nor does the writer feel competent to explain a mode of procreation so difficult of appreciation save for an Eastern Occultist. Therefore it is useless to enter here into details concerning the process, though it is minutely described in the Secret Books, as it would only lead to speaking of facts hitherto unknown to the profane world, and hence to their being misunderstood. An “ Adam ” made of the dust of the ground will always be found preferable, by a certain class of students, to one projected out of the ethereal body of his creator ; though the former process has never been heard of, while the latter is familiar, as all know, to many Spiritualists in Europe and America, who, of all men, ought to understand it. For who of those who have witnessed the phenomenon of a materialising form oozing out of the pores of a medium or, at other times, out of his left side, can fail to credit the possibility, at least, of such a birth ? If there are
| 87 | 87 |
in the Universe such beings as Angels or Spirits, whose incorporeal essence may constitute an intelligent entity notwithstanding the absence of any (to us) solid organism ; and if there are those who believe that a god made the first man out of dust, and breathed into him a living Soul — and there are millions upon millions who believe both — what does this doctrine of ours contain that is so impossible ? Very soon the day will dawn, when the world will have to choose whether it will accept the miraculous creation of man (and Kosmos too) out of nothing, according to the dead letter of Genesis, or a first man born from a fantastic link — absolutely “ missing ” so far — the common ancestor of man, and of the “ true ape.” * Between these two fallacies, † Occult philosophy steps in. It teaches that the first human stock was projected by higher and semi-divine Beings out of their own essences. If the latter process is to be considered as abnormal or even inconceivable — because obsolete in Nature at this point of evolution — it is yet proven possible on the authority of certain “ Spiritualistic ” facts. Which, then, we ask of the three hypotheses or theories is the most reasonable and the least absurd ? Certainly no one — provided he is not a soul-blind materialist — can ever object to the occult teaching.
Now, as shown, we gather from the latter that man was not “ created ” the complete being he is now, however imperfect he still remains. There was a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual, and an animal evolution, from the highest to the lowest, as well as a physical development — from the simple and homogeneous, up to the more complex and heterogeneous ; though not quite on the lines traced for us by the modern evolutionists. This double evolution in two contrary directions, required various ages, of divers natures and degrees of spirituality and intellectuality, to fabricate the being now known as man. Furthermore, the one absolute, ever acting and never erring law, which proceeds on the
* “ . . . Huxley, supported by the most evident discoveries in Comparative Anatomy, could utter the momentous sentence that the anatomical differences between man and the highest apes are less than those between the latter and the lowest apes In relation to our genealogical tree of man, the necessary conclusion follows that the human race has evolved gradually from the true apes.” (“ The Pedigree of Man,” by Ernest Hæckel, translated by Ed. B. Aveling, p. 49).
What may be the scientific and logical objections to the opposite conclusion — we would ask ? The anatomical resemblances between Man and the Anthropoids — grossly exaggerated as they are by Darwinists, as M. de Quatrefages shows — are simply enough “ accounted for ” when the origin of the latter is taken into consideration.
“ Nowhere, in the older deposits, is an ape to be found that approximates more closely to man, or a man that approximates more closely to an ape ”
† “. . . . . The same gulf which is found to-day between Man and Ape, goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period. This fact alone is enough to make its untenability clear,” (Dr. F. Pfaff, Prof. of Natural Science in the University of Erlangen).
| 88 | 88 |
same lines from one eternity (or Manvantara) to the other — ever furnishing an ascending scale for the manifested, or that which we call the great Illusion ( Maha-Maya ), but plunging Spirit deeper and deeper into materiality on the one hand, and then redeeming it through flesh and liberating it — this law, we say, uses for these purposes the Beings from other and higher planes, men, or Minds (Manus), in accordance with their Karmic exigencies.
At this juncture, the reader is again asked to turn to the Indian philosophy and religion. The Esotericism of both is at one with our Secret Doctrine, however much the form may differ and vary.
The Progenitors of Man, called in India “ Fathers,” Pitara or Pitris, are the creators of our bodies and lower principles. They are ourselves, as the first personalities, and we are they. Primeval man would be “ the bone of their bone and the flesh of their flesh,” if they had body and flesh. As stated, they were “ lunar Beings.”
The Endowers of man with his conscious, immortal ego, are the “ Solar Angels ” — whether so regarded metaphorically or literally. The mysteries of the Conscious ego or human Soul are great. The esoteric name of these “ Solar Angels ” is, literally, the “ Lords ” ( Nath ) of “ persevering ceaseless devotion ” ( pranidhâna ). Therefore they of the fifth principle ( Manas ) seem to be connected with, or to have originated the system of the Yogis who make of pranidhâna their fifth observance (see Yoga Shastra, II., 32.) It has already been explained why the trans-Himalayan Occultists regard them as evidently identical with those who in India are termed Kumâras, Agnishwattas, and the Barhishads.
How precise and true is Plato’s expression, how profound and philosophical his remark on the (human) soul or ego, when he defined it as “ a compound of the same and the other.” And yet how little this hint has been understood, since the world took it to mean that the soul was the breath of God, of Jehovah. It is “ the same and the other,” as the great Initiate-Philosopher said ; for the ego (the “ Higher Self ” when merged with and in the Divine Monad) is Man, and yet the same as the “ other,” the Angel in him incarnated, as the same with the universal Mahat. The great classics and philosophers felt this truth, when saying that “ there must be something within us which produces our thoughts. Something very subtle ; it is a breath ; it is fire ; it is ether ;
| 89 | 89 |
it is quintessence ; it is a slender likeness ; it is an intellection ; it is a number ; it is harmony. . . . . ” ( Voltaire ).
All these are the Manasam and Rajasas : the Kumâras, Asuras, and other rulers and Pitris, who incarnated in the Third Race, and in this and various other ways endowed mankind with Mind.
There are seven classes of Pitris, as shown below, three incorporeal and four corporeal ; and two kinds, the Agnishwatta and the Barhishad. And we may add that, as there are two kinds of Pitris, so there is a double and a triple set of Barhishad and Agnishwatta. The former, having given birth to their astral doubles, are reborn as Sons of Atri, and are the “ Pitris of the Demons,” or corporeal beings, on the authority of Manu (III., 196) ; while the Agnishwatta are reborn as Sons of Marichi (a son of Brahmâ), and are the Pitris of the Gods ( Manu again, Matsya and Padma Purânas and Kulluka in the Laws of the Manavas, III., 195). * Moreover, the Vayu Purâna declares all the seven orders to have originally been the first gods, the Vairâjas, whom Brahmâ “ with the eye of Yoga, beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods ” ; and the Matsya adds that the Gods worshipped them ; while the Harivansa (S. 1, 935) distinguishes the Virâjas as one class of the Pitris only — a statement corroborated in the Secret Teachings, which, however, identify the Virâjas with the elder Agnishwattas † and the Rajasas, or Abhutarajasas, who are incorporeal without even an astral phantom. Vishnu is said, in most of the MSS., to have incarnated in and through them. “ In the Raivata Manvantara, again, Hari, best of gods, was born of Sambhuti, as the divine Manasas — originating with the deities called Rajasas.” Sambhuti was a daughter of Daksha, and wife of Marichi, the father of the Agnishwatta, who, along with the Rajasas, are ever associated with Manasas. As remarked by a far more able Sanskritist than Wilson, Mr. Fitzedward Hall, “ Manasa is no inappropriate name for a deity associated with the Rajasas. We appear to have in it Manasam — the same as Manas — with the change of termination required to express male personification ” (Vishnu Purâna Bk. III., ch. I., p. 17 footnote). All the sons of Virâja are Manasa, says Nilakantha. And
* We are quite aware that the Vayu and Matsya Purânas identify (agreeably to Western interpretation) the Agnishwatta with the seasons, and the Barhishad Pitris with the months ; adding a fourth class — the Kavyas — cyclic years. But do not Christian. Roman Catholics identify their Angels with planets, and are not the seven Rishis become the Saptarshi — a constellation ? They are deities presiding over all the cyclic divisions.
† The Vayu Purâna shows the region called Virâja-loka inhabited by the Agnishwattas.
| 90 | 90 |
Virâja is Brahmâ, and, therefore, the incorporeal Pitris are called Vairâjas from being the sons of Virâja, says Vayu Purâna.
We could multiply our proofs ad infinitum, but it is useless. The wise will understand our meaning, the unwise are not required to. There are thirty-three crores, or 330 millions, of gods in India. But, as remarked by the learned lecturer on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, “ they may be all devas, but are by no means all ‘ gods ’, in the high spiritual sense one attributes to the term.” “ This is an unfortunate blunder,” he remarks, “ generally committed by Europeans. Deva is a kind of spiritual being, and because the same word is used in ordinary parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have to worship thirty-three crores of gods.” And he adds suggestively : “ These beings, as may be naturally inferred have a certain affinity with one of the three component Upadhis (basic principles) into which we have divided man.” — (Vide Theosophist, Feb., 1887, et seq.)
The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara. Thus the twelve great gods, Jayas, created by Brahmâ to assist him in the work of creation in the very beginning of the Kalpa, and who, lost in Samadhi, neglected to create — whereupon they were cursed to be repeatedly born in each Manvantara till the seventh — are respectively called Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas : they are Tushitas (in the second Kalpa), and Adityas in this Vaivasvata period (see Vayu Purâna), besides other names for each age. But they are identical with the Manasa or Rajasas, and these with our incarnating Dhyan Chohans. They are all classes of the Gnana-devas. Yes ; besides those beings, who, like the Yakshas, Gandharvas, Kinaras, etc., etc., taken in their individualities, inhabit the astral plane, there are real Devagnanams, and to these classes of Devas belong the Adityas, the Vairâjas, the Kumaras, the Asuras, and all those high celestial beings whom Occult teaching calls Manaswin, the Wise, foremost of all, and who would have made all men the self-conscious spiritually intellectual beings they will be, had they not been “ cursed ” to fall into generation, and to be reborn themselves as mortals for their neglect of duty.