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- 16. How are the ( real ) manushyas born ? The manus with minds, how are they made ? (a) The fathers (Barhishad (?) ) call to their help their own fire (the Kavyavâhana, electric fire), which is the fire which burns in earth. The spirit of the earth called to his help the solar fire (Suchi, the spirit in the Sun). These three (the Pitris and the two fires) produced in their joint efforts a good rupa. It (the form) could stand, walk, run, recline and fly. yet it was still but a chhaya, a shadow with no sense (b) . . . . . .
(a) Here an explanation again becomes necessary in the light, and with the help of the exoteric added to the esoteric scriptures. The “ Manushyas ” (men) and the Manus are here equivalent to the Chaldean “ Adam ” — this term not meaning at all the first man, as with the Jews, or one solitary individual, but mankind collectively, as with the Chaldeans and Assyrians. It is the four orders or classes of Dhyan Chohans out of the seven, says the Commentary, “ who were the progenitors of the concealed man, ” i.e., the subtle inner man. The “ Lha ” of the Moon, the lunar spirits, were, as already stated, only the ancestors of his form, i.e., of the model according to which Nature began her external work upon him. Thus primitive man was, when he appeared, only a senseless Bhûta * or a “ phantom.” This “ creation ” was a failure, the reason of which will be explained in the Commentary on Sloka 20.
(b) This attempt was again a failure. It allegorizes the vanity of physical nature’s unaided attempts to construct even a perfect animal — let alone man. For the “ Fathers,” the lower Angels, are all Nature-Spirits and the higher Elementals also possess an intelligence of their own ; but this is not enough to construct a thinking man. “ Living Fire ” was needed, that fire which gives the human mind its self-perception and self-consciousness, or Manas ; and the progeny of Pârvaka and Suchi are the animal electric and solar fires, which create animals, and could thus furnish but a physical living constitution to that first astral model of man. The first creators, then, were the Pygmalions of primeval man : they failed to animate the statue — intellectually.
This Stanza we shall see is very suggestive. It explains the mystery of, and fills the gap between, the informing principle in man — the
* It is not clear why “ Bhûtas ” should be rendered by the Orientalists as meaning “ evil Spirits ” in the Purânas. In the Vishnu Purâna, Book I, ch. 5, the Sloka simply says : “ Bhûtas — fiends, frightful from being monkey-coloured and carnivorous ” ; and the word in India now means ghosts, ethereal or astral phantoms, while in esoteric teaching it means elementary substances, something made of attenuated, non-compound essence, and, specifically, the astral double of any man or animal. In this case these primitive men are the doubles of the first ethereal Dhyanis or Pitris.
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higher self or human Monad — and the animal Monad, both one and the same, although the former is endowed with divine intelligence, the latter with instinctual faculty alone. How is the difference to be explained, and the presence of that higher self in man accounted for ?
“ The Sons of mahat are the quickeners of the human Plant. They are the Waters falling upon the arid soil of latent life, and the Spark that vivifies the human animal. They are the Lords of Spiritual Life eternal.” . . . . “ In the beginning (in the Second Race) some (of the Lords) only breathed of their essence into Manushya (men) ; and some took in man their abode.”
This shows that not all men became incarnations of the “ divine Rebels,” but only a few among them. The remainder had their fifth principle simply quickened by the spark thrown into it, which accounts for the great difference between the intellectual capacities of men and races. Had not the “ sons of Mahat,” speaking allegorically, skipped the intermediate worlds, in their impulse toward intellectual freedom, the animal man would never have been able to reach upward from this earth, and attain through self-exertion his ultimate goal. The cyclic pilgrimage would have to be performed through all the planes of existence half unconsciously, if not entirely so, as in the case of the animals. It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the morbid inactivity of pure spirit, that we are what we are — self-conscious, thinking men, with the capabilities and attributes of Gods in us, for good as much as for evil. Hence the rebels are our saviours. Let the philosopher ponder well over this, and more than one mystery will become clear to him. It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity. This will reveal the meaning of many hitherto incomprehensible allegories, foolishly called “ fables.” (Vide infra, “ The Secret of Satan.”)
It explains, to begin with, the statement made in Pymander : that the “ heavenly man,” the “ Son of the Father,” who partook of the nature and essence of the Seven Governors, or creators and Rulers of the material world, “ peeped through the Harmony and, breaking through the Seven Circles of Fire, made manifest the downward-born nature.” * It explains every verse in that Hermetic narrative, as also the Greek allegory of Prometheus. Most important of all, it explains the many allegorical accounts about the “ Wars in Heaven,” including that of Revelation with respect to the Christian dogma of the fallen angels. It explains the “ rebellion ” of the oldest and highest Angels, and the meaning of their being cast down from Heaven into the depths of Hell,
* See “ Pymander,” Bk. II., verses 17 to 29.
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i.e., matter. It even solves the recent perplexity of the Assyriologists, who express their wonder through the late George Smith.
“ My first idea of this part ” (of the rebellion), he says, “ was that the wars with the powers of Evil preceded the Creation ; I now think it followed the account of the fall ” (Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 92). In this work Mr. George Smith gives an engraving, from an early Babylonian cylinder, of the Sacred Tree, the Serpent, man and woman. The tree has seven branches : three on the man’s side, four on that of the female. These branches are typical of the seven Root-Races, in the third of which, at its very close, occurred the separation of the sexes and the so-called fall into generation. The three earliest Races were sexless, then hermaphrodite ; the other four, male and female, as distinct from each other. “ The Dragon,” says Mr. G. Smith, “ which in the Chaldean account of the creation leads man to sin, is the creation of Tiamat, the living principle of the Sea, or Chaos . . . which was opposed to the deities at the creation of the world.” This is an error. The Dragon is the male principle, or Phallus, personified, or rather animalized ; and Tiamat, “ the embodiment of the Spirit of Chaos,” of the deep, or Abyss, is the female principle, the Womb. The “ Spirit of Chaos and Disorder ” refers to the mental perturbation which it led to. It is the sensual, attractive, magnetic principle which fascinates and seduces, the ever living active element which throws the whole world into disorder, chaos, and sin. The Serpent seduces the woman, but it is the latter who seduces man, and both are included in the Karmic curse, though only as a natural result of a cause produced. Says George Smith : “ It is clear that the Dragon is included in the curse for the Fall, and that the Gods ” (the Elohim, jealous at seeing the man of clay becoming a Creator in his turn, like all the animals,) “ invoke on the head of the human Race all the evils which afflict humanity. Wisdom and knowledge shall injure him, he shall have family quarrels, he will anger the gods, he shall submit to tyranny. . . . he shall be disappointed in his desires, he shall pour out useless prayers, he shall commit future sin. . No doubt subsequent lines continue this topic, but again our narrative is broken, and it reopens only where the gods are preparing for war with the powers of evil, which are led by Tiamat (the woman). . . . ” (Babylonian Legend of Creation, p. 92.)
This account is omitted in Genesis, for monotheistic purposes. But it is a mistaken policy — born no doubt of fear, and regard for dogmatic religion and its superstitions — to have sought to restore the Chaldean fragments by Genesis, whereas it is the latter, far younger than any of the fragments, which ought to be explained by the former.