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- 5. At the fourth ( Round, or revolution of life and being around “ the seven smaller wheels ” ) (a), the sons are told to create their images One third refuses. Two ( thirds ) obey.
The full meaning of this sloka can be fully comprehended only after reading the detailed additional explanations in the “ Anthropogenesis ” and its commentaries, in Book II. Between this Sloka and the last, Sloka 4 in this same Stanza, extend long ages ; and there now gleams the dawn and sunrise of another æon. The drama enacted on our planet is at the beginning of its fourth act, but for a clearer comprehension of the whole play the reader will have to turn back before he can proceed onward. For this verse belongs to the general Cosmogony given in the archaic volumes, whereas Book II. will give a detailed account of the “ Creation ” or rather the formation, of the first human beings, followed by the second humanity, and then by the third ; or, as they are called, “ the first, second, and the third Root-Races.” As the solid Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its protoplasmic phantom, so did man.
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( a) That which is meant by the qualification the “ Fourth ” is explained as the “ fourth Round ” only on the authority of the Com- mentaries. It can equally mean fourth “ Eternity ” as “ Fourth Round,” or even the fourth (our) Globe. For, as will repeatedly be shown, it is the fourth Sphere on the fourth or lowest plane of material life. And it so happens that we are in the Fourth Round, at the middle point of which the perfect equilibrium between Spirit and Matter had to take place. * Says the Commentary explaining the verse : —
“ The holy youths ( the gods ) refused to multiply and create species after their likeness, after their kind. They are not fit forms ( rupas ) for us. They have to grow. They refuse to enter the chhayas ( shadows or images ) of their inferiors. Thus had selfish feeling prevailed from the beginning, even among the gods, and they fell under the eye of the Karmic Lipikas.”
They had to suffer for it in later births. How the punishment reached the gods will be seen in the second volume.