(The following text is the fifth and final part of chapter ten of the book "The Growth of the Soul" by Alfred Sinnett.)
In guess-work concerning the duration of astronomical periods modern science has not yet been furnished with data on which to proceed with security, and its confidence in the data which it assumes is apt to be misplaced.
Thus all calculations relating to the supposed maintenance of the Sun's heat by shrinkage are quite ludicrously wrong, and the forecasts at present in favour as regards the time at which there will be no room for it to shrink any more, and at which consequently the planetary family around it will be frozen to death, will sooner or later be looked back upon by the science of the future as quite on a level with the theory of the tortoise that supports the world.
I am little inclined, however, to encourage the flippancy of some occultists who speak disrespectfully of modern science because our information enables us to catch it out here and there in mistakes.
The science of the western world is in the van of human intelligence, if we except only the wisdom of Adeptship. Its achievements so far have been beautiful and glorious. It merely needs now to avail itself of the wonderful instruments of research which lie but half hidden in the depths of human faculty, and then it will carry the exquisite discipline of its thought into regions where at present only a few exceptionally gifted explorers are roaming, unprepared by their training for the work they attempt to perform.
In times not long gone by, the reconciliation of science and religion was hoped for by enthusiasts as promising, when it should be accomplished, some immense advance in general civilisation. That union is in process of realisation, religion having, so to speak, accorded a grudging consent. But the next great step must be the reconciliation of science and occultism. That, too, must come, though perhaps this time it will be the scientific world that will show some disposition to be sulky as the change forces its way.
That will not matter in the long run, and in that long run the state of facts dealt with in this volume will assuredly be the subject of investigations with which future members of the Royal Society will be engaged, though at the moment the wonderful story I have had to tell may find even some Theosophists incredulous, unless they have intuition enough to feel sure that, all things considered, I should not be likely to put it forward without such assurance of its accuracy as suffices to justify its association with the many other Fragments of Occult Truth which it has been my privilege to set forth.
The changes which thus take place from time to time within the interior economy of the solar system must, of course, produce perturbing effects on the movements of planets already in existence at any given period when an old planet is disintegrated, or a new one solidified, and probably such perturbations play a part in the cyclic processes going forward in the active worlds of the time.
It sometimes happens that isolated statements cropping up in occult teaching point to astronomical events that we cannot easily refer to cosmic causes visibly in operation. They are very likely promoted by changes which are going on in what may be called the configuration of the system, at great intervals.
It can never fall to the lot of any one generation of observant beings on any one planet to witness the evolution of a new world or the destruction of an old one. Such processes are protracted compared with the span of human life. But crises must come on at some periods in the future when rational inhabitants of some planets may see new worlds in formation, or processes in activity foreshadowing the disintegration of some aged planet that has fulfilled its purpose.
The seven great schemes of planetary evolution proceed on independent lines, but helpfulness is the law of life throughout the entire system, and in this way it comes to pass that the various schemes are not rigidly excluded from the possibility of receiving benefits from others. On this subject we need only concern ourselves with one example of such intercommunication, but it is important to comprehend this one example correctly if we are endeavouring to understand our own evolutionary history.
The Venus scheme, as already stated, is in the seventh round of its fifth Manvantara, we of the earth chain being at present in the fourth round of the fourth Manvantara.
(Cid's note: The schemes are a lie invented by Sinnett. It is most likely that Earth and Venus are in the same Manvantara, but we do not know what numbering it is.)
Thus the humanity of the Venus chain was already on spiritual levels immensely higher than those of our humanity when we were still struggling on in the earlier phases of our evolution during this earth period. So it came to pass that some representatives of the Venus Adeptship, availing themselves of possibilities having to do with immensely exalted spiritual planes common to the whole solar system, transferred themselves to this earth for a time during part of the third and early fourth race, and took part in the teaching and guidance of our comparatively infant humanity.
Readers approaching these conceptions for the first time may be inclined to wonder how so great a gulf on the scale of evolution can have separated the earlier humanity of this world period from that inhabiting the earth to-day, and including masters of wisdom who have already scaled heights on a level, so far as we cart understand, with those from which our Venus teachers descended.
The explanation lies in this simple fact that until the midway point of any Manvantara is reached the whole process of evolution must be thought of as a downward growth into the complexities of materiality. No one, however individually ripe for spiritual evolution, could begin to transcend his companions in any extraordinary degree until the middle point of the Manvantara was turned.
Then he had a clear course before him; it was possible for anyone, assuming extraordinary aptitudes on his part, to achieve in a comparatively brief series of lives the whole development, for which, as regards the race at large, Nature liberally provides the whole second half of the Manvantara.
Before the midway point of our Manvantara — that is to say, before the middle period of the great root race preceding our own — there were no Adepts belonging to our human family; thus no further back than at the beginning of the great Atlantean, or fourth root race, the earth chain was entirely dependent on external help for its loftier spiritual guidance.
The course of human pirogress through this world period, therefore — the history of the great root races may be best studied in theosophical books devoted specially to the elucidation of that magnificent progress, but the general character of such progress must be borne in mind by all who would form a mental picture of the whole system to which we belong, calculated to give an intelligent significance to individual progress. Moreover, the comprehension of the way the great race evolution has been, and is going on during this world period, will connect itself in a peculiarly interesting way with the general comprehension of the whole structure of the system.
On the planet Mars, where humanity was last incarnated before the world period of the earth began, humanity already inhabited physical bodies, and was endowed with sufficient human intelligence to carry out architectural and engineering works under the guidance of teachers belonging to a superior evolution.
On completing its cycle on that planet mankind began its existence on this, under conditions which can hardly be thought of as physical. The vehicles of their consciousness were of ethereal matter, insusceptible to heat or cold, not yet subject to laws connected with waste and replenishment, which operate in connection with the more compact organisms of our time.
The first and second great root races were of this order; in the course of the third, the condensation of the physical vehicle of human consciousness was accomplished, in the fourth root race man was in the beginning considerably bulkier than at present, was already designed on the physical pattern we are acquainted with, and divided into two sexes.
The course of evolution through preceding rounds was thus recapitulated in the course of the present world period in a way which bears some analogy to that curious recapitulation of physical existence which goes on at the present day in connection with the birth of every fresh physical creature, as students of embryology are well aware.
It must not be supposed, however, that the whole human family of this scheme evolved during the first half of the present Manvantara on precisely the same plan. Our last Manvantara, the third or Lunar Manvantara, so called because the present moon was then the physical planet of the chain, did not bring forward all entities to levels which correspond to what we think of as humanity to-day, but it afforded some scope for individual progress, and thus left the family at its close, on various levels of advancement.
The varied requirements of the situation were provided for in this way : the most developedentities did not come into incarnation in the earlier rounds of the present Manvantara. These earlier rounds afforded an appropriate field of activity on lower levels of existence for the less developed entities, and while these were enjoying a fresh opportunity of accomplishing tRe evolution they failed to realise properly during their last Manvantara, the highly developed entities of that Manvantara were passing through periods of spiritual existence to which those on the lower levels had no access.
These spiritual periods occupied periods of time corresponding to three round periods, so that while the undeveloped entities of the last Manvantara were, so to speak, bringing the next into a condition which once more would afford them an opportunity of making progress beyond the possibility of the last Manvantara, they were at the same time rendering it suitable for the occupation of their elder brethren who had not only attained to the maximum possibilities of the previous Manvantara, but had spent time corresponding to the three first rounds of the next, in conditions of existence involving definite spiritual progress.
Thus only on the conclusion of the three spiritual periods did the most advanced entities of the last Manvantara come into incarnation in this. In the technical language of modern occult study the most advanced entities are spoken of as the first class Lunar Pitris. The phrase is perfectly intelligible and significant, when we bear in mind the fact that Pitri comes from the same root as Father, and simply signifies ancestor.
As a physical planet the moon is now but the dead body of the planet which once bore the mighty life-wave of the human family. It has shrunk to relatively small proportions, for not only have its subtle principles been re-incarnated in the earth, but a good deal of its physical matter has actually been withdrawn from it to the body of its offspring. The process by which this result was accomplished has been already described.
So then, the most advanced representatives of the whole human family came into incarnation in this Manvantara at the middle period, that is to say, during the present period of the world's activity, in a condition which represents the maximum development possible during the Lunar Manvantara, plus the further progress accomplished during the three spiritual periods.
Thus the two classes who have been in incarnation during the earlier rounds of this Manvantara have had an opportunity by this time of rising to nearly the same development of evolution, but are still in the rear of the foremost class, which, as the whole body continues to progress, may be thought of as still leading the van, and representing in our own time all those who are the flower of our own age, who are the exponents of its most advanced intellectual capacity, and especially those who at the earliest possible moment in the life of the world show aptitudes for spiritual progress, and most readily assimilate such teaching concerning the higher destinies of man as are involved in the noblest religious conceptions — especially in the occult philosophy which unites these loftiest aspirations with definite knowledge concerning the superphysical states of existence.
Not only all those who at the earliest possible date emerge from the ruck of humanity, and taking full advantage of the guidance received from those of a superior evolution, pass upward into the ranks of Adeptship, but all those who are in any sense their pupils, besides all those whose intellectual and moral development is of a kind which will render them available as occult pupils in the course of a few more incarnations, may be thought of as belonging to the class spoken of as the first of the Lunar Pitris.
This statement must not be taken as implying that it is impossible for entities belonging to the second class to attain spiritual exaltation, but at the present stage of evolution the great majority of those who get on to the high levels are of the first Pitri class.
As the mighty force of evolution sweeps upward during the successive rounds of the Manvantara, great numbers of those belonging to the second class will gradually attain levels of spiritual growth, from which they also will be capable of taking short cuts towards the summit levels possible in this Manvantara, but the first class of the Lunar Pitris ought to attain these summit levels at periods far in advance of the Manvantara 's close. At that remote period in the future it will be theoretically possible that all members of the human family, whose differentiation into specific entities had been accomplished during the Lunar Manvantara, will be able to attain the summit level.
Those only for whom this progress would be hardly possible in the time are those who have only emerged as definite entities from the animal kingdom during the earlier rounds of this Manvantara.
The probabilities are — and taking into account the enormous numbers with which we have to deal, probabilities in such a matter amount to something like certainty, over the whole area considered — the probabilities are, that of the whole number of entities constituting the human family at this time, including those who have emerged during the first half of the Manvantara from the animal kingdom as well as those who have distinct Pitri ancestry, three-fifths will arrive in some degree of appropriate advancement at what I have called the summit levels of the Manvantara.
The destiny of the two-fifths is profoundly interesting. Nature does not make the ghastly mistake attributed to her by some ecclesiastical creeds of consigning to permanent perdition the failures of any one evolutionary period.
The two-fifths cannot get along any further with the planetary scheme to which they belong. They are not qualified to enter on the later incarnations of that period. But what happens to them?
That will best be understood by turning our attention for the moment to the failures of the planetary scheme senior to our own, of which the planet Venus is the physical representative. The human family of that scheme has long since passed the period at which its two-fifths were unable to get on to the loftiest possibilities of the scheme to which they belong.
Where are they to be found?
At an early stage of our thinking, many of us assumed that they would somehow begin again in the next Manvantara of that scheme. Nature is much more scientific in her working, meaning by that phrase, more clearly in harmony with intelligent thinking, as to what ought to take place.
The failures of the Venus Manvantara have long since been merged in the human family of the next scheme gradually approaching maturity — our own! The Venus failures are amongst us at the present day, although, as a matter of fact, they failed at a stage of evolution so far in advance of that which this world has yet attained to, that this world hardly yet affords them incarnations of sufficiently appropriate advancement for them to merge themselves fully in our own family. Another deeply interesting state of facts arises from this condition of things.
Very broadly stated in all earlier books on the subject, the tide wave of humanity during any round from one planet to another is a vast tidal wave of life leaving the planet behind in a state of relatively inanimate obscuration. This view rather too hastily interprets the method adopted. It is true that the vast majority of the human family to which we belong did actually sweep on from the planet Mars to this earth at a very remote period of its present activity. But it is not true that absolutely all were swept on with it. A fairly considerable residuum of the less developed entities remained behind, and to a large extent remain still on the planet Mars, of which they are the present inhabitants. They are frankly the dregs of the human family. The interesting fact discovered by modern astronomy that they show marvellous capacities for hydraulic engineering, does not militate against the truth that I have just declared.
In some respects they are more capable; in other respects they fall behind the moral developments of the earth's inhabitants to an extent that language hardly enables one to define. Meanwhile, as time has gone on, some of us, in obedience to karmic conditions, rather too intricate to describe minutely just now, have gone on as an advanced guard of humanity to the next planet in advance of us, the planet Mercury.
There, in truth, they are leading a very beautiful life in advance, both morally and in regard to natural knowledge of our own to a very remarkable extent. And there, the residual population of the Venus chain have found appropriate incarnation.
So that the fairly considerable population of Mercury at the present moment largely and in the great majority, consists of what I have so far called the Venus failures. In all probability they will now continue to represent, although not exclusively constituting the vanguard of our humanity. The idea once comprehended will be seen to be susceptible of application all through the solar system.
The next planet, as matters now stand — for the planet once occupying the asteroid orbit proved a failure for reasons it is impossible to diverge into now — the next planet to be fully developed will be the planet Jupiter, at present, as I shall be able to show later on, at an early stage of its growth and in an earlier Manvantara than that which is in progress in our own case at present.
Of the Venus three-fifths, above referred to, something like half will actually have achieved the maximum progress this Manvantara is designed to effect. That progress will put each of such beings in a position so far transcending the conditions of humanity around us at the present day, that if we compare them with the ordinary humanity they will seem fairly God-like in their knowledge and power and capacity for cosmic service.
They will have attained to a full and complete appreciation of all the powers and forces and Divine purposes of which this chain of worlds has been the stage. For them the whole chain of worlds, not merely in their most material manifestations, but in all their astral and spiritual aspects as well, will constitute an absolutely familiar field of operations.
They will be functioning in full consciousness on planes of Nature which embrace all these worlds. Every globe of the chain will be as accessible to them as the different rooms of a house in which he lives may be accessible to a human being of the present ordinary type. Their moral evolution corresponding with the growth of their knowledge and power will have brought them into perfect harmony with the whole Divine design of which the Manvantara has been the expression.
They will be conscious and intelligent agents engaged in working out this design, and as regards their own ulterior progress they will themselves select from many various lines of ulterior evolution open to them, those along which they will best be able to conduce to the complete fulfilment of even loftier designs than that with which our Manvantara is directly related, and may either continue to guide and direct the progress of the succeeding Manvantaras associated with this chain of existences, or may pass away into other regions of cosmic activity, already representative, as it were, of the final achievement to which this chain of Manvantaras is subservient, in connection with still vaster processes lying within the immeasurable economy of Nature.
Those who, while still belonging to the great three-fifths, have not at the close of this Manvantara actually attained the maximum perfection which lies within its possibilities, but are nevertheless in sight, as it were, of that perfection, will be the vanguard of human life in the next Manvantara perhaps when that has been prepared for their reception by the earlier activities of less advanced entities. As for the nature of the progress on which they will then set out it is hardly necessary for us at this stage of our development to attempt any definite conception.
One idea, however, should be borne in mind in connection with all attempts to realise, however imperfectly, the colossal proportion and constitution of this system to which, we belong. We must not think of the worlds of the system as existing wholly and solely for the sake of the evolution of the human family, on which so far our attention has been chiefly concentrated.
Just as the world around us is the theatre of a great many forms of physical life, destined perhaps in the progress of time to merge one into the other, but for the time being on widely different levels, so the whole chain of worlds is the theatre of many evolutions which, during this Manvantara, are not destined to blend one into the other.
Meanwhile crude conceptions concerning the place of humanity in the cosmos are apt to render people at the same time too humble and too arrogant concerning their place in Nature.
Conventional teaching entirely underrates the dignity and splendour of the altitude to which it is possible for a human being to ascend, and very often as ludicrously misconceives the stupendous proportions of the cosmos, by regarding the interests of humanity as something like the sole concern of its presiding Divinity.
With this very general sketch of the system to which we belong it will now be convenient to pass on to an explanation of the methods open to us for the ascent to its summit levels at an earlier period than that contemplated by the design of the scheme as a whole, and when we have realised more exactly the phases ol spiritual achievement constituting the steps on trie great path that leads to the highest attainable Adeptship, we shall be in a better position to forecast with exactitude the ultimate stratification of the human family at the close of this Manvantara.
OBSERVATION
Alfred Sinnett based his work on the teachings of Theosophy, but he added many falsehoods to his explanation (particularly that humanity on Earth previously evolved on Mars and will evolve on Mercury in the future). These falsehoods resulted from misunderstandings, from the séances Sinnett conducted, and also from the lies that Charles Leadbeater supported him.
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