by Charlotte. E. Woods, F.T.S.
A paper read before the Brixton Lodge T.S.
and published in "Theosophical Siftings" Volume 6
[Page 3] I want , tonight, to set before you, as briefly and clearly as possible, an outline of the wonderful method by which the Macrocosm, or Great Universe, is transformed into the microcosm or little universe, man.
The task, I am well aware, is no light one, inasmuch as the knowledge of man, and the causes which sent him into being, involves a knowledge of the whole scheme of Theosophy — the whole purport of Cosmic Manifestation.
It may not, however, be unprofitable to focus a fraction of the diffused mass of information contained in The Secret Doctrine, concerning human evolution; and this we will do by considering:
1) — The position occupied by man in the Universal Scheme.
2) — Of what he is composed.
3) — Who made him.
Now, with reference to the first consideration, man's position in the Universal Scheme, we frequently read of him as the crowning point of the Universe, the noblest effort of creative activity.
It may be well to consider, for a few moments, the exact amount of ground that is covered by the term man; whether it refers to his present fifth Race development, or his future seventh Race condition; or even to that higher state again, when his human nature shall become completely merged into the Divine.
Man being a progressive entity, it is impossible to say where he transcends the Man condition. We can, of course, for purposes of convenience and classification, apply the term "Man" to that aspect of him which denotes his thinking faculty, or Manas, and alter the term when referring to him after he has discarded, or transcended that Principle.
But by enlarging our conception of man, by following him along the whole line of his triple evolution, until intuition loses itself in the splendour of the conception, we shall get a much clearer idea of how he, and the Universe, and the Cause Which projected it, are, in reality, one and inseparable.
You will recall the old Kabalistic conception of the Adam Kadmon, the Great Universal Man ; whose feet touch clay; whose limbs are the Towers of Nature; whose head forms the regions supernal. In this figure I seem to sense a great truth — the truth that we, in our spiritual manhood, have to become those Higher Conditions of which we read so much, and understand so little; in other words, that we are the Universe in all its aspects. [Page 4]
Thus I suggest that we begin our study of man; trying, first, to grasp the widest and most abstract idea of which we can conceive; following the conception of his infinite, spiritual capacities till we lose them in the Absolute, and recognizing all lower and intermediate stages of Life as but stages in the same vast progression.
So we have fixed for man his place in the Universe, and found him to be, in his entirety, the Universe itself.
Admitting this fact, it is easy to see how perfect and exact must be the relation between the Macrocosm and Microcosm — how man is the Universe potentially, as every atom of the Universe is man potentially — that there is no actual disharmony or separateness between any two parts or planes, but that all is One Life in various stages of manifestation — all members of one great pilgrimage journeying towards one great goal.
But tonight we have specially to think of man in the concrete; that
is, the aspect of him which, for the past 18,000,000 years, has been manifesting as the human race.
I have used this somewhat paradoxical, and, I fear, pedantic definition because the "microcosm" or
little universe is rather misleading, it being as correctly applied to a grain of sand, with its seven principles,
as to a human being. Keeping, then, still in mind our abstract, universal man, we will pass on to consider his
reflection in Humanity — man as we know him. Of what is he composed, and how did he become as he is today
?
It may be helpful to us to think of one great river of Spiritual Life, branching, in the course of its journey towards its Source, into countless smaller streams, and they, again, into rivulets, and rivulets into drops. We may also think of the Life-stream as either spirit, under seven aspects; or matter, under seven aspects; or of one substance whose two poles, or extremes, are spirit and matter. Between the two, there is a mean, or midway point — a state partaking of the nature of both extremes; matter sublimated and coloured with spirit (if I may so speak), or spirit radiating through the medium of refined matter.
Let us call this condition, which seems to partake of the nature of both extremes, soul. Thus we get the three
main divisions or aspects of the One Principle, which become, when reflected in man as we know him, spirit, soul
and body.
But there are intermediate stages between the mean, and each of the extremes, which we shall find necessary
for the establishment of the triple division. Spirit must have its vehicle or basis in a principle a shade
less refined — hence
Buddhi; the Spiritual Soul.
Mind must also have a basis less subtle than itself–partaking somewhat of its nature, but sharing more particularly in that of the lower [Page 5] elements — hence we have the animal soul, the Kama. That again, needs the astral body as a vehicle for its manifestations; while the lower principles have, in their turn to be vitalised and held together by an essence which is on the lower plane, what Spirit is on the highest, this principle is Prana, or Vitality.
When we provide six-planed man with, a body in which to work out his weary term of imprisonment in matter, you will see a gradual scale of progression from pure spirit, downwards, the principles becoming grosser the nearer, they approach the physical Uphadi, or basis, and each depending upon the one below for the means of manifestation
Viewed somewhat in this way we have to regard the septenary aspect of Man, or the One Principle, as a necessity.
Spirit cannot otherwise descend into matter than by a series of gradual steps or progressions, for being of a nature too pure and subtle for direct contact with earth, it is, upon this plane, absolutely unconscious. Yet, for some inscrutable reason, matter has to become its schoolmaster to bring it again to God.
We must try and learn a little of how this is accomplished; the why will ever remain for us, on this plane, at all events, an unsolved question.
So we have thought of man, first, in his ideal and universal sense, as the One Principle in various stages of temporary manifestation; exhibiting itself in seven different stages, the top-most of which is pure spirit, the lowest, gross matter, and the mean between both, soul, mind, or ideation.
Calling this One Principle which becomes the Universe Adam Kadmon, or Universal Man, we can refer to its various parts or stages of evolution as incipient man in the elemental stage — in the mineral, vegetable and animal stage — man in the more developed human stage, and beyond that, in the Spiritual, Deva, or Nirvanic stage; all aspects, in various degrees, of the One, and all representing in their totality a "Thought Divine."
Let us come now to the history of concrete man, and the creators which guided his evolution up to the stage
at which we, at present, know him.
To tell the story clearly, we must go back to the beginnings of Manvantaric Dawn. We find the first indications
of an awakening evolutionary impulse in the appearance of the Point within the Circle, the first and ever-unmanifested
Logos, which we can conceive of only as the first impulse towards manifestation of the great Universal Thought,
lying latent in the Bosom of Parabrahm.
The second stage is the appearance of this Thought, embodied in the One Principle, on the plane of Potentiality,
Now I have spoken of this One Principle as the great Ideal Universal [Page 6] Man. Like concrete man, it is composed of an aggregate of many members and elements, all varying in degree of perfection and advancement. At the stage I am now considering it is homogeneous and undifferentiated, i.e., it is a Universe potentially, having not yet become divided into its parts.
But now a further development occurs and the One Principle becomes transformed into the One in Many.
From the first manifested ray of the Unknown, spring into existence the Seven Primordial Rays, called by The Secret Doctrine the "Primordial Seven" — the highest Beings on the scale of existence, " who produce from their Holy Circumgyrating Breaths, the Fiery Whirlwind", the Dhyan Chohanic Hosts. (S. D., I., 31.)
From this starting point we see, as it were, the whole Universe let loose upon its great circular journey.
"From one Light seven Lights; from each of the seven, seven times seven lights", and so on, ad infinitum,
until the mind reels in the contemplation of such vast progressions of active and organized forces.
The hosts of the Dhyan Chohans confront us as a veritable flood of Life and Consciousness bearing on its bosom the great Universal Thought, which is thus swept downward into manifestation.
To attempt a classification of the innumerable groups and sub-groups of septenaries, nouems, duo-decimals, and so on, which make up this vast host of celestial beings, is entirely beyond my power.
Yet, despite the complex manner in which they are presented in The Secret Doctrine, we may gather some orderly ideas concerning them — ideas which are indispensable to our present subject, since the Dhyan Chohans lie at the very root of spiritual man.
Let us then think of the Celestial Host as consisting of three broad divisions, corresponding to those of the Universe — body, soul, and spirit.
"The first", says The Secret Doctrine, "are gods, or conscious, spiritual entities; the intelligent architects, who work after the plan in the Divine Mind. Then come the Elementals or Monads, who form collectively the grand Universal Mirrors of everything connected with their respective realms. Lastly, the Atoms, or material molecules, which are informed in their turn by monads, just as every cell in the human body is so informed." (S. D 1. 632.)Now imagine each member of this broad triple division existing in seven chief hierarchies, the first septenary being what we have called the Primordial, or highest gods, and the other two the great hosts of intelligent and semi-intelligent working forces of the Universe. Each of these three septenaries multiply other and lower groups of septenaries innumerable, but all the various ramifications are confined within the three above-mentioned classes. As I before repeated, all are merely aspects of the One [Page 7] Principle, the great Monad, from whom, they originally radiated. Regarded in their collectivity, they become Mahat — the Divine Mind — or Ahhi, through which Cosmic Ideation is manifested.
Now, it is from the third group of the first and highest septenary that the progenitors of our humanity proceed — the third division of the Chohans named "Builders" — they who have the charge of reconstructing every solar system after Pralaya.
From these highest primordial emanations of the Third Logos, or One Principle, proceeds that homogeneous spark which radiates, in millions of rays, the Monads or Jivas which form incipient man.
To make the idea of the Dhyan Chohanic Hosts a little clearer, we can imagine the birth of a new Manvantara as the re-emergence, on the plane of Manifestation, of a Universe whose parts are, already, in different stages of evolution. Those members of it which had advanced far along the road to Divinity, and had won a high Spiritual Consciousness during a past Manvantara, are now formed into Hierarchies of great Cosmic importance.
They who have completed, in past cycles, the work of Humanity, now transmit, from the One Principle, the spiritual germ which develops into a future human race.
Other hierarchies are composed of monads less highly evolved, to whom are entrusted tasks whose importance varies with the worker's degree of fitness. But all — down to the lowliest builder of a physical germ-cell — are workers in the great task of evolving a Universe; and all are continuing the work commenced in a past Manvantara. All moreover, as we have seen, fall under the divisions of spiritual, psychic, and physical, their place in these departments depending upon the degree of past attainments. We are now approaching the most difficult part of our subject. We have to speak of spiritual man, and have only relative and human terms in which to consider him.
To begin with; we are accustomed to think of the Monad as descending into matter, becoming encased therein, and moving Upward upon the evolutionary wave until that point is reached, when it liberates itself from matter forever.
But how can we logically apply to spirit such relative concepts as "up", "down", “apart from" ; and how is such confusion of planes permissible as the contact of spirit with matter ? What is matter, and can it be conceived of in any way as apart from spirit ?
We must be careful not to allow the miserable medium of ordinary language to become a blind rather than an aid to intuition; and especially is this caution needful in studying the mystery of the monad.
Now the Monad, or the source of Spiritual Man, lies in Âtmâ, and [Page 8] Ãtmâ we cannot conceive of as other than a homogeneous, undifferentiated principle.
The Âtmic Principle in the Universe is the Âtmic Principle in man; and the Âtmic plane that state in which this Principle exists, and the state of that man who reaches up to, and merges his individuality with It. Âtmâ, the pure, white Light of Spiritual Life and Consciousness, for which we have no appropriate or in any way adequate terms, seems to my thinking, to be composed of the highest Spiritual Intelligences, Lives, Flames, as the ocean is an aggregate of its drops, and the sun of its rays.
Âtmâ must have its seven principles; and when we read
of what are poetically termed a “Builders", the
Primordial Flames, the "Sons of Light", it is possible that they each may be taken to represent a
principle of the One Divine Principle.
"The Monad", says The Secret Doctrine, "is rendered. as Atma in conjunction with
Buddhi and the Higher Manas, three phases of the one Principle".— (S.D., I, 570]
" The Divine purely Adi-Buddhic Monad manifests as the spiritual, omniscient, and omnipotent root of divine intelligence . . . the Logos. This descends 'like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire . . and becomes Universal Life on the Mundane Plane. From this plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light' (S.D I. 572) and from these, as an emanating spark of the Uncreated Ray is derived the Spiritual Monad — a mystery". (S.D. I., 571.)
Now the Monad-Âtmâ reflected in Buddhi, and existing as the sum total of Its Divine “rays" or conscious spiritual lives, must not be thought of as coming down into matter, much less as differentiating into individual monads. The Monad is in a state beyond time and space — it is beyond illusion — it alone is.The Monad gives that spiritual living impulse to evolution which causes the Kingdoms of Nature to come into
being as the result of Divine Thought.
That which becomes in man his highest principles and divinest parts, is, in a lower degree, the excellency and
life of inferior kingdoms. Says the Bhagavat Gita: —
"All things hang on me, as precious gems upon a string. I am the taste in water, the light of the sun and moon, sound in space, the sweet smell in the earth, and the "brightness in the fire".The spiritual Monad is the great source and supporter of all manifested existence, but it acts by suggestion, if one in may so speak, from its own plane, rather than by descending, and encasing itself in matter. As the sun's rays shine upon all nature, without specialisation, so with the spiritual, monadic Sun.
Therefore, when we hear, as we shall do, of various classes of monads, [Page 9] incarnating in matter, and passing up through different kingdoms of nature, care must be taken not to accept the words too literally.
Think rather of a great spiritual Sun manifesting, or reflecting down from a higher plane than ours its life-powers in differing degrees — prompting and guiding the evolution of forms and organisms; imprinting upon plastic primordial matter the Ideas latent in the Universal Mind: endowing them with vitality, and stimulating and directing the onsweep of the great Cosmic Course whose programme was sketched in a past Manvantara.
What is matter ? Ask rather, what is Âtmâ ? We see the Monad directing the growth of a particular Idea — we will call it the vegetable kingdom — we see that Idea limited, and that limitation we call matter.
It should rather be termed a restriction of the spiritual powers inherent in the Monad. When the time comes for Atma-Buddhi to radiate in full spiritual glory, matter, as we know it, will be no more.
For Divine Nature manifests in majestically slow degrees, and has to dim its brightness for awhile behind the clouds of maya. Hence the man who can pass for a moment behind the clouds, knows that in his highest aspect he is one with the whole Universe, for his Monad — his true basic Self — is the Universal Monad, whose Light is the creator equally, of a blade of grass, and the highest. Dhyani Buddha. This oneness of macrocosm and microcosm is the soul of our philosophy; Between art ignorant worship of every atom as an incarnate god, and an unphilosophical duality between Spirit and Matter, stands the Esoteric doctrine which teaches how both Cosmos and Man are but so many gradually widening views of one great, Spiritual Light, which, for want of any adequate name we call the One Reality.
This is the great central thought of our study tonight. The real unity of the Monad, or man, with the temporarily separated aspects of himself, which he calls the manifested Universe.
We have now to remember that the Monad — to adopt, the figurative language of The Secret Doctrine — has intermediate stages to traverse before it arrives at our terrestrial sphere.
There are, as we have seen, seven classes or grades of matter connecting the two poles of Spirit, but of these we are, now, only concerned with the two last. We will call them lunar-matter, and physical or earth-matter.
The one seems to be to the other what the astral body is to the physical.
Now even when our world was only in astral clothing itself, it still had its astral body. What are planetary chains ?
They are the graduated stages of matter through which the Spiritual Essence has to pass before it can contact the grossest and lowest stage of all — physical matter.
Think then, of seven globes or worlds of this rarefied, ethereal stuff — too [Page 10] refined almost for the term matter — of which the grossest member is our satellite, the moon.
Upon this lunar chain the seven classes of the Monad incarnate, and go through their experience in the seven kingdoms for seven rounds.
Then each globe, being now no longer needed, begins, one by one, to transfer its life-energy to a new chain, and thus forms a sister system, of which our earth is the grossest member. Upon this denser matter the seven classes, now in various grades of advancement, continue their material experiences, passing, for three rounds, around the entire circle, until they pause in the fourth, at the door of our earth.
It is at this stage that we first come, face to face, with incipient man and his Creators. And now is exemplified that great universal law which makes of the higher and more progressed entities the servants and helpers of the lower.
There is no idle force in Nature. We are all either workers or destroyers; co-operators in the Universal Scheme, or agents of disharmony and evil.
And once we are willing to follow out the intentions of Nature, we cannot help giving of our highest and best for the development of the less progressed ones below us.
To act otherwise would be to rebel against Karmic law — as those Creators rebelled whose story we shall presently have to relate.
The Monads of incipient man have now journeyed through the six lower kingdoms, i.e., the three elementary and the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, during the seven rounds of the Lunar chain, and in the first three and a half rounds of the earth chain. In the fourth round on our globe they are ready to become men. They are now fully differentiated Monads of the second class. On arrival, they find the first and more progressed class waiting to receive them, i.e., those Monads who started earlier upon the lunar chain, and who were therefore able to become shadowy incipient men on the first globe of the earth-chain during the first round.
These advanced Monads Theosophy terms Lunar Pitris or Progenitors,
Now the term "Pitris" means "Fathers". and refers to that particular hierarchy of Dhyan Chohans who were commissioned to create man. We have before seen them to be the third division of the Primordial Septenary named "Builders".
These Pitris must not be taken to represent only the Lunar Pitris, or Progenitors, which are but one of the seven-fold division of Pitris proper.
The Pitris hierarchy is composed of groups of Dhyani who correspond each to a principle in man, and who undertake to control and supervise the [Page 11] particular round corresponding to that principle, and evolve the latter from themselves at the appointed time.
So that when incipient man arrives on earth at the beginning of the fourth round, he needs a body in which to manifest, since a disembodied entity which has, as yet, had no taste of material existence, would be an impossibility on the physical plane.
The lowest group, the terrestrial spirits or elementals, cannot build for him a form, without a model upon which to work. So the Lunar Pitris or Barhishads come forward — they who had been evolved by a higher group in past rounds, and who had been the first to reach the stage at which human incarnation became impossible.
Thin, filmy, unconscious creatures they, as we term consciousness; yet they were the highest forms of life, in that dim, transitional time, and being such, they gave of their all.
From their ethereal bodies they "shoot out still more ethereal and shadowy similitudes of themselves, or what we should call 'doubles' or ‘astral forms' in their own likeness". This furnishes man with his first dwelling, and the elemental forces with a model upon which to build. — S.D., I., 248.
Thus was the first race formed — too spiritual, pure and ethereal to be men; too material, even in its ethereality, to be a hierarchy of gods, it had to give birth to the second race, and that again to the third, before the sacred spark of rational intelligence — mind — could cement the nature of animal man with the inherent spirituality of his Monad.
To quote the quaint language of the Stanzas: —
"The breath (or human monad) needed a form; the Fathers (Pitris) gave it.
"The breath needed a gross body; the Earth (lower elementals) moulded it.
"The breath needed the Spirit of Life (Prana); the solar Lhas (the vital electric principle residing in the Sun) breathed it into its form. The breath needed a mirror of its body (astral shadow). 'We gave it our own', said the Dhyanis.
"The breath needed a vehicle of Desires. 'It has it', said the Drainer of the Waters (the fire of passion).
"The breath needs a mind to embrace the Universe. 'We cannot give that' said the Fathers. 'I never had it' said the spirit of the Earth. The form would be consumed were I to give it mine,' said the great (Solar) Fire.
"Man remained an empty, senseless Bhûta. Thus have the boneless given life to those who became men with bones in the third race". —S.D., II, 17 .
The condition of the first three races was that of a one, two, and three-principled mankind,. The first, or shadow race, lived only in the astral, or model forms of their Lunar Progenitors. The second race were born by a simple process of budding or fission from the first. [Page 12]
The third race, the first physical race, or the sweat-born, were the first to receive the germs of the middle, or Kamic principle, whose full development was not attained until the midway point of the round.
And now we come to that mystery of mysteries — the descent and development of the Manas, or fifth principle — that sacred spark of Divine Intelligence, which is to transform the senseless animal into the potential God. To approach, if ever so dimly, the solution of that mystery, we must hear the story of man's highest Creators, as gathered from The Secret Doctrine.
Let each of us gather what he can from the depths of that profound allegory, knowing that he who has sensed its highest meaning has solved the enigma of himself.
We read, then, that the "Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, ready for re-birth, came down. They saw the (intellectually) will forms of the first Third (still senseless) Race".
"We can chose", said the Lords, "we have wisdom". Some entered the shadows; some projected the spark; some deferred till the fourth race. From their own essence they intensified the Kama (or vehicle of desire). (S. D., II., 161.) Now, who are the "Lords of Wisdom" ? They belong to the first and highest group of the hierarchy of creative Pitris and are spoken of as "Solar Gods", in distinction to the Progenitors, who were Lunar.
Too pure and spiritual to create for the Monad his first material dwelling, they are termed Agnishwatta Pitris, or those devoid of the Creative Fire. These Beings called variously Asuras, Kumaras, Manasa-putra or Sons of Mind, the Lords of the Flame, form the very heart of the Dhyan Chohanic Hosts.
Their mysterious connection with Makara, the tenth sign of the Zodiac, gives rise to the symbol of the pentagon, or five-pointed star, which signifies man, the term Makara being derived from Ma = five, and Kara = a hand of five fingers = a being of five limbs, and five principles — Man.
Hidden far behind an immensity of years, so great that the human mind can take no reckoning of them, lies the real history of the Agnishwatta Pitris;
In planes of matter inconceivable to us through phases of life and consciousness entirely beyond reach of speculation, these "Lords of Wisdom" were born and tutored in the mysteries of self-knowledge.
The Asuras were high on the road to immortality, but they had not
yet become pure Spirit. A further stage of matter was needed — strange as the paradox may seem — a
stage in which a contact with the grosser elements should be counteracted by union with the Spiritual Monad,
for the Asuras were too pure for complete commingling with matter. [Page
13]
Hence we read of their refusing the command to enter the senseless; bodies of the second race, in
which the vehicle of the middle principle was not yet evolved.
And if it be asked: Who filled the Kamic vehicle, the mysterious fourth principle, whose evolution appears, at
this stage, complete, and for which no special Creator seems assigned, we can but feel ourselves trenching on
a mystery concerning which The Secret Doctrine is uncommunicative.
This much, however, we learn: "From their own essence they filled (or intensified) the Kama". And again: "It is only in the actual midway round that man develops in himself entirely the fourth principle as a fit vehicle for the fifth", (S.D., II.161) — thus inferring that the same Agnishwatta group was responsible for both principles. This idea is borne out by the fact that the Agnishwattas are themselves divisible into seven sub-groups — like every other branch of the Chohans — of which three are Arupa or formless, and four more material. It may be, then, that the four lower and less evolved grouplets became the vehicles for the incarnation of the higher; but this is a matter of speculation only.
To return to the Agnishwattas, and their desire for further intercourse with material existence. How did they act:?
"They; rejected the Self-born (or first race). They are not ready. They spurned the Sweat-born (or second race). They are not quite ready. They would not enter the first Egg-born (or early third race)". (S. D., II., 171).In this refusal of the Lords of the Flame to enter unsuitable habitations, we have the origin of the Rebellion of Satan — an allegory of which Theology has taken advantage to build up the monstrous dogma of the "War in Heaven".
A verse in the Apocalypse in which St. John refers to the "great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his head, whose tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth," seems to tell the story plainly enough. For the expression "did cast them to the earth" has a most distinct reference to this chapter out of pre-cosmic theogony, which, after the destruction of the Atlantean sorcerers became veiled under the Aryan myth of the rebellion of Brahma's mind-born sons.
The "third part of the stars of Heaven", moreover, corroborates the Esoteric teaching that one-third of the Dhyanis, or the three arupa classes of the Agnishwatta Pitris, were simply doomed, by the law of Karma and evolution, to be reborn on earth as men.
They refused to enter the half-formed physical bodies of the less
progressed Monads — some, because they
had not the requisite material, an astral body, others, because, as Adepts and Yogis of past Manvantaras, [Page
14] they needed the co-operation of a more advanced class of Monad ; and the third from a higher reason still,
which will be dealt with in its place.
Their figurative "rebellion" was, in reality, obedience to Karmic law.
But now the wheel turns again, and the Lords of Wisdom once more look down upon the habitations of the children of men. The third race had now separated, from Egg-born Androgynes, into distinct male and female, "In these will we dwell", said the "Lords of the Flame". And so the descent into matter was made, and the "Sons of Mind", the Human Egos, uniting the spiritual potentialities of the Monad with their own divine self-consciousness, made of their first vehicles, the Holy Fathers, Ancestors of the Arhats.
But a residue remained in whom the divine Spark had not entered.
Irresponsible, mindless entities, with no light of reason to guide their animal instincts, they sinned, and the sin fell on those who had failed to do by them their Karmic duty. The Amansa, or mindless, by their union with the animals, defiled the future abodes of those Asuras who were waiting for the further development of the less progressed Monads, And now we see the converse side of the mystery of the descent into matter.
The Kumaras, who needed, for their further development, the experience of human incarnations, now offer themselves for the good and salvation of these lower Monads who would otherwise have had to linger, for countless ages, in irresponsible, animal-like forms.
Such Asuras are Nirmanakayas — high Adepts who lay aside their glory, and consent to raise mindless man into union with his spiritual Monad.
The Kumara pays the penalty of disobedience by the sacrifice of himself.
In close connection with Atma-Buddhi, he forms in man his Higher Self — he who came down from Heaven, even "the Son of Man (or Mind) which is in Heaven".
And we who, in the fifth race of the fourth round, glance back at
the long changeful course traversed by our lesser selves: we, the fragments of the Universal Man, who have
thus been built up, stage by stage, into a nearer approach to the Ultimate Perfection: we must gratefully
recognise that divine law of Renunciation which prompted the Higher to become the Lower — the Creators
to be merged into the essence of the creatures.
To sum up briefly.
Man, in his totality, is the One Principle,; the Divine Manas. The Universe is Divine Man in various stages of differentiation and advancement. [Page 15]
Universal Man, in order to realise himself, has to pass through countless metamorphoses — of which concrete man is one — the metamorphoses ranging from spirit to gross matter by means of seven progressive stages planes or principles.
These seven divisions of the One are, in reality, but three — spirit, soul and body.
Within them range the whole host of Dhyan Chohans, the creative forces and egos which represent the Universal Man in his various stages of evolution.
From the highest group or aspect of the One proceeds the germ which is to evolve into concrete man on the triple lines of spirit, soul and matter.
Passing through the six pre-human kingdoms, during the seven rounds of the Lunar, and the first three and a half rounds of the Earth chain, the Monad is now ready to manifest in human form.
The Lunar Pitris — a more advanced class of the Monad — clothes it with their own astral bodies, thus forming the basis of the physical line of evolution.
The Dhyani of the Earth or elemental forces, build around these astral forms a physical body.
Then comes the Agnishwatta Pitris, the highest group of the creative hierarchy, who endow the form with mind, thus uniting the human, or psychic, line of evolution with the spiritual nature of the Monad, and the physical and animal nature of the astral man.
So man becomes a divine, self-conscious entity, able to rouse, by means of Manas — the mean between the two extremes of spirit and gross matter — the latent spirituality of his divine germ.
Atma-Buddhi thus joined to Manas, becomes, in the animal man, his Higher Self, his Christ, suffering for him upon the cross of matter that He may redeem him through matter.
Thus the triple lines of Cosmic evolution are miniatured in concrete man. The microcosm, as a reflection of that from which he has sprung, and an earnest of that to which he must ultimately return.
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