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The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923
By A. T. Barker
Letter No XIII
Cosmological Notes and Queries and M.'s Replies. Received January,1882. Allahabad.
(i) I conceive that at the close of a pralaya the impulse givenby the Dhyan Chohans does not develop from chaos, a successionof worlds simultaneously, but seriatim. The comprehensionofthe manner in which each in succession ensues from its predecessor as the impact of the original impulse might perhaps be betterpostponed till after I am enabled to realize the working of thewhole machine—the cycle of worlds—after all its parts have comeinto existence.
(1) Correctly conceived nothing in nature springs into existencesuddenly all being subjected to the same law of gradual evolution. Realize but once the process of the maha cycle, of onesphere and you have realized them all. One man is born likeanother man, one race evolves, develops and declines likeanother and all other races. Nature follows the same groovefrom the " creation " of a universe down to that of a mosquito.In studying esoteric cosmogony, keep a spiritual eye uponthephysiological process of human birth; proceed from causetoeffect establishing^ along analogies between the …. man and that of a world. In our doctrine will find necessary the synthetic me— you will have to embrace the whole —that is to say to blend the macrocosm —cosm together—before you are ena— to study the parts separately or analyze them with profit to your understanding. Cosmology is the physiology of the universe spiritualized, for there is but one law.
(2) Taking- the middle of a period of activity between two pralayas, i.e., of a manvantara—what I understand to happen is this. Atoms are polarized in the highest regfion of spiritual eflux from behind the veil of primitive cosmic matter. The magnetic impulse which has accomplished this result flits from one mineral form to another within the first sphere till having- run the round of existence in that kingdom of the first sphere it descends in a current of attraction to the second sphere.
(3) Polarize themselves during the process of motion and propelled by the irresistible Force at work. In Cosmogony and the work of nature the positive and the negative or the active and passive forces correspond to the male and female principles. Your spiritual efflux comes not from '* behind the veil *' but is the male seed falling into the veil of cosmic matter. TTie active is attracted by the passive principle and the Great Nag, the serpent emblem of the eternity, attracts its tail to its mouth forming thereby a circle (cycles in the eternity) in that incessant pursuit of the negative by the positive. Hence the emblem of the lingam the phallus and the eteis the one and chief attribute of the universal spiritual principle—the unconscious but ever active life-giver—is to expand and shed; that of the universal material principle to gather in and fecundate. Unconscious and non-existing when separated, they become consciousness and life when brought together. Hence again Brahma—from the root ** brih " the Sanskrit for " to expand, grow or to fructify. Brahma being but the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternal evolution.
(4) Do worlds of effects intervene between the worlds of activity in the series of descent?
(3) The worlds of effect are not lokas or localities. They are the shadow of the world of causes their souls—worlds having like men their seven principles which develop and grow simultaneously with the body. Thus the hodt^ of man is wedded to and remains for ever within the body of his planet. His in- dividual jivatma life-principle that which is called in physiology animal spirits returns after death to its source—Fohat; hislinga shariram will be drawn into Akasa; his Kamarupa willrecommingle with the Universal Sakti—the Will Force, oruniversal energy; his ** animal soul ** borrowed from the breathof Universal Mind will return to the Dhyan-chohans; his sixthprinciple—whether drawn into or ejected from the matrix ofthe Great Passive Principle must remain in its own sphere—either as part of the crude material or as an individualized entityto be reborn in a higher world of causes. The seventh willcarry it from the Devachan and follow the new Ego to its placeof re-birth.
(5) The magfnetic impulse which cannot yet be conceived of asan individuality—enters the second sphere in the same (the universal) kingdom as that to which it belonged in sphere I and runsthe round of mineral incarnations there passing on to sphere III.Our earth is still a sphere of necessity for it. Hence it passes intothe upward series—and from the highest of these passes into thevegetable kingdom of sphere I.
Without any new impulse of creative force from above, itscareer round the cycle of worlds as a mineral principle has de-veloped some new attractions and polarization which cause it toassume the lowest vegetable form—in vegetable forms it passessuccessively through the cycle of worlds, the whole being still acircle of necessity (as no responsibility can yet have accrued to anunconscious individuality, and therefore it cannot at any stageofits progress do anything to select one or other of divergent paths).Or is there something in the life even of a vegetable which, thoughnot responsibility, may lead it up or down at this critical stageofits progress?
Having completed the whole cycle as a vegetable the growingindividuality expands on the next circuit into an animal form.
(4) The evolution of the worlds cannot be considered apartfrom the evolution of everything created.
(5) Where does it get the animal soul, its fifth principle, from?Has the potentiality of this resided from the first in the originalmagnetic impulse which constituted the mineral, or at everytransition from the last world on the ascending side to sphere (I)does it, so to speak, pass through an ocean of spirit and assimilatesome new principle?
(5) Thus you see his fifth principle is evolved from withinhimself, man having as you well say *' the potentiality " of allthe seven principles as a germ, from the very instant he appearsin the first world of causes as a shadowy breath, which coagulates with and is hardened together with the parent sphere.
Spirit or Life is indivisible. And when we speak of the seventh principle it is neither quality nor quantity nor yet form that are meant, but rather the Space occupied in that ocean of spirit by the results or effects—(beneficent as are all those of a co-worker with nature)—impressed thereon.
(6) From the highest animal (non-human) form in sphere I— how does it get to sphere II? It is inconceivable that it can descend to the lowest animal form there, but otherwise how can it go through the whole circle of life on each planet in turn ?
go through the whole circle of life on each planet in turn ? If it runs its cycle in a spiral (i.e., from form i of sphere I to form I of sphere II, etc. —then to form 2 of sphere I, II, III, etc., and then to form 3 of sphere I. . . . Nth) then it seems to me that the same rule must apply to the mineral and vegetable individualities if they have such, and yet some things I have been told seem to militate against that. (State them and they will be answered and explained.)
For the moment I must work on that hypothesis however. [Having swept through the cycle in the highest animal form the animal soul in its next plunge into the ocean of spirit acquires]*
* All this is misconceived.
The seventh principle which endows it with a sixth. This deter- mines its future on earth, and at the close of the earth life has. sufficient vitality to keep an attraction of its own for the seventh principle, or loses this and ceases to exist as a separate entity.
(7) Why, ** inconceivable? *' The highest animal form in sphere I or A being irresponsible, there is no degradation for it to merge into sphere II or B as the most infinitesimal of that sphere. Which on its upward course, as you were told, man finds even the lowest animal form there—higher than he was himself on earth. How do you know that man and animals and even life in its incipient stage is not a thousand times higher there, than it is here? Besides which, every kingdom (and we have seven—while you have but three) is subdivided into seven degrees or classes. Man (physically) is a compound of all the kingdoms, and spiritually—his individuality is no worse for being shut up within the casing of an ant than it is for being inside a king. It is not the outward or physical shape that dishonours and pollutes the fifth principle—but the mental perversity. Then it is but at his fourth round when arrived at the full possession of his Kama—energy and is completely matured, that man becomes fully responsible, as at the sixth he may becomea Buddha and at the seventh before the pralaya a DhyanChohan. Mineral, vegetable, animal-man, all of these havetorun their seven rounds during the period of earth's activity—the Mahayug. I will not enter here on the details of mineraland vegetable evolution, but I will notice only man—or—animalman. He starts downward as a simply spiritual entity—anunconscious seventh principle (a Parabrahm in contradistinctionto Para-parabrahm)—with the germs of the other six principleslying latent and dormant in him. Gathering solidity at everysphere—his six principles when passing through the worlds ofeffects, and his outward form in the worlds of causes (for theseworlds or stages on the descending side we have other names)when he touches our planet he is but a glorious bunch of lightupon a sphere itself yet pure and undefiled (for mankind andevery living thing on it increase in their materiality with theplanet). At that stage our globe is like the head of a newlyborn babe—soft and with undefined features, and man—anAdam before the breath of life Was breathed into his nostrils(to quote your own bungled up Scriptures for your bettercomprehension). For man and (our planets) nature—it is day—the first (see distorted tradition in your Bible). Man No.I makes his appearance at the apex of the circle of the sphereson sphere No. 1 after the completion of the seven rounds orperiods of the two kingdoms (known to you) and thus heissaid to be created on the eighth day (see Bible Chapter II; noteverses 5 and 6 and think what is meant there by ** mist,** andverse 7 wherein Law the Universal great fashioner is termed*' God ' by Christians and Jews, and understood as Evolutionby Cabalists). During this first round ** animal man " runs, asyou say, his cycle in a spiral.'* On the descending arc—whencehe starts after the completion of the seventh round of animallife on his own individual seven rounds—he has to enter everysphere not as a lower animal as you understand it but as a lowerman. Since during the cycle which preceded his round as aman he performed it as the highest type of animal. YourLord God," says Bible, chapter I, verse 25 and 26—afterhaving made all said : ** Let us make man in our image," etc.,and creates man an androgyne ape! (extinct on our planet) thehighest intelligence in the animal kingdom and whose descendants you find in the anthropoids of to-day. Will you deny thepossibility of the highest anthropoid in the next sphere beinghigher in intelligence than some men down here—savages, forinstance, the African—dwarf race and our own VeddahsofCeylon. But man has no such " degradation " to go throughas soon as he has reached the fourth stage of his cyclic round. Like the lower lives and beings during his first, second and third round and while he is an irresponsible compound of pure matter and pure spirit (none of them as yet defiled by the consciousness of their possible purposes and applications) from sphere I where he has performed his local seven-fold round of evolutionary process from the lowest class to the highest species of—say—anthropoids up to the rudimentary man certainly enters No. 2 as an ape (the last word being used for your better comprehension). At this round or stage his individuality is as dormant in him as that of a foetus during his period of gestation. He has no consciousness, no sense, for he begins as a rudimentary asp'al man and lands on our planet as a primitive physical man. So far it is a mere passing on of mechanical motion. Volition and consciousness are at the same time self- determining and determined by causes, and the volition of man his intelligence and consciousness will awake but when his fourth principle Kama is matured and completed by its (seriatim) contact with the Kamas or energizing forces of all the forms man has passed through in his previous three rounds. The present mankind is at its fourth round (mankind as a genus or a k.ind not a race nota bene) of the post-pralayan cycle of evolution; and as its various races, so the individual entities in them are unconsciously to themselves performing their local earthly seven-fold cycles—hence the vast difference in the degree of their intelligence, energy and so on. Now every individuality will be followed on the ascending arc by the law of retribution—Karma and Death accordingly. The perfect man or the entity which reached full perfection (each of his seven principles being matured), will not be re-born here. His local terrestrial cycle is completed and he has to either proceed onward or—be annihilated as an individuality. (The incomplete entities have to be re-born or re-incarnated).^ On their fifth round after a partial Nirvana when the zenith of the grand cycle is reached, they will be held responsible having being on these worlds. Your accepted conceptions of cosmogony—whether from the theological or scientific standpoints—do not enable you to solve a single anthropological or even ethnical problem and they stand in your way whenever you attempt to solve the problem of the races on this planet. When a man begins to talk about creation and the origin of man, he is butting against the facts incessantly. Go on saying, *' Our planet and man were created "—and you will be fighting against hard facts for ever, analyzing and losing time over trifling details—unable to even grasp the whole. But onceadmit that our planet and ourselves are no more creations thanthe ice-berg now before me (in our K.H.'s home) but that bothplanets and man are—states for a given time; that their presentappearance—geological and anthropological—is transitory andbut a condition concomitant of that stage of evolution at whichthey have arrived in the descending cycle—and all will becomeplain. You will easily understand what is meant by the ** oneand only " element or principle in the universe and thatandrogynous; the seven-headed serpent Ananda of Vishnu, theNag around Buddha, the great dragon eternity biting with itsactive head, its passive tail, from the emanations of whichspring worlds, beings and things. You will comprehend thereason why the first philosopher proclaimed all—maya—butthat one principle, which rests during the mafia-pralayas only—the ** nights of Brahm. " Now think: the Nag awakes. Heheaves a heavy breath and the latter is sent like an electricshock all along the wire encircling Space. Go to your fortepianoand execute upon the lower register of keys the seven notesof the lower octave—up and down. Begin pianipiano:crescendo from the first key and having struck fortissimo onthe last lower note go back diminuendo getting out of your lastnote a hardly perceptible sound—** morendo pianissimi " (asI luckily for my illustration find it printed in one of the musickpieces in K.H.'s old portmanteau). The first and the last noteswill represent to you the first and last spheres, in the cycle ofevolution the highest ! The one you strike once is our planet.Remember you have to reverse the order on the fortepiano: begin with the seventh note, not with the first. The sevenvowels chanted by the Egyptian priests to the seven rays ofthe rising sun to which Memnon responded, meant but that.The one Life principle when in action runs in circuits evenasknown in physical science. It runs the round in human body,where the head represents and is to the microcosmos (thephysical world of matter) what the summit of the cycle is tothe macrocosmos (the world of Universal Spiritual Forces); andso with the formation of worlds and the great descending andascending ** circle of necessity." All is one Law. Manhashis seven principles, the germs of which he brings with himat his birth. So has a planet or a world. From first to lastevery sphere has its world of effects, the passing throughwhich will afford a place of final rest to each of the humanprinciples—the seventh principle excepted. The world No.Ais born; and with it, clinging like barnacles to the bottomofa ship in motion—evolute from its first breath of life, the livingbeings of its atmosphere, from the germs hitherto inert, now awaken into life with the first motion of the sphere. With sphere A, begins the mineral kingdom and runs the round of mineral evolution. By the time it is completed sphere B, comes into objectivity and draws to itself the life which has completed its round in sphere A, and has become a surplus. (The fount of life being inexhaustible, for it is the true Arachnea doomed to spin out its web eternally—save the period of pralaya). Then comes vegetable life on sphere A and the same process takes place. On its downward course '* life becomes with every state coarser, more material; on its upward more shadowy. No—there is, nor can there be any responsibility until the time when matter and spirit are properly equilibrized. Up to man ** life " has no responsibility in whatever form; no more than has the foetus who in his mother's womb passes through all the forms of life—as a mineral, a vegetable, an animal to become finally Man. Henceforth in their descents from sphere to sphere as they will have to appear on this earth as a still more perfect and intellectual race. This downward course has not yet begun but will soon. Only how many—oh, how many will be destroyed on their way !
The above said is the rule. The Buddhas and Avatars form the exception as verily we have yet some Avatars left to us on earth.
Seventh principle always there as a latent force in every one of the principles—even body. As the macrocosmic Whole it is present even in the lower sphere, but there is nothing there to assimilate it to itself.
(8) The animal soul having in successive passages round the cycle lost, so to speak, the momentum which previously carried it past the divergent path downward which strikes off here, falls into the lower world, in the relatively brief cycle in which its individuality is dissipated. But this would only be the case with the animal soul which had not, in its union with spirit, developed a durable sixth principle. If it had done this, and if the sixth principle drawing to itself the individuality of a complete man, had withered the inferior fifth principle by so doing—as the aloe's flower, when thrown up, withers its leaves—then the animal soul would not have cohesion enough to enter on another existence in a lower world and would be soon dissipated in the sphere of this earth's attraction.
(7) Reforming your conceptions on what I gave you above you will understand now better. The whole individuality is centred in the three middle or 3rd, 4th and 5th principles. During earthly life it is all in the fourth the centre of energy, volition—will. Mr. Hume has perfectlydefined the difference between personality and individuality.The former hardly survives—the latter, to run successfully itsseven-fold and upward course has to assimilate to itself theeternal-life power residing but in the seventh and then blendthe three (fourth, fifth and seventh) into one—the sixth. Thosewho succeed in doing so become Buddhas, Dhyan Chohans,etc. The chief object of our struggle and initiations is toachieve this union while yet on this earth. Those who will besuccessful have nothing to fear of during the fifth, sixth andseventh rounds. But this is a mystery. Our beloved K.H.ison his way to the goal—the highest of all beyond us on thissphere.
I have to thank you for all you have done for our twofriends. It is a debt of gratitude we owe you.
M.
For some short time you will not hear of, or from me—Prepare.
