SECTION THREE

Chapter XV

WHERE MAN FITS IN

The pathway to the knowledge of the mysteries of human consciousness which started out as a mere towpath has by now broadened out into a well defined trail; and as we pursue our studies this will eventually become a road ever widening and leading to heights form which we shall gain a panorama of unutterable grandeur.

As of this moment, we have discussed in its broadest outlines the teachings about the Globe Chains.  The Lokas and Talas are the planes of consciousness on which the Globes function by reason of the passage of the many classes of monads through them; and these Globes are built out of the monads themselves.  They draw from the Tattvas and Bhûtas on all of the planes of consciousness for the materials needed for this Globe-building, as well as for the building of their own sheaths of consciousness.

The macrocosmic viewpoint is presented in the study of the planes of consciousness and the Tattvas associated with them.  The same thing is repeated on the microcosmic scale when we paraphrase the terms to suit the evolutionary standing of a human being as contrasted with that of the cosmos in which he lives.  Thus we are learning to regard the principles in man as his own Tattvas; and in the teaching about the souls and the egos we find that these principles are dual just as the Tattvas are.

We are now ready to learn that just as the Globes of the Earth Chain had to be built through a process of evolution of the Monads — and the study is as yet far from complete — so the principles of Man did not suddenly spring into being, all complete and fully developed, but were developed slowly, through an age-long process, and this was concomitant not only with the building of the Globes of the Earth Chain but continuous throughout the duration of the Rounds and Races.  Not all the story can be told in these pages, because so many other factors come into the picture.  Out of all these factors we must select those that will contribute toward the building of as simple a picture as is possible, leaving the more recondite aspects of the subject to be pursued by any student who desires further knowledge.

Let us now present an outline of the process of the development of the human principles throughout the seven Rounds of the Earth Chain, in a paradigm that will take the form of our concept of a Globe Chain. (See end of chapter.)

Note the similarity to the paradigm of the Tattvas.  It is done in this manner to suggest the teaching that the principles of man are actually derived from the Tattvas, thus:

Note that all of the principles are sevenfold; thus they are repeated seven times in our paradigm, and in each case one of the principles is indicated in small capitals, this being the one that receives the greatest evolutionary impetus during that Round.  It is not to be supposed that the other principles are not developed at all, for such is obviously not the case.  Let us say rather that during each Round of the Earth Chain one aspect of the principles is accentuated, and that it will not be until the conclusion of the seventh Round on Globe G that all aspects of all the principles will have been fully developed.  Then Man, if he has successfully run the race, will be qualified to graduate into a higher kingdom of life.

It is natural that as of now we have been considering the Earth Chain alone, but we must learn to see it in relation to the Solar System as a whole.  All of the planets are actually chains of Globes, and in the cases of the planets that we see, only their own Globes D are visible.  The Esoteric Philosophy postulates that for every visible planet, there are dozens of Planetary Chains of which not even the Globe D is visible.  Of those that we do see, five belong to a special group known as the Sacred Planets, well known to the ancient mystics.  These are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.  Then two of the invisible planets were known to belong to this group, and since they were not openly revealed, they were represented by two objects that we do see, to wit: the Sun and the Moon.  Thus, there are seven in all.

The mysteries connected with these seven Sacred Planets are very deep.  In this celestial economy  “all things contribute to all things.”  The reason they are called the Sacred Planets is that each one of them had its part in aiding the building of one of the Globes of the earth Chain.  The Sun (symbol for a secret Planet) helped to build Globe A; and Globe A is still and will always be under its astrological influence.  Jupiter helped to build Globe B.  Venus helped to build Globe C.  Saturn aided in the building of Globe D.  Mercury aided in the building of Globe E.  Mars aided in the building of Globe F.  The Moon (symbol for a secret Planet) aided in the building of Globe G.

It should be obvious that this has nothing to do with the physical planets that we see in the sky.  To suppose so would not be in keeping with the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom.  The viewpoint is held that each planet is but the physical representative of the true planet, which is a Cosmic Being manifesting in and through a chain of Globes, just as the Earth does.  This Planetary Being is one type of Dhyâni-Chohan — and we must remember that Dhyâni-Chohans were in the long distant past entities such as we.

It follows from the above that these Planetary Chains aided not only in the building of the Earth Chain itself, but also made it possible for Man to fashion his own seven principles from the Tattvas, as pointed out previously.  The two processes were carried out hand in hand, as it were, and will continue to do so until the end of the Seventh Round.

The following Table of Correspondences suggests the influence of each Planet in the fashioning of the seven principles of Man.

The physical body, being the “lees or dregs” of the Astral, or Linga-sarîra, is not really a Principle in its own right.  It is of course fashioned of the materials of the Earth; and it is significant that the Earth is not counted among the “Sacred Planets.” 

Note that a new term appears in this table, the Auric Egg.  Very little is said in the exoteric books about this Principle, in part because it is so sacred and in part because a knowledge of it could furnish keys to some of the finer forces of Man's constitution.

In G. de Purucker's words:

“It ranges from the divine to the astral-physical, and it is the seat of all the monadic, spiritual, intellectual, mental, passional and vital energies and faculties of the human septiform constitution.  In its essence it is eternal, and endures throughout the Pralayas as well as during the Manvantaras, but necessarily in greatly varying fashion in these two great periods of Kosmic Life.”  (Occult Glossary)

The Cosmic counterpart of the human Auric Egg is the Hiranyagarbha or “Golden Egg,” the seed from which the whole Universe came into being.

The detailed manner in  which Man derives his principles from the essences of the Sacred Planets has always been a closely guarded secret of the Mystery Schools, and the teachings delve deeply into the mighty processes of death and rebirth.  At this time we are building a picture on general rather than on specific lines so that we may come to understand that man's life is part and parcel of the life of the Solar System in which he lives and moves and has his being.  However, the story is far from told as yet, and we may now go on to new fields of investigation.

Having covered briefly the teaching about the passage of the Monads through the Globes of the Earth Chain in the process known as the Rounds and Races, we may now make a distinction between what are known as the “Inner Rounds” and the “Outer Rounds.”  The Inner Rounds are the passage of the monads through the Globes of the Earth Chain.  The Outer Rounds constitute the passage of the life-waves through the seven Sacred Planets.  This obviously involves much more study because in considering such an expanded picture we must realize that during any one of the Outer Rounds there will be the full cycle of seven Inner Rounds on each one of the Planetary Chains included in the group.  However, there would be little point in our concerning ourselves with such overwhelming time-periods, and we are going to approach the subject in a manner that will have a closer bearing upon ourselves. 

Let us therefore ask ourselves:  Am I, as I find myself to be at this moment, capable of realizing any kind of experience on any of the planets other than this Earth?  Is my sojourn on this Earth in the course of the Rounds and Races but an episode in the vast process known as the Outer Rounds?  Are the Outer Rounds in progress all the time, or are they something entirely apart from the Inner Rounds?

These are quite basic questions, and we might consider first things first.  Man as we know him is very much a denizen of the Earth on which he lives.  He has few yearnings to experience life in any terms other than those to which he is accustomed.  In other words, he is of the earth earthy.  His personality is something that is fashioned for this life alone; it is not the real, permanent part of the individual at all.  The individuality must be distinguished from the personality; its scope is vastly greater.  It is that which is often called the Reincarnating Ego.  Its range of consciousness is vastly greater than that of the personality, and it does partake of the type of consciousness possible on the other globes of the Earth Chain.  In other words, even though that consciousness may be dim as compared with what he is capable of experiencing right now on Globe D, it is nevertheless that part of him that will be more fully active on other Globes in due course of time when, in the process of the Rounds and Races, the whole human family will have moved on to Globe E and that Globe will then be our home.

But even this Reincarnating Ego is not capable of experiencing consciousness on any other of the Planets of our Solar System.  Yet the very teaching of the Outer Rounds suggests that somewhere in the human constitution there must be something that is native to these other planets and is perhaps pursuing its own Outer Rounds at this very time.  In fact, in order to grasp the grander sweep of the Outer Rounds and their significance as far as Man is concerned, we have to take into consideration all the Monads in Man's entire constitution.  Some of these Monads may be listed as follows, with their ranges of consciousness:

When these Monads are viewed collectively, they are seen to be centers of consciousness in a vast stream of life which takes its rise in Boundless Space.  If we must give this source a name, we may call it the Paramâtman.  It is the eternal within man and it weaves for itself this very complex series of Monads in which it will manifest throughout the timeless duration of the Cosmos.  No imagery of the mind can convey anything of its true nature.  It is that within us which IS.  It is pure consciousness and it defies description.  However, the various Monads that emanate from it are only relatively immortal.  There is nothing that is absolutely unchanging in the manifested universe.

Now, let us not forget that each one of the Monads is a living entity in its own right; and whereas it is undeniable that each one emanates from the one that is greater than itself and therefore its very existence depends upon its “parent,” nevertheless each one lives its own life on the plane to which it is native.  Were the Spiritual Monad to cease to exist, all the lesser Monads which it brought forth would immediately cease to exist also.  Yet, paradoxically, the lives of the various monads are so separated in the type of consciousness belonging to each, that each one is barely aware of the others.

This is a point that can cause some difficulty to our minds until we stop to think that a person in good health is not really aware of the organs of his own physical body.  They all perform their respective functions without hindrance, and the wellbeing of the individual depends upon this.  Nor can the organs be said to be aware of the existence of the man dwelling within the body, and there is no reason why they should be.  Their own orderly working does not depend upon such awareness.  However, the well integrated human being knows how to use his body, and he has control over his senses and his faculties, so that he can derive the greatest possible benefit from them.  They become his willing servants.

The situation is somewhat similar in the case of the various Monads in Man.  The Spiritual Monad does not need to be consciously aware of the Human Monad, save in a most general way, since it functions through the entire series of monads which go to form its manifestation.  Nor do they in turn have to be consciously aware of the Spiritual Monad, although an eventual understanding of it is requisite to the process of inner growth and unfoldment of one's spiritual powers.

The analogy with the human body cannot be pushed too far, however.  For instance, whereas the functions of the body are seemingly automatic, we as human monads have freedom of choice in the things we feel and think and do; and knowing something of the structure of the stream of consciousness that we are studying at present will aid one in his own individual growth, especially if he is a serious student deeply interested in occult matters.

Now in enumerating these Monads with their ranges of consciousness, we discover the clue as to what parts of us experience the various processes within the Inner and Outer Rounds.  We might list these facts in greater detail thus:

Just as we have noted the correspondences between the Tattvas and the Human Principles, so, by study of the table just given, we see the correspondences between the Monads and the Lokas and Talas.

It remains for us to relate the Seven Principles to the Monads, just as we related the Tattvas to the Lokas and Talas.  The Tattvas, it will be remembered, provided the materials out of which the worlds were built upon and within the various Lokas and Talas.  The case is similar in the study of Man, referring to the Seven Principles and the Monads.  When we enumerated the Seven Principles of Man, on which level were we speaking?  For the purposes of  the study as far as it had been carried forward, we were speaking on the strictly human level, that is, the higher human.  The Seven Principles from Âtman to Sthûla-sarîra, were thus intended to mean the Seven Principles of the Higher Human Monad.

We should expect to find that each one of the Monads, then, has its own constitution of seven principles; and that is according to the teachings, although to express this though in its entirety would require some understanding that we have not gained as yet.  However, we may accept this as a pattern which we have found to be reliable in other fields of study.  Thus, there is the Âtman of the Spiritual Monad, the Âtman of the Human Monad, the Âtman of the Personal Monad, and so on.  Similarly, each Monad has its own Buddhic principle.  However, we must keep our minds open to a fuller understanding of this concept, and remember that while these higher principles are latent for the most part in the Human Monad, they find much fuller expression in the higher Monads; while in the Animal Monad, and those even less developed than it, the Âtman, Buddhi and Manas are entirely latent.  The master of life is he who has brought his own individual Buddhic Splendor into complete manifestation: the Buddhi of the Human Monad.

We made a paradigm of the Lokas and Talas and the Tattvas and Bhûtas, representing the Cosmic Cross.  Now we are able to make the Human Cross in which the vertical represents the series of Monads, and the horizontal arm represents the seven principles of the Human Monad.

·
Divine Monad
·
Spiritual Monad
·
Chain Monad
·
Âtman       Buddhi Manas       Kâma Prâna       Linga-sarîra       Sthûla-sarîra
·
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
·
Personal Monad
·
Animal Monad
·
Vital-astral Monad
·
Astral-physical Monad
·

These concepts lead to a further study, which may be alluded to at this time, but might provide food for thought to the serious student.  This is that the Human constitution consists of the microcosmic counterpart of the Lokas and Talas.  Just as in Plate V, we saw how the five-pointed stars can be multiplied without number, so we see that not only has the human being his own series of Lokas and Talas, but each of his Monads has its own series of minor  Lokas and Talas.  This might be the explanation of a term used by H. P. Blavatsky where she speaks of the “forty-nine fires” in Man.