Theosophical University Press Online Edition
In the present chapter an attempt will be made to enter into a more particularized and fuller description of the manner in which the Reimbodying Ego assumes bodies on this earth. For a number of chapters preceding the present one, more general themes of thought have been followed with the aim of giving a universal rather than a particular view of what happens to the Reimbodying Ego both after death and before its rebirth. A good deal of extremely interesting material was perforce omitted from these chapters in order to avoid confusing the mind of the reader with an overabundance of details; and now, in order to complete the exposition of the teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy in these respects, attention will be directed to particular phases of the Monad's return into earth-life and its manner of re-assuming a corporeal vehicle.
The evolving and revolving being or entity, or more accurately and definitely speaking, the Reimbodying Monad -- except during the intervals of the immensely long cosmic rest which are the Pralayas, to use the Sanskrit word, during which periods it rests in its own pure and essential being in the bosom of the Cosmic Hierarch -- passes its entire series of cyclically appearing existences in manifestation in repetitive corporealizations or reimbodiments, which succeed one another regularly and without interruption throughout any unit-period of Cosmic Manifestation or Manvantara.
Each one of such 'descents' into body or bodies, otherwise corporealizations or imprisonments in the different worlds of matter, is a veil or cloak or garment or sheath, in part evolved of forces and substances by the Monad from its own inner essence, and in part builded of multitudes of life-atoms drawn from the common reservoir of the world or sphere or plane in which it happens to be during the term or duration of individual corporealization or imbodiment. Now these latter life-atoms are in no sense to be understood as being foreign to the individual Reimbodying Monad or Ego, for although they are themselves most emphatically living beings or entities, or evolving and revolving 'atoms,' nevertheless the Reimbodying Monad or Ego in the previous period of Cosmic Manifestation had thrown them forth from its own essence, and they on the return of the Reimbodying Ego had rejoined it through what we may call perduring psycho-magnetic attraction. Thus it is that these life-atoms, which had been emanated or evolved forth from the Monadic Essence or Reimbodying Ego and which the said Ego had 'freed' itself from when the said Ego at the end of the Cosmic Manvantara had rejoined its cosmic parent, hang in space, so to speak, each in its own state of individual nirvana, during the entire period of the Pralaya which succeeds the Cosmic Manvantara; but when the new Cosmic Manvantara opens on a new drama of Cosmic Life, these same hitherto resting life-atoms reawaken to their own spheres and conditions of activity, and when the Reimbodying Monad 'descends' from its Cosmic Parent for its new peregrinations through the spheres and worlds, these life-atoms are irresistibly attracted back to it, their parent, and, attaching themselves to the Reimbodying Ego, help to build its various sheaths or garments, as before stated.
We see here in the large the same process of the reincorporating of life-atoms which is repeated in the small by the Reimbodying Ego when it awakens from its devachanic rest and repetitively 'descends' into incarnation on earth. The only difference is that the life-atoms do not rest between the earth-lives of the Reimbodying Ego which gave birth to them. The life-atoms, except during the Pralayas, are incessantly peregrinating, evolving and revolving, not only as individuals but as aggregates, and during these peregrinations they are in continual and unending flux or flow into and out of the bodies of more advanced Monads, whose respective vehicles or bodies on the different Cosmic Planes they thus help in building.
A familiar illustration taken from human life, may, it is possible, make the matter somewhat clearer. A human parent emanates or throws forth from his body the human life-germ which in appropriate surroundings unfolds into a new human being which thus is the child of its parent. Now this life-germ, as is obvious, during the initial part of this process is a life-atom whose destiny, however, is to become a human being. Let us say that this parent has several children, each one born of a life-germ from the parent's own body. In due time the parent dies. The parent's Reimbodying Ego has after death its devachanic interlude of many centuries and finally returns to physical incarnation. During all this time of many centuries' length, the children of the parent in question, and their children, and their children's children, and so on through the generations, carry on or continue in uninterrupted life-stream the particular life-atomic stream of psycho-magnetic and physical vital flow which the parent had -- not first originated, obviously, but at the point of our illustration -- brought into physical existence. Now when this parent of our picture comes into physical existence again, the Reimbodying Ego, as explained elsewhere in this work, is attracted to the milieu or family to which it is most strongly drawn in the various manners already explained.
Will the reader now kindly peruse the following words with extreme attention: this family, were human records old enough to enable us to do so, could be traced back in regular and uninterrupted genealogical steps, direct or collateral, to that 'original' procreative act of the 'parent' who is the subject of our picture. Actually, therefore, the Reimbodying Ego of this 'parent' takes a body born of his own descendants -- if not in direct and uninterrupted genealogical line of succession, which happens far more frequently than is commonly supposed, then in the most closely related collateral branch, which is as much a continuation of the same life-stream, although perhaps more mixed, as the many intervening generations of descendants, direct or collateral, make possible. It is a very rare thing indeed, for a family to become so utterly extinct that there remains absolutely no collateral or blood-related branches whatsoever, and by 'collateral branches' are meant here side-branchlets departing at intervals from the direct line of descent and thus containing their own respective proportions of the original 'hereditary' spermatic line. A little thought given to this illustration, imperfect as it may be, and sketchy as it certainly is, will nevertheless show its power to exemplify the repetitive returns of the Reimbodying Monad or Ego to its own formerly imbodied life-atoms.(393) However, in our study of the nature of repetitive reimbodiments, it is of the utmost importance not to fix the attention too strongly upon the vehicular or body-side, but to attempt to trace the comings and goings of the Reimbodying Ego, considered as a focus or center of consciousness. It is of course true that both the body-side and the consciousness-side must be studied and understood, at least in some degree; but the more important of these twain is the consciousness-side.
We, as consciousness, enter what we humans call earth-life by the portal of physical birth, and we play here on this stage of physical existence our different and varied parts as actors in the drama; and then we leave the stage of earth-life by the other portal which we men call death. It has been seen that what we humans call life on Earth is but one act in the Drama of Manifested Existence strangely enough, a Drama which really has no beginning and no ending: it stretches backwards into the eternities of the past, and will stretch forwards into the eternities of the future. Each of us is an actor in this wonderful drama of life.(394)
Thus there is a continual and uninterrupted, because beginningless and endless, stream of existence in varied forms of manifestation for every being or entity. Man, for instance, appears here on the stage of earth-existence a self-conscious, thinking being, carving out his own future destiny subject to all the cosmic powers and attributes and forces that impinge upon him, a future destiny always arising on the basis of the past; and this impinging affects him, and therefore all his thoughts and feelings and actions, with tremendous force, practically controlling all the so-called automatic and un-self-conscious thoughts, emotions, and actions of himself and his physical vehicle; and yet through the magic power of his own free will -- a spiritual, indeed quasi-divine, faculty, which runs through all his being as a golden thread -- he carves for himself his own pathway of destiny, and does so throughout endless time, as he will and can, or as he nill.
There is, it is repeated, an uninterrupted and continuous stream of existence for each being and entity in the Universe. That spiritual and psycho-mental monadic Ego, which, when the last earth-existence was finished, passed out through the portal of death into another existence in more ethereal realms, will ineluctably be drawn back to this earth because of the karmic factors already on many occasions referred to. Recuperated and refreshed and reinvigorated by its period of devachanic repose and bliss, the Ego reawakens to a new period of self-conscious activity on this globe Earth. Yet long before rebirth on Earth, the psycho-spiritual energies which had attracted it to and had held it in the bosom of the Spiritual Monad had reached the end of their course; coincidently therewith new attractions to the lower spheres had come, if slowly, into operation, impelling it or drawing it earthwards.
Old memories of the former scenes of earth-life had slowly come back into its consciousness, reminding it even if diffusely and vaguely of the events and things that it had then lived through, of the ideals that it had then had and followed, of the loves that it had then experienced, of the aspirations that it then had followed, of the things then done and left undone -- all these being memories of the last past life and indeed of earlier lives on Earth. All these work with increasing power and become continuously more definite in outline or picture in its consciousness and finally absorb the larger part of its dreamings or imaginings; and thus, working almost automatically, they draw the Ego again into the realms of lower matters, earthwards, and finally bring about its reincarnation on this Earth-globe. Attraction draws it spiritwards; attraction draws it down.
All these psycho-mental and spiritual or psychological functions of the consciousness are absolutely nothing unique nor even strange or foreign to us. We find the same spiritual-psychological workings of our consciousness operative and in every one of us, in this present life on Earth. It is obvious that we are all attracted to the things we love; and frequently unknown to ourselves we follow pathways along which we are drawn, sometimes alas, by mere fugitive will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination, but again at other times by great and high ideals and aspirations and by thoughts and yearnings or longings of the loftiest kind. It is precisely the same law of 'association of ideas,' to adopt a term of modern psychology. The same law and the same principle of constructive imagination it is which prevails when the Reincarnating Ego begins to descend into the planes and worlds of less ethereal matter or substance on its way to reimbodiment on Earth.
From the statements made in the preceding pages of the present work, it may seem that it is the Spiritual Monad, during the course of its inter-spherical peregrinations, which really determines the time when the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego shall again return to Earth. Must we conclude that the pilgrimage of the Spiritual Monad has reached its end more or less exactly at the time that the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego first begins to feel the attractive pull of the magnetic forces emanating from the Earth? The question is a pertinent one, indeed, and is well worthy of at least brief consideration.
In the first place, then, one should not look upon the various times of reincarnation nor the beginnings and endings of the pilgrimages of the Monad in too mechanical a way, for while the times for the various phases or changes are definite enough, and the different planes and worlds or spheres through which it passes are 'stations' both karmically determined and unavoidable, yet the truth is that the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego does not and cannot enter or rather 'overshadow' a new human body on Earth until the Spiritual Monad has reached that part of its interplanetary pilgrimage which brings it nearest again to Earth. The point of importance to remember in this really difficult fact is that so wonderfully and naturally are these spiritual and psychical processes adjusted by Nature's laws, or rather so wonderfully and naturally do they all work together, that it almost invariably happens that when the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego has ended its devachanic sleep, or is reaching this end, the Spiritual Monad at just about the same time has reached that part of its peregrinations which brings it to the highest Globe -- Globe I -- of the Earth-chain. Consequently, as is obvious enough, an Ego having a short Devachan, or an Ego, contrariwise, having a long Devachan, has no difficulty in either case, because the Spiritual Monad is more or less strongly influenced by the spiritual condition or quality of the Reimbodying Ego which it holds in its bosom, and thus it is that the pilgrimage of the Spiritual Monad is to a certain and often large extent controlled as regards the time passed in the interplanetary pilgrimage.(395)
We must remember that there is a certain flexibility in the workings of all Nature's processes due to many and varied combinations of circumstances, one thing being powerful at one time and sinking into relative abeyance at another time, to be succeeded by some other factor in the equation which then assumes prominence -- at least for the time being. It is necessary always to remember that everything co-operates with everything else in the causative or spiritual and intellectual worlds, and that even beings or entities belonging to the less ethereal and more material realms, precisely because they are integral and inseparable parts of the individual whole, likewise have an effect, great or small as the case may be, on the higher worlds or spheres. All live and work for all, and all in and for all.
The Spiritual Monad lives in its own ethereal or spiritual realms untrammeled really by what happens to its 'reflexion' or body on Earth, or indeed in all its lower vehicles in realms more material than its own native spheres. 'Untrammeled' yes, but this does not mean uninfluenced, because it should be evident that as long as a Monad is connected in any wise with the lower realms it is influenced to some extent by them. Nevertheless, and despite such influences from below, the Spiritual Monad per se pursues its own evolution in and through its own planes and worlds, and thus has its own wonderful spiritual experiences in a manner independent of the lower realms with which it may be none the less connected -- and almost certainly is connected. It is this tie or link or bond of influence which therefore to a certain extent does indeed affect, but does not fully control or trammel, the Spiritual Monad in the Monad's own evolution. Also it is to be remembered that it is only from our standpoint as men of earth that we speak of the peregrination of the Monad with the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego asleep in its bosom. As a matter of fact, the Spiritual Monad has many other links or ties which bring about the fact that it makes its pilgrimage continuously; and one only of the phases of this continuous activity in peregrination is the radiation of and consequent experience by the Reimbodying Ego in our own Earth-Chain. From the foregoing it should be seen, perhaps somewhat more clearly, in just what sense it is said that the Reimbodying Ego influences the Monad.
As the Reimbodying Ego works its Ray or Radiance downwards, being as before stated irresistibly attracted hither by the reawakening within itself of old memories of the earth-life that was, it is psycho-magnetically drawn to the planes wherein and whereon it had lived before, and by the same rule of attraction it finally enters the grossest part of the planetary chain of Earth, Globe D, on which it had lived before as the man of the last earth-life. This 'grossest part' is actually the atomic world or realm of Globe D, this 'atomic world' including likewise its inter-atomic and intra-atomic 'ethers.'
It has often been pointed out that Life per se is everywhere, indeed infinite; and furthermore, and speaking now in particulars, Life itself on any one globe or sphere may be considered distributively as a collection or aggregation of Monads. Hence all matter, all substance, indeed all force, is to be considered as builded or as composite in the same distributive or particularized way. Therefore it is certainly correct to aver that even the so-called scientific electrons in the atomic structures, which collectively compose our globe and also of course our physical bodies, have their inhabitants -- sub-infinitesimals dwelling on and in the infinitesimal spheres and inter-atomic life. The worlds or realms, in consequence, of these sub-infinitesimal entities, the inter-atomic and intra-atomic, are as wondrous, as marvelous, as sublime, to them as long as they are in that state or condition of imbodiment, as is our own world to us in our present stage of physical imbodiment.
The Monadic Ray, i. e., the Reimbodying Ego, after passing through these inter-atomic and intra-atomic or lowest stages or states of its 'descent,' is drawn, attracted, to what to us humans is the vastly wider ranges or realms of our physical earth-life. It is always to be carefully remembered that these attractions or psycho-magnetic impulses are collectively a part of the nature of the Ray, and therefore it can do no otherwise than obey these impulses welling up from within itself. The Reimbodying Ego has through aeons past karmically built itself into this course of action, eventuating as it does in the process of imbodiment and disimbodiment. These psycho-magnetic attractions to the various steps or stages on the ladder of life which we may otherwise call graphically the 'inns' of its interplanetary career, as well as impulses welling up from within itself, are all based on old ingrained memories and instincts of its past life and of its many previous lives, both on this earth and on other spheres; and these impulses and attractions at each such stage of the Ego's peregrination reawaken and begin to assert their existence.
The Ray or Radiation from the Reimbodying Ego finally reaches the critical point or stage in its 'descent' where it is drawn to or attracted by the specific and definite human germ-cell whose growth, if not interrupted, will eventuate in a physical body. The psycho-magnetic attractions and inner impulses of the Reimbodying Ego, as above described, have karmically led it to that one cell which is most appropriate out of the number of other possible cells, the father and the mother in due course joining to give what we may perhaps figuratively call the magic link of united 'life'; and when this happens, what perhaps may be termed the psycho-magnetic chain of communication, or the binding psychic link, between the Ego's Radiance on the one hand, and the waking and vital human germ-cell on the other hand, is completed, and, barring fatal accidents, a child in due time will be born into earth-life.
This combination of circumstances in human life, which is in itself so beautiful, which is indeed to be approached with a sense of religious awe instead of in the light-hearted way in which men and women look upon it, is the sacred mystery of birth. It may perhaps be added here, before passing on, that the germ-cell furnished by the father is the carrier of the Monadic Ray-point, while the mother provides the human field of vital substance, or ovum or seed, in which the equally vital Ray, or Ray-point, finds lodgment and union.
It is this combination of human elements taking place psycho-magnetically, so to say, which allows the evolving and revolving Ray-atom which comes from the inner realms -- from the astral realms to take the last step forwards into human incarnation.
From this instant the living protoplasm begins to grow from within outwards, and little by little to manifest forth what is stored within itself. What indeed is living protoplasm? In what does it differ from the chemical elements into which chemistry can analyse it? What makes protoplasm, chemically speaking? It is a combination mostly of four of the most common elements known in chemistry: oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. But one can put these chemical elements together and still have no protoplasm, no truly living substance. It needs the union and vital influence of the Monadic Ray to unify these merely chemical elements into what scientists call the vital unit, the living cell, with the potentiality or promise of growing from a microscopic human reproductive germ into a six-foot man, expressing not merely in his physical body but in his world-searching mind and spiritual intuitions some of the most marvelous and interesting noumenal factors of the Universe.
Nor is this all. Protoplasm, or living substance, is in its origin a deposit from the astral body of the parent -- indeed of either parent: in other words, it is a concretion or physicalization of the vital substance of the parent's ether-body, or model-body, providing thus the physical compound into which the Monadic Ray may enter, and, in thus entering, to start the vital unit or human reproductive germ on its career of growth into a physical body.
Many modern scientists have aspired to construct artificially a living cell. One may well ask: Seeing that all stages of evolution on this earth from cell to man, and including all the wide ranges of beings on earth, are the offsprings or fruits of the evolving human host in far distant ages as that human host itself evolved and from time to time threw off inferior stocks, and likewise remembering that because man has kriyasakti-powers (that is to say, powers of formative will and creative imagination) which originally produced at the different times these collateral and inferior lines or branches of living entities -- is it possible for a modern scientist artificially to construct a living cell?
It would indeed be possible if our scientists had the knowledge and the wisdom and the power enabling them to combine the psycho-vital fluid of the Monadic Ray with latent living matter as composed of the mere chemical elements. But with all respect to the great men working in our chemical laboratories and in biological experimental chambers, one is bound to confess that it is too much to ask of them. The scientists of the far-distant aeons of the future, however, in what in Theosophy are called the Sixth and Seventh great Root-Races to come, will undoubtedly be able to do this; but it is greatly doubtful if before that time any human mind will have the knowledge or the power to accomplish that alchemical feat of real 'creative' magic. If it be ever done within our times, it will happen almost as a 'stroke of luck,' nor is it likely that the feat could be repeated.(396)
Mrs. Shelley, the quondam English writer of some well-deserved fame, in her interesting and thoughtful romance called Frankenstein, tells how a Swiss medical student visited tombs and graveyards and haunted the dissecting-rooms, gathering together from these unpleasant places bits or portions of very recently deceased human tissues which he reassembled and joined into human semblance, and thus brought into vital activity a living human form which was otherwise a soulless monster, which wrought havoc and death on all around it, until it finally perished in the northern seas.
Paracelsus, one of the mediaeval mystics, according to his writings dreamed of creating homunculi by magic -- i. e., intelligent 'little men,' living entities of human type -- out of the chemical elements that were then known, plus the vitalizing power which he taught existed universally in nature, thus at least showing that he had some fairly clear conception of the real nature of the all-permeant cosmic life.
Other writers also in different countries doubtless have romanced more or less after the same manner; but such 'creation' attempted 'from below,' so to speak, cannot ever be accomplished until the scientist, working under the guidance of a far deeper knowledge of Nature than is now possessed, is able to connect and cement the physical, chemical elements into vital union with the psycho-astral fluid of the Monadic Ray. Then he could indeed produce a living cell even in the laboratory, and the development of that living cell to its maturity would take place according to and strictly following the characteristic nature of the vital seed or power linked or enchained together with the chemical elements employed to provide the needed physical vehicle. But all such ideas are at best only dreams in the present state of human knowledge; and are alluded to here solely for the sake of the abstract interest the idea possesses.
Returning from this short discursus to the main theme of this chapter, we have now arrived at the point in our study of the procedures by which the Reimbodying Ego enters into earth-life and where the reincarnating entity, now rebecome a bundle or aggregate of substance is, in the manner before described, drawn magnetically and psychically to the family or to the particular human womb where vibrational conditions most similar to its own exist. Its lowest, i. e., more material, force and substance connect psycho-magnetically through its own astral-vital fluid with the 'laya-center' of a human generative particle when the appropriate time comes; and from the instant of conception, 'the appropriate time,' the reincarnating entity 'overshadows' that particle as this particle grows from conception through its different phases of intra-uterine life, birth, childhood, into full adulthood. But before, and indeed for a number of years after, birth, the child is only overshadowed by the higher principles of its constitution, the lower principles being the most active in function and expression during the earlier years of life.
Yet at about fourteen or fifteen years of age, more or less, the case varying according to the individual, there occurs the first real entrance of the higher part of the child's inner constitution into conscious functioning on our physical plane; and from this wonderful hour the enveloping of the growing child and youth with the spiritual-vital aura of the Reincarnating Ego proceeds progressively and steadily through life into adulthood, and slackens only a short time before natural death -- or should do so, and would do so in virtually all cases were it not for the fact that so many human beings live unnatural emotionally and passionally tempestuous lives which weaken the organs of the body and their full and complete functioning.
The main reason for this gradual and progressive manifestation of the higher inner powers is the fact that the reassuming or taking up of the life-atoms formerly composing the human being's constitution both inner and outer, does not, because it cannot, take place all at once and per saltum, that is to say, in full perfection in a moment; such reassumption of formerly held life-atoms continues progressively through the years as the body grows into maturity and continues even towards and into old age. Furthermore, it is to be remembered that the Reincarnating Ego or 'soul' is not really fully incarnated until some rather short time before the physical body dies: which means that there is constant and unceasing possibility for psychical, mental, and spiritual development almost to the time of the dissolution of the physical body. In other words, and phrasing the matter differently, old age is not, as is sometimes foolishly supposed, incapable of learning, and merely a distressing period in human existence where all the best is past and the future holds no hope except the bliss of dying. The exact reverse of this is true, for, theoretically at least, up to a short time before physical dissolution a man should progress steadily in both spiritual and intellectual power and faculty. In fact, despite the often enfeebled body and consequent disability belonging to old age, the inner growth of those parts which have been able to manifest themselves with relative fulness in the human body is steady and continuous.
When the Reincarnating Ego, through its Radiation or Ray projected into the human body, takes birth again as a little child on earth, and the child grows to maturity, the Ego re-becomes exactly the same man it was before in all essential elements and in all essential respects, because, as before said, all the life-atoms that formerly had composed the constitution of the human being have now rebuilded themselves again into the identic vehicles the Ego had formerly cast off during the course of its previous post-mortem journey. There is perfect justice in this procedure. The same man in the same world, facing problems formerly left unsolved and beginning successes formerly left incomplete. Thus the 'new man,' although a new production, is really the 'old man' of the past life and lives, because it is a re-collecting of the former Ego with the reassembled life-atoms on all the planes of its constitution through which it had formerly lived and expressed its powers on Earth.
The question may be asked: If the 'new man' is the 'old man' reappearing anew, is there then no improvement? Of course there is improvement. The knowledge, the wisdom, the love, the broadened sympathies, and all other attributes and faculties which had their period of unfolding in the last life still remain plus the many and numerous increments from within which such evolutionary unfolding of inner faculty and attribute always brings about, and these new increments have now all been digested and assimilated into the composite fabric of the constitution of the 'new man'; in other words, have been made an integral portion of its human character.
All Nature is in evolution, which means unfolding from within outwards; every movement in growth is towards betterment, towards enlargement, even though our lives are like a spiral, running up and sometimes running down. Even as a pilgrim will cross a mountain and then have to descend into a valley in order to ascend a mountain still higher, whence he may obtain still more splendid visions of the path ahead, so is the course or pathway of inner development or growth. Yes, the man is improved with each new earth-life; with each he is bettered -- or ought to be, and it is his own fault if he is not. The post-mortem stay in the Devachan or 'God-world,' 'in the bosom of the Monad,' has wrought the substance of himself into something higher in greater or less degree according to the individual case. The inner nature has been refined and to a certain extent at least purified; but it is the same ego-consciousness working in and through vehicles formed of the same former life-atoms which have now reincorporated anew in order to form the same old general inner constitution that was and now again is.
It is somewhat like a tree which in its perennial life dies down in the autumn for a while and remains a skeleton of bare trunk and branches; and yet when the warm rains come in the spring, under the sunshine it burgeons and shoots forth a new garment of leaf-life. Shall we say that the new verdure, the new leaves, covering the branches with the new glory of their appearance, are exactly the same old leaves that were? Hardly, and yet they are all derived from the same life-stock, in fact are the same life-atoms that composed the former leaves; and just so is it with man. He is essentially the same man in the new that he was in the old life. Bearing another name? Of course. His name in one life, let us say, is John Brown; and he goes through this mystical, marvelous, pilgrimage of the Ego after death, and then returns to earth-life. Is he again the same John Brown? What is John Brown? John Brown is a name. He might now be called William Smith. A name is a name and nothing more. He may be born in another part of the Earth a thousand or two thousand or five thousand or perhaps ten thousand years from now, among a people whom he in this present life would call an alien race. But what matters that? All the essentials of him and of his body are then exactly the same as before. He is the same inner man. He bears a new name, he speaks another language, lives on another part of the Earth's surface, lives in a different age, sees different surroundings, or perhaps he may even see the same physical surroundings in the shape of sea and mountains and valley and plain; but he is the same essential man. The 'old' is the 'new,' yet different!
Very likely, in fact in all probability, if we are now considering average groups of men and women whose devachanic interludes are all pretty much the same average length, he will meet again in the new earth-life other men and women more or less like unto himself who were his friends -- or his foes -- in his last incarnation on Earth. How otherwise account for those strong attractions that we feel for some people? And, alas, how account otherwise for the equally strong antipathies that we sometimes feel for others? Only thus, by the reassembling of egos together, can mutual justice be wrought. Consider a moment: We act with love and kindly consideration for others, or contrariwise we wreak evil upon others; but in the unerring balancing in the scales of cosmic justice, sooner or later we come together again in incarnation on Earth, and then and there we take up anew the old intercourse with those we knew before. We act upon them and they act upon us in the new environment and under the new conditions, all falling out according to what we call karmic justice. And thus it is that as the 'new man' we give and take what comes to us in the new earth-life. We wash clean the pages of the bygone faults and can make opportunities for starting anew with a fresh clean page of destiny. All this is involved in the working out of both individual and collective karman, and it is impartial and compassionate justice. It is a manly belief, all this, and also is it a belief filled with bright hopes and ineffable consolations; because where we have sown good, where we have nobly wrought, where we have done right, good and right are done unto us, and others now bring back to us not merely the success and prosperity that we formerly aided them to achieve, but mutual and collective peace and happiness as well.
Men talk about the 'broken hearts' of those we leave behind us when death comes upon us. This is nothing but ignorance and arises in a non-understanding of the great natural forces and laws at work. Do we meet them never again? Indeed we do. Love itself is a mighty magnet -- if it be really love and not something inferior; and hate, strangely enough, is a mighty magnet also, if it be really hate. The one brings untold happiness in its train, and the latter untold misery. Therefore have the great Sages always said: Beware of what you do, and of the seeds of thought and consequent act that you sow in the fields of earth-life, for you will reap them all to the very last grain, to the last impulse -- indeed, whatever you have sown at any time and whatever it may be, will return to you as a blessing or as a misfortune.
As the Reimbodying Ego, the Ray or Radiance of the Spiritual Monad, passes down through the spheres and planes towards earth, it should not be imagined for a moment that the Monad itself passes down with it. That idea is an absurdity -- as absurd as it would be to say that the sun itself follows each one of its incomprehensibly great multitude of solar rays into outer space. The idea is here called an absurdity because it is an impossibility. The Spiritual Monad is a quasi-god, a high spiritual being, indeed, a quasi-divine being, which leaves its own plane for these nether realms never. It had been through them all in its former evolutionary courses in far past aeons of cosmic time, and therefore it now knows them all through and through and has no need to return to them. These realms of matter therefore can now teach it nothing more. Nature would have no purpose in a Monad's descending again for the Solar Manvantara into the lowest realms of matter. No more so than would a grown man who has been through his school-years find it either useful or desirable to return to learning his ABC, for he knows all this. One might as well say that he should become a little child again in the same life and re-act again all the infantile motions and activities of infancy and childhood. Such an idea, as above said, is an absurdity. However, it is true that the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego, the essential man, does incarnate its Ray or Radiance in a little child in another life, in order that this Ray, which is the human Ego, itself an unevolved Monad, may learn other and newer lessons in other and new surroundings and in other ages and in different conditions.(397)
Now then, what takes place in the time immediately or shortly preceding a human birth? Birth is a mystery; but nevertheless it is a mystery which can be easily solved, and it is only a mystery in the sense of being for the average man an unsolved problem. It never was a mystery to the Great Teachers, the Guardians of the Esoteric Philosophy, for not only have the Dhyani-Chohans whispered to their attentive inner consciousness all the secrets of our planetary chain, but likewise each and every adept through initiation is obliged to learn and therefore to know for himself what he had before initiation been taught as fact and theory. The matters concerning human birth are indeed minor mysteries when contrasted with the far greater and incomparably more intricate wonders of life on even this material globe Earth.
As the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego, or rather its Ray or Radiance, reaches the plane of physical matter, in other words our Earth-globe, how does this Ray-entity, which is by inherent nature far above coarse physical matter, entangle itself in physical substance, so that its link with the vital human unit, the human reproductive cell, be made? The answer to this question is rendered much easier in our days because of the enormous advances that have been made by scientific knowledge in penetrating into the mysteries of electricity, magnetism, and radio-activity generally. The 'link' above spoken of is made because of electro-magnetic affinity, or rather psycho-magnetic affinity, which is a much more accurate expression, between the reimbodying ray and the living germ-cell.
Every germ-cell, human or other, is the physical expression of inner, ethereal, and psycho-magnetic activities, and is a compact or bundle or sheaf of inner forces and substances ranging from the divine through intermediate degrees down to the astral and the physical, just as man, but on a much larger scale, himself is. Every germ-cell therefore is, properly speaking, and using ordinary human language in this attempt to describe a difficult thought, the 'precipitation' or 'projection' on and into the physical plane or world of an inner psycho-ethereal radiation. A germ-cell, in other words, is thus what may be called an incarnation or imbodiment in physical matter of a ray-point originating in the invisible worlds and contacting physical matter by psycho-electric or psycho-magnetic affinity and thus arousing a proper particle or molecular aggregate of living physical substance into becoming what is called a reproductive cell.
The above-mentioned ray-point, or tip, of the imbodying Ray or Radiance, must not be mistaken for nor misunderstood to be the Reimbodying or Reincarnating Ego itself, but should be understood to be, as the terms here used show clearly enough, the end or tip of the projected ray issuing forth from the bosom of the Reimbodying Ego. When the Reimbodying Ego, itself a Ray or Radiance from the Spiritual Monad, reaches its own intermediate sphere, after leaving the bosom of its Parent-Monad, it itself 'descends' no farther into matter than that plane. But its radiated influence, its psycho-magnetic Ray, having stronger affinities for the material worlds than itself, this Ray goes still farther down or deeper into matter, awakening into activity therein the life-atoms in each one of the various planes between the plane of the Reimbodying Ego and the grossest matter of our physical earth.
When such a psycho-vital electric Ray, or psycho-vital magnetic Ray -- call it by any name one may please -- finally touches and awakens to kinetic life some particular life-atom in the grossest part of physical matter on this earth: that one particular life-atom thus chosen by affinity and which formerly belonged to the man who had lived on earth, the 'old man' before spoken of, and which life-atom is the one most immediately responsive to this penetrating psycho-magnetic Ray, or Ray of vital electricity, or Ray of the Ego's Radiance -- then this particular life-atom is immediately stimulated by the contact or entrance into it of this psycho-vital magnetism descending from above or issuing forth from within, because this life-atom thus actually is attracted to its own parent.
Indeed, this very life-atom is actually, as said in a previous paragraph, the 'precipitation' or 'projection' on to this physical plane of the tip of the imbodying Ray, although such 'precipitation' or 'projection' may have and probably has occurred some little time before the beginning of the inflow or influx of the energies descending along this Ray from the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego. In other words, this life-atom may be correctly looked upon as itself being the tip of the imbodying Ray 'precipitated' or 'projected' into the realm of physical matter, which physical matter, as atoms, is thus attracted around this tip, building first the material imbodiment of the said life-atom and by progressive accretion finally becoming the living germ-cell.
Obviously, the germ-cell does not or may not immediately begin to grow into the human or other embryo; it may have to wait for some relatively short time before the inflow or influx along its own Ray can awaken it into the processes of embryonic growth. 'Accidents,' to use a perhaps not altogether accurate expression, likewise frequently occur, so that the germ-cell is not fertilized and then such attempt of the psycho-magnetic Ray is aborted; such germ-cell dies, and the Ray-tip or Ray-point instantly begins to form a life-atom anew.
It is to be carefully noted that the 'transmigrations' of the life-atoms belonging to any one plane are continuous through the ages, and that their respective 'lives' or life-terms are extremely short when compared with the term of the human life. One such life-atom, the 'particular one' mentioned in the text above, i. e., the one most sympathetic in every respect and most responsive to the magnetic vitality of the imbodying Ray, is the one which the said imbodying Ray most strongly attracts to itself, and when 'caught' as a life-atom in physical substance by the Ray-tip it is then and there 'fixed' so to speak, and becomes, as said before, the point or tip of the Ray itself. From the instant of such 'fixing' the life-atom begins to unfold itself in growth and becomes a germ-cell. This germ-cell is then either fertilized and continues its growth through the embryonic stages to become a human being or -- dies in the manner aforesaid.
This particular life-atom was one of the uncountably great host of life-atoms that made the physical body of the Reimbodying Ego in its last incarnation. As the iron filing jumps to the magnet, so does the life-atom quiver and spring into vital activity at this contact: as it were it becomes biologically vitalized, henceforth a living and growing germ, and if all goes well it begins to unfold and to express forth the individuality latent in the Radiance descended from the Reincarnating Ego, which individuality or characteristic flows, as above explained, along and in the psycho-magnetic channel of the Ray of psycho-vital electricity.
The lowest, in the sense of the most material, part of our Globe Earth is what science calls the chemical atoms and what former scientists were pleased to call the intra-atomic ether.(398) These atoms and this intra-atomic ether, as well as the inter-atomic ether, are even below the physical world that our senses apprise us of. We human beings, considered for the moment as mere bodies of physical flesh, are a stage or more higher on the ladder of material substance than the chemical 'elements' themselves are, although of course our flesh itself is builded of and composed of these same so-called chemical elements, for, due to the concreting effect and aggregative attraction described in previous paragraphs, these chemical elements have been ingathered and wrought into our marvelous garments of flesh.
When the particular and chosen life-atom above spoken of, which has its existential being in the atomic world, feels the vital impact of the Ray-point from the Reincarnating Ego in the manner before described, and thus leaps as it were into the beginning of its pathway of growth or development into the germ-cell, this cell is psycho-magnetically attracted to the human individual who is most akin, physically speaking, to its own rate of vibrational energy, to make use of a term of more or less popular science. Or, to phrase it differently, this life-atom-cell is psycho-magnetically attracted to such a man by the similarity of both quantity and psychic quality of atomic vibrational frequency. The cause of this interesting fact is that such man was in his past earth-life or in some former earth-life, intimately connected or associated with the very Reimbodying or Reincarnating Ego now re-entering earth-life through its Ray or Radiance.(399)
The attraction of the germinal cell, still an unfolding life-atom, to the man in question, exists from preceding and perhaps long past causes which originated in the close association of the two beings in a former earth-life, whether as brothers, or as parent and son or parent and daughter, or as intimate friends, or even as husband and wife. Thus the particular and chosen life-atom now become the germinal cell and invigorated and vitalized as above stated has entered into the body of the man to whom it has been attracted. It is taken into or incorporated with the auric or psycho-vital magnetic atmosphere of this man, the parent-to-be of the coming child. For every human being is surrounded by his own emotional and passional as well as psycho-vital substantial atmosphere.
In these modern days, when bits or driblets of the Archaic Wisdom have become the more or less common property of every man, frauds and cranks included, this human atmosphere is popularly called an aura. There is no objection at all to this word. It is in itself a most excellent and good word; but it has been so misused and so misapplied by people who call themselves by various lofty appellations and who give to themselves various differing high-sounding titles, and who, nevertheless, never have been really taught, or who never have made an honest-to-goodness study of these subjects, that although this term was actually brought into use in the modern world by Theosophical thinkers and speakers, careful and self-respecting Theosophists have been almost compelled to abandon it, or indeed, if they employ it, to do so with an unwilling protest combined with a brief explanation such as the present one.
Every human being is surrounded by such a psycho-magneto-electric atmosphere, which is a true vital radiance streaming forth from within: a true 'aura' or psycho-vital cloud surrounding the human being, and stamped with that human being's characteristics of individuality. It is a vital effluvium or atmosphere surrounding even his physical person, and actually is an emanation from or flowing forth of the force-substance of the man's invisible, astral-etheric model-body, called in modern Theosophy the Linga-sarira. We cannot see this aura, except on the rarest of occasions and even then only indistinctly, with our physical eyes; but this is no argument against its existence, since we cannot see even the air which we breathe, the atmosphere surrounding the earth; and we know that this atmosphere is a very dense and coarse and heavy gas, or rather mixture of gases, so grossly material, indeed, that to a percipient being only a little more ethereal than we are, were he to see our ordinary atmosphere surrounding our Earth, this atmosphere would appear to him probably to be as dense and heavy and thick as viscid glue. Nor can we see the electric fluid which so closely enwraps us in on all sides.
From what has been said in preceding paragraphs it should be sufficiently clear how it is that the life-atom or germinal cell in its embryonic stages finds its way into the body of a human being of the male sex; and the usual path of such entrance is in the food which is eaten, or in the fluids which are drunk; for such solid or liquid food, as everyone knows, is composed of chemical elements so called, which is but another way of saying, of atoms; and physical atoms, as already pointed out, are but the physically material manifestation of the invigorating and vitalizing life-atoms behind and within the atoms known to physical chemistry.
Now the various activities of the irradiated life-atom under discussion, just preceding -- or for a certain small period of time preceding -- what is called the conception of a human being, are very important. Life-atoms of all kinds may be divided for the purpose of the present discussion into two general classes, signifying not a difference in kind, but only a difference of condition, to wit: life-atoms which are latent or dormant, and life-atoms which are kinetic or active. No one life-atom is for long in either the one or the other condition; because as all beings and things in Nature have periods of alternating activity and repose, so does a life-atom have periods of active movement and periods of dormancy or repose -- albeit the time of these respective periods for the life-atoms is always exceedingly short when compared with our ordinary human time-periods.
The human reproductive germs as found in a man or indeed in any other so-called animate and vegetable entities are of both kinds of life-atoms, either active or dormant. The human reproductive cells or ova as found in woman are likewise of these two kinds. It may be stated here before passing on, that although the 'natural' or inherent function or purpose of these reproductive cells is that of propagation of the species, a subsidiary but extremely important role played by them is in building and strengthening the body of the host of either sex in which they may happen to be when not used for their own specifically biological purpose.
So then, given this similarity of psychic vibrational frequency as between the male parent-to-be and the germinal life-atom, the latter being as stated a bit of the psycho-vital fluid of the Ray from the Reincarnating Ego, it should be evident that this Ray, attracted by the aura or vital magnetic atmosphere of the man, glides into or enters into this aura and temporarily is incorporated therewith, and automatically, so to say, or at any rate, psycho-magnetically, seeks out or finds or is attracted to or is drawn to the particular dormant life-atom in the specific organ of the living man, which life-atom most nearly answers to the vibrational rate of the entering psycho-vital magnetic Ray. Thus then we have the Ray which has vitalized its particular life-atom -- which life-atom is really its own Ray-point, as above stated -- and the hitherto 'dormant' germinal cell-life-atom of the living man, and these two uniting because of the attraction already described instantly awaken the living man's dormant germinal cell to become an active entity.
If the man be celibate, the reproductive germ or stimulated life-atom is unable to pursue its course of growth and is used to build up and strengthen merely the body of the man in the manner briefly described. In such case the Ray having its purpose thwarted is almost immediately withdrawn and seeks elsewhere to follow its course through another germinal growth. But if on the other hand the vitalized germinal life-atom achieves union with the female reproductive cell, the first steps of the growth of the child-to-be immediately take place, and in due time, barring accidents, the birth of the child occurs.
It has already been stated elsewhere that the various classes of life-atoms which form the intermediate sheaths or vehicles of a man's constitution, and which are cast off, post mortem, by the excarnate Ego pursuing its ascending course, follow each one its particular and especial metempsychosal journey through the various Kingdoms of Nature, and continue so doing through the centuries until each and all such peregrinating life-atoms are swept together again into the constitution of the now 'descending' Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego. These peregrinations of the life-atoms were what the ancient Egyptians meant in their teaching concerning the pilgrimage of entities, as it was recounted by Herodotus in his Second Book, section 123, quoted on another page. He says that the ancient Egyptians held that a portion of the human entity passed after death through the spheres or worlds of air, water, and earth, a procession of events or experiences incurred during its peregrinations which occupied a time-period, so they told Herodotus, of some three thousand years, more or less. Such peregrination being through all the Kingdoms of Nature, it is obvious why any such life-atom, which aggregatively of course means all the life-atoms, may be and in fact is taken into a human body in the guise of or under the garment of food and drink, or indeed by inspiration of air into the lungs; or again by means of the various subtil and invisible and intangible circulations of life-atoms by osmosis, as manifested perhaps particularly in the constant electric and magnetic circulations of the circumambient world which pass in and out of the human body more or less constantly. It is to be remembered that even according to the dicta of ultra-modern science electricity itself is matter, and in the form of electronic or protonic particles actually forms the material basis of the physical universe. Thus it so happens that during the various processes of digestion and assimilation and other physiological activities, the molecules or atoms thus entering the body in one fashion or another are assorted and assembled or marshaled to the different organs of the body to remain each in its temporary lodgment for a greater or smaller period of time.
Another point: although the reincarnating psycho-vital-magnetic Ray makes its first contact with and entrance into a human germ-cell in the manner that has been already set forth, yet it is only when the infant thus generated first moves in the bosom of its mother that occurs what may be called the actual and real entrance into the unborn child of the characteristic, because higher, attributes and qualities of the Reincarnating Ego. Yet these 'higher qualities and attributes' are not of course the highest parts of the constitution of the man-to-be. Hitherto the embryo or foetus has been the growing of the solely vegetative part of the incarnating being, in other words, the vital-astral part of it, which part hitherto has caused and guided the growth of the human embryo towards ultimate birth as a child. But from this moment of the first movement of the unborn child till birth, and indeed all through later life, as the child passes through the stages of infancy, childhood, youth, middle age, old age, the life-atoms of the many and various classes and on the different planes, which formerly belonged to the same Ego in its past life and its past lives, are swept by irresistible psycho-magnetic attraction into the constitution anew, each life-atom or group of life-atoms seeking its own plane in the constitution of the inner man, physical and otherwise; and this procedure of building up the inner constitution by such ingression of the various classes of life-atoms proceeds uninterruptedly until death, and happens in the case of every man or woman thus passing through the various ages or stages of human existence.
The mystery of human birth is not solely a physiological phenomenon by any means, but is in fact a very holy one. If men and women only knew the sacredness of it, then for their own self-protection, outside of the sense of mutual respect and of decency that every normal man and woman possesses at the bottom of his or her heart, this subject would always be approached in a spirit of truly religious awe, and marriage would become what it ever ought to be: a most beautiful, because a most holy state: and the acts which lead to the 'procreation' and birth of a little child would be undertaken as a truly religious function. Men and women having knowledge of what it all means would realize with relative fulness their mutual responsibility and the truly sacred character of what the generative function and marriage involve.
One may well ask oneself the following question: What is the vital germ-cell, whether of man or woman? It is originally an integral part of the astral substance of the astral man, of what in Theosophy is called his etheric or astral 'model-body'; which is, to use modern terminology, what might well be called an electro-magnetic body of astral substance, and therefore belonging to the plane just above the physical in point of ethereality; and around this astral model-body the physical body is builded atom for atom, molecule for molecule, cell for cell: therefore bone for bone, limb for limb, and feature for feature: indeed, whatever one sees the physical body to possess is but a precise and exact mirroring in our more material world of what the etheric model-body is in all the latter's detail of particularities.
As the particular life-atom above spoken of, which really belongs to the astral or etheric world in the manner just stated, is invigorated by the influx into it as the chosen ray-point of the descending energies of the Reincarnating Ray and which thereafter enters by psycho-magnetic attraction into the astral or model-body of the father of the child-to-be, it is in due course of time, and following the regular physiological procedures of the man's body, deposited or urged into the appropriate physical receptacle or organ of the father as an astral precipitate, or precipitate from the astral outwards into the physical. It thus becomes physicalized as a germ-cell. Equivalently, with the mother also is this process of astral precipitation or of physicalization identically the same in general outline, and paradoxical as it may sound to one unaccustomed to this part of the teaching, the precipitation is from the same Ray in both cases: in fact each parent contains in his or her appropriate organ a fairly large number of life-atoms belonging to the Reincarnating or Reimbodying Ego of the man who used those life-atoms in a past earth-life, or in past earth-lives.(400)
It is to be clearly understood that each parent is fully as important in this matter as is the other. Neither of the twain alone in our present stage of human evolution, in which sex prevails, can bring forth another human being, but the two must join, according to the laws of Nature at present prevailing, in this holy mystery. When the two human germinal cells join as a composite speck of living protoplasm, then we see from this microscopic vital unit, the fertilized cell, something evolving forth and expressing all the potencies and potentialities -- of what? Of something that alone was in the father? No. Or in the mother? No. But expressing a bundle or aggregate of attributes and qualities and characteristics which resemble at least in some respects both parents, but which are different from both and possessing distinct individuality of its own.
Once that growth thus has begun, passing through the various stages of embryonic or foetal development, and later of birth, and as the child through the years becomes an ever fitter vehicle for the expression through it of the characteristic drive behind it of the Monadic Ray or Reincarnating Ego, any observant mind sees clearly enough the developing character of the growing child. We thus see what was once a microscopic human germ-cell growing through various stages into a full-sized human being capable of expressing in some proportion at least all the spiritual inner glory and the intellectual power and splendor of the Monadic Ray streaming and flowing into and through its proper organic receptacles, after having passed along and through the invisible fabric of the psycho-magnetic etheric or astral model-body.
It may be asked whether the many hosts and kinds of life-atoms which had belonged to the Ego in its former earth-life are numerous enough so that after an undetermined space of time which is reckoned by centuries and indeed by thousands of years, the Reimbodying Ego can find immediately accessible and usable a sufficient proportion of these its own former life-atoms waiting for it. The question is a natural one, but could be asked only by an inquirer who had not studied the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy. When it is remembered that even according to modern scientific estimates the number of physiological cells in the average physical body alone is at something around 26 thousand billions, in other words, 26 trillions in American numeration: and that these cells themselves are titanic in size and composition when compared with even the physical atom -- in other words, that each cell must contain unnumbered billions or trillions of life-atoms -- it is easier to see and to understand that the life-atoms in the average human body are so unthinkably numerous that we can only guess at the vast magnitude of their hosts. Probably they are counted in thousands of decillions, or even on a larger scale; and one may go farther and say that as the entire population of the earth is estimated at somewhat less than two thousand million human beings, it is not only more than likely, but almost a positive certainty, that a large number of the unthinkably vast host of life-atoms which had belonged to any one human being in a former earth-life are existent at the present time in the body of every man and woman now on earth.
There is another thing which it seems advisable likewise to mention here: it is, that the incarnating Monadic Ray is psycho-magnetically drawn most powerfully to the point where the attraction is strongest, in other words, to those already incarnated whom it had known most intimately in its past life or lives; and such 'most intimate' persons are relatively few when compared with the populations of the globe. How many these 'most intimate' ones are, no one can properly say without seeming venturesome; but off-hand one may make a guess which is perhaps reasonably accurate, by mentioning a dozen or twenty or fifty 'very intimate' associates. The ordinary number is probably greatly fewer even than this: two or three perhaps. The most 'intimate' relations in human life are those of marriage, or the profoundly sympathetic intimacy involved in family relations; and the hint given in the preceding lines of the present paragraph obviously points directly to the incarnating Ray's being most strongly attracted to those with whom in a former earth-life it had been in most 'intimate' association. Verbum sapienti!
There is of course much more that might be written on the topic of the present chapter which would find an eminently appropriate place here, save for the fact that to do so would be to enter into an elaboration of deeper and distinctly esoteric teaching which simply could not be understood without a fairly long previous training, and which it therefore would be useless and unwise to develop here.
FOOTNOTES:
393. The observations contained in the foregoing paragraph, are, it may be said in passing, one phase if not the entirety of the so-called 'ancestor-worship' of many of the Oriental peoples such as the Chinese, Japanese, etc.
The reader should likewise note carefully, if he please, that, due to the social intercourse of human beings, of families, of tribes, and nations, and even of races, and lasting through the ages -- an intercourse which falls under the two terms of licit and illicit personal relationships -- the mingling or miscegenation of family with family, and of larger units with larger units, is of constant occurrence; and in these days of wide-flung communication, and virtually uninterrupted personal intercourse and contact, this mingling of blood, whether on the small or on the large scale, is proceeding apace, whether we like the idea of miscegenation or not. So that, to take the case of a single race as an instance, it is probable that today every single individual in this race, whether high or low, whether patrician or plebeian, whether prince or peasant, is of greatly mixed ancestral strains; and one may say with probable truth that a single blood flows throughout the race in the veins of patrician or plebeian, with differences due solely to varying magnitudes of admixture or miscegenation.
Indeed, if racial miscegenation proceeds as rapidly in the future as it has been doing during the last two or three hundred years or more, the time will come when all the peoples of the Earth of whatsoever race will be countable as blood-relatives in the same manner as the typical race just previously mentioned. (return to text)
394.
Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,
. . . .
Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,
My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.
For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
. . . . .
All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me.
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
-- WALT WHITMAN: Leaves of Grass, 'Song of Myself.' (return to text)
395. Just here again enters a very important fact into the procedure of the Monad's interplanetary pilgrimage which is so extremely difficult of explanation in a published work that it has been thought best to refer to it briefly only in a footnote, the more so as this particular fact is involved in teaching which is highly esoteric in character and obviously therefore unfit for publication in a printed volume. The author will do his best and as briefly as possible to make the matter at least a little more clear as to why the 'sleeping' or 'dreaming' Reimbodying Ego can so largely control the Spiritual Monad as to curtail or conversely to lengthen the time-period of the interplanetary pilgrimage.
In the previous chapter reference was made to the difference between Outer Rounds and Inner Rounds, and in what was there said lies the explanation of the matter if the reader is quick enough or clever enough to grasp it.
The following observations, then, it is hoped will be helpful. The general scheme of the Outer Rounds involves the fact that the Spiritual Monad during the course of any Outer Round -- which comprises time-periods to be reckoned by the hundreds of millions of years -- is karmically bound to play the same circulatory part in and over any one of the planetary chains which it covers in the Outer Round, that it does in and over any globe of the especial planetary chain which it at the time is especially and particularly karmically bound to. All the Spiritual Monads which are for us humans our Spiritual Selves are at the present time, and have been for ages past, and will be for ages in the future, passing through that phase of the Outer Round in which we are now engaged which binds us to the Earth's planetary chain particularly and especially. Hence it is that as long as our Earth's planetary chain is in its present Chain-Manvantara, our Spiritual Monads are in especial bound to this planetary chain; and the Reimbodying Ego which is native to this planetary chain of Earth, is particularly strong for this reason in its influence on the Spiritual Monad.
When our planetary chain of Earth shall have ended its manvantaric course, and our group of Spiritual Monads thereafter in due course and during the present Grand Outer Round go to the next and succeeding planetary chain, the Reimbodying Ego native to this next or succeeding planetary chain will then become the most strong in its influence on the Spiritual Monad, and the Reimbodying Ego native to our present planetary chain will be in its manvantaric Nirvana, and consequently its influence on the Spiritual Monad will be negative rather than positively active; whereas the influence of the Reimbodying Ego native to the next or succeeding planetary chain will be positively active in its influence, just as our own Reimbodying Ego is positive in its influence on the Spiritual Monad at present. Verbum sapienti!
From the foregoing it is clear that the Spiritual Monad, whose range is over the solar system, it will be remembered, emits a Ray or Radiation or Reimbodying Ego for each planetary chain with which the Spiritual Monad is karmically bound -- in other words a different Reimbodying Ego for each one of the seven (or ten or twelve) sacred planets hereinbefore spoken of and explained. The author wonders whether the above explanation has made the intelligent reader any the wiser! He sincerely hopes so. At any rate, the foregoing observations contain the reason why the Reimbodying Ego of any human belonging to the Earth-chain especially and particularly affects the Spiritual Monad so strongly as in many cases virtually to determine or control the length of the latter's interplanetary peregrinations, and its recessions from and approaches to Earth. (return to text)
396. Here once more, and with extreme reluctance, one feels the need of stating that there is a good deal of the teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy which simply cannot be openly stated in a published book, because such teaching belongs to the highly recondite and extremely difficult thought of the esoteric studies reserved for the few.
The author of the present work desires to state once for all, and with all the emphasis at his command, that neither this declaration of certain esoteric teachings which are too sacred to be given to the public, nor other similar declarations made in the course of the present work, are in any sense of the word to be considered or looked upon as 'claims' made by him to possessing 'superior' or wonderful knowledge. The author absolutely disavows not only any such intention of 'claiming' anything, but must point out that merely stating that the Esoteric Philosophy contains wide ranges of teaching or doctrine which are incommunicable to the public is making no 'claims' whatsoever, but is the simple statement of something that ought to be known to every student of the Archaic Wisdom.
The writer of these lines has immense and profound sympathy with those who look askance and with suspicion upon any claimants to occult powers or occult knowledge; for he, fully as much as others, is keenly sensible of the mischief and confusion that such claimants have brought about in the Theosophical Movement. There are today abroad in the world associations or societies or organizations of many different kinds, some of them claiming wonderful and mystic knowledge, usually centered in an individual or two or more and all, more or less, claiming either new and greater revelations than H. P. Blavatsky brought to the Western World, and usually as being from the source from which she drew her great knowledge, or averring that they and their respective heads draw their alleged 'wisdom' and so-called 'secret teaching' from a source still higher than that upon which H. P. Blavatsky drew.
Now with all the charity in the world towards honest students, whether they be Theosophists or not, and with no wish whatsoever to seem or to be inconsiderate or unkind, the author of these lines feels impelled to say that in his considered opinion virtually all of these various claims to special spiritual powers or privileges are fraudulent shams. Such is his own individual and considered judgment in the matter, and he bases this opinion upon two facts which are as follows: (a) the statements, writings, averments, or 'claims' of these especial groups generally wander so far from and contain so little of that Archaic Wisdom which in the present work is called the Esoteric Tradition, and which throughout the ages has been universal over the globe, that they thus lack the primal requisite of truth, both esoteric and exoteric, which is universality, and lack it both in substance and in form. Thus the greater and more important test of true Esotericism, to wit, is its universality in all ages and in all races of men as evidenced in that common DOCTRINE which all the great Religions and Philosophies of the human race imbody as their spiritual substance; and (b) it is virtually impossible to set forth or to publish esoteric truth in any manner, except by pointing to what the great sages and seers of the ages have left behind them as their respective Messages.
One must look for the cause of the rising of these various erratic associations to that inrush of psychic influences which H. P. Blavatsky and her great Teachers from the beginning of the modern Theosophical Movement taught was about to take place; and there is no part of the human constitution which is so uncertain, so erratic in its processes, so dangerous to follow as a guide, as the psychical portion of man's being. It is full of dangers and pitfalls to the unwary; and there is deep pathos in the fact that it is just these things of psychic stamp and character which appeal so to men of our time. Psychism in all its forms, relatively good, downright bad, and indifferent, is something which unfortunately appeals directly to the credulous, the gullible, the unwise, and the foolish; and the earnest Theosophist should never hesitate openly to proclaim that one of the main purposes in founding the modern Theosophical Movement was to do what could be done to stem the then impending inrushing tide or flow of psychism in its various forms. Where psychism is, Spirituality usually flies out at the window -- because evicted by man's folly; where Spirituality is allowed to enlighten the mind and refine the heart by its benign and inspiring influence, the psychical in all its forms shrivels into the bundle of illusions which it actually is.
All these various psychical bodies or societies are posterior in time to the founding of the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others. Some of them broke off from the Theosophical Movement, while others arose outside of its ranks; although all younger than the Theosophical Society, they rarely if ever acknowledge the debt they owe to it in so far as concerns the teachings which they have one and all taken from it, and which teachings form whatever is worth while in them. Since they are without any philosophy that is worthy of the name, save what has been cribbed from the Theosophical Society, with a religious atmosphere which is insignificant and a science which is either mere popular trifling or worse, one turns from an inspection of them with relief.
Yet even here in these various movements, some quasi-Theosophical without acknowledging it, and some frankly anti-theosophical and vaunting it, there are doubtless numbers of very kindly and good people who in their search for truth have not yet come to our doors. It is unquestionable that the best way for Theosophists to handle this situation is with great gentleness and with unending kindness both of heart and mind and with an ever-ready desire to extend to truth-seekers from whatsoever quarter they may come such portion of the Ancient Wisdom as we ourselves may be privileged to have made our own.
As Edwin Markham said:
"He drew a circle that left me out -- heretic, rebel -- a thing to flout;
But Love and I had the wit to win -- we drew a circle that took him in."
Finally, the writer of the present work does not here make, nor has he ever made, 'claims' to anything whatsoever; he has given in the present work and in his former books, something of what he himself has been taught; but this statement is made not as a 'claim,' but as a simple averment of fact which the reader is at full liberty to accept or reject, according to his conscience and his best reason.
The proof of the body of the truth of any teaching or group of teachings is not and cannot be based on 'claims,' though made by the high gods themselves, but solely on the intrinsic and inherent merits of said teaching or body of teachings; and upon this ground of merit alone, such merit comprising universality, spirituality, mutual coherency, and logical consecution in thought, any teaching whatsoever must rest. It is true enough that great names and brilliant reputations lend splendor to a teaching, and in themselves evoke respect; but even brilliant reputations and great names are no absolute proofs that any teaching coming from such source is true. This is especially true in Esotericism, whose doctrines persuade the mind and sway the heart solely because of their intrinsic value and obvious merit, and on these alone they must stand or fall. (return to text)
397. The statement in the text above that the Monad makes no redescent into planes inferior to its own during the course of the Solar Manvantara, is correct and strictly in line with Nature's processes; but nevertheless the student must not forget that the foregoing statement applies to the Solar Manvantara after the Cosmic Structure has been unrolled anew into the sevenfold or twelvefold carpentry of the Solar Universe. It does not apply in its fulness to the very beginnings of the Cosmic Drama after the long Solar Pralaya has ended and the spiritual hierarchies and substances begin to unfold anew. The point is an extremely subtil one and difficult of explanation and well illustrates how careful one must be in any exposition of the teachings of the Esoteric Philosophy, which, as several times already stated in the present work, contain almost innumerable paradoxes. A paradox in the sense here used is a statement of truth which, to the uninitiated, appears, because of lack of understanding, as a contradiction.
The fact is that at the very beginning, at the primal opening of the new Cosmic Manvantara, when all beings and forces and substances are still in their spiritual condition, every Monad, high or low on the evolutionary scale, must take a part in preparing this opening of the Cosmic Drama. Thus it is that at such primal beginnings of the Cosmic Drama even the highest and most evolved Monads in the solar system takes each one its proper part in laying the foundations of the new Cosmic Manvantara, and, included in this work of preparation, is the laying of the sub-structure as well as the superstructure of the entire cosmic organization in both type and form.
Once, however, that the architectural plan has been laid down, in which process all Monads without exception, as above stated, take part, then, as the Sage of Crotona, Pythagoras, phrased it, each "Monad retires into Silence and Darkness" -- meaning into its own realms of unimaginable (to us humans) spirituality and light.
Now because Nature works throughout her being in analogical courses, so that the great mirrors itself in the small, and the small repeats the types and forms and operations of the great, the above observations and reflexions may become possibly somewhat clearer by remembering that in the reimbodiment of a planetary chain, and during what is called its First Round, the very highest Dhyani-Chohans are obligated by karmic law to co-operate with the lowest Elementals and all stages of beings between, in laying down the structure or carpentry of what the said planetary chain is to become. In other words, what we may call the 'architects,' the highest Dhyani-Chohans, co-operate with the first Kingdom of Elementals, and finally with all the other intermediate grades of evolving Monads belonging to the said planetary chain in order that the proper types and forms of the seven (or twelve) globes of the said planetary chain may be karmically, which means correctly and accurately, builded. This takes place during the First Round, when all the Families or Life-waves are obliged by karmic destiny to sweep around and through the seven or twelve laya-centers waiting in space, and thus around these laya-centers to build the various globes of the chain in their first 'presentment' as manifested spheres.
After the First Round is completed, and the architectural plan has thus been laid down, the evolutionary tracks set and laid, the method changes in this respect, so that all following Rounds beginning with the Second follow a procedure differing from what took place in the First Round; the reason being that because the First Round has laid down the plan, the Monads in all succeeding Rounds simply follow this plan and in regular serial order of progression which belongs to them as families or life-waves of the full twelvefold chain-hierarchy. (return to text)
398. One may say in passing that the modern scientific tendency to discard both an intra- and an inter-atomic ether or ethers is simply the result of the fact that no sufficiently satisfactory chemical or physical proof of the existence of such ether or ethers has as yet been found. The chemical and physical proof is lacking only because of the imperfection of both chemical physics and molecular physics. Whatever the tenuous 'stuff' may be which fills the spaces of the atoms and between the atoms, it most emphatically does exist and is the reason why forces or energies can be transferred or transmitted across what so many scientists so foolishly call 'empty space.'
There is no reason why this 'something,' this extremely tenuous substance, should not be called 'ether' or rather 'ethers,' except recent scientific prejudice against the name. However, the thing would remain itself by whatever name it may in future be called; and whether the chemistry and physics of the future shall deign to call the 'ether' and 'ethers' of our forefathers by some other name or names, when once the existence thereof has been again proved, is a matter of supreme indifference. We either have to admit the existence of such ether or ethers, i. e., of this extremely tenuous and ethereal substance which fills all space, whether interstellar or interplanetary or inter-atomic and intra-atomic, or accept actio in distans -- action at a distance, without intervening intermediary or medium of transmission; and such actio in distans is obviously by all known scientific standards an impossibility. Reason, common sense, logic, as well as human experience and indeed all the tutti quanti of scientific discoveries and experiment demand the existence of such universally pervading medium, by whatever name we may choose to call it and possessing whatever qualities it thus possesses.
The Esoteric Philosophy most emphatically affirms its existence, and is perfectly willing to call it by the old classic name of Ether, although stating at the same time that it is not a unitary medium but actually septenary or sevenfold in character; or what comes to the same thing, that there are seven such 'ethers' of which only the lowest and most material is that which chemists of the last generation were glad enough to accept even as an hypothesis, even if they could not prove by mensuration or by balance or in other wise its actual existence. Furthermore, such Ether is only the lowest dregs or lees of that spiritual-substantial cosmic Essence which in its hierarchically highest parts the Esoteric Wisdom calls Akasa, or sometimes, from another angle of vision and with an even more abstract significance, Mulaprakriti -- Root-Nature.
The Cosmic Essence, septenary or denary in hierarchical structure, is not only a medium of transmission or connecting cosmic fluid between body and body, but actually is the prima materia itself, out of the lowest or most concreted parts of which the entire physical material universe is constructed. (return to text)
399. In connexion with this point the reader is referred to a previous part of this chapter and its accompanying footnote, wherein the perduration and continuance of transmission through many generations of a particular and especial line or flow of a germinal cellular life is briefly outlined. (return to text)
400. The author is sensible of the difficulties that the average or non-theosophical reader may have in understanding this statement which must seem to many to be both strange and if not incomprehensible, at least extremely curious. So it is, as a matter of fact, but the author is not responsible for the way in which Nature follows her processes! It may help such average reader to understand the processes somewhat more clearly if he will be kind enough to reflect that most cases of physical union are brought about by psycho-magnetic attraction, possibly all cases; for it is unlikely in the extremest degree that men and women are attracted to each other because of extreme mutual personal distaste or repulsion -- the two ideas cancel each other. Further, it is to be remembered that these descending Rays are always awaiting fit and appropriate chances for reimbodiment and that their number is at all times a fairly large one; and whether the cases of physiological union between the sexes are those which occur in the close and long intimacy of married life or are the cases of short acquaintance, the strong psycho-magnetic emotion aroused works with almost equal strength in either case upon such waiting Ray.
Nor must it be forgotten that here we are dealing not with the slow procedures of ordinary human life which sometimes take days or months or even years, but with an excessively rapid action or activity of psycho-magnetic and electric character. The movement of the electric current is instantaneous, and even the life-term of any single vital atom or life-atom is equivalently instantaneous. It is all a matter of vital electric contact which is almost as rapid as light.
Nor is this the whole story. The truth of the matter is that every human being who has passed the age of puberty contains in the proper organ at all times a certain number of transitory germ-cells, which are actually the physicalized astral 'precipitates' of different incarnating Rays as before described; the woman in any case receiving or being the depositary of the negative portion of a waiting Ray, and the adult man equivalently being the depositary of the positive aspect of such a waiting Ray. Of course, as before stated, these astral 'precipitates' do not remain in any human body for any particular length of time; if not caught 'on the wing' as it were, they are either expelled from the human body in the normal physiological way, or are employed by the automatic physiological processes of the body for the latter's building and strengthening. (return to text)