The Theosophical Forum – July 1943

EVOLUTION INTO THE HUMAN KINGDOM: III – G. de Purucker

I have been asked to speak again on the subject of how the monads pass from the animal kingdom to the human kingdom. The question is in general: Please again state just exactly the difference between the animal monads in the animals, and the animal monads in men. Well, really, I brought this upon myself, and I am undergoing the justly earned karman, because in my great desire to give to you something of what I have studied and learned, I made the statement long ago, both in speech and in one or more of my talks, that what the animals were on the Moon-chain became the humans on this chain, and that what our animals now on earth are, will become the humans in the reimbodiment of this our Earth-chain. Well, that started a lot of things! Very rightly so. I was very glad these discussions and talks did begin. I succeeded in helping to wake up the minds of some of our students. They were taking too many things for granted too easily. They want to examine them, study them. But evidently a great many do not understand, and I do not blame them a particle. It is not an easy point of the doctrine. I meant to bring this subject out because some of our Theosophists in the world today who do not belong to our Society, have been taught or have accepted the teaching that we humans were the apes on the Moon-chain, and this is all wrong. There were apes or beings equivalent to apes on the moon, when the Moon-chain arrived at its end, before our Earth-chain came into being, but those apes, as you will see in a moment, became human.

I fully expected these discussions to take place. I foresaw . I welcomed them. And whenever I was asked to explain, as some-one told me, during nine years past I have just looked wise with a wooden face, and said, "Isn't that interesting! You keep on studying, and you will find out." Because I wanted you to get the answers yourselves, as I knew perfectly well you will never understand anything, make it a part of your intellect, a part of yourself, unless you work out the answer yourself. What you are merely told is like what a child learns in school. If it is not especially interested, it will not remember. But I have been keeping tab on how these discussions on the animal souls in the two kingdoms have been going, and I have reached a point now where I think there has been sufficient honest-to-goodness hard work to entitle those who have worked hard to an answer, and these will be the only ones who will understand the doctrine.

Now then, the difficulty in understanding this thing, which is not difficult at all, but extremely simple, has been the fact, the common human failing (I have it, we all have it), that we have persistently confused monads with rupas, forms, bodies, so that when we speak of animals we immediately figurate sheep, elephants, horses, cats, dogs, or what not, forgetting that the real animal is the monad; and you know that I never said that the animals on the moon became the humans on the earth, unless I had preceded it with the explanation or statement: the animal monads on the moon become the humans on the earth. But which animal monads? The animal monads in the moon-men, or the animal monads of the animals on the moon?

Now for instance, we on this earth, each one of us, has an animal monad as part of his constitution. What difference is there between this human animal monad, and the animal monad of an elephant or a dog? What is the difference, the distinction, between the two? I will try to explain. In the first place, one kingdom does not turn into the next higher kingdom through evolution. When we speak of kingdoms, we mean kingdoms; and in Theosophy we have 10 kingdoms of beings, otherwise 10 classes of monads, otherwise again 10 life-waves. What are they? We count them in this manner: 3 of the Elementals, the Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, the Human — seven; and the three dhyan-chohanic kingdoms — making 10 classes of monads in all, 10 kingdoms, 10 different life-waves.

Not one of these kingdoms ever passes, through evolution or development or unfolding, into the next higher kingdom, never, because these kingdoms refer to the rupas which shelter the monads, imbody them, enclose them, are the vehicles of the monads. For instance, the human kingdom is not actually formed of my body and yours, of all the human bodies on the earth. The human kingdom is formed of the monads. But it is these bodies of ours — do you understand me? — which in order to make a distinction we speak of as the rupa-kingdoms housing the 10 classes of monads. I wonder if that thought is clear? Not one of these kingdoms passes over into or becomes or evolves into the next higher. For instance, the animal kingdom never becomes a human kingdom. The vegetable kingdom never becomes an animal kingdom. The mineral kingdom never becomes a plant kingdom. The human kingdom never becomes the lowest of the three dhyan-chohanic kingdoms. What happens? It is the monads as individuals which evolve, each one in its own kingdom until it learns all that kingdom can teach it. When as an individual monad it has become animalized or humanized or dhyan-chohanized to the next higher, then at its next incarnation or imbodiment it enters into the very lowest realm of the next higher kingdom as an individual monad. Is that clear? But the kingdoms never as kingdoms become higher kingdoms.

You will see the point of this, or at least I will try to make it clear. Every kingdom below the human is striving to become — no, pardon me, every monad in every kingdom below the human kingdom is striving upwards towards the human kingdom. The human kingdom is its objective or goal, their objective, their goal; just as our goal as humans is to strive to become a member of the lowest of the three dhyan-chohanic kingdoms just above the human. But the human kingdom as such never becomes that lowest dhyan-chohanic kingdom. Why? Because Nature needs these kingdoms where she has them. They are as it were houses of life for the peregrinating, evolving monads to live in, to pass through, to graduate from and enter the next house of life or kingdom. Is that thought clear? Nature needs these through eternity. That is why long after we human monads shall have left the human kingdom and evolved up to become Dhyan-Chohans of the lowest dhyan-chohanic kingdom, the human kingdom will still remain containing monads or individuals then using the bodies kept alive by those new incoming individuals from what is now the animal kingdom. Don't you see? If the human kingdom all evolved to become Dhyan-Chohans, there would be a gap between the Dhyan-Chohans and the beast. The monads go up step by step, kingdom after kingdom.

What makes these kingdoms in nature? The records in the astral light. There is a very important contributory thought, and it explains a lot of questions I am going to discuss here. From immemorial eternity, as far as I know, there have always been, at least in our solar system and probably in our galaxy, 7 or 10 or 12 classes of monads or kingdoms or life-waves for our chain; and they have been kept going as these kingdoms because of new monads coming in from the lower kingdom, graduating into our kingdom, and human monads graduating out from our human kingdom into the dhyan-chohanic kingdom. So the kingdoms remain because the 10 classes of monads remain through eternity. It is the monads which evolve.

The question comes in — and this is incidental — don't the bodies of the monads in which the monads live when they imbody in the bodies also improve? They do but with almost excessive slowness. Why? Because the astral molds in the astral light have been improved from aeons and aeons in the past. I have no idea how far past — you might say from eternity. With each cosmic manvantara those astral molds in the astral light are slowly changing and improving. So that the kingdoms themselves, although remaining always the same kingdoms, are through the eternities themselves slowly rising, but with immense slowness; whereas the monads evolve much faster.

Now, don't confuse another thought here. There are certain rapid variations in the kingdoms themselves which are not permanent however. As for instance, take a human frame today. It is a far cry in its present relative grace and symmetry and dignified carriage to the first human beings of the Third Round or even the human beings of the Third Root-Race in this Round. If you saw them today you would say: Well, what ape-like bodies those are, they are positively ape-like. But there is not a drop of ape-blood in them. Don't get that idea. We use the term ape-like because the apes have a certain amount of human blood in them from that time; and evolving very slowly, not as fast as we humans have in shape and symmetry and beauty of form, they still contain what we call, just to give it a word, an ape-like picture of their human part-parents.

But mark you, the humans on the Moon-chain at about the same period where we are now, looked pretty much like what we now look like, and they had a time when they were rather ape-like in appearance, but with not a particle of ape-blood in them. I do hope I make this clear, because it has taken fifty years for Theosophists to understand the distinction.

Now what does this mean? It means that because the rupa-kingdoms evolve to betterment with such exceeding slowness, they nevertheless have spurts, upshootings, of great improvement which cannot hold. They drop back, they degenerate and go back. I am talking of kingdoms now, not the monads which incarnate in those kingdoms. I am talking of the rupa-kingdoms. Why? I told you. The fluid stuff forming our bodies, is compelled by nature to follow a certain line of development partly from inherent swabhava, but partly because of the mold in the astral light.

Now then, what possibility is there of reconciling what I just told you with the statement I made, and which you will find in H. P. B., that the animals on the moon became the humans on this chain? That our animals with us now will be the humans in the next Earth-chain, the child of this chain? The reconciliation lies in the fact that when you hear a statement of this kind, you should bring to its examination all your studies of Theosophy. If you had brought together other things that H. P. B. and I have stated, you would not have been bothered.

I will try to explain from some other angle. The human constitution — and indeed the constitution of an entity imbodied in any kingdom, the animal kingdom let us say, or in the dhyan-chohanic kingdom above ours, every such entity — is sevenfold. But of the seven principles or monads from any such constitution like our human, some are expressed with relative fulness and others are as yet largely unexpressed; and it is this difference which makes the kingdoms. Intricate? Fascinating to those who have got the key. Thus the animals have everything in them that a man has. They have a divine monad, a spiritual monad, and a human monad and an animal monad and an astral-vital monad and even what I have called the physical monad; but the monads in the animal kingdom have thus far evolved only up to the animal monad. That is why they are in the animal kingdom; they are at home there. When in the future the monads in the animal kingdom, the highest amongest them, shall have begun to yearn upwards towards the human monad, in other words begun to be humanized, the human capacities, elements, qualities, swabhava, in the animal, will have begun slowly to show themselves. The animals will begin to feel no longer at home in the animal kingdom, in these lower rupas; and as the process of slow humanizing continues, as the animal monads rise through experience; they will leave the animal kingdom and be attracted, psycho-magnetically, to the very lowest bodies in the human kingdom just above on the scale of life.

What happens? These monads formerly manifesting in the animal kingdom, in animal bodies, are now sufficiently humanized to enter into the lowest human bodies of savage barbarians, or, especially in the beginning of this Round on this Globe D, of beings who are far lower than the lowest savage we have today — but human nevertheless. What happens? They enter these human bodies as the animal monads there. There is your answer, there is your key. Similarly when a human being aspiring up to the dhayan-chohanic monad, to the spiritual monad, has reached a point where he is almost above humanity, growing out of it, when his yearn-ings are of spirit, higher, higher, there comes a time when incarnation among humans no longer is adequate. He is dhyanizing himself, this monad, and the attraction to the human kingdom will some day stop. There will be no further pull of incarnation in bodies of human beings. The next will be in the lowest of the dhyan-chohanic kingdoms. Is that thought clear?

So then, what is the difference or distinction between the animal monads in animals and the animal monads in men? I have told you. When the animal monad in the animal kingdom has humanized itself through evolution sufficiently no longer to feel attracted in incarnation to the animal kingdom, it will seek imbodiment psycho-magnetically in the very lowest specimens of men, and become the animal monad in men. Thus you see the unity of universal nature and her marvelous variety.

Now we will take the specific aspect of the moon-men and the moon-animals. You have been told many times that all kingdoms lower than the human will show a tendency to die out as round the 4th becomes round the 5th; still more tendency to die out as round the fifth becomes round the 6th; so that by the time the 7th and highest and last round is reached, the animals will have practically died out, the reason being that they cannot make the grade up the ascending arc. Their monads gradually die out and go into Nirvana, where they will wait until the next chain-imbodiment, and during the Round 1, 2 and 3 of that next chain-imbodiment. Thus the animals who could not make the grade up the Sixth and Seventh Rounds will have a chance again. Then they will come in as animals again. Nature will prepare the way through the elementals and the architects. Bodies will be there for them. They themselves will help to form the bodies in the animal kingdom. These are the animals who could not make the grade.

Now the same thing happened on the moon. Yet during the Seventh Round, whether on the moon in the past or in our own Seventh Round in the future, there will be exceptions in the animal kingdom. What are these exceptions? The apes, possibly the very highest of some of the simian monkeys too. The apes at the end of the Seventh Round will just have touched the human stage. The same thing happened on the moon. There the animals died out before the lunar Seventh Round was reached, except a few who just reached the human stage, just ready to enter the human kingdom when the Seventh Round was closing. There were millions of them, but compared with the billions and billions of the life-wave for the kingdom, it is a mere handful. Yes, these animals on the moon could make the grade and did. They just reached the lowest bottom of the next kingdom when the Seventh Round was reached, and became the lowest human beings on this new chain. How about the human animal monads in the Moon-chain? These were growing all the time more and more humanized and at the end of the Seventh Round on the Moon-chain they had become men; and the lunar men, the Moon-men at the end of the Seventh Round had become Dhyan-Chohans of the lowest dhyan-chohanic kingdom. Who were these moon animal monads? We were they. And that is what I meant when I said the animal monads which reached the tip of the human kingdom on the Moon-chain became the humans on this chain. Do you see? The kingdoms do not rise. Nature keeps them there, each on its own level, for the monads coming up from below, as monads, reaching up to the spirit lunar chain as it were. Spirit yearns to help earth, earth yearns upward to spirit.

So you see, marvelous picture, although the kingdoms remain the same, as it were retain the same place on nature's Ladder of Life, the monads come down through them and then on the upward arc sweep up through the kingdoms. Thus with us. Our animal monads are the monads from the animal kingdom which had become sufficiently humanized no longer to be animal animal monads but human animal monads. So when our Seventh Round shall have come, the animal monads in us will be the humans of the next imbodiment of the the chain. We humans by the end of the Seventh Round, those of us who make the grade, will have become dhyanized, chohanized if you wish, and shall have become Dhyan-Chohans at the end of the Seventh Round.

Now then, next thought. What were the manasaputras in this our present chain-imbodiment who incarnated in us human beings in the Third Root-Race on this Globe during this Fourth Round and made us thinking men? We were in the human kingdom as bodies, but I am now talking of monads. Who were the manasaputras who awaked us intellectually? They were those who had attained Dhyan-Chohan-ship on the moon at the end of the Seventh Round, and we were then their animal monads. They found us out again, they sought us out again, our higher selves as it were waiting for them, waiting until our bodies were ready, until the human rupas were sufficiently subtil, flexible, to receive the intellectual fire. Then they incarnated in us. If you have read H. P. B.'s Secret Doctrine, you will now see why these manasaputras could not incarnate before that time. No fit bodies for us. They were ready. The bodies were not ready. No fit rupas, no fit bodies, for us, they said. Those bodies had to become more subtil, more delicate, refined, more proper to receive the holy intellect of the manasaputras enlightening the latent mind of these humans, of us. Then when the time came, there came the "descent" as we call it, the descent of the manasaputras. Men began to think. And just let me add here, there was another class of manasaputras far higher than anything we as individuals have been connected with, who started this wonderful work of putting the flame of mind in those early human races. They were even Dhyan-Chohans on the Moon-chain. Marvelous picture!

So when the manasaputras gave us mind, it was merely our own Dhyan-Chohans, the moon-men become Dhyan-Chohans, and we their animal monads now become humans. It was their duty to enlighten us again, to give us back our mind, to awaken it. So shall we at the end of our Seventh Round become Dhyan-Chohans and be the manasaputras to the humanity of the next round who are now our human animal monads. Have I made the thought clear?

And now I have almost closed. You have heard of moments or times of choice when the great decisions must be made. One took place at the middle of the Fourth Round. Do you realize what happened then, when the moment came, when the monads were tested to see if they could pass? It was easy enough to run downhill, but could they pass that dangerous point and begin the upward arc? Millions, hundreds of millions, billions, succeeded in our human kingdom, in the animal kingdom. There was enough in them of upward aspiration to take them past the danger-point of the bottommost line and to start them going upwards. But do you know that hundreds of millions of monads could not pass over the danger-point? They were what H. P. B. called "lost monads." They perished for the remainder of this manvantara. This merely means that they could not make the grade, had not evolved sufficiently, and went into Nirvana. Out of it they will not reawaken until the psycho-magnetic call comes to them in the next chain to come into imbodied life. The animal kingdom will be then waiting for them, and the monads will come into this animal kingdom. The animal kingdom does not move up except with almost infinite slowness, gradually improving; but the monads are always there.

There will be another grave moment of choice at the middle of the Fifth Round, and that for us humans will be our great transition. In the middle of the Fifth Round will you and I be sufficiently dhyanized to be able to move up towards the beginning of the Sixth Round? Those who are becoming universal enough to become attracted to Dhyan-Chohanhood will make the grade. Those of us who will not have become sufficiently universalized to join the kingdom of the Dhyan-Chohans will perish for the remainder of this manvantara, in other words go into a Nirvana and lose billions of years. That is what it means, the losing of billions of years.

Think what it means for these millions of monads who perish then. Look at the time they lose. Two billion years before our Seventh Round is ended. More than 4 or 5 billion years more before our new chain-imbodiment begins. Between 6 and 7 billion years, precious time lost. That is why the Masters are pressing all the time. Now is your opportunity to become universal in your sympathies. Do anything you can do to be more spiritually human. Aspire upwards no matter what the attractions are here below. That does not mean lose your human sympathies. You will be standing in your own way if you think that, because your human sympathies are lofty; but it means to make them less selfish, more spiritual, raised, so that when the danger-point comes, you will pass up.



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