G. de P. — I am ready to answer questions.
Student — I was wondering if the nature of good and evil can be compared with what we learned in physics about heat and cold: that there are not two distinct things, heat and cold, but that cold is merely absence of heat. Is not evil merely absence of good and therefore moral inharmony, lack of beauty, or lack of a proper vision of things, relatively speaking of course, in whatever sphere you are dealing with?
G. de P. — Yes, in a sense that is quite true. Evil is not a thing per se, existing as an entity, that is, as a cosmic element; and good is also by no means a thing that exists by itself as an entity or as a cosmic element. Each is a condition of living entities. I repeat, each is a temporary condition of living entities. Neither the one nor the other can exist apart from the entities which are "good" or which are "evil." You might as well say that length can exist apart from things which are long, or that breadth or depth or heighth or lowth can exist apart from things which are broad or deep or high or low; or that heat can exist apart from things which are hot. Heat is not a thing which exists per se. It is merely a condition of things which are temporarily hot; and the same applies to things that are cold. There is no such thing as cold per se; but there are cold things.
I must add, however, with regard to heat and cold that the analogy with good and evil is not absolute; because it is our esoteric teaching that the old theory of the phlogiston or heat element or heat-essence has much more of truth in it than has been supposed since that theory was abandoned in the last two or three hundred years. The cosmic element fire is at the bottom of the old idea of the phlogiston, and in essence that old idea is true; whereas good and evil are states of relative perfection or harmony with environment, and states of relative imperfection or inharmony with environment. What is harmonious is called good. What is inharmonious or imperfect is called evil.
There is one other way of looking at this so-called problem of evil, which is a problem merely to Occidentals who have been psychologized through many centuries by false religious, false scientific, and false philosophical education. Whatever evil exists in beings, or aggregatively in the universe, exists from and because of the use and misuse of wills. Intelligences and wills misapplied produce inharmonies which are imperfections, and therefore evil. Similarly, intelligences and wills rightly applied in conformity with nature's fundamental currents of evolution and operation are harmonious therewith, and this condition is what men call good. This is the active aspect of the existence of good and evil, and it is the aspect which most human beings seem to have in their mind when the so-called problem of good and evil arises. It is not a problem, really. Both good and evil are relative, because arising out of entities in themselves only relatively evolved as compared with greater and less entities.
An exceedingly good man on earth may act from what are to him exceedingly lofty motives of conduct. And yet, pause a moment in thought — in the sight of the gods or of the supergods, the noblest human action is of necessity imperfect, therefore relatively inharmonious, therefore relatively evil. That is about all there is to it.
One of our companions at our last meeting mentioned a flower in this connection. A flower is an imperfectly evolved entity, if we use the evolutionary status of a human being as a standard. We have no absolute reason for so placing a human being as a standard whereby to judge the evolutionary status of any other entity in the universe, but people usually do so. It is a natural thing to do. But while that is perfectly true from the human standpoint, in itself a flower is as perfect a thing as is a human being. It is just another way of saying that both are relatively imperfect, because neither is absolute cosmic perfection. Each is an entity having attained a certain stage in its own line of development. But as a human being is much more evolved than a flower, and therefore uses much more aggressively his native power of will, and his native intelligence, he can be said to be more productive of evil in the world than a flower, because a flower is relatively innocent of evil doing.
Evil therefore is relative; good is relative. The one cannot exist apart from the other. As long as there is good in the universe, there will be evil in the universe; because if every entity and every thing were utterly harmonious with every other entity and every other thing, there would be no good, because there would be nothing at all to contrast it with. We say that one man is good, when we contrast him with other beings who are less good — or evil. If our world had but one color for everything, what we now know as color would be unknown to us because everything would be of one uniform shade.
Briefly, therefore, the active phase of good and evil is the exercise or use and misuse of individual wills, either cooperating harmoniously together or struggling against each other. The former is what men call good. The latter is what men call evil.
Student — Does that give any light on the mysterious tenet of spiritual wickedness? This is one of the most difficult things we have in our literature.
G. de P. — Yes, precisely so. As you have opened this door of explanation, I may add that the reference to beings of spiritual wickedness, which the Christian New Testament speaks of, actually implies that there are entities in the spiritual world much higher than human beings — so far as evolutionary development is concerned — who because of their relative imperfection in their own spiritual sphere are not utterly harmonious there. Therefore they produce a relative inharmony or disharmony there. It is bound to be so in all the rupa-worlds, or worlds of form and manifestation, because form and manifestation in themselves signify entities which are relatively imperfectly evolved. Differentiation is material existence, however ethereal that existence may be; and material existence signifies imperfectly evolved entities, beings, things — and this means relative evil, also relative good.
You cannot have one without the other. You cannot have spirit without matter. You cannot have matter without spirit. The time is coming in the aeons-long distant future when neither spirit nor matter will exist; but only that from which both flow forth as two streams of manifestation.
Student — In reference to this subject, when you speak of good as a matter of will, does that also cover the fact that a good person sometimes by his goodness actually does harm to others?
G. de P. — That can also occur, simply from the fact that the good person's action is relatively imperfect on account of the individual so acting having a relatively imperfect judgment. A man may be a good man, have a good motive in acting; but the motive though good, may produce an action which is unwise. This is because judgment, insight, vision, are imperfect in a certain degree.
Student — May I add to my question? We know that unselfishness in a person invites selfishness in others. Is it because the person who is unselfish is unwise in his judgment in expressing his unselfishness?
G. de P. — I would not say that unselfishness "invites" selfishness. Unwise unselfishness often arouses antagonism in others, which is "evil." But pure unselfishness is always spiritually clairvoyant, and cannot act — and I am speaking relatively of course — cannot act unwisely. Therefore it arouses no antagonistic reactions of evil. This is evident in the case of the elder brothers of mankind and also in us ordinary humans. For example, two men exist: A is a Master of Wisdom and Compassion and Peace; B is an average human being, a good man, as men go. A, the Master, acts with wisdom, with pure unselfish desire to help others. Having no element of personality or selfishness in his acts, with his clairvoyant vision he acts wisely, he acts in harmony with nature's laws and currents of being. There is no evilly antagonistic reaction produced. B, the average man, a good man, wants to do right, tries to do good to others, but he may do it unwisely, he may do it impulsively, over-enthusiastically, without taking proper consideration of time and circumstance and condition. His motive is good, but the results may be ungood, if I may coin a term. You cannot exactly call them evil, because the intention was not to produce evil. It is ungood, and it may actually result in evil in the sense that it can arouse evil feelings in others.
I would not say that pure unselfishness ever invites selfishness in others. I know that the thought that you have expressed is a common one, but I think that it is a feeling which is produced by human fear. A truly unselfish man never fears. Fear and unselfishness cannot exist together. Fear is the child of cupidity of some kind, as instanced by the fear to lose what we love or desire to retain, and this is not purely unselfish.
Student — Are the lipikas to be considered after the manner of teachers and parents, who distribute punishments and rewards, according to the acts of their children? Is it in this way they act, distributing the karma of those entities that they supervise; and are they then in their way karmically responsible or the relatively perfect or imperfect way in which they act?
G. de P. — No, dear Brother. You have touched upon one of the most difficult and abstruse problems of our entire esoteric teaching. The lipikas are the cosmic "scribes." This word lipika comes from the Sanskrit verbal root lip meaning to write, to inscribe, to set down, to engrave. They are cosmic spirits, intelligent, self-conscious, whose whole action in the evolution of the universe is automatically to record, as automatically as the stylus of the phonographic machine, all that takes place. Their magnetic or psychomagnetic aura permeates the entire solar system. Hence, they automatically feel every thought, every current of emotion, as well as every act, and in consequence they instantly and automatically make a record. I do not mean that they record with pen or pencil, but in their own being, if you understand me. They are the karmic scribes, the scribes of karma; and according to the imprint or impression thus made in their vital essence, do their later and subsequent actions follow, precisely as the needle of the phonographic machine follows the grooves in the disk. That is why karma is so impersonal.
They are not responsible at all for what takes place. They are infinitely more impersonal and more automatic in their action than are the recorders in a court of law, setting down word by word, act by act, whatever takes place in the cosmic courtroom; and their record is infinitely accurate and just. There is no personal equation at all. The answer to your question is a most difficult one to give. You may call them gods, and yet they are hardly that. They are more like karmic organs of the universe; and when I say organs I have reference to the organs of the physical body. The heartbeat may be an instance, although an imperfect one, an imperfect illustration. Their action is entirely automatic, but it is an automatism of consciousness.
Student — Have these lipikas ever been human beings? Or are they some sort of divine spirits that don't go through the process of evolution?
G. de P. — They have not yet been human beings. Had they been human beings, they would now be self-conscious gods of another type. Let me see if I can place the matter a little differently before you by giving you a picture of another kind. Instead of calling them the karmic scribes, the cosmic scribes, of the universe, which is just what they are, suppose you call them the conscious cosmic elements, using the word elements in the archaic sense. For instance, a human being's aura, which is a part of his auric egg, responds automatically to whatever the man thinks or feels or does, and an imprint, an impression, of everything, is instantly registered. This is a karmic record, a karmic inscription. The aura in this sense of the word is a karmic scribe, imprinting in itself as a record what takes place in the constitution of a human being. In somewhat similar way, these cosmic lipikas — I cannot call them exactly entities, but these cosmic substance-forces — are karmic scribes of everything that takes place in the solar system, in and of which they are essential parts. They are at once the karmic record and the karmic recorder. It is a most mysterious and a most difficult doctrine; and it is small wonder, indeed, that HPB does little more than allude to them in the metaphorical way in which she writes.
Of course, back of and behind, beyond and above, the cosmic lipikas are the cosmic gods in and for whom, and by the consciousness and energy of whom, these lipikas work or act — exactly as a man's aura exists in and from him, and works, makes its records for and in him, and from the man himself receives its true life, its essence. They are metaphorically called beings, because in a generalizing sense of the word a man's aura is a being — not a self-conscious entity, but an element or essence permeated with the consciousness of the self-conscious being from which it flows.
May I ask if the answer is partly responsive to your question?
Student — Yes, it is. But then come the cosmic gods that act on the lipikas and whose constructive will decides what is going to happen. And then my question is: they must be in some way karmic agents, acting through the lipikas and using the lipikas as tools, so to say, or —
G. de P. — They do so, but if you have understood the illustration that I gave you of the aura of a human being, which registers automatically all that the man thinks and feels and does, you will also see that that aura registers the movements of every single life-atom composing that aura, just as much as it registers the thoughts and feelings of the man from whom it flows. Now, these life-atoms, in the cosmic sense, are all entities living in that cosmic aura, such as the sun, the planets, comets, the inferior gods, the Masters, human beings, the elementals, the chemical atoms, and so forth.
One great rule which is very helpful in studying these questions is to remember that no entity lives unto itself alone. Every entity is both actor and agent, also both giver and receiver.
Student — I would like to ask what it is that controls the pranic principle in our constitution, and what it is that governs or controls it to the extent in which it is active. Is there any way in which we ourselves can ever control it or stimulate it or regulate it?
G. de P. — Decidedly so, but only on the planes of prana which are inferior to the will of the person so acting or controlling. Please remember that jiva, of which prana is a modification, is universal. It runs through all the seven principles of man and of the universe. There is a divine prana, a spiritual prana, an intellectual prana, and so forth.
You must be very careful indeed not to look upon the seven principles of man, as given in our exoteric books, as meaning that they exist in seven layers or stages, each separate from all the others. That is not at all so. If it were so, then atman per se would have not included buddhi nor manas; it would have not included kama, nor would it have jiva or prana. Yet it has them all. Every principle has every other principle inherent within it, integrally a part of it. The seven principles intermingle, interblend; and instead of being seven distinctly separate principles, they are all merely seven aspects of the cosmic life, seven phases of the cosmic life. So therefore I say that the human entity acting, can control perfectly, if his will be developed to that end, all phases of prana or vitality inferior to his own mental and will-plane. He has no particular and specific control over the prana existing on planes superior to his own mental and will-plane.
Student — In March of this year, one of the companions asked a question about human blood, and you concluded your answer with the words: "Some day, I will tell you about the human brain." Is the time now opportune?
G. de P. — Well, we have gone forwards a good bit along the pathway of understanding since last March; and as I then told you that blood, human blood or beast blood, is an actual deposit from the prana of the entity, I will go this far in answer to your question and say that the physical substance of the human brain is a deposit or is the lees of the human manasic quality expressing itself through the aura of the auric egg and depositing these lees as the human brain. Now, whether you will understand much out of that I don't know, but the answer is correct as far as it goes.
The human body in all its parts and in all its various tissues, even the bones, is in each individual part or instance a deposit, or is the lees of the corresponding principle or of a corresponding layer of the constitution. Human thought — the average of human thoughts rather, and this means the lower thoughts generally speaking, our everyday quasi-animal emotional thought-stuff — is a deposit in its turn, or is the lees of the manasic akasa; and these thoughts exude or ooze forth from themselves the stuff which becomes the substance of the physical brain.
Please look upon the human entity, the human constitution, in all its parts as one. The lowest and grossest and coarsest part is the physical body. It is a garment, a deposit, a shell. It is a skin — a favorite word of Tibetan occultism, as for instance when the latter speaks of the skins of the earth. Just so, the human body, in this metaphorical or mystical sense, is the outermost skin of the entity; and this skin is the exudation or concreted ooze from the entity within. It is a shell, it is a bark, like the bark of a tree. It is mortal because it is a composite entity, highly composite, and in time it is cast off with as little injury to the real entity as is dead hair, or the nails. Do you understand ?
Many Voices — Yes.
G. de P. — The body is simply an aggregate of life-atoms existing on the lowest plane of the human constitution. Of course, in themselves these life-atoms are each one of them a learning, growing, evolving entity on a low plane at the present time. But each life-atom of the hosts and multitudes which compose a human body, being a growing, evolving entity, in future aeons is destined to become a human being, and after that a god, and after that — ! You know what it will become as well as I do, from what I have already told you.
All nature is conscious in every smallest part, in every infinitesimal part of it. Every mathematical point of it is conscious in its own degree. And just because our body is composed of this aggregate of life-atoms, do we at times feel it to be so familiar to us, and at other times so unfamiliar, so strange, even unfriendly at times.
Your body at times seems almost like a stranger to you, like an unwilling slave of your will. And yet the great majority of the life-atoms of which it is composed flow forth from the core of us, where they are born. The core of us is the parent of every life-atom essentially composing our body, because every such life-atom is an entity per se, in itself a monad at its heart.
Student — Could not our seven principles come from the seven classes of life-atoms? Do they constitute the seven principles?
G. de P. — There are indeed seven general classes of life-atoms, but they come from the seven principles.
Student — They come from the seven principles?
G. de P. — Yes.
Student— I thought the seven principles came from them. The atoms certainly must exist before the principles.
G. de P. — I see what you mean. The answer depends upon the point of view. Every life-atom is a seven-principled entity also. The life-atoms, so far as the human being is concerned, flow forth from his seven principles; but each life-atom again, being a seven-principled entity in its own essence, produces other life-atoms. Which came first — the hen or the egg? Which came first, high or low? You see that both of them "came" at the same time. There is a very excellent rule in our studies in occultism: keep your ideas free all the time, free and fluid, in order to avoid crystallizing ideas. Remember also that each of the human principles produces its own class of life-atoms.
Student — We have learned that the lunar pitris are the "I am I" part of us. In the next manvantara, if they make the grade, so to speak, they will become agnishvatta-pitris. Now what part of us is it that in the next manvantara will become the lunar pitris?
G. de P. — The part of us which is called the animal part.
Student — So it is really an entity in itself, the animal part?
G. de P. — It is. Or rather the animal part of us coheres around that particular center of our constitution which is the animal center. Every entity is sevenfold. At one phase of its evolution, the spiritual is to the fore. At another phase of its evolution, the intellectual is to the fore. At another phase, the animal part is at the fore. But every life-atom, or every monad, passes through all the seven kingdoms of nature: the three elemental states or kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, the human, and beyond that there are three others which are dhyan-chohanic.
Our animal part will refine itself through evolution into becoming a human soul. That human soul as the ages flow by into the ocean of the past will refine itself, or evolve forth from itself, the spiritual part of us, the dhyan-chohan. This dhyan-chohan as the ages go by will become a full-blown god, and that in its turn, as other ages pass, will become a supergod and so on.
Every evolving entity from the beginning of the cosmic manvantara to its end is destined to pass through all the seven kingdoms of universal nature.
Student — Can most of the suns in our home-universe be looked at as transmigrating life-atoms, in reality belonging to a higher universe as their real home?
G. de P. — Exactly so. That is absolutely correct in every detail. The gods themselves, as I have told you before, are but the life-atoms of a universe beyond, above, superior to ours.
Student — This year the great initiatory time, beginning at the winter solstice, occurs during the waxing moon. On the 21st, the moon is two days old, and at the end of the initiatory period, January the 4th, the moon is full. Will this have any great effect on those great beings who go through their initiation at this time?
G. de P. — It certainly will. If the new moon falls at the time of the winter solstice, and is in conjunction, more or less exact, with Venus and Mercury, the occasion is one of those rare periods when the greatest initiations, I should say one of the four greatest Initiations known to man, take place. It is the buddha initiation.
It is a most solemn time; and I don't use the word solemn in a sad sense. It is a very sacred time.
Student — Are the words monadic essence synonymous with the word monad?
G. de P. — Not quite. The monadic essence is the essence of the monad, and refers in a general way to that something still higher than the monad per se, which having the monad in view we may call the inner god of the monad.
Similarly we may speak of the soul of the human being or the essence of the soul of the human being. They are pretty much the same, and yet there is a clear distinction between them.
Student — Is the monad the sun?
G. de P. — Just how do you mean?
Student — Well, I understand that the monad has many rays which it sends into the world, and into different worlds for reincarnation, and we are sons of the sun. Does that make the monad and the sun the same?
G. de P. — I understand you. Your question is a very good one. Indeed, it is a profound one. Cosmically speaking, that is so far as our solar system is concerned, our sun is the Pythagorean monad, monas as Pythagoras put it. So far as our own individual monads are concerned, they are our own individual spiritual suns. The monad of each entity is the spiritual sun of that entity. Is the answer responsive?
Student — Yes, but I have another question. Each monad has many rays. Could it be, for instance, that everyone in this room might be a ray of the same monad?
G. de P. — We are all rays of the cosmic monad, which is the sun. Therefore we are all sons of the sun; but each individual has or is, if you like, his own individual monad, which is the heart of the ray. The ray comes from the cosmic monad which is the sun, but that ray itself contains a heart, and that is the monad of you, and my ray's heart is the monad of me. Do you see?
Student — Yes, I see that much.
G. de P. — Do you understand then?
Student — Yes, that much. But then it seems as if monad is a term that is used for many gradations of — I cannot say anything else, but of monads.
G. de P. — Just so it is. The term monad is a generalizing term. There are divine monads and spiritual monads, intellectual monads and astral monads, even physical monads. Then following another line of degrees, there is the monad of our home-universe. There is the monad of a solar system which is its sun. There is the monad of every planet. There is the monad of every atom. Do you understand?
Student — Yes, thank you.
G. de P. — The term monad as a generalizing term is like the word atom or soul. There are animal and human souls, god souls, divine souls, and superdivine souls; and souls of suns, of planets, and of universes. The soul of a universe or of a solar system is commonly called the anima mundi.
Student — Referring to the question that you were answering, that the brain is the lees of manas, I now ask: is the Eye of Siva, the lees of the buddhi principle?
G. de P. — If you refer to the pineal gland, then the answer may be said to be affirmative; but strictly speaking the Eye of Siva means rather an organ of the buddhi-manas.
Student — On a previous occasion you referred to the rupa-lokas. Are the arupa-lokas the same as the other globes of the earth?
G. de P. — By the other globes of the Earth, do you mean the other six globes of our planetary chain superior to our own fourth globe?
Student— Yes.
G. de P. — Then the answer is, no. All the seven globes of the planetary chain belong to the rupa lokas or form- or manifestation-world. The arupa lokas you may perhaps attribute to the three globes higher than any of the seven.
Student — Are those called the bhur, bhuvas, svar?
G. de P. — Those which are called the bhur, bhuvas, svar, belong to the rupa or form world, the worlds of manifestation in form.
Student — You say that we are sons of the sun. Do you mean then that the sun is our parent-star? I have heard you also speak of the parent star.
G. de P. — You are asking a very difficult question. I will try to say something, however, that may answer your question at least properly if briefly.
We are called sons of the sun, because through and from the sun we come. The expression parent-star refers to a matter still more recondite, still more deep, and signifies the ultimate essential root of each human being. In other words, each human being has his own parent-star; although all human beings must come from or pass through the parent of the solar system in which we at present are. Do you understand me?
Student — Thank you, I think I do; at least I have a little glimmer.
G. de P. — Well, just follow that little gleam of light and use your intuition. I am awfully sorry to have to answer sometimes in this way. But I am bound by rules that are exceedingly strict.
Student — That was a great help, what you have just said.
Student — I would like to ask whether music — and I mean by music that great reservoir of music which a composer taps in his inspiration — is the language of the cosmic gods in the sense of being their creative speech, their active being?
G. de P. — I would not so look upon it, dear Brother. The reservoir of music, to use your rather unusual phrase, is rather the cosmic harmony which is the resultant of the harmoniously vibrating aggregated life-atoms — of the vehicles or encasements or bodies of a spiritual type in which the supergods live. The cosmic harmonies are the resultant of, or rather are, the symphonic hymn resulting from the incessant movement of the life-atoms of the divine beings which fill the universe full.
Student — Could this that you have just spoken of, the music of the atoms, apply to the music that the brook makes? I have heard lovely tones in the water of a brook.
G. de P. — Yes, in a general way I think so. The musical harmonies that a waterfall or a running brook give forth are simply translations through and on our plane of parts of the cosmic harmony which exists. In the same way, the glorious colors and graceful shapes of flowers are other manifestations of the symphonic harmonies with which the universe is filled full.
Student — We are all familiar with the picture that Katherine Tingley made so clear to us of man, the consciousness, standing between the higher and the lower parts of his nature, and that this higher and this lower are actual entities. Now what is the relation between these entities and the seven principles? Are they the focusing or aggregation respectively of the higher and lower principles, or of only parts of them, or what? And if they are actual entities — but I think that this question is enough!
G. de P. — If I understand your question, it runs to this and you will correct me if I misunderstand you: what relation does a human soul, as an intermediate entity, bear to its spiritual parent on the one hand, and to its own child, the lower part of the man, on the other hand? Is that what you mean?
Student — Not quite. What relation does this higher part and this lower part — these two entities — supposed to be battling for the mastery of the soul, what relation do they bear to the seven principles?
G. de P. — They are foci, focuses, in the sevenfold constitution of man. Each such focus is caused by the swirl of activity around respectively the spiritual monad at one end, and the astral-vital monad at the other end. The human entity, a third focus, stands between, as intermediary between the two. Do you understand the answer?
Student — Yes, that is a wonderful explanation.
G. de P. — Please remember that the seven principles must not be looked upon as separate entities or factors, each one utterly different from the other six. All the seven principles of the human constitution intermingle, interblend, and are rather seven phases or manifestations or aspects of one fundamental pranic life-substance.
I have sometimes wondered if the manner in which the seven principles are set forth in our exoteric books has not caused more confusion in the minds of students than some other exemplification of the seven principles of man might have done. The Occidental mind is so prone to take a drawing, or a figure, or an outline, or series of planes of principles as usually set forth in our books, as signifying actually different things, or as being radically different states. They are not. You might say that good in a man and evil in a man are utterly different things, the one utterly different from the other. They are not. They are simply two phases or manifestations of his consciousness and of his willpower — of his emotional and psychical activity.
Now all the seven principles of man, and a fortiori, on a larger scale, all the seven principles of the universe, are simply seven different manifestations or aspects or phases of a fundamental life-substance — of an entity, in short. Every human being, as also the universe, has inherent in him or in it a divine manifestation or aspect, a spiritual one, an intellectual one, a passional one, a vital one, and an astral-physical one. Now you cannot separate these individually into watertight compartments because they all go inseparably together. They all interblend, intermingle, interpenetrate, interwork, and are interconnected. You cannot say that a man is just mind and feeling, and that the body he lives in is something entirely different, and that the inner god from which he springs is something absolutely different from him. He is essentially one stream of consciousness manifesting in seven different ways called principles.
Student — Was not the real reason that Madame Tingley so accentuated the teaching of man's duality, because man stands in his present state of development halfway between the spiritual and the mental, using his willpower to move in either direction?
G. de P. — I think so. I think you are quite right. The willpower itself is colorless. It is colored by the quality which the mind gives to it. The mind can direct the will upwards or can direct the will downwards, but the will itself is colorless.
Therefore the center of man's consciousness is not in the will, but in the mind. The will flows through him and from him and takes the direction that the mind, the directing intelligence, points out.
A man can rise along the pathway of the ray which is in him, and which indeed he essentially is. He can rise along that ray to join the gods, or he can descend along that ray deeper and deeper and deeper into matter. He can become god or demon, as he chooses. And the choice is in the mind. You have been told that the fifth round will be the most critical for the human race in its evolution around the globes of our present planetary chain, because during that fifth round there will be the supreme struggle of the mind between spirit on the one hand, and the deeps of material existence on the other hand.
In the fifth round will come the final and deciding choice, whether the human race — or rather whether the entities, the individuals of the human race —shall follow along the pathway upwards to become dhyan-chohans and to join the gods, at the end of the evolution of the planetary chain, or whether individuals of the human race shall take the downward path.