THE LIFE-STREAMS

மறுபிறவி, 7 ஜென்ம தொடர்...8 (Rebirth)

THE LIFE-STREAMS

WE have now completed the first portion of our study, on the field of evolution, having outlined the planes and places in which the evolution of life takes place. We may perhaps liken this to a description of the buildings of a university, with its colleges, lecture-halls and class-rooms. Our next step will be to study the streams of life which pour into the vast and complex structure of our solar system, just as streams or ”batches” of students pour into a university, passing through various courses of study, eventually obtaining their degrees, and passing out into the world, there to fulfil such functions as their tastes and qualifications permit. Instead of a university, however, it would be more appropriate to use the illustration of a vast educational establishment, comprising every degree of education, from the nurseries and kindergarten of infants, to the most advanced honours course of a university.

We shall commence with the larger units, the vast streams or waves of life, and trace them through the various kingdoms of nature, subdividing as they go, until eventually we reach the races and sub-races of humanity, and individual men in those races, who climb steadily through the higher levels of the human kingdom until they pass into the superhuman levels of attainment.

In modern Theosophical literature the term ”life-waves” has been employed in three distinct senses:

First. To represent the three great Outpourings(as they are more usually and perhaps more appropriately called) of Divine Life, from the three Persons of the Trinity, by means of which the solar system came into existence, and by which it is nourished and sustained.

Second. To describe the successive impulsions, or streams of life, of which the Second Outpouring is formed. It is these with which we are dealing in this chapter, and which we shall usually denote, for the sake of clarity, as streams of life, or lifestreams.

Third. To signify the transference of life from one planet of a chain to another planet, in the course of the various ”rounds.” This we shall deal with in detail at a later stage of our study, when it will be seen that this kind of life-wave differs considerably from what we have called a life-stream.

Confining ourselves to our human line of evolution - ignoring for the moment the deva line of evolution, and other lines which may exist, but of which we know as yet little or nothing - we note that there are seven main kingdoms of life evolving side by side through our earth Scheme. Whether the same method is followed in the other nine Schemes or not, we do not at present know for certain, though there appear to be indications that this is probably substantially the case.

The seven kingdoms are:

The First Elemental Kingdom.
The Second Elemental Kingdom.
The Third Elemental Kingdom.
The Mineral Kingdom.
The Vegetable Kingdom.
The Animal Kingdom.
The Human Kingdom.

All seven of these kingdoms are manifestations or expressions of the same life, the one life of the Logos, manifesting in that Second great Outpouring, which comes from the Second Aspect of the Trinity, after the primitive matter has been prepared for its reception by the action of the First Outpouring, which comes from the Third Aspect of the Trinity. (For fuller explanation of the Three Outpourings, and their work, vide The Causal Body, pp. 13, 14, 70).

The Second Outpouring comes forth in a series of successive waves, following one another like waves of the sea. It is the history of the progress of these waves of life - which we have decided to call Life-streams - that will be traced in this and subsequent chapters. The first three of the seven kingdoms are on the downward arc of evolution, i.e., the life in them is plunging deeper and deeper into matter. The First Elemental Kingdom, in fact, does not descend below the higher mental plane; the Second Elemental Kingdom does not descend below the lower mental plane; and the Third Elemental Kingdom comes down only as far as the astral plane.

The Mineral Kingdom represents the turning point, where the life reaches the lowest point of its descent into matter, and commences to ascend again through the planes. This phenomenon of descent into materiality and re-ascent into spirituality is one which constantly recurs in many ways, and will be dealt with more fully later on.

The Vegetable, Animal and Human Kingdoms are definitely occupied in rising steadily through the planes.

We may therefore arrange the kingdoms thus:

The Second Outpouring (from the Second Logos) consists, as said above, of streams of life; in our line of evolution there are seven of these streams, composed of the seven kingdoms enumerated, and these are poured into the first chain of our Scheme.

The general plan is that each stream shall animate a kingdom for a whole chain-period, passing on into the next higher kingdom in the next chain, i.e., it takes a whole chain-period for any given kingdom to evolve to such a point that it becomes fit to pass into the kingdom succeeding it in the scale of progress.

That, as said, is the general principle: but there is an important modification with which we shall deal presently. It is omitted now, with so much else, in order to avoid introducing complications at too early a stage of our study.

From this it will be seen that, as the First Elemental Kingdom passes on into the Second Elemental Kingdom, there would be a gap caused in the position vacated by the kingdom which had passed on. This gap is filled by an entirely fresh life-stream, which pours forth from the Logos, and thus makes a new First Elemental Kingdom.

As this must take place in each of the seven chains, we perceive that there are altogether thirteen life-streams in our Scheme. These consist of the seven streams-one for each kingdom - which entered the first chain, and six entirely new streams, one of which entered each of the succeeding six chains, in order to provide, as explained, a new First Elemental Kingdom.

The progress of the kingdoms through the seven chains of our Scheme is illustrated in Diagram XIV.

The student is asked kindly to note the system adopted to indicate the various kingdoms, as it is one which will be followed in a number of subsequent diagrams. The First Elemental Kingdom is shown by one vertical line; the Second Elemental Kingdom by two vertical lines; the Third Elemental Kingdom by one inclined line; the Mineral by crossed vertical and horizontal lines; the Vegetable by inclined lines making a V . the Animal by an A; the Human by an H. It will be noticed that these indications have some relationship to the markings adopted for the matter of the planes, which makes them easier to remember.

The student will notice also that throughout the diagrams, whilst globes and rounds are indicated by circles, kingdoms of life and groups of entities are indicated by squares or rectangles.

From Diagram XIV it will be seen that the life which is now being expressed in our present humanity came up through the Animal Kingdom in the third (Moon) chain, through the Vegetable Kingdom in the second chain, and through the Mineral Kingdom in the first chain. Now, as each kingdom must pass through all the kingdoms that precede it, it is clear that the life-stream, out of which our present humanity has emerged, must have passed through the three Elemental Kingdoms in some previous chains, in some previous Scheme.

A similar consideration of course applies to all but the lowest life-stream which entered our first chain, i.e., they must have passed through previous chains in some previous Scheme. Of such previous chains and Schemes we have no direct knowledge as yet, though we can clearly deduce the fact that they must have existed.

Diagram XV is an attempt to illustrate the progress of the life-streams through successive Schemes.

The meaning of the seven radiating lines in Diagrams XIV and XV, at the head of the Human Kingdom, is that human entities pass out of the Human Kingdom into the superhuman, along one of seven possible paths of future progress. The full explanation of this we must once more postpone till a little later.

If we look at Diagram XIV we perceive that the only life stream which runs through the whole seven kingdoms in our Scheme of seven chains is that which entered the first chain as the First Elemental Kingdom (No. 7 in the Diagram). Climbing steadily, one kingdom in each chain, this life-stream eventually reaches the Human Kingdom, and passes out of it, in the seventh and last chain of our Scheme.

The other six kingdoms of the first chain, as already said, must have commenced their evolution in earlier chains, whilst the six life-streams which emerge from the Logos and enter the six chains after the first will have to continue and complete their evolution in chains subsequent to the seventh and last chain of our Scheme.

These considerations impress upon us the fact that, whilst our Scheme of Evolution is a complete and more or less self contained field of evolution, having a definite beginning and a definite ending, yet it forms one in a larger series of successive Schemes. From this we may deduce that even the solar system as a whole follows the general principle which we find operating elsewhere in so many other directions, and is but one incarnation in some gigantic series. Anything in the nature of ultimate finality seems therefore-as we might have expected-to be utterly beyond the furthest horizon to which we can stretch our imaginations.

We have seen that the life-streams evolve through the various chains, passing through the whole of the seven globes in each round. Now it is very difficult for us to grasp with our physical consciousness what can be the condition of the life of the lower kingdoms on the higher planes; the idea of the evolution of a mineral, for example, on the mental plane, suggests nothing readily comprehensible to the ordinary mind. It would correspond to our thought of a mineral. Yet we should not assume that such a thought-form as we could make of a mineral would be its only representation on that level. The thought-form which exists there is that of the Manu, moulded by a power altogether beyond comparison with that of our mentality.

It may also help us to an understanding if we recollect that every mineral has its astral and mental counterparts, and it must be on these higher correspondences of the minerals that are produced certain effects which constitute their evolution.

Further, the special types of matter which form the counterparts are also on their respective planes manifestations of the mineral monad, and we may suppose that through such manifestations that monad is evolving during its existence on these loftier levels.

The essential fact to bear in mind seems to be that the whole process is the bringing down of the mind-energies flowing from the Logos - from His cosmic mental plane to that prakritic mental which is our mental plane. It is His idea of a mineral, materialised as far down as our thought of the etheric body of a mineral.

The Group-Soul also must always contain within itself latent possibilities connected with the higher planes through which it has descended; and it may be that in those stages of evolution these potentialities are being developed by some method quite outside those with which we are familiar.

Without the unfolding of psychic faculties we cannot expect to understand in detail the hidden growth in these exalted spheres of finer matter; the important point is that we should realise that the life-streams are evolving in some way during the periods spent on all the globes, useful progress being made in every part of the chain.

It has already been mentioned that, besides the line of evolution which we are pursuing, there are also other lines which may be considered as running parallel with our own. For the divine life is pressing upwards through several streams, of which ours is but one, and numerically by no means the most important. We should bear in mind that physical humanity occupies only a small part of the surface of the earth, whilst entities at a corresponding level on other lines of evolution not only crowd the earth far more thickly than man, but at the same time populate the enormous plains of the sea and the fields of the air.

The table of the evolution of life, appended here, shows the streams as flowing side by side as far as the mineral kingdom, but as soon as the upward arc is begun, they diverge. The streams re-unite at the Solar Spirits level. The table must not be considered as in any way exhaustive, as there are no doubt other lines which have not yet been observed, and there are also certainly all kinds of variations and possibilities of crossing at different levels from one line to another. The table is designed merely to give a broad outline of the scheme.

THE GOALS OF OUR SEVEN CHAINS

மறுபிறவி, 7 ஜென்ம தொடர்...9 (Rebirth)

THE GOALS OF OUR SEVEN CHAINS

WE have already seen that each life-stream climbs steadily up the kingdoms, at the average rate of one kingdom in each chain, until it reaches the human kingdom. Continuing to evolve through the human kingdom, it eventually rises out of ordinary humanity, as we know it, enters the super-human kingdom, and passes along one or other of seven possible paths of future progress and service. We shall enumerate and describe these seven possible paths presently.

But the stage at which human entities emerge from the ordinary human evolution, and enter the superhuman kingdom, varies considerably, according to the chain in which the emergence takes place. Thus the level reached by the most advanced humanity in the fourth chain is a great deal higher than that attained in the first chain: the level that will be reached in the seventh chain will be a still higher one.

There is, in fact, what may be called a ”goal” set for humanity in each chain. This goal we may compare with the passing-out examination at an educational establishment. But, to complete the analogy, we must conceive of a certain class of students who pass out of the university after, say, only one year of tuition. They have reached a certain standard of education and, as the world needs all grades of workers, they may be considered qualified to perform certain grades of tasks in the outer world.

At the end of the second year of tuition, another group of students passes out: they will obviously have been able to reach a st andard higher than that attained by the first-year students, and consequently will be qualified to fill posts of greater responsibility in the outer world.

Similarly, after three years at the university, a third group of students passes out, again at a higher level, having
qualified themselves for posts of still greater responsibility, and needing more knowledge and experience. The process may be considered as continuing for seven years, until the seventh batch of students passes out, having attained a very high level and having learnt, perhaps, practically all that the university can teach them.

The university is then closed for a long vacation: or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is broken up, the buildings demolished, and the teaching staff dispersed. Such students who have not passed out of the university will resume their education in some future university, with a fresh staff of instructors, and an entirely new set of buildings. Returning from this analogy to our own seven chains in our Scheme, the goals, or
qualifying ”passing-out” examinations, are as follows:

For the First Chain . The First Initiation.
For the Second Chain . The Third Initiation.
For the Third Chain . The Fourth Initiation (that of the Arhat).
For the Fourth Chain . The Fifth Initiation (that of the Asekha Adept).

No definite information is available regarding the goals set for the fifth, sixth and seventh chains. We may, however, indulge in a few cautious speculations. It is well known that, whilst in the very early stages of evolution, progress is almost inconceivably slow, as we measure time, yet in the later stages it becomes almost equally incredibly swift. The Master Kûthhûmi has stated that ”when once a person enters upon the Path, if he converges all his energies upon it [we have ventured to italicise this qualification], his progress will be neither by arithmetical nor geometrical progression, but by powers.”

That is to say, it would not be in the ratio 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. (arithmetical progression), nor in the ratio 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. (geometrical progression), but in the ratio 2, 4, 10, 256, 65,536, 4,294,907,296, etc. Thus a rate of progress expressed by 2, becomes, four stages later, one expressed by a figure exceeding 4,000 millions. With such vast figures does nature achieve her immense purposes.

We may therefore legitimately assume that the progress made in the fifth, sixth and seventh chains will be enormously greater than that achieved in the first four chains. That this must be so is clear from the fact that the level of Arhat, reached at the end of the third chain, may be considered as halfway to that of the Adept, reached at the end of the fourth chain. Thus the fourth chain seems to afford as much progress as the three first chains.

It is stated in The Secret Doctrine (I, 228) that the Perfected Men of the Seventh Round of our chain will be ”but one remove from the Root-Race of their Hierarchy, the highest on Earth and our Terrestrial Chain.” That is to say, the perfected men of our humanity, after three-and-a-half more rounds of evolution, will arrive one stage below that at which now stands the ,”Lord of the World,” an Entity who will be described in Chapter XIX.

There are, moreover, a number of considerations which indicate a very high level of attainment for humanity at the end of our seventh chain. Thus, for example, even the buddhic consciousness gives a man his first touch of unity with the Logos. The Asekha Adept strives to raise the consciousness of His Monad into the consciousness of the Logos. The Monads are projected from the Logos in order that they may eventually return to Him as great and glorious suns, each capable of giving life and light to a magnificent system, through which and by means of which millions of other Monads may in turn develop. Each Monad has come, into manifestation through one of the Planetary Chain Logoi, and will eventually become part of a Heavenly Man, these Heaven-born Men being the true inhabitants of the solar system, the mind-born sons of the Planetary Logoi, destined themselves to be the Planetary Logoi of the future. We may therefore surmise that, at the end of the seventh chain, when our Scheme of Evolution is completed, the level we shall have reached will be,
shall we say, something commensurate with that of a Planetary Logos.

Diagram XVI may perhaps assist the student to memorise the goals set for our chains. In the diagram, the  seven chains are arranged concentrically, the first being the innermost, the seventh the outermost. The wave of life which passes round the chains enters the first chain, and may be conceived as swinging round the globes and then, much as a stone is propelled when released from a whirling sling, projecting the most advanced
humanity up to a certain level, viz., that of the First Initiation.

The remainder of the life-wave enters the second chain, swings round its globes and, in so doing, this being on a larger circle in the diagram, attains a higher velocity, precisely as would happen to a stone when whirled in a larger circle, this higher velocity enabling it to project its most advanced humanity to a higher level, viz., that of the Third Initiation. Similarly with each of the succeeding chains, the velocity of evolution becoming greater and greater as the circles become larger, until the seventh circuit is able to project its most advanced members to a very high, but as yet unknown, level.

We have just seen that when an entity has achieved the level set for humanity in any given chain, he  commences his superhuman evolution, and there open before him seven paths, of which he may choose one. The seven paths are as follows:

(1) He may enter Nirvâna, to become perhaps in some future world an Avatâra, or divine Incarnation. This is  sometimes called ”taking the Dharmakâya vesture,” the Dharmakâya  keeping nothing below the Monad.
(2) He may enter on the ”Spiritual Period,” a path which includes that of ”taking the Sambhogakâya vesture”; he then retains his manifestation as a triple spirit and can probably show himself in a temporary Augoeides.
(3) He may ”take the Nirmânakâya vesture,” retaining his causal body and all his permanent atoms.
(4) He may remain a member of the Occult Hierarchy.
(5) He may pass to the next chain, to help building its forms.
(6) He may join the Deva evolution.
(7) He may join the ”Staff” of the Logos. For further details of these seven paths the student is referred to
The Causal Body, p.321.

மறுபிறவி, 7 ஜென்ம தொடர்...10 (Rebirth)

மறுபிறவி, 7 ஜென்ம தொடர்...10 (Rebirth)

DEGREES OF ATTAINMENT

Having now grasped the main outlines of the steady progress of the life-streams, rising at the average rate of one kingdom in each chain-period, we may now introduce the important modifying factor, which was mentioned in Chapter VIII.

Again we may employ the analogy of a batch of students at a university. It is a practically universal experience that, in every group of students, there will be a small minority who shoot ahead of the others, either because they have exceptional ability or because they apply themselves more whole-heartedly to their studies. This is the class that obtains ”honours” degrees.

After them comes the main body of the students, who succeed in passing their examinations and who obtain an ordinary ”degree.” After them again comes another minority-the ”tail” of the class. These students” either on account of their lesser abilities or through their lack of industry and application, fail to pass out” and therefore will have to return to the university for another term, or portion of a term, in order to secure their
degrees.

Precisely the same thing happens with each of the life streams in each kingdom. There is always a small minority who run far in advance of the remainder and attain the ”goal” before the appointed time. Next comes the great majority of the entities” who fulfil the task set” and attain the level required at the time appointed. After them again comes the ”tail" another minority, though larger than the former minority, who fall behind, having failed to attain the level required.

Diagram XVII illustrates the process. Three kingdoms, A, B and C, are shown, and two periods, I and II. Of kingdom B, in period I, a tiny minority shoots ahead of the rest, reaches the goal set, and passes into kingdom A in the same period. The bulk of kingdom B passes into kingdom A in period II, in the normal routine manner.

The remainder of kingdom B, a minority larger than the former minority, fails to qualify for kingdom A and so continues in kingdom B in period II.

But, having already had some experience in kingdom B, whereas the remainder of kingdom B in period II,
having only just come from kingdom C in period I, will be only I commencing its evolution in kingdom B, this laggard  minority is able to take the lead in. period II. It is therefore shown in the diagram as entering
kingdom B in period II at the head of that kingdom.

We may now reconstruct our diagram of the progress of the kingdoms, so as to show these complications in detail. Diagram XVIII is such a reconstruction. It may be explained as follows: Let us take, for example, the vegetable kingdom in chain I. The backward portion of this kingdom enters chain II, and there leads the evolution of the vegetable kingdom. The bulk of the vegetable kingdom from chain I passes into the animal kingdom in chain II. A tiny minority of the vegetable kingdom in chain I succeeds in attaining to the level of animals in chain I, and therefore joins the animal kingdom in chain I.

Following the progress of the main body of the animal kingdom of chain II, the process repeats itself. The laggard animals join the animal kingdom in chain III and lead that kingdom. The bulk becomes human in chain III; the small vanguard joins the human kingdom in chain II.

In chain III the laggard humans resume their human evolution in chain IV, where they lead the humanity of that chain. The bulk of the human entities attain their goal in chain III, and pass on to further fields of evolution and service, along one or other of the seven lines, as shown in the diagram by the ascending, diverging lines at the head of the kingdom.

Again a small minority succeeds in advance of the rest, and is shown in the diagram by the small spire rising from the centre of the kingdom. This group, of course, also has seven choices before it, as indicated by the seven radiating lines emerging from its head. 

In view of the fact, already stated, that the degrees of success attained by the members of each kingdom vary considerably, we should regard each of the life-streams as breaking up into smaller streamlets some of which join the preceding or succeeding streams, though the majority move steadily forward along the appointed course.

We may mention here an important principle, affecting the progress of the various streams of life and their innumerable sub-divisions, of which we shall find many particular examples in the later portions of our study. It is the general rule that those who have attained the highest possible in any chain, round, globe or race, are not born again into the beginning of the next chain, round, globe or race, respectively.

The earlier stages are always for the backward entities, the youngest” and only when they have already passed through a good deal of evolution” and are beginning to approach the level of those who had done better, do those others descend into incarnation and join them once more.

That is to say, almost the earlier half of any period of evolution, whether it be a race, a globe, a round or a chain, seems to be devoted to bringing the backward people up to nearly the level of those who have got on better. Then these latter-who in the meantime have been resting in the mental world, in devachan-descend into incarnation along with the others, and they all then proceed together along their path of progress.

Thus, for example, as we shall see in detail later on, the most developed from the third or Moon Chain do not enter the first round of the fourth or Earth Chain, but come in only in the middle of the fourth round. Also the egos who incarnate in the first Root-Race of a planet are those who have not progressed beyond the middle of the evolution of the preceding planet.

Using once more our analogy of students at a university, we may imagine that the more backward students return to their colleges, after their vacation, sooner than the more advanced students. They then have an opportunity of catching up approximately to the level of the more advanced students, who remain still on vacation. When they have done this, the more advanced students then return to their colleges, and all of them then resume their studies side by side.

The student should bear in mind this important principle because, as just said, he will presently find many examples of its workings, the rationale of which becomes perfectly clear when once the main principle is clearly grasped.

Further study of the degrees of attainment of the various kingdoms leads us to a consideration of a most interesting and important part of the general plan of evolution, viz., that of the ”Days of Judgement.” With this we shall deal in a separate chapter, but, as it involves references to the races of mankind, we will first explain the division of the human kingdom into these races and sub-races.