Chapter III. of the evolutionary progress through

the whole planetary chain.
Some few words were said then concerning the manner in which the life impulse passed on from planet to planet in " rushes or gushes ; not by an even continuous flow." Now the course of evolu- tion in its earlier stages is so far continuous that the preparation of several planets for the final tidal- wave of humanity may be going on simultaneously. Indeed, the preparation of all the seven planets may, at one stage of the proceedings, be going on simultaneously, but the important point to re- member is, that the main wave of evolution — the foremost growing wave — cannot be in more than one place at a time. The process goes on in the way which may now be described, and which the reader may be the better able to follow, if he constructs either on paper or in his own mind a diagram con- sisting of seven circles (representing the worlds) arranged in a ring. Calling them A, B, C, &c., it will be observed from what has been already stated that circle (or globe) D stands for our earth. Now
no ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
the kingdoms of Natore as known to occultists, be it remembered, are seven in number, three haying to do -with astral and elementary forces, preceding the grosser material kingdoms in the order of their development. Kingdom 1 evolves on globe A, and passes on to B, as kingdom 2 begins to evolve on A. Carry out this system and of course it will be seen that kingdom 1 is evolving on globe G, while kingdom 7, the human kingdom, is evolving on globe A. But now what happens as kingdom 7 passes on to globe B. There is no eighth kingdom to engage the activities of globe A. The great processes of evolution have culminated in the final tidal-wave of humanity, which, as it sweeps on, leaves a temporary lethargy of Nature behind. When the life- wave goes on to B, in fact, globe A passes for the time into a state of obscura- tion. This state is not one of decay, dissolution, or anything that can be properly called death. Decay itself, though its aspect is apt to mislead the mind, is a condition of activity in a certain direction, this consideration affording a clue to the meaning of a great deal which is otherwise mean- ingless, in that part of Hindu mythology which relates to the deities presiding over destruction. The obscuration of a world is a total suspension of its activity ; this does not mean that the moment the last human monad passes on from any given world, that world is paralyzed by any convulsion, or subsides into the enchanted trance of a sleeping palace. The animal and vegetable life goes on as before, for a time, but its character begins to recede instead of advancing. The great life-wave has left
&
THE HUMAN TIDE- WA VE. 1 1 1
itj and the animal and vegetable kingdoms gradually return to the condition in which they were found ■when the great life- wave first reached them. Enonnous periods of time are available for this slow process by which the obscured world settles into sleep, for it will be seen that obscuration in each case lasts six times* as long as the period of each world's occupation by the human life-wave. That is to say, the process which is accomplished as above described in connection with the passage of the life- wave from globe A to globe B, is repeated all along the chain. When the wave passes to Cj B is left in obsctiration as well as A. Then D receives the life- wave, and A, B, C,- are in obscura- tion. When the wave reaches G, all the preceding six worlds are in obscuration. Meanwhile the life- wave passes on in a certain regular progression, the symmetrical character of which is very satisfactory to scientific instincts. The reader will be prepai-ed to pick up the idea at once, in view of the explana- tions already given of the way in which humanity evolves through seven great races, during each round period on a planet — that is to say, during the occupation of such planet by the tidal wave of life. The fourth race is obviously the middle race of the series. As soon as this middle point is turned, and the evolution of the fifth race on any given planet begins, the preparation for humanity begins on the next. The evolution of the fifth race on E for example, is commensurate with the evolu-
* Or we may say five times, allowing for the half period of morning which precedes and the half period of evening which follows the day of full activity.
1 1 2 ESO TERIC B UDDHISM.
tion, or rather with the revival, of the mineral king- dom on D, and so on. That is to say, the evolution of the sixth race on D, coincides with the revival of the vegetable kingdom on E, the seventh race on D, with the revival of the animal kingdom on E, and then when the last monads of the seventh race on D have passed into the subjective state or world of effects, the human period on E begins, and the first race begins its development there. Meanwhile the twilight period on the world preceding D has been deepening into the night of obscuration in the same progressive way^ and obscuration there definitely sets in when the human period on D passes its half-way point. But just as the heart of a man beats and respiration continues, no matter how profound his sleep, there are processes of vital action which go on in the restiug world even during the most profound depths of its repose; And these preserve, in view of the next return of the human wave, the results of the evolution that preceded its first arrival. Kecorery for the reawaking planet is a larger process than its subsidence into rest, for it has to attain a higher degree of perfection against the return of the human life-wave, than that at which it was left when the wave last went onward from its shore. But with every new beginning, Nature is infused with a vigour of its own — the freshness of a morning — and the later obscuration period, which is a time of preparation and hopeful- ness as it were, invests evolution itself with a new momentum. By the time the great life-wave re- turns, all is ready for its reception.
In the first essay on this subject it was roughly
THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 113
indicated that the various worlds making up our planetary chain were not all of the same materiality. Putting the conception of spirit at the north pole of the circle and that of matter at the south pole, the worlds of the descending arc vary in materiality and spirituality, like those of the ascending arc. This variation must now be considered more atten- tively if the reader wishes to realize the whole pro- cesses of evolution more fully than heretofore.
Besides the earth, which is at the lowest material point, there are only two other worlds of our chain which are visible to physical eyes — the one behind and the one in advance of it. These two worlds, as a matter of fact, are Mars and Mercury — Mars being behind and Mercury in advance of us — Mars in a state of entire obscuration now as regards the human life-wave. Mercury just beginning to prepare for its next human period.*
* It may be worth while here to remark for the benefit of people who may be disposed, from physical science reading, to object that Mercury is too near the Sun, and consequently too hot to be a suitable place of habitation for jMan, — that in the official report of the Astronomical Department of the United States on the recent " Mount Whitney observations," state- ments will be found that may check too confident criticisms of occult science along that line. The results of the Mount Whitney observations on selective absorption of solar rays showed, according to the official reporter, that it would no lono'er be impossible to suggest the conditions of an atmosphere which should render Mercury habitable, at the one extreme of the scale, and Saturn at the other. We have no concern with Saturn at present, nor if it were necessary to explain on occult principles the habitability of Mercury, should the task be at- tempted with calculations about selective absorption. The fact is that ordinary science makes at once too much and too little of the Sun, as the storehouse of force for the solar system, — too,
I
114 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
The two planets of our chain that are behind Mars, and the two that are in advance of Mercnry, are not composed of an order of matter which tele- scopes can take cognizance of. Four out of the seven are thus of an ethereal nature, which people "who can only conceive matter in its earthly form will be inclined to call immaterial. But they are not really immaterial at all. They are simply in a finer state of materiality than the earth, but their finer state does not in any way defeat the unifor- mity of Nature's design in regard to the methods and stages of their evolution. Within the scale of their subtle "invisibility/' the successive rounds and races of mankind pass through their stages of greater and less materiality just as on this earth ; but whoever would comprehend them must compre- hend this earth first, and work out their delicate phenomena by correspondential inferences. Let us return therefore to the consideration of the great life-wave in its aspects on this planet.
Just as the chain of worlds treated as a unity
mucli in so far as the heat of planets has a great deal to do with another influence quite distinct from the San, an influence which will not be thoroughly understood till more is known than at present ahout the correlations of heat and magnetism, and of the magnetic, meteoric dust, with which inter-planetary ■space is pervaded. However it is enough — to rebut any ob- jection that might be raised against the explanations now in progress, from the point of view of loyal devotees of last year's science — to point out that such objections would be already out of date. Modern science is very progressive, — this is one ■of its greatest merits, — but it is not a meritorious habit with modern scientists to think, at each stage of its progress, that all conceptions incompatible with that stage must necessarily be absurd.
THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 115
has its north and south, its spiritual and material pole, working from spirituality down through mate- riality up to spirituality again, so the rounds of mankind constitute a similar series which the chain of globes itself might be taken to symbolize. In the evolution of man in fact, on any one plane as on all, there is a descending and an ascending arc; spirit, so to speak, involving itself into matter, and matter evolving itself into spirit. The lowest or most material point in the cycle thus becomes the inverted apex of physical intelligence, which is the masked manifestation of spiritual intelligence. Each round of mankind evolved on the downward arc (as each race of each round if we descend to the smaller mirror of the cosmos) must thus be more physically intelligent than its predecessor, and each in the upward arc must be invested with a more refined form of mentality commingled with greater spiritual intuitiveness. In the first round therefore we find man, a relatively ethereal being compared even on earth with the state h« has now attained here, not intellectual, but super-spiritual. Like the animal and vegetable shapes around him, he inhabits an immense but loosely organized body. In the second round he is still gigantic and ethereal, but growing firmer and more condensed in body — a more physical man, but still, less intelligent than spiritual. In the third round he has developed a perfectly concrete and compacted body, at first the form rather of a giant ape than of a true man, but with intelligence coming more and more into the ascendant. In the last half of the third round his gigantic stature decreases, his body improves in
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ir(5 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
texturCj and he begins to be a rational man. In the fourth round intellect, now fully developed, achieves enormous progress. The direct races with which the round begins, acquire human speech as we understand it. The ^orld teems with the results of intellectual activity and spiritual decline. At the halfway point of the fourth round here the polar point of the whole seven-world period is passed. From this point outwards the spiritual Ego begins its real struggle with body and mind to manifest its transcendental powers. In the fifth round the struggle continues, but the transcendental faculties are largely developed, though the struggle Setween these on the one hand with physical intel- lect and propensity is fiercer than ever, for the Intellect of the fifth round as well as its spirituality is an advance on that of the foiirth. In the sixth round humanity attains a degree of perfection both of body and soul, of intellect and spirituality, which ordinary mortals of the present epoch will not readily realize in their imaginations. The most supreme combinations of wisdom, goodness, and transcendental enlightenment which the world has ever seen or thought of, will represent the ordinary type of manhood. Those faculties which now, in the rare efflorescence of a generation, enable some extraordinarily gifted persons to explore the mys- teries of Nature and gather the knowledge of which some crumbs are now being oftered (through these writings and in other ways) to the ordinary world, will then be the common appanage of all. As to what the seventh round will be like, the most com- launicative occult teachers are solemnly silent.
THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 117
Mankind in the seventh round will be something altogether too God-like for mankind in the fourth round to forecast its attributes.
During the occupation of any planet by the human life-wave, each individual monad is inevitably incarnated many times. This has been partly ex- plained. K one existence only be passed by the monad in each of the branch races through which it must pass at least once, the total number accom- plished during a round period on one planet, would be 343 — the third power of seven. But as a matter of fact each monad is incarnated twice in each of the branch races, and also comes in, necessarily, for some few extra incarnations as well. For reasons which is not easy for the outsider to divine, the possessors of occult knowledge are especially reluc- tant to give out numerical facts relating to cosmo- gony, though it is bard for the uninitiated to understand why these should be withheld. At present, for example, we shall not be able to state what is the actual duration in years of the round period. But a concession, which only those who have long been students of occultism by the old method will fully appreciate, has been made about the numbers with which we are immediately concerned ; and this concession is valuable at all events, as it helps to elucidate an interesting fact connected with evo] ution, on the threshold of which we have now arrived. This fact is, that while the earth, for example, is inhabited as at present, by fourth round humanity, by the wave of human life, that is to say, on its fourth journey round the circle -of the worlds, there may be present among us some few
1 1 8 ESOTERIC BUDDHTSM.
persons, few in relation to the total number, whoy properly speaking, belong to the fifth round. Now, in the sense of the term at present employed, it must not be supposed that by any miraculous pro- cess, any individual unit has actually travelled round the whole chain of worlds once more often than his compeers. Under the explanations just given as ta the way the tide-wave of humanity progresses, it will be seen that this is impossible. Humanity has not yet paid its fifth visit even to the planet next in advance of our own. But individual monads may outstrip their companions as regards their individual development, and so become exactly as mankind generally will be when the fifth roimd has been fully evolved. And this may be accom- plished in two ways. A man born as an ordinary fourth round man, may, by processes of occult training, convert himself into a man having all the attributes of a fifth round man, and so become what we may call an artificial fifth rounder. But independently of all exertions made by man in his present incarnation, a man may also be born a fifth rounder, though in the midst of fourth round aumanity, by virtue of the total niimber of his previous incarnations.
If X stands for the normal number of incarna- tions which in the course of Nature a monad must go through during a round period on one planet, and y for the margin of extra incarnations into which by a strong desire for physical life he may force himself during such a period, then, as a matter of fact, 24J {x + y) may exceed 28 x ; that is to say, in Z\ rounds a monad may have accomplished as.
THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 119.
many incarnations as an ordinary monad would have accomplished in four complete rounds. In less than Z\ rounds the result could not have been attained, so that it is only now that we have passed the halfway point of evolution on this halfway planet, that the fifth rounders are beginning ta drop in.
It is not possible in the nature of things that a monad can do more than outstrip his companions- by more than one round. This consideration, not- withstanding Buddha was a sixth round man, but this fact has to do with a great mystery outside the limits of the present calculation. Enough for the moment to say that the evolution of a Buddha has to do with something more than mere incarna- tions within the limits of one planetary chain.
Since large numbers of lives have been recog- nized in the above calculations as following one- another in the successive incarnations of an indi- vidual monad, it is important here, with the view of averting misconceptions, to point out that the periods of time over which these incarnations range are so great, that vast intervals separate them, numerous as they are. As stated above, we cannot just now give the actual duration of the round periods. Nor, indeed, could any figures be quoted as indicating the duration of all round periods equally, for these vary in length within very wide limits. But here is a simple fact which has been definitely stated on the highest occiilt authority we are concerned with. The present race of humanity, the present fifth race of the fourth round period,, began to evolve about one million of • years ago.
120 ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
Now it is not yet finislied j but supposing that a million years had constituted the complete life of the race,* how would it have been divided up for each individual monad ? In a race there must be rather more than 100, and there can hardly be 120 incarnations for an individual monad. But say even there have been already 120 incarnations for monads in the present race already. And say that the average life of each incarnation was a century, even then we should only have 12,000 years out of the million spent iu physical existence against 988,000 years spent in the subjective sphere, or there would be an average of more than 8,000 years between each incarnation. Certainly these inter- vening periods are of very variable length, but they can hardly even contract to anything less than 1,500 years — Cleaving out of account of course the case of adepts who have placed themselves quite outside the operation of the ordinary law — and lj500 years if not an impossibly short, would be a very brief, interval between two rebirths.
These calculations must be qualified by one or two considerations, however. The cases of children dying in infancy are quite unlike those of persons who attain full maturity, and for obvious reasons, that the explanations now already given will sug-
* The complete life of a nice is certainly much longer than this ; but when we get to figures of this kind we are on very delicate ground, for precise periods are very profound secrets, for reasons uninitiated students (" lay chelas," as the adepts now say, coining a new designation to meet a new condition of things) can only imperfectly divine. Calculations like those given above may be trusted literally as far as they go, but must not rashly be made the basis of others.
THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 121
gest. A child dying before it has lived long enough to begin to be responsible for its actions, has generated no fresh Karma. The spiritual monad leaves that child's body in just the same state in which it entered it after its last death in Devachan. It has had no opportunity of playing on its new instrument, which has been broken before even it was tuned. A re-incarnation of the monad, therefore, may take place immediately, on the line of its old attraction. But the monad so re-incarnated is not to be spiritually identified in any way with the dead child. So, in the same way, with a monad getting into the body of a born idiot. The instrument cannot be tuned, so it cannot play on that any more than on the child's body in the first few years of childhood. But both these cases are manifest exceptions that do not alter the broad rule above laid down for all persons attaining maturity, and living their earth lives for good or evil.