Section 7

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where, in suns and planets as in the grains of dust, in rustling leaves and opening blossoms, in dancing gnats and gliding snakes. Each form manifests as much of the One Life as it is capable of expressing, and what is man that he should despise the more limited manifesta- tions, when he compares himself as life-expression, not with the forms below him, but with the possibilities of expression that soar above him in infinite heights of being, which he can estimate still less than the stone can estimate him ?
The student will readily see that we must regard this force at the centre of evolution as essentially one. There is but one Atma-Buddhi in our universe, the universal Soul, everywhere present, immanent in all; the One Supreme Energy whereof all varying energies or forces are only differing forms. As the sunbeam is light or heat or electricity according to its conditioning en- vironment, so is Atma all-energy, differentiating on dif- ferent planes. ‘As an abstraction, we will call it the One Life; as an objective and evident reality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which, begins at the upper rung with the one unknowable causality, and ends as Omnipresent Mind and Life immanent in every atom of matter.” (Secret Doctrine, vol. i., p. 163)
Its evolutionary course is very plainly outlined in a quotation given in the Secret Doctrine, and as students are very often puzzled over this unity of the Monad, I subjoin the statement. The subject is difficult, but it could not, I think, be more clearly put than it is in these Sentences :-—
‘“Now the monadic or cosmic essence (if such a term be permitted) in the mineral, vegetable, and animal, though the same throughout the series of cycles from the lowest elemental up to the Deva kingdom, yet differs
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in the scale of progression. It would be very misleading to imagine a Monad as a separate entity trailing its slow way in a distinct path through the lower kingdoms, and after an incalculable series of transformations flower- ing into a human being: in short, that the Monad of a Humboldt dates back to the Monad of an atom of horn- blende. Instead of saying a ‘Mineral Monad,’ the more correct phraseology in physical science, which differenti- ates every atom, would of course have been to call it ‘the Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called the mineral kingdom.’ The atom as represented in the ordinary scientific hypothesis, is not a particle of some- thing, animated by a psychic something, destined after eons to blossom asa man. But it is a concrete mani- festation of the universa] energy which itself has not yet become individualized ; a sequential manifestation of the one universal Monas. The ocean of matter does not divide into its potential and constituent drops until the sweep of the life-impulse reaches the stage of man- birth. The tendency towards segregation into individual Monads is gradual, and in the higher animals comes almost to the point. The Peripatetics applied the word Monas to the whole Kosmos in the pantheistic sense; and the Occultists, while accepting this thought for con- venience’ sake, distinguish the progressive stages of the evolution of the concrete from the abstract by terms of which the ‘mineral, vegetable, animal, Monad,’ etc., are examples. The term merely means that the tidal wave of spiritual evolution is passing through that arc of its circuit. The ‘Monadic Essence’ begins imperfectly to differentiate towards individual consciousness in the vegetable kingdom. As the Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz, it is the spiritual essence which vivifies them in their degrees of differentia-
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tion, which properly constitutes the Monad—not the atomic aggregation, which is only the vehicle and the substance through which thrill the lower and the higher degrees of intelligence.”’ (vol. 1., p. 201)
The student who reads and weighs this passage will, at the cost of a little present trouble, save himself from much confnsion in days to come. Let him first realize clearly that the Monad—* the spiritual essence” to which alone in strict accuracy the term Monad should be applied—is one all the universe over, that Atma- Buddhi is not his, nor mine, nor the property of anybody in particular, but the spiritual essence energizing in all. So is electricity one all the world over; though it may be active in his machine or in mine, neither he nor I can call it distinctively our electricity. But—and here arises the confusion—when Atma-Buddhi energizes in man, in whom Manas is active as an individualizing force, it is often spoken of as though the “atomic ag- gregation”’ were a separate Monad, and then we have “ Monads,” as in the above passage. This loose way of using the word will not lead to error if the student will remember that the individualizing process 7s not on the Spiritual plane, but that Atma-Buddhi as seen through Manas seems to share in the individuality of the latter. So if you hold pieces of variously coloured glass in your hand you may see through them a red sun, a blue sun, a yellow sin, and so on. None the less is there only the one sun shining down upon you, altered by the media through which you look at it. So we often meet the phrase ‘human Monads’’; it should be “the Monad manifesting in the human kingdom”; but this some- what pedantic accuracy would be likely only to puzzle a large number of people, and the looser popular phrase will not mislead when the principle of the unity on the
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spiritual plane is grasped, any more than we mislead by speaking of the rising of the sun. “The Spiritual Monad, is one, universal, boundless, and impartite, whose rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our igno- rance, call the ‘individual Monads’ of men” (Secret — Doctrine, vol. i., p. 200).
Very beautifully and poetically is this unity in diversity put in one of the Occult Catechisms in which the Guru questions the Chela :—
“Lift thy head, O Lanoo; dost thou see one or count- less lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?”
at sense one Flame, O Gurudeva; I see countless undetached sparks burning in it.”
“Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in any wise from the light that shines in thy brother-men ?”
“Tt isin no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, ‘thy soul’ and ‘my soul’” (Secret Doctrine, vol. i., p. 145).
There ought not to be any serious difficulty now in grasping the stages of human evolution; the Monad, which has been working its way as we have seen, reaches the point at which the human form can be built up on earth; an etheric body and its physical counterpart are then developed, Prana specialized from the great ocean of life, and Kama evolved, all these principles, the lower quarternary, being brooded over by the Monad, energized by it, impelled by it, forced onward by it towards con- tinually increasing perfection of form and capacity for manifesting the higher energies in Nature. Thus was animal, or physical man, evolved through two and a half
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Races. But the Monad and the lower quarternary could not come into sufficiently close relation with each other; a link was yet wanting. ‘The Double Dragon [the Monad] has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmission, and the form knows it not.” (Secret Doctrine, vol. ii, p. 60) Then, at the middle point just reached, in the middle, that is, of the Third Race, the lower Manasaputra stepped in to inhabit the dwellings thus prepared for them, and to form the bridge between animal man and the Spirit, between the evolved quarternary and the brooding »tma-Buddhi, to begin the long cycle of reincarnation which is to issue in the perfect man.
The “ monadic inflow” or the evolution of the Monad from the animal inte the human kingdom, continued through the Third Race on to the middle of the Fourth, the human population thus continually receiving fresh recruits, the birth of souls thus continuing through the second half of the Third Race and the first half of the Fourth. After this, the “central turning point” of the cycle of evolution, “no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. The door is closed for this cycle.” (Secret Doctrine, vol. i, p. 205) Since then reincarna- tion has been the method of evolution, this individual reincarnation of the immortal Thinker in conjunction with Atma-Buddhi replacing the collective indwelling of Atma-Buddhi in lower forms of matter.
According to Theosophical teachings, humanity has now reached the Fifth Race, and we are in the fifth sub- race thereof, mankind on this globe in the present stage having before it the completion of the Fifth Race, and the rise, maturity and decay of the Sixth and Seventh
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Races. But during all the ages necessary for this evolu- tion there is no increase in the total number of reincar- nating Egos; only a small proportion of these are rein- carnated at any special time on our globe, so that the population may ebb and flow within very wide limits, and it will have been noticed that there is a rush of births after a local depopulation has been caused by exceptional mortality. There is room and to spare for all such fluctuations, having in view the difference between the total number of reincarnating Egos and the number actually incarnated at a given period.
Lines oF PROOF FOR AN UNTRAINED INQUIRER.
It is natural and right that any thoughtful person, brought face to face with assertions such as those put forth in the preceding pages, should demand what proof is forthcoming to substantiate the propositions laid down. A reasonable person will not demand full and complete proof available to all comers, without study and without painstaking. He will admit that the advanced theories of a science cannot be demanstrated to one ignorant of its first principles,.and he will be prepared to find that very much will have been alleged which can only be proved to those who have made some progress in their study. An essay on the higher mathematics, on the correlation of forces, on the atomic theory, on the molecular consti- tution of chemical compounds, would contain many state- ments the proofs of which would only be available for those who had devoted time and thought to the study of the elements of the science concerned; and so an un- © prejudiced person, confronted: with the Theosophical: view of the constitution of man, would readily admit that
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he could not expect complete demonstration until he had mastered the elements of Theosophical science.
None the less are there general proofs available in every science which suffice to justify its existence and to encourage study of its more recondite truths ; and in ‘Theosophy it is possible to indicate lines of proof which can be followed by the untrained inquirer, and which justify him in devoting time and pains to a study which gives promise of a wider and deeper knowledge of him- self and of external nature than is otherwise attainable.
It is well to say at the outset that there is no proot available to the average inquirer of the existence of the three higher planes of which we have spoken. The realms of the Spirit and of the higher mind are closed to all save those who have evolved the faculties neces- sary for their investigation. Those who have evolved these faculties need no proof of the existence of those realms; to those who have not, no proof af their exist- ence can be given. That there is something above the astral and the lower levels of the mental plane may indeed be proved by the flashes of genius, the lofty in- tuitions, that from time to time lighten the darkness of our lower world; but what that something is, only those can say whose inner eyes have been opened, who see where the race as a whole is still blind. But the lower planes are susceptible of proof, and fresh proofs are ac- cumulating day by day. The Masters of Wisdom are using the investigators and thinkers of the Western world to make “discoveries” which tend to substantiate the outposts of the Theosophical position, and the lines which they are following are exactly those which are needed for the finding of natural laws which will justify the assertions of Theosophists with regard to the element- ary “powers” and “phenomena” to which such exag-
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gerated importance has been given. If it is found that we have undeniable facts which establish the existence of planes other than the physical on which consciousness can work; which establish the existence of senses and powers of perception other than those with which we are familiar in daily life; which establish the existence of powers of communication between intelligences with- out the use of mechanical apparatus, surely, under these circumstances, the Theosophist may claim that he has made out a prima facie case for further investigation of his doctrines.
Let us, then, confine ourselves to the lower planes of which we have spoken in the preceding pages, and the four lower principles in man which are correlated with these planes. Of these four we may dismiss one, that of Prana, as none will challenge the fact of the existence of the energy we call “life”; the need of isolating it for pur- poses of study may be challenged, and in very truth the plane of Prana, or the principle of Prana, runs through all other planes, all other principles, interpenetrating all and binding all in one. There remain for our study the physical plane, the astral plane, the lower levels of the manasic plane. Can we substantiate these by proofs which will be accepted by those who are not yet Theoso- phists? I think we can.
First, as regards the physical plane. We need here to notice how the senses of man are correlated with the physical universe outside him, and how his knowledge of that universe is bounded by the power of his organs of sense to vibrate in response to vibrations set up outside him. He can hear when the air is thrown into vibrations into which the drum of his ear can also be thrown; ~ if the vibration be so slow that the drum cannot vibrate in answer, the person does not hear any sound; if the
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vibration be so rapid that the drum cannot vibrate in answer, the person does not hear any sound. So true is this, that the limit of hearing in different persons varies with this power of vibration of the drums of their respective ears; one person is plunged in silence, while another is deafened by the keen shrilling that is throw- ing into tumult the air around both. The same principle holds good of sight; we see so long as the light waves are of a length to which our organs of sight can respond; below and beyond this length we are in darkness, let the ether vibrate as it may. The ant can see where we are blind, because its eye can receive and respond to etheric vibrations more rapid than we can sense.
All this suggests to any thoughtful person the idea that if our senses could be evolved to more responsive- ness, new avenues of knowledge would be opened up even on the physical plane; this realised, it is not difficult to go a step farther, and to conceive that keener and subtler senses might exist which would open up, as it were, a new universe on a plane other than the physical.
Now this conception is true, and with the evolution of the astral senses the astral plane unfolds itself, and may be studied as really, as scientifically, as the physical. universe can be. These astral senses exist in all men, but are-latent in most, and generally need to be artifi- cially forced, if they are to be used in the present stage - of evolution. In a few persons they are normally present and become active without any artificial impulse. In very many persons they can be artificially awakened and developed. The condition, in all cases, of the activity of the astral senses is the passivity of the physical, and the more complete the passivity on the physical plane the greater the possibility of activity on the astral.
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It is noteworthy that Western psychologists have. found it necessary to investigate. .what_is termed the ‘“dream-consciousness,” in order to understand the work- ines af consciousness. as a whole. It is impossible to ignore the strange phenomena which characterize the workings of consciousness when it is removed from the limitations of the physical plane, and some of the most able and advanced of our psychologists do not think these workings to be in any way unworthy of the most careful and scientific investigation, All such workings are, in Theosophical language, on the astral plane, and the student who seeks for proof that there is an astral plane may here find enough and to spare. He will speedily discover that the laws under which conscious-
ness works on the ph SN ee oe, T plane have no existence on the astral. E£.g., the laws of space and time, which are
here the very conditions of thought, do not exist for consciousness when its activity is transferred to the astral world. Mozart hears a whole symphony as a single impression, ‘(as in a fine and ee dream,” (Philosophy of Mysticism, Du Prel, vol. i., p. 106) but has to work it out in successive details ee he brings it back with him to the physical plane. The dream of a moment contains a mass of events that would take years to pass in succession in our world of space and time. The drowning man sees his life history in a few seconds. But it is needless to multiply instances.