BLAVATSKY
AND THE SECRET
DOCTRINE
By MAX HEINDEL
CHAPTER V
Before going any further, it is necessary to understand the central position of our earth in the whole plan of evolution. During the preceding three and one-half rounds, the monads have been veiling themselves more and more in matter. On the earth in our present round, the nadir of materiality was reached by all kingdoms in the middle of the fourth race. We, being in the fifth sub-race of the firth root-race, are just beginning to slowly raise ourselves out of matter. We are the prodigal sons who went into a far country to gather experience, and having gone as afr as we could, are now returning home to our Father--who be the pouring out of Intelligence has met us a long way off, and is now conducting us to our own spiritual home.
The general plan of human evolution on the globe is briefly this: seven distinct root-races were destined to evolve a certain principle or sense. In this way, the four races which preceded us developed hearing, touch, sight, and taste. We have developed smell. The sixth and seventh root-races are to develop astral and mental clairvoyance respectively. They will also develop spirituality. We are developing intellectuality; our predecessors developed desire. Each of the seven root-races divides into seven sub-races, these again being subdivided. The evolution of each root-race takes place under the guidance of a special teacher, a great spiritual entity who incarnates in that race as ruler and lawgiver.
Each root-race evolves on its own continent, which is destroyed when that evolution is finished, water and fire being used alternately as agents. The archaic names of these continents are many, but to avoid confusion "The Secret Doctrine" uses the names most familiar to Western readers. The first continent it calls the Imperishable Sacred Land. The reason for this name is that this continent is the only one whose destiny it is to last throughout the whole of our stay on this chain of globes. It was the cradle of the first man, and will be the dwelling of the last divine mortal Chaya as a repository for the future seeds of humanity.
This sacred land has in its center Mount Meru, whose roots are in the Himalayan chain; from the peak of this sacred mountain--which forms the axis of the earth--there is a continuous flow of magnetic current, whcih spreads over the whole globe, re-entering it at the south pole. Thence it goes to the Holy City of Shamballah (the heart of the earth) in the Gobi Desert, where it is purified by the Masters of the Great White Lodge, and sent back to Mount Meru at the north pole. Around the sacred mountain, like leaves of the lotus, are seven promontories. On these were born the seven sub-classes of the first race, says the "Book of Dzyan": "The great Chohans [Lords] called the Lords of the Moon, of the Airy Bodies. `Bring forth men, men of your nature. Give them their forms within. She will build coverings without. Males- females will they be.' * * * They [the Moon-gods] went each on his allotted land: seven of them each on his lot."
Concerning anthropogenesis, "The Secret Doctrine" teaches:
(1) the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe;
(2) the birth of the astral bdoy before the physical, the latter body being molded in the astral form;
(3) the priority of man in this round to the animals, the monkeys included. This last teaching is in accord with the second creation story in the Bible; also with other books.
On the Sacred Imperishable Land were created by the Lords of the Moon chain the first race--large, shadowy, ethereal beings floating hither and thither. It may be asked, why call them human? For the same reason that a human fetus is called human, when for the first eight weeks it si indistinguishable from the embryonic dog. The method by which these beings reproduced was to throw off their astral counterpart, which in time could throw off another, each inferior to his father. This provides the explanation of the varying stages of humanity, for such inferior beings were ensouled by enferior entities. This race did not die, but was clother with the second race. The latter, after the type had been definitely established, was led to what "The Secret Doctrine" calls the Hyperborean continent, the promontories of which stretched from the North Pole to the south and west. In the days of Homer the Greeks spoke of it as a blessed land beyond the reach of Boreas, the god of winter, and of the hurricane--an ideal country, where nights were short and days were long.
On this continent lived the second-race men, ensouled by the second great host of monads which had come over from the Moon chain. Although having the general form of men, the individuals of this race were gigantic jellylike creatures who floated over the surface of the earth, as directed by passing desires. The features were undefined, there being no eyes, ears, or mouth. They received impressions through and were guided by two centers of force, the so-called thrid eye (which has become the pineal gland) and an organ which has developed into the spleen. They were potentially bisexual, and reproduced their species in the same manner as the first race. The second-race men were boneless--which accounts for the fact that geologists have found no fossils in the three lower strata.
During the later secondary period the waters receded, and land appeared in the areas now covered by India, China, Australia, Africa, the Pacific Ocean and Northern Europe. This was the vast Lemurian continent, to which the great Lemurian race was led by its Teacher. This was the first race to receive the outpouring of intelligence.
The mode of reproduction was changed three times during this period. Says the "Book of Dzyan": "Then the second [race] evolved the Egg-born, the third. * * * The egg of the future race, the Man-swan of the later third. First male-female, then man and woman." Today embryology teaches that man is born from the ovum; that in the third month the fetus is bisexual; then one sexual organ becomes dominant, the other remaining rudimentary but never disappearing. The body of the third root race man became firmer, and its shape changed until it was man as we know he was--a giant twelve to fifteen feet tall, with a dark yellow-brown skin, long lower jaw, flat face, eyes far apart, the head sloping upward and backward. He had no forehead; the hair was short, the back of the head bare, probably for the greater convenience of the third eye. Arms and legs were much longer in proportion than ours. His heels projected back, so that he could walk backward. Certainly he was not too engaging a person. We can sympathize with the souls who were guided to such bodies for incarnation, and excuse them for refusing.
During this age the animals appeared, and separated into sexes before man. Up to this stage, man had remained (as the "Book of Dzyan" puts it) "an empty, senseless shadow." Then came the time when he was to receive the priceless gift of mind. To accomplish this three classes of souls came down to birth.
The first were the Lords of Venus, who, though not belonging to our planetary chain, sent to this earth--their adopted child--great teachers who taught and guided infant humanity. To them we can give thanks for the fact that we are now about one round in advance of what we otherwise would have achieved. These Lords established the Great White Lodge, which has existed ever since, and from which have been sent all the great Teachers of humanity. Originally the Lodge was not for the benefit of evolving humanity--which for ages was not to be qualified to tread the path of initiation--but for those of the Lords of Venus who had not reached the highest stage of initiation.
The other two classes are described as the Sons of Wisdom and the Sons of Night. Of these the Sons of Night refused to create. Those who entered became sages; on those who did not procreate, the curse was pronounced. They will be born in the fourth suffering, and causing suffering.
Thus was a part of humanity left narrow-headed and mindless. Of them the "Book of Dzyan" says: "And those which had no spark took huge she-animals unto them. They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied. The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked red-hair-covered monsters going on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold. Seeing which, the Lhas [the spirits, the Sons of Wisdom] who had not built men, wept, saying: `The Amanasa [the mindless] have defiled our future abodes. This is Karma [retribution]. Let us dwell in the other. Let us teach them better, lest worse should happen. * * * Then all men become endowed with Manas [mind]."
Some of the fourth race men who had mind, however, did the same--and here is the explanation of "The Secret Doctrine" regarding the anthropoids. They are not our ancestors--as is assumed by the evolutionists--but an offshoot of the human race. They are the only animals now on the globe which will develop human astral forms in the seventh root-race, and will be definitely human in the fifth round.
There is still another class, of which one division incarnated during thr later third and the other during the early fourth round. They had advanced too far on the Lunar chain to be reborn on the earthly chain during the preceding stages, and came into incarnation for the first time on this chain. These are the last of the monads who inhabited the Moon chain.
From the seventh sub-race of the third race the Teacher who was to develop the coming fourth race singled out those who were to form the nucleus, and led them to that great see-ground for humanity--the Imperishable Sacred Land-- where he segregated them, says the "Book of Dzyan", two by two, on the seven zones, and imbedded in their forms potentially the qualities to be developed in the coming races. Meanwhile great cataclysms rent the continent, and Lemuria as such disappeared, ages before the tertiary period. In its place rose Atlantis, the fourth continent, destined to become the seat of a civilization which in many ways excelled our own. Its rulers were divine Priest-Kings. It was indeed the Golden Age; alchemistry was used to produce gold for use in the arts and to ornament their houses and buildings. Superphysical powers were a common possession.
When the divine pilots tried the experiment of relinquishing the helm to see if man himself would be able to guide the ship of humanity, this was all changed. "Then the Fourth [race] became tall with pride. We are the kings, it was said; we are the gods. They took wives fair to look upon. Wives from the mindless, the narrow-headed. They bred monsters. Wicked demons, male and female. * * They built temples for the human body. Male and female they worshipped. Then the Third Eye acted no longer. They built huge cities. * * * They built great images nine yatis high, the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers. The water threatened the fourth. The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands." Such is the Story of the degradation into which fell the class which the BOOK calls the Lords of Night, or the Dark Faces, in contradistinction to the Sons of Wisdom, or Lords of the Dazzling Face. "The Secret Doctrine" tells the story plainly:
"And the `great King of the Dazzling Face', the chief of all the Yellow- faced, seeing the sins of the Black-faced, was sad. He sent his air-vehicles to all his brothers-chiefs (chiefs of other nations and tribes) with pious men within saying `Prepare, arise ye men of the good law, and cross the land while (yet) dry. The Lords of the storm are approaching. Their chariots are nearing the land. One night and two days only shall the Lords of the Dark Face (the Sorcerers) live on this patient land. She is doomed, and they have to descend with her. The nether Lords of the Fires (the Gnomes and fire Elemntals) are preparing their magic Agneyastra (fire-weapons worked by magic). * * * They are versed in Ashtar (Vidya, the highest magical [PAGE 216] knowledge). Come and use yours (your magic powers, in order to counteract those of the Sorcerers). Let every lord of the Dazzling Face (and adept of the White Magic) cause the Viwan of every lord of the Dark Face to come into his hands (or possession), lest any (of the Sorcerers) should by its means escape from the waters, avoid the rod of the Four, (Karmic deities) and save his wicked (followers or people). May every yellow face send sleep from himself (mesmerize?) to every black face. May even they (the Sorcerers) avoid pain and suffering. May every man true to the Solar Gods bind (paralyze) every man under the lunar gods, lest he should suffer or escape his destiny. * * * The hour has struck, the black night is ready, etc., etc.' " The waters arose and covered the valleys from one end of the earth to the other. So perished Atlantis and came into being the story of the deluge.
From the fifth sub-race of the fourth root-race, the original Semitic, had been chosen by the Holy Vaivaswata, the Teacher of our fifth root-race, the families who were to be the ancestors of the coming race. The Teacher led them northward to the Sacred Imperishable Land, where with loving care he instilled into them the potential characteristics of our present humanity. When ages had passed, he led them again southward to Central Asia--the land which has risen in place of the doomed Atlantis. Already the continents had taken essentially the forms in which they now exist. From Central Asia proceeded the different migrations. The first sub-race, the Aryan, went southward to India. The second, the Aryan Semitic, peopled Arabia and Syria. The third, the Iranian, led by Zarathustra, journeyed to Persia. The fourth, the Keltic, led by Orpheus, settled in Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, Scotland, and England. The fifth, the Teutonic, occupied Central Europe.
What does "The Secret Doctrine" say about the future? The land-body now known as North America will be consumed by fire. In its place will arise a new continent which will be the home of a spiritual people. This will be the sixth root-race, the nucleus of which is being evolved right here, under the Stars and Stripes. In that race, function will be restored to the pituitary body and the pineal gland, which have been inactive since the degradation of the fourth race. These two glands are not merely--as science says--two horny warts covered by sand, but two very important organs temporarily out of use. They are the keys to the spiritual worlds, which will in that race be opened to all mankind. The granules with which these bodies are covered are absent in children under seven and in congenital idiots. Weak-minded people have but few. This race will be male-female and the sympathetic nerve will develop into a second spinal cord. They will be a beautiful, spiritual and mighty people. Yet this race with its continent will also pass away, to give place to the seventh and last of our root-races.
The people of this last race will dwell on a land to the south of us, there evolving to a state transcending our present understanding. Mental clairvoyance will be possessed by all; the two spinal cords will merge into one, and man will be sexless. Then will come the time when the life-wave will once more leave our earth to conquer other worlds.
Such is the sublime plan to which we belong, as outlined in the first and second volumes of "The Secret Doctrine". The third volume consists of a miscellaneous collection of papers published after the death of the author. As the years pass, the truth of the statements in "The Secret Doctrine" are being gradually vindicated. As the knowledge of students grow, their admiration and reverence for their great teacher becomes more profound. With but few and unimportant exceptions, everything which is to be found in the voluminous literature of modern occultism has been available in "The Secret Doctrine" ever since its publication. In the work is food for the heart and for the intellect--a system of thought and knowledge which, if we will but study it and put it into our lives, can make us wise unto salvation.
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[COVER] [CONTENTS] [INTRODUCTION] [BIOGRAPHY OF MAX HEINDEL] [CHAPTER I] [CHAPTER II] [CHAPTER III] [CHAPTER IV] [CHAPTER V] [APHORISMS BY MAX HEINDEL] [LINKS]
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