The Inner Life, v. II/Sixth Section/III
SUCCESSIVE LIFE-WAVES
The conception of the successive life-waves which pour out from the LOGOS should not be a difficult one, yet it frequently happens that some confusion seems to arise in the mind of the student in connection with it.
Perhaps this comes partially from the fact that the term “life-wave” has been employed in our literature in three distinct senses. First, it has been used to denote the three great outpourings of Divine Life by means of which our solar system came into existence — by which its evolution is carried on. Secondly, it has been applied to the successive impulsions of which the second outpouring is formed; and it is in this sense principally that I shall employ the term now. Thirdly, the expression has been accepted as signifying the transference of life from one planet of our chain to another in the course of evolution.
A life-wave of this third type does not at all correspond to the life-wave of the second type, but consists of synchronous portions of seven of the latter, treated as though they constituted a single entity. As we all know, we have with us at the present time seven kingdoms in manifestation — the human, the animal, the vegetable, the mineral, and the three elemental kingdoms which precede the mineral.
We must realise that all these are manifestations of the same life — the one life of the LOGOS manifesting in that second great outpouring which comes from His second aspect after the primitive matter has been prepared for its reception by the action of the first outpouring which comes from the third aspect (see The Christian Creed, p. 40). That second outpouring comes forth in a series of successive waves, following one another as the waves of the sea follow one another. Each of these waves has reached its present stage by passing through all the earlier stages, and in each of those it has spent a period of time corresponding to the life of a chain of seven worlds, sometimes called a manvantara.
This Sanskrit word manvantara literally means the period between two Manus, and so it might be applied at various levels. We see from The Secret Doctrine that each root-race has its Manu, a great adept who takes charge of it, and superintends its formation and growth. But there is also a Manu for the world-period which includes the seven root-races; and yet again there is a still greater Manu who superintends the progress of the life-wave (using that term in its third sense) through all the seven planets of the chain; and since one complete journey through all those seven globes has been called a round, He is spoken of as the Round-Manu.
Seven such rounds complete one life-period for a planetary chain — one incarnation of the chain, as it were; and over this enormous period there is a Great One who presides, and to Him also this title of Manu is accorded. Higher still there is One who presides over the seven successive chains, which may be regarded as the seven incarnations of our chain, making one complete scheme of evolution; but He is usually spoken of not as a Manu, but as the LOGOS of seven chains, or sometimes as the Planetary LOGOS. So we have here a graduated hierarchy of mighty adepts, extending up to Divinity itself.
It is obvious, therefore, that the term manvantara might indicate various periods of time, corresponding to the levels at which it was employed; but in our Theosophical literature it has generally been used to indicate the duration of one chain — the time occupied by the life-wave in making seven rounds. To the greater period of the seven successive incarnations of the chain, the name of mahamanvantara (which means simply great manvantara) has sometimes been given.
The following table may be of use to our students, as summarizing the system of evolution:
7 Branch Races make —— One Sub-race.
7 Sub-races make —— One Root-race.
7 Root-races make —— One World-period.
7 World-periods make —— One Round.
7 Rounds make —— One Chain-period.
7 Chain-periods make —— One Planetary Scheme.
10 Planetary Schemes make —— Our Solar system.
It is scarcely practical for us at present to endeavour to estimate in years the exact length of these enormous expanses of time. In exoteric Hindu books definite numbers are given, but Madame Blavatsky tell us that it is impossible to rely fully upon these, as other and esoteric considerations are involved, which the writers do not take into account. We have no direct information upon these points, but there is some reason to suspect that the time of the rounds is not an invariable quantity, but that some are shorter than others. It has been thought that those in front of us will probably not be so long as those through which we have passed; but here again we have no certain information, and it seems useless to speculate.
At all these stages there are always seven life-waves in action. In every one of these chains is a human kingdom, and it is always accompanied by its brothers, an animal, a vegetable and a mineral kingdom. But each of these is steadily evolving; so that the life-wave which is ensouling the animal kingdom of the present day will in the next chain have arrived at the human level and will provide the causal bodies for the humanity of that chain. In the same way the life-wave which ensouls our vegetable kingdom now will ensoul the animal kingdom then, and so on.
It of course follows from this that we were the animal kingdom of the moon-chain, and the vegetable kingdom of the chain previous to that, That is not precisely an accurate method of expression, because we as separate egos did not exist then; but that wave of essence which in the first chain ensouled the mineral kingdom, in the second chain the vegetable, and in the third chain the animal, has now been employed in the formation of those causal bodies which we are inhabiting at the present day.
What then will be the future progress of that wave, and how will it appear in the next chain? It will not appear there at all, for we must remember that at the close of this human evolution man finds always before him the seven paths which open the way to still further development. I have tried to explain these, so far as they may at present be described, in the concluding chapter of Invisible Helpers.
I need not repeat here what I then wrote, but I may add to it a fragment of information which has since come to my knowledge. One of those paths, which we had then to leave blank, leads to what we have called a staff appointment. Every general has, quite apart from the regular officers who hold various commands under him, a special set of officers who form his staff, whose duty it is to be in personal attendance upon him, and to be ready at any moment to do anything that he may require, or to fill any vacancy that may occur. The Solar LOGOS also has His staff — a number of adepts who are not in the service of any particular chain, yet ever prepared to be sent to the aid of any that need assistance. To join this body is one of the seven possibilities which lie before him who has “reached the further shore.”
When the time comes for our chain to disintegrate and for the life from it to pass into the fifth chain, we shall already have moved on to a stage beyond the human, along one or other of these seven paths. Consequently the humanity which will commence as primitive man in the fifth chain will not be ourselves at all, but will be the wave next behind us — that which is ensouling our present animal kingdom.
In the same way our vegetable monad will have evolved a stage higher, and will ensoul the animal kingdom of that new chain; while the life-wave which is now animating the mineral kingdom will by that time have risen to the level of the vegetable kingdom. Thus we see that of the seven life-waves which we now know, six will be present in the fifth chain, but each will have gained a stage in its development.
Our present human life-wave, having obtained the object of its immersion into matter, has passed out of this series of chains altogether, though some of those who were its members may still retain a voluntary connection with it for the purpose of helping its evolution. But since each of our waves has moved on a stage, how is the place of the hindmost supplied? Are we to suppose that the first elemental kingdom will no longer be represented in the new chain? By no means; for we find that a fresh life-wave from the LOGOS is following close behind the others, and so this new influx completes the seven.
Precisely the same process has taken place in connection with each chain in succession. In each of them one life-wave has attained its goal, and passed off through seven channels to some entirely higher form of manifestation; and each of those behind it has moved forward one stage, and place of the hindmost has in each case been filled by a fresh influx of life from the LOGOS.
Each of these waves enters in each chain-period at the lowest level of the kingdom which it is ensouling, and passes out of that kingdom at its highest point. A fresh influx of life from the LOGOS enters the first elemental kingdom in each chain, and there are six such influxes in our scheme, so that we have altogether thirteen successive life-waves at work in this scheme of seven chains, though never more than seven of them are in operation simultaneously. All are moving steadily onward but always preserving the same distance between them, and we can take up any particular wave at any point in its progress and follow it backwards or forwards as we desire.
Take for example the seventh of these waves. It enters into the first incarnation of the chain as the first elemental kingdom; in the second chain it has reached the level of the second elemental kingdom, and in the lunar chain it ensouls the third. In our present chain it animates our mineral kingdom, while in the fifth and sixth chains it will ensoul respectively the vegetable and animal kingdoms. In the seventh chain it will arrive at the level of humanity, and will then pass off through its seven channels, as the other humanities have done. We have then the complete history of this life-wave before us, from the time when it emerged into manifestation in the first elemental kingdom, until it is again attaining divine levels at the end of its appointed evolution.
We have not before us in our scheme the complete evolution of any other wave than this. If, for example, we trace back our own life-wave, we shall find that it ensouled the animal kingdom in the moon-chain, the vegetable kingdom in the second chain, and the mineral kingdom in the first chain. Where then did it gain the evolution of the three elemental kingdoms? For it must obviously have advanced through those stages before it manifested as the mineral. It has passed through them in some previous scheme of chains — we know not where or when. It is evident that the only entirely new impulse is that first chain of our scheme was the seventh life-wave, for all the others which form part of that first chain had already gone through some portion of their evolution in anterior schemes of worlds. Its humanity must evidently have passed through the six antecedent stages in that unknown past, and it came here only to acquire the finishing touch to its education which prepared it to pass off along the seven paths which lay open before it.
But our life-waves stretch onward into the future as well as back into the past. The eighth wave, for example, which entered for the first time in the second chain as a fresh impulse from the Divine Life, has no time in our scheme of evolution to reach the human level. In our present chain it is ensouling the third elemental kingdom, and causing us a great deal of trouble in the shape of desire-elementals. In the seventh chain that wave will be ensouling the animal kingdom, and it will therefore attain humanity in the first chain of some unknown scheme of globes, hidden at present in the womb of the future.
Naturally the remaining waves, from the ninth to the thirteenth, are also unfinished, so that out of all the waves which use our scheme as the theatre of their evolution only one finds time to complete all its stages — a fact which, if we can realise all that it involves, gives us a deeply impressive illustration of the vastness of the resources of nature, a glimpse into the illimitable eternities through which, never hastening yet never resting, her unfoldment proceeds with such splendid precision.
Now that we have clearly in our minds the steady progress of these life-waves, we must immediately proceed to modify our conception by the introduction into it of another important factor. In each case of transference from one kingdom to another, there is always a certain part of the life-waves which does not succeed in passing, and is therefore left behind. We may perhaps understand that most easily if we begin by thinking of the future of our own humanity.
We know that the goal set before us is the attainment of that level of initiation which has been called adeptship — the position of the asekha, “the one who has no more to learn” with regard to our planetary chain. But we also know that it will not be the whole of humanity that will succeed in this lofty aim, but only a certain part of it. We are told that in the middle of the next round a separation will occur between those souls who are strong enough to undertake the higher stages of evolution and those who are not.
This separation has been prefigured by the many legends of a “last judgment” at which the future destiny of the souls for this aeon would be decided. The diseased imagination of the mediaeval monk, always seeking an opportunity to introduce grotesquely exaggerated horrors into his creed in order to terrify an incredibly ignorant peasantry into more liberal donations for the support of Mother-Church, distorted into “eternal damnation” the perfectly simple idea of aeonian suspension.
Those who are left behind at this period have sometimes been described as “the failures of the fifth round,” though perhaps even this is somewhat too harsh a term. There may well be some among them who by greater exertion might have qualified themselves to pass onward, and these are rightly spoken of as failures; but the majority will be left behind simply because they are too young to go on, and so not strong enough for the more difficult work.
The facts of the case may be stated quite simply. The lower classes of monads passed only gradually from the animal kingdom into the human during the earlier half of our present chain-period. Some of them are still, consequently, at an early stage of the human evolution, and are therefore exceedingly unlikely to overtake the classes which are so far in advance of them. We have been given to understand that it is just possible for even the lowest savage to reach before the middle of the fifth round the level necessary for continued evolution, but in order to do this he must never once fail to take advantage of each opportunity as it is offered to him, and the number who will do this will be infinitesimally small. It is calculated that the proportion who will be prepared to go on will amount to about three-fifths of the total population of the earth (not merely of the physical population, it will be understood, but of the total number of egos who constitute the human life-wave evolving through this chain) while the remaining two-fifths will be left behind.
The surroundings in the world at that time will be specially adapted for the rapid progress of the more advanced egos, and will therefore be wholly unsuitable for entities at a much lower stage of evolution, as the gross vibrations of violent passion and of strong coarse feelings which are necessary for the development of the inert and half-formed astral body of the savage will be no longer available. We can easily imagine many ways in which this unsuitability would show itself. In a world of high intellectual and spiritual development, where war and the slaughter of animals have long been things of the past, the existence of savage races, full of undisciplined passions and desire for conflict, would obviously introduce many serious difficulties and complications; and though no doubt means might be devised for their repression, that very repression would debar them from the activities requisite for their early stage of evolution.
Obviously, therefore, the kindest and best thing to do with those who are thus backward is simply to drop them out from this evolution, and let them prepare to take their place in next year's class — in the next planetary chain. Such entities will not suffer in any way; they will simply have a very prolonged period of rest in such heaven-life as they may be capable of appreciating, and no doubt, even though their consciousness during this period will probably be but partially awakened, a certain amount of inner progress will be going on.
From that condition they will descend into the earlier stages of the evolution of the next chain, and will be among the leaders of primitive humanity there. We should not think of them as in any way put back, but merely as assigned to the position to which they really belong, where their progress is easy and certain. It is to this class that Madame Blavatsky referred when she spoke of vast numbers of “lost souls”; though this term “lost souls,” when employed in this connection, sometimes misleads students who have not yet grasped the full splendour and certainty of the evolutionary scheme.
We may think then of each life-wave in its passage through the chain as breaking up into wavelets. Consider what will be the progress made by our own life-wave. Broadly speaking, this represents the animal kingdom of the moon, though the failures of the lunar humanity have naturally joined it, and may be expected to be among its leaders.
The whole of the wave which ensouled that lunar animal kingdom should theoretically have entered humanity during the earlier part of this chain, and should by the end of the seventh round attain the goal appointed for it.
We who are now human beings in this chain ought all of us to attain adeptship, and pass away from this scheme of evolution altogether by one of the seven paths which open before the adept, while what is now our animal kingdom ought by the end of this chain to attain individualisation, and therefore to be ready to furnish the humanity for the next chain, the fifth of the scheme.
We know, however, that two-fifths of our humanity will fall out in the middle of the fifth round, because it is obviously too far behind the rest to enable it even with the greatest efforts to attain the goal during this chain. This two-fifths will enter the next chain along with the members of our present animal kingdom, and will therefore constitute part of that future humanity.
One of the great reasons why the division between the more advanced and the less advanced must be made in the middle of the fifth round is that the later races will be in much closer touch with the adepts and the great devas than we are now. It will therefore be necessary for them to hold themselves always in an impressible condition, in readiness to receive and respond to an outpouring of influences. This in its turn requires that they shall live a peaceful and contemplative life, which would be an impossibility if there were still left in the world savage races who would attack and kill the man in a state of contemplation. The more powerful vibrations of that time would not rouse the higher nature of the savage, but would only stimulate and intensify his lower passions, so that he would gain nothing by being on earth at that period, while he would make impossible the progress of the more developed people.
But the other three-fifths of our present humanity, which may be described as successful in so far as it does not drop out at the day of judgment in the fifth round, will yet not all of it succeed, in the sense of attaining the asekha level. It is thought that probably about one-fifth of the whole number (that is to say, one-third of those who have not dropped out) will fully achieve; but that means that two-thirds of the successes will still at the end of our chain of worlds have further work to do, before they have reached the level intended for them. They also will have to enter the next chain, though they will not need the earlier stages of its evolution: so they will probably appear at about its middle point, much as the higher classes of monads who came over from the moon entered our present evolution at its middle point. The matter will, however, be complicated for them by the fact that, just as on this chain the point set before us for attainment is higher than that of the moon-chain, so will the level of achievement expected on the fifth chain be higher than ours. With that, however, we have no concern for the moment.
The actual distribution at the end of our planetary chain will probably be into several well-defined classes, somewhat as follows; though obviously each of these might be further subdivided:
1. Those who, having intelligently studied evolution and determined to take the shorter and steeper Path to the goal, have already attained adeptship in previous rounds.
2. Those who attain the asekha level in the seventh round. These are the highest class of the men who have moved along with the ordinary stream of evolution — the vanguard of those who have followed the usual path. They may be taken as corresponding, for our chain, to the first class of the moon-men.
3. Those who have fallen short of this perfect attainment, but yet have succeeded in reaching the arhat level in the seventh round. They correspond for our chain to the second class of the moon-men, and will need very few births in the next incarnation of the chain before they also gain the level of liberation.
4. Those who, while they passed the examination at the middle of the fifth round, have not yet succeeded in raising themselves above the three lower levels of the Path Proper. These may perhaps be taken to correspond for our chain with the animal-men of the moon, who had only just contrived to separate themselves from the animal kingdom, and consequently had much preparatory work to do in the new chain.
5. Those who, while they succeeded in attaining humanity in our earth-chain, yet failed to raise themselves sufficiently to justify their continuance in that chain after the middle of the fifth round. There will, no doubt, be several subdivisions or classes among these.
6. Those who have failed altogether to gain the level of humanity. These will be some of the very lowest of the monads, who had only just reached the animal kingdom on the moon, and have been slowly rising during the earth-chain, but have not succeeded in attaining individualisation.
It is not only in the case of humanity that we find this failure to attain the destined level. The same thing appears to happen in connection with every kingdom all through the course of evolution. While the majority of each wave of monads fulfil the destiny appointed for them, there is in each a minority who fall behind, and a much smaller minority who run far in advance of that destiny. For example, just as a few men are now rising far above their fellows and attaining adeptship, so a few animals are even already breaking away from their group-souls and becoming individualised, though the great body of the animal life-wave will arrive at individualisation only towards the end of the seventh round, and will form the humanity of the fifth chain. The men who are approaching adeptship are always those who are in close touch with the existing adepts as Their pupils; the animals who are approaching humanity are usually those who are in close touch with the existing humanity as pets specially developed in affection and intelligence.
In the earlier days of the Theosophical teaching we supposed that even if an animal by specially rapid development should become individualised here and now, he would still have to wait until the next chain before he could secure a human body. Later investigations, however, have shown us that exceptions to this rule are at this stage still possible, and that animals who are fortunate enough to attain individualisation during this present world-period may be accommodated with primitive human bodies at the commencement of the occupation by our life-wave of the next planet in our present chain. It is obvious that the number of animals prepared to take advantage of this (which, so far as we can see, appears likely to be their final opportunity of entering the human life of this chain) must be relatively exceedingly small; but still it is a possibility which we must take into account if we wish correctly to comprehend the course of evolution.
I have once seen a case in which there were special features that made an even earlier incarnation possible — a case of an animal which had shown in earth-life not only great intelligence, but also unusually strong devotion to his human friend, a devotion which of course continued in the astral life and was even stronger there than ever. The animal's power of definite thought was such that during life he frequently travelled great distances in his astral body when asleep, to visit his master on his journeys. In this case definite progress was made in the astral life after death, and the response to our efforts was much greater than we had hoped, for the astral life gave us a better opportunity than was possible on the physical plane to grasp the exact limits of the animal's lines of thought. They were few, narrow and curiously limited; but yet they extended much further along their lines than one would suppose.
Certain new lines of thought opened up in the astral life, and the developments were exceedingly interesting. An almost immediate incarnation in this world was clearly possible, but there were some curious combinations which made the matter difficult to arrange. The animal would have been a primitive savage in many ways, and yet could only have been incarnated in immediate personal relation with his master, for whom his attachment was so strong that it would have been impossible to keep him away from him This presented serious difficulties, but still they might somehow have been overcome, but for the fact that it was impossible to guarantee the sex of the savage!
Presumably among the animals that succeed there will also be various classes, corresponding in a general way in this evolution to the various classes of monads in the lunar evolution; and some of the animal essence at present ensouling the lowest forms of life will certainly fail to attain the human level in this chain, and will therefore correspond in the animal kingdom to our “failures of the fifth round.” As to whether these forms also will disappear from the earth at that same period in the fifth round we have no direct information, but analogy would seem to require that this should be so. The same differentiation into classes, according to the measure of success achieved, has been observed in connection with all the lower kingdoms, so that in reality each life-wave ought to be symbolised as breaking up constantly into ripples or wavelets, some of which in time join the preceding or succeeding waves, though the majority move steadily along their appointed course.
The seven life-waves which ensoul our seven kingdoms have always for their principal field of action the planet to which the attention of the LOGOS is for the moment directed; but a certain small proportion of their action is always manifesting in the other worlds of the chain also. Thus, although the attention of the Planetary LOGOS is now fixed upon our earth, there are yet representatives of all the kingdoms simultaneously existing upon every one of the six other globes of our chain. These are often described as the seed from which the forms will develope when the life-wave reaches the planet — that is to say, when the special attention of the Planetary LOGOS is turned to it once more.
These forms have remained in existence upon their respective planets ever since they were first filled by the lunar animal-men in the first round, and in this way the trouble of what might be called fresh creation for each globe in each round is avoided. The life ensouling these forms during the comparative obscuration of those planets is still part of the great wave, and is still moving onward in connection with it. It serves other functions besides that of providing the seed for the incoming wave, since it is also employed as a means of more rapid evolution for certain classes of monads.
It is by the special treatment thus given that it is possible for the second-class monad to overtake the first class and become one of its members. Under certain conditions of strong desire for advancement, if he is seen to be striving with exceptional vigour to improve himself, he may be separated from the great masses of his fellows on this planet, and passed by the authorities into what is called the Inner Round, and may take his next incarnation among the limited population of Mercury. In that case he will spend there about the same time that he would otherwise have devoted to incarnations in one root-race, and will then pass on to the astral planet F. After a similar stay there he will be transferred to globes G, A and B successively, and then to Mars and to the Earth.
As in each of these spheres he will have made a stay about equivalent to the normal period of a root-race, the life-wave will have left the Earth before his return, but he will overtake it upon the planet Mercury, and will then join the ranks of the first-class monads and share the remainder of their evolution and their varied opportunities of more rapid development. Entities engaged upon this special line of evolution form the majority of the small population of Mercury and Mars at the present time. In the latter planet there is also a certain residuum of primitive mankind which was unprepared to pass on when the life-wave left for the Earth — a race which represents a stage of humanity lower than any at present existing within our cognisance. It will probably be extinct long before we reach Mars in the fifth round, since there appear to be no other egos needing manifestation at that level for the moment.
In the same way we find that all the kingdoms are represented upon the astral and mental globes. It is not very easy for us to grasp with our physical consciousness what can be the condition of the life of the lower kingdoms on these higher planes; the idea of the evolution of a mineral on the mental plane, for example, suggests nothing readily comprehensible to the ordinary mind. We may perhaps help ourselves towards the understanding of it by remembering that every mineral must have its astral and mental counterparts, and that the special types of matter which form these 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 group-soul 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 although the great life-wave resides only upon one globe of our group at a given time, the remaining planets are by no means dormant, and useful progress is continually being made in every part of our chain.
I have tried to make the above description of the successive life-waves as clear as possible; but lest it should still present some difficulties to the mind of a reader unaccustomed to the study of this system of cosmogony, I append a little diagram which I think may be of assistance. The vertical columns indicate the successive incarnations of the chain; the horizontal divisions represent the various kingdoms of nature; the diagonal arrows are the successive waves of evolution which have come forth from the LOGOS. The Roman numbers attached to each of these arrows apply to those arrows only, and not to the squares in which they happen to come. It will be seen that there are thirteen of these arrows. Their length appears to vary, but that is only because we are regarding them solely from the point of view of our own scheme of evolution.
Within the limits of that scheme arrow No.I appears to cross only one kingdom — the human. That does not at all mean that the wave represented by that arrow has not passed through the six previous stages; it means only that those six previous stages have been experienced in some other scheme. Just the same thing is true at the opposite corner of the diagram. Arrow No.XIII crosses only one kingdom — the first elemental; it will inevitably in due course have to pass through all the other kingdoms, but it cannot do so in this scheme of evolution, because that is already at an end. So far as our diagram is concerned it appears in that one kingdom only.
If we take the column representing any one chain — let us say the fourth, which denotes our present stage of evolution — we shall find in running the eye down it that seven arrows pass through it, indicating the seven kingdoms now existing around us. We can follow any one of those arrows either backwards or forwards, and so can trace any of our kingdoms either in the past or in the future. We should note that waves No. I to No.VI come to us from some other scheme of evolution, while waves No.VII to No.XIII are fresh emanations from the LOGOS.