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A Treatise on Cosmic Fire - Section Two - Div. B - Manas as a Cosmic, Systemic and Human Factor
b. Animals and Human Beings and the Rays We will now take up two points and study the effect of the incoming force on the human and animal kingdoms. These points are of profound interest to the occult student for two reasons. The topic we have now to consider is the effect of the incoming seventh Ray during the coming centuries upon the animal kingdom and the deva evolution. The profundity of the interest lies in the fact that in the one case we are dealing with the evolution immediately behind the human and from which man is not as yet wholly emancipated, and in the other we are concerning ourselves with a paralleling evolution, and one that is of vast importance in the scheme of things. Let us take up first this seventh Ray and its effect upon the animal kingdom. Practically little is known to man concerning this kingdom of nature, save what science has vouchsafed anent the physical organisms, and a few occult statements which have been given out at various times; the development of the animal consciousness and its immediate future is as yet but little understood. The most important of the occult facts concerning this [458] third kingdom as they relate to our present subject, may be enumerated as follows: 1. The animal kingdom holds the same relation to the human kingdom as the dense physical body does to the seven principles and still finds its connecting link with man through the close correspondence between their bodies of objectivity. 2. The animal kingdom is the third of the kingdoms and is (from the esoteric point of view and as regards its relation to mankind) the mother aspect, prior to the over-shadowing by the Holy Spirit, the manas aspect. Think out this resemblance, and trace the analogy between the cosmic mother, the systemic mother, and the same mother aspect as seen in the animal kingdom as a basis for the evolution of man. Each of the kingdoms of nature acts as the mother to the succeeding one in the evolutionary process. Any group, which may be under consideration, should in due course of evolution give birth to offspring, who will - in themselves - embody some ideal, and who receive their objective forms on some plane from the earlier group. From the third kingdom springs the fourth, and from this fourth will emerge the fifth, each receiving Germ protection, Form, Gradual development, Nourishment, until in each case the human child, or the Christ child, is brought to the birth. This is a very occult truth, and though the facts have been recognized and taught anent the fourth and fifth kingdoms, the work and place of the animal has not received its due recognition. 3. During the third root-race, animal individualization took place, and the self-conscious unit, called Man, came into being. I have somewhat dealt with the question of [459] individualization elsewhere and seek not here to enlarge upon it. I would only point out a correspondence that holds hid the key to the mystery of individualization. In this chain, individualization took place during the third root-race and in the fourth round, speaking in this connection of a round through a chain of globes, and not the life force of a planetary Logos circulating through the seven chains in a scheme. It is of peculiar interest at this time that we are in the fourth round in a chain as well as in the fourth round as regards the scheme of seven chains. It has led to evolutionary possibilities of great import. On the moon chain individualization took place during the fifth race of the third round, and in the next chain to ours on the evolutionary arc individualization will take place during the sixth race of the second round, - in each case this refers to a planetary round through a chain of globes. 4. In the fourth root-race the "door" (as it is called) between the two kingdoms became closed, and no more of the animal kingdom passed into the human. Their cycle temporarily ended and - to express it in terms of fire or of electrical phenomena - the animal kingdom and the human became positive to each other, and repulsion instead of attraction supervened. All this was brought about by the swinging into power of a profoundly long cycle of the fifth Ray. This was necessitated by the need of man to develop along the manasic line, and resulted in a period of repulsion of the animal units, leaving their consciousness to be stimulated on astral lines. Owing to this repulsion, we have one reason (and one of the least fundamental) for the destructive war and the long cycle of cruelty that has been waged between man and the animals. It can be evidenced in the terror of man in connection with wild animals of the jungles and the deserts, and in the terrible toll of life that such animals have exacted during the centuries. This must not [460] be forgotten. For thousands of years, wild animals have - specially before the coming in of firearms - destroyed the defenseless, and during those years, had statistics been taken, the numbers of human beings killed would reach a stupendous figure. Now, in this age, the balancing is taking place and in the slaughter of animals equilibrium is being reached. I do not refer to the wanton cruelties practiced under the name of science, nor to certain practices which take place under religious guise in different lands. The source of these enormities must be sought for elsewhere. It is hidden in the karma of that Being, Who for a period - during the moon chain - held office as the Entity Who is the informing evolutionary Life of the animal kingdom. This is a point of view needing careful pondering. Each of the kingdoms of nature is the expression of a Life or Being; man, for instance, being the expression of one or other of the Heavenly Men; the sumtotal of humanity (the fourth Hierarchy) being found, with the deva evolution, as the centers of the solar Logos. The animal kingdom likewise is the expression of the life of a Being Who is a part of the body of the Logos or of the planetary Logos, but not a center of conscious energy. (A correspondence is found in the human body, which has its seven centers of force or energy, but also other organs upon which objective manifestation depends in lesser degree.) Such an Entity finds expression through the animal kingdom, of which He is the informing Soul, and He has definite place in the planetary or logoic body. This is a hint which has hitherto not been exoteric and is to be commended to the consideration of students. I would add that some of the tragedies underlying existence at this time are karmically incident upon temporarily faulty relations between an entity who dominated at one period of the third or moon chain, and the one holding analogous position in this the fourth or earth chain. This latter is the sumtotal of the [461] lowest human principle, if we count the dense physical or animal body of man as a principle. In their lack of agreement lies the clue to the cruelties practiced on animals by man.
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