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The Evolution of Life
From
A Textbook of Theosophy
By
C
All the
impulses of life which I have described as building the interpenetrating worlds
came forth from the Third Aspect of the Deity. Hence in the Christian scheme
that Aspect is called “the Giver of Life”, the Spirit who brooded over the face
of the waters of space. In theosophical literature these impulses are usually
taken as a whole, and called the first outpouring.
When the
worlds had been prepared to this extent, and most of the chemical elements
already existed, the second outpouring of life took place, and this came from
the Second Aspect of the Deity. It brought with it the power of combination. In
all the worlds it found existing what may be thought of as elements
corresponding to those worlds. It proceeded to combine those elements into
organisms which it then ensouled, and in this way it built up the seven
kingdoms of nature. Theosophy recognizes
seven kingdoms, because it regards man as separate from the animal kingdom, and
it takes into account several stages of evolution which are unseen by the
physical eye, and gives to them the mediaeval name of “elemental kingdoms”.
The divine
Life pours itself into matter from above, and its whole course may be thought
of in two stages the gradual assumption of grosser and grosser matter, and then
the gradual casting off again of the vehicles which have been assumed.
The
earliest level upon which its vehicles can be scientifically observed is the
mental – the fifth counting from the finer to the grosser, the first on which
there are separated globes. In practical study it is found convenient to divide
this mental world into two parts, which we call the higher and lower according
to the degree of density of their matter. The higher consists of the three
finer subdivisions of mental matter; the lower part of the other four.
When the
outpouring reaches the higher mental world it draws together the ethereal
elements there, combines them into what at the level correspond to substances,
and of these substances builds forms which it inhabits. We call this the first
elemental kingdom.
After a
long period of evolution, through different forms at that level, the wave of
life, which is all the time pressing steadily downwards, learns to identify
itself so fully with those forms that, instead of occupying them and
withdrawing from them periodically, it is able to hold them permanently and
make them part of itself, so that now from that level it can proceed to the
temporary occupation of forms at a still lower level. When it reaches this
stage we call it the second elemental kingdom, the ensouling life of which
resides upon the higher mental levels, while the vehicles through which it
manifests are on the lower.
After
another vast period of similar length, it is found that the downward pressure
has caused this process to repeat itself; once more the life has identified
itself with its forms, and has taken up its residence upon the lower mental
levels, so that it is capable of ensouling bodies in the astral world. At this
stage we call it the third elemental kingdom.
We speak
of all these forms as finer or grosser relatively to one another, but all of
them are almost infinitely finer than any with which we are acquainted in the
physical world. Each of these three is a kingdom of nature, as varied in the
manifestations of its different forms of life as in the animal or vegetable
kingdom which we know. After a long period spent in ensouling the forms of the
third of these elemental kingdoms it identifies itself with them in turn, and
so is able to ensoul the etheric part of the mineral kingdom, and becomes the
life which vivifies that – for there is a life in the mineral kingdom just as
much as in the vegetable or the animal, although it is in conditions where it
cannotmanifest so freely. In the course of the mineral evolution the downward
pressure causes it to identify itself in the same way with the etheric matter
of the physical world, and from that to ensoul the denser matter of such
minerals as are perceptible to our senses.
In the
mineral kingdom we include not only what are usually called minerals, but also
liquids, gases and many etheric substances the existence of which is unknown to
western science. All the matter of which we know anything is living matter, and
the life which it contains is always evolving. When it has reached the central
point of the mineral stage the downward pressure ceases, and is replaced by an
upward tendency; the outbreathing has ceased and the indrawing has begun.
When
mineral evolution is completed, the life has withdrawn itself again into the
astral world, but bearing with it all the results obtained through its
experiences in the physical. At this stage it ensouls vegetable forms, and
begins to show itself much more clearly as what we commonly call life – plant
life of all kinds; and at a yet later stage of its development it leaves the
vegetable kingdom and ensouls the animal kingdom. The attainment of this level
is the sign that it has withdrawn itself still further, and is now working from
the lower mental world. In order to work in physical matter from that mental
world it must operate through the intervening astral matter; and that astral
matter is now no longer part of the garment of the group soul as a whole, but
is the individual astral body of the animal concerned, as will be later
explained.
In each of
these kingdoms it not only passes a period of time which is to our ideas almost
incredibly long, but it also goes through a definite course of evolution,
beginning from the lower manifestations of that kingdom and ending with the
highest. In the vegetable kingdom, for example, the life-force might commence
its career by occupying grasses or mosses and end it by ensouling magnificent
forest trees. In the animal kingdom it might commence with the mosquitoes or
with animalculae, and might end with the finest specimens of the
mammals.
The whole
process is one of steady evolution from lower forms to higher, from the simpler
to the more complex. But what is evolving is not primarily the form, but the
life within it. The forms also evolve and grow better as time passes; but this
is in order that they may be appropriate vehicles for more and more advanced
waves of life. When the life has reached the highest level possible in the
animal kingdom, it may then pass on into the human kingdom, under conditions
which will presently be explained.
The
outpouring leaves one kingdom and passes to another, so that if we had to deal
with only one wave of this outpouring we could have in existence only one
kingdom at a time. But the Deity sends out a constant succession of these
waves, so that at any given time we find a number of them simultaneously in
operation.
We
ourselves represent one such wave; but we find evolving alongside us another
wave which ensouls the animal kingdom – a wave which came out from the Deity
one stage later than we did. We find also the vegetable kingdom, which
represents a third wave, and the mineral kingdom, which represents a fourth;
and occultists know the existence all round us of
three elemental kingdoms, which represent the fifth, sixth and seventh waves.
All these, however, are successive ripples of the same great outpouring from
the Second Aspect of the Deity.
We have here,
then, a scheme of evolution in which the divine Life involves itself more and
more deeply in matter, in order that through that matter it may receive
vibrations which could not otherwise affect it impacts from without, which by
degrees arouse within it rates of undulation corresponding to their own, so
that it learns to respond to them. Later on it learns of itself to generate
these rates of undulation, and so becomes a being possessed of spiritual
powers.
We may
presume that when this outpouring of life originally came forth from the Deity,
at some level altogether beyond our power of cognition, it may perhaps have
been homogeneous; but when it first comes within practical cognizance, when it
is itself in the intuitional world, but is ensouling bodies made of the matter
of the higher mental world, it is already not one huge world-soul, but many
souls. Let us suppose a homogeneous outpouring, which may be considered as one
vast soul at one end of the scale; at the other, when humanity is reached, we find
that one vast soul broken up into millions of the comparatively little souls of
individual men. At any stage between these two extremes we find an intermediate
condition, the immense world-soul already subdivided, but not to the utmost
limit of possible subdivision.
Each man
is a soul, but not each animal or each plant. Man, as a soul, can manifest
through only one body at a time in the physical world, whereas one animal soul
manifests simultaneously through a number of animal bodies, one plant-soul through,
a number of separate plants. A lion, for example, is not a permanently separate
entity in the same way as a man is. When the man dies – that is, when he as a
soul lays aside his physical body – he remains himself exactly as he was
before, an entity separate from all other entities.
When the
lion dies, that which has been the separate soul of him is poured back into the
mass from which it came – a mass which is at the same time providing the souls
for many other lions. To such a mass we give the name of “group-soul”.
To such a
group-soul is attached a considerable number of lion bodies – let us say a
hundred. Each of those bodies while it lives has its hundredth part of the
group-soul attached to it, and for the time being this is apparently quite separate,
so that the lion is as much an individual during his physical life as the man;
but he is not a permanent individual. When he dies the soul of him flows back
into the group-soul to which it belongs, and that identical soul-lion cannot be
separated from the group.
A useful
analogy may help comprehension. Imagine the group-soul to be represented by the
water in a bucket, and the hundred lion bodies by a hundred tumblers. As each
tumbler is dipped into the bucket it takes out from it a tumblerful of water
(the separate soul). That water for the time being takes the shape of the
vehicle which it fills, and is temporarily separate from the water which
remains in the bucket, and from the water in the other tumblers.
Now put
into each of the hundred tumblers some kind of coloring matter or some kind of
flavoring. That will represent the qualities developed by its
experiences
in the separate soul of the lion during its lifetime. Pour back the water from
the tumbler into the bucket; that represents the death of the lion.
The
coloring matter or the flavoring will be distributed through the whole of the
water in the bucket, but will be a much fainter coloring, a much less
pronounced flavor when thus distributed than it was when confined in one
tumbler. The qualities developed by the experience of one lion attached to that
group-soul are therefore shared by the entire group-soul but in a much lower
degree.
We may
take out another tumblerful of water from that bucket, but we can never again
get exactly the same tumblerful after it has once been mingled with the rest.
Every tumblerful taken from that bucket in the future will contain some traces
of the coloring or flavoring put into each tumbler whose contents have been
returned to the bucket. Just so the qualities developed by the experience of a
single lion will become the common property of all lions who are in the future
to be born from that group-soul, though in a lesser degree than that in which
they existed in the individual lion who
developed
them.
That is
the explanation of inherited instincts; that is why the duckling which has been
hatched by a hen takes to the water instantly without needing to be shown, how
to swim; why the chicken just out of its shell will cower at the shadow of a
hawk; why a bird which has been artificially hatched, and has never seen a
nest, nevertheless knows how to make one, and makes it according to the
traditions of its kind.
Lower down
the scale of animal life enormous numbers of bodies are attached to a single
group-soul – countless millions, for example, in the case of some of the
smaller insects; but as we rise in the animal kingdom the number of bodies
attached to a single group-soul becomes smaller and smaller, and therefore the
differences between individuals become greater.
Thus the
group-souls, gradually break up. Returning to the symbol of the bucket, as
tumbler after tumbler of water is withdrawn from it, tinted with some sort of
coloring matter and returned to it, the whole bucketful of water gradually
becomes
richer in color. Suppose that by imperceptible degrees a kind of vertical film
forms itself across the center of the bucket, and gradually solidifies itself
into a division, so that we have now a right half and a left half to the
bucket, and each tumblerful of water which is taken out is returned always to
the same half from which it came.
Then
presently a difference will be set up, and the liquid in one half of the bucket
will no longer be the same as that in the other. We have then practically two
buckets, and when this stage is reached in a group-soul it splits into two, as
a cell separates by fission. In this way, as the experience grows ever richer,
the group-souls grow smaller but more numerous, until at the highest point we
arrive at man with his single individual soul, which no longer returns into a
group but remains always separate.
One of the
life-waves is vivifying the whole of a kingdom; but not every group-soul in
that life-wave will pass through the whole of that kingdom from the bottom to the
top. If in the vegetable kingdom a certain group-soul has ensouled forest
trees, when it passes on into the animal kingdom it will omit all the lower
stages – that is, it will never inhabit insects or reptiles, but will begin at
once at the level of the lower mammals. The insects and reptiles will be
vivified by group-souls which have for some reason left the vegetable kingdom
at a much lower level than the forest tree. In the same way the group-soul
which has reached the highest levels of the animal kingdom, will not
individualize into primitive savages but into men of somewhat higher type, the
primitive savage being recruited from group-souls which have left the animal
kingdom at
a lower level.
Group-souls
at any level or at all levels arrange themselves into seven great types,
according to the Minister of the Deity through whom their life has poured forth. These types are
clearly distinguishable in all the kingdoms, and the successive forms taken by
any one of them form a connected series, so that animals, vegetables, minerals
and the varieties of the elemental creatures may all be arranged into seven
groups, and the life coming along one of those lines will not diverge into any
of the others.
No
detailed list has yet been made of the animals, plants or minerals from this
point of view; but it is certain that the life which is found ensouling a
mineral of a particular type will never vivify a mineral of any other type than
its own, though within that type it may vary. When it passes on to the vegetable
and animal kingdoms it will inhabit vegetables and animals of that type and of
no other, and when it eventually reaches humanity it will individualize into
men of that type and of no other.
The method
of individualization is the raising of the soul of a particular animal to a
level so much higher than that attained by its group-soul that it can no longer
return to the latter. This cannot be done with any animal, but only with those
whose brain is developed to a certain level, and the method usually adopted to
acquire such mental development is to bring the animal into close contact with
man.
Individualization,
therefore, is possible only for domestic animals, and only for certain kinds
even of those. At the head of each of the seven types stands one kind of
domestic animal – the dog for one, the cat for another, the elephant for a
third, the monkey for a fourth, and so on. The wild animals can all be arranged
on seven lines leading up to the domestic animals; for example, the fox and the
wolf are obviously on the same line with the dog, while the lion, the tiger and
the leopard equally obviously lead up to the domestic cat; so that the
group-soul animating a hundred lions mentioned some time ago might at a later
stage of its evolution have divided into, let us say, five group-souls each
animating twenty cats.
The
life-wave spends a long period of time in each kingdom; we are now only a
little past the middle of such an aeon, and consequently the conditions are not
favourable for the achievement of that individualization which normally comes
only at the end of a period. Rare instances of such attainment may occasionally
be observed on the part of some animal much in advance of the average. Close
association with man is necessary to produce this result. The animal if kindly
treated develops devoted affection for his human friend, and also unfolds his
intellectual powers in trying to understand that friend and to anticipate his
wishes. In addition to this, the emotions and the thoughts of man act constantly
upon those of the animal, and tend to raise him to a higher level both
emotionally and intellectually. Under favourable circumstances this development
may proceed so far as to raise the animal altogether out of touch with the
group to which he belongs, so that his fragment of a group-soul becomes capable
of responding to the outpouring which comes from the First Aspect of the Deity.
For this
final outpouring is not like the others, a mighty outrush affecting thousands
or millions simultaneously; it comes to each one individually as that one is
ready to receive it. This outpouring has already descended as far as the
intuitional world; but it comes no farther than that until this upward leap is
made by the soul of the animal from below; but when that happens this Third
Outpouring leaps down to meet it, and in the higher mental world is formed an
ego, a permanent individuality – permanent, that is, until, far later in his
evolution, the man transcends it and reaches back to the divine unity from
which he came. To make this ego, the fragment of the group-soul (which has
hitherto played the part always of ensouling force) becomes in its turn a
vehicle, and is itself ensouled by that divine Spark which has fallen into it
from on high. That Spark may be said to have been hovering in the monadic world
over the group-soul through the whole of its previous evolution, unable to
effect a junction with it until its corresponding fragment in the group-soul
had developed sufficiently to permit it. It is this breaking away from the rest
of the group-soul and developing a separate ego which marks the distinction
between the highest animal and the lowest man.
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The All Wales
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Reincarnation
This guide has been included in response
to the number of enquiries we receive on
this
subject at Cardiff Theosophical Society
From A Textbook
of Theosophy By C W Leadbeater
How We Remember our Past Lives
Life after Death & Reincarnation
The Slaughter of the
a great demand by the public for
lectures on Reincarnation
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
An Outline of Theosophy
Charles Webster Leadbeater
Theosophy - What it is How is it Known?
The Method of Observation General Principles
Advantage Gained from this
Knowledge
The Deity The Divine Scheme The Constitution of Man
The True Man Reincarnation The Wider Outlook
Death Man’s Past and Future Cause and Effect
Quotes from the Writings of
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100
It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts
that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented together on
Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find
themselves wedded in Eternity.
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108
It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes
any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is
impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness
remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal nature can
equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish and the
all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to the
perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.
Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14
Even ignorance is better than
Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.
The
Voice of the Silence, Page 43
Annotation - The Path, May, 1888
The Secret Doctrine , Proem [Volume 1], Page 35
Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 210
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 134
incarnation of
his God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 2, Page 374
It is the
motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 498
Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36
From strength to
strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the
greater beauty
and perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh
knowledge and
power in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus
becomes its own
saviour in each world and incarnation.
The Key to
Theosophy, Page 105
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69
The mind
receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 311
The Key to Theosophy, Page 228
A Student of Katherine Tingley
Katherine Tingley (1847 -1929)Was the
founder & President
of the Point Loma Theosophical
Society 1896 -1929
She and her students produced a
series of informative
Theosophical works in the early years
of the 20th century
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man?
Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation
Karma The Seven in Man and Nature
The Occult World
By
Alfred Percy Sinnett
The
Occult World is an treatise on the
Occult
and Occult Phenomena, presented
in readable style, by an early giant of
the
Theosophical Movement.
Preface to the American Edition Introduction
Occultism and its Adepts The Theosophical Society
First Occult Experiences Teachings of Occult Philosophy
Later Occult Phenomena Appendix
Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
Devachan
Cycles
Arguments Supporting Reincarnation
Differentiation Of Species Missing Links
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism
Karma Fundamental Principles Laws: Natural and Man-Made The Law of Laws
The Eternal Now
Succession
Causation The Laws of Nature A Lesson of The Law
Karma Does Not Crush Apply This Law
Man in The Three Worlds Understand The Truth
Man and His Surroundings The Three Fates
The Pair of Triplets Thought, The Builder
Practical Meditation Will and Desire
The Mastery of Desire Two Other Points
The Third Thread Perfect Justice
Our Environment
Our Kith and Kin Our Nation
The Light for a Good Man Knowledge of Law The Opposing Schools
The More Modern View Self-Examination Out of the Past
Old Friendships
We Grow By Giving Collective Karma Family Karma
National Karma
India’s Karma
National Disasters
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