Western European stream·Esoteric Buddhism·CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HUMAN TIDE- WAVE.
A general account has already been given of the way in which the great evolutionary life-wave sweeps round and round the seven worlds which compose the planetary chain of which our earth is a part. Further assistance may now be offered, with the view of expanding this general idea into a fuller comprehension of the processes to which it relates. And no one additional chapter of the great story will do more towards rendering its character intelligi- ble than an explanation of certain phenomena connected with the progress of worlds, that may be conveniently called obscurations.
Students of occult philosophy who enter on that pursuit with minds already abundantly furnished in other ways are very liable to mis- interpret its earlier statements. Everything cannot be said at once, and the first broad explanations are apt to suggest conceptions in regard to details which are most likely to be erroneous with the most active-minded and
172ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
intelligent thinkers. Such readers are not con- tent with shadowy outlines even for a moment. Imagination fills in the picture, and if its work is undisturbed for any length of time, the au- thor of it will be surprised afterwards to find that later information is incompatible with that which he had come to regard as having been distinctly taught in the beginning. Now in this treatise the writer's effort is to convey the information in such a way that hasty weed- growths of the mind may be prevented as far as possible ; but in this very effort it is neces- sary sometimes to run on quickly in advance, leaving some details, even very important de- tails, to be picked up during a second journey over the old ground. So now the reader must be good enough to go back to the explanation given in Chapter III. of the evolutionary prog- ress through the whole planetary chain. Some few words were said then concerning the manner in which the life impulse passed on from planet to planet in " rushes or gushes ; not by an even continuous flow." Now the course of evolution in its earlier stages is so far continuous that the preparation of several planets for the final tidal-wave of humanity may be going on simultaneously. Indeed, the preparation of all the seven planets may, at one stage of the proceedings, be going on simulta* THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 173 neously, but the important point to remember is that the main wave of evolution — the fore- most growing wave — cannot be in more than one place at a time. The process goes on in the way which may now be described, and which the reader may be the better able to fol- low, if he constructs either on paper or in his own mind a diagram consisting of seven circles (representing the worlds) arranged in a ring. Calling them A, B, C, etc., it will be observed from what has been already stated that circle (or globe) D standi for our earth. Now the kingdoms of Nature as known .to occultists, be it remembered, are seven in number ; three hav- ing to do with astral and elementary forces, preceding the grosser material kingdoms in the order of their development. Kingdom 1 evolves on globe A, and passes on to B, as kingdom 2 begins to evolve on A. Carry out this system and of course it will be seen that kingdom 1 is evolving on globe G, while kingdom 7, the hu- man kingdom, is evolving on globe A. But now what happens as kingdom 7 passes on to globe B ? There is no eighth kingdom to en- gage the activities of globe A. The great pro- cesses of evolution have culminated in the final tidal-wave of humanity, which, as it sweeps on, leaves a temporary lethargy of Nature behind. When the life-wave goes on to B, in fact, globe
174ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
A passes for the time into a state of obscura- tion. This state is not one of decay, dissolu- tion, or anything that can be properly called death. Decay itself, though its aspect is apt to mislead the mind, is a condition of activity in a certain direction, this consideration afford- ing a clue to the meaning of a great deal which is otherwise meaningless in that part of Hindu mythology which relates to the deities presid- ing over destruction. The obscuration of a world is a total suspension of its activity ; this does not mean that the moment the last human monad passes on from any given world that world is paralyzed by any convulsion, or sub- sides into the enchanted trance of a sleeping palace. The animal and vegetable life goes on as before, for a time, but its character begins to recede instead of advancing. The great life- wave has left it, and the animal and vegetable kingdoms gradually return to the condition in which they were found when the great life- wave first reached them. Enormous periods of time are available for this slow process by which the obscured world settles into sleep, for it will be seen that obscuration in each case lasts six times l as long as the period of each.
1Or we may say five times, allowing for the half period of
morning which precedes and the half period of evening which fol- lows the dav of full activity. THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 175 world's occupation by the human life-wave. That is to say, the process which is accom- plished as above described in connection with the passage of the life-wave from globe A to globe B is repeated all along the chain. When the wave passes to C, B is left in obscuration as well as A. Then D receives the life-wave, and A, B, C are in obscuration. When the wave reaches G, all the preceding six worlds are in obscuration. Meanwhile the life-wave passes on in a certain regular progression, the symmetrical character of which is very satis- factory to scientific instincts. The reader will be prepared to pick up the idea at once, in view of the explanations already given of the way in which humanity evolves through seven great races, during each round period on a planet ; that is to say, during the occupation of such planet by the tidal wave of life. The fourth race is obviously the middle race of the series. As soon as this middle point is turned, and the evolution of the fifth race on any given planet begins, the preparation for humanity be- gins on the next. The evolution of the fifth race on E, for example, is commensurate with the evolution, or rather with the revival, of the mineral kingdom on D, and so on. That is to say, the evolution of the sixth race on D coin- cides with the revival of the vegetable kingdom
176ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
on E ; the seventh race on D with the revival of the animal kingdom on E ; and then when the last monads of the seventh race on D have passed into the subjective state or world of ef- fects, the human period on E begins, and the first race begins its development there. Mean- while the twilight period on the world preced- ing D has been deepening into the night of ob- scuration in the same progressive wa}^ and obscuration there definitely sets in when the human period on D passes its half-way point. But just as the heart of a man beats and respi- ration continues, no matter how profound his sleep, there are processes of vital action which go on in the resting world even during the most profound depths of its repose. And these pre- serve, in view of the next return of the human wave, the results of the evolution that preceded its first arrival. Recovery for the re-awaking planet is a larger process than its subsidence into rest, for it has to attain a higher degree of perfection against the return of the human life- wave than that at which it was left when the wave last went onward from its shore. But with every new beginning, Nature is infused with a vigor of its own, — the freshness of a morning, — and the later obscuration period, which is a time of preparation and hopefulness as it were, invests evolution itself with a new THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 177 momentum. By the time the great life-wave returns, all is ready for its reception. In the first essay on this subject it was roughly indicated that the various worlds mak- ing up our planetary chain were not all of the same materiality. Putting the conception of spirit at the north pole of the circle and that of matter at the south pole, the worlds of the de- scending arc vary in materiality and spiritual- ity, like those of the ascending arc. This varia- tion must now be considered more attentively if the reader wishes to realize the whole pro- cesses of evolution more fully than heretofore. Besides the earth, which is at the lowest ma- terial point, there are only two other worlds of our chain which are visible to physical eyes, — the one behind and the one in advance of it. These two worlds, as a matter of fact, are Mars and Mercury, — Mars being behind and Mer- cury in advance of us : Mars in a state of en- tire obscuration now as regards the human life- wave, Mercury just beginning to prepare for its next human period.1
1It may be worth while here to remark for the benefit of people
who ma}* be disposed, from physical science reading, to object that Mercury is too near the Sun, and consequently too hot to be a suitable place of habitation for man, that in the official report of the Astronomical Department of the United States on the recent ■'Mount Whitney observations " statements will be found that may check too confident criticisms of occult science along that line.
178ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
The two planets of our chain that are behind Mars, and the two that are in advance of Mer- cury, are not composed of an order of matter which telescopes can take cognizance of. Four out of the seven are thus of an ethereal nature, which people who can only conceive matter in its earthly form will be inclined to call immate- rial. But they are not really immaterial at all. They are simply in a finer state of materiality than the earth, but their finer state does not in any way defeat the uniformity of Nature's de- sign in regard to the methods and stages of their The results of the Mount Whitney observations on selective absorp- tion of solar rays showed, according to the official reporter, that it would no longer be impossible to suggest the conditions of an at- mosphere which should render Mercury habitable at" the one ex- treme of the scale, and Saturn at the other. We have no concern with Saturn at present, nor, if it were necessary to explain on oc- cult principles the habitability of Mercury, should the task be at- tempted with calculations about selective absorption. The fact is that ordinary science makes at once too much and too little of the Sun, as the storehouse of force for the solar system, — too much in so far as the heat of planets has a great deal to do with another in- fluence quite distinct from the Sun, an influence which will not be thoroughly understood till more is known than at present about the correlations of heat and magnetism, and of the magnetic, meteoric dust, with which inter-planetary space is pervaded. However, it is enough — to rebut any objection that might be raised against 1he explanations now in progress, from the point of view of Jpyal devotees of last year's science — to point out that such objections would be already out of date. Modern science is very progressive, — this is one of its greatest merits, — but it is not a meritorious habit with modern scientists to think, at each stage of its progress, )hat all conceptions incompatible with that stage must necessarily be absurd. THE HUMAN TIDE- WAVE. 179 evolution. Within the scale of their subtle "invisibility," the successive rounds and races of mankind pass through their stages of greater and less materiality just as on this earth ; but whoever would comprehend them must compre- hend this earth first, and work out their deli- cate phenomena by correspondential inferences. Let us return, therefore, to the consideration of the great life-wave in its aspects on this planet. Just as the chain of worlds treated as a unity has its north and south, its spiritual and ma- terial, pole, working from spirituality down through materiality up to spirituality again, so the rounds of mankind constitute a similar se- ries which the chain of globes itself might be taken to symbolize. In the evolution of man in fact, on any one plane as on all, there is a descending and an ascending arc ; spirit, so to speak, involving itself into matter, and matter evolving itself into spirit. The lowest or most material point in the cycle thus becomes the inverted apex of physical intelligence, which is the masked manifestation of spiritual intelli- gence. Each round of mankind evolved on the downward arc (as each race of each round if we descend to the smaller mirror of the cosmos) must thus be more physically intelligent than its predecessor, and each in the upward arc must be invested with a more refined form of
180ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
mentality commingled with greater spiritual in- tuitiveness. In the first round, therefore, we find man a relatively ethereal being compared even on earth with the state he has now at- tained here, not intellectual, but super-spiritual. Like the animal and vegetable shapes around him, he inhabits an immense but loosely organ- ized body. In the second round he is still gi- gantic and ethereal, but growing firmer and more condensed in body, — a more physical man, but still less intelligent than spiritual. In the third round he has developed a perfectly concrete and compacted body, at first the form rather of a giant ape than of a true man, but with intelligence coming more and more into the ascendant. In the last half of the third round his gigantic stature decreases, his body improves in texture, and he begins to be a ra- tional man. In the fourth round intellect, now fully developed, achieves enormous progress. The direct races with which the round begins acquire human speech as we understand it. The world teems with the results of intellectual activity and spiritual decline. At the half-way point of the fourth round here the polar point of the whole seven-world period is passed. From this point outwards the spiritual Ego begins its real struggle with body and mind to manifest its transcendental powers. Iu THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 181 the fifth round the struggle continues, but the transcendental faculties are largely developed, though the struggle between these on the one hand with physical intellect and propensity is fiercer than ever, for the intellect of the fifth round as well as its spirituality is an advance on that of the fourth. In the sixth round humanity attains a degree of perfection both of body and soul, of intellect and spirituality, which ordinary mortals of the present epoch will not readily realize in their imaginations. The most supreme combinations of wisdom, goodness, and transcendental enlightenment ivhich the world has ever seen or thought of will represent the ordinary type of manhood. Those faculties which now, in the rare efflores- cence of a generation, enable some extraordi- narily gifted persons to explore the mysteries of Nature and gather the knowledge of which some crumbs are now being offered (through these writings and in other ways) to the ordi- nary world, will then be the common appanage of all. As to what the seventh round will be like, the most communicative occult teachers are solemnly silent. Mankind in the seventh round will be something altogether too God- like for mankind in the fourth round to fore- cast its attributes. During the occupation of any planet by the
182ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
human life- wave, each individual monad is inevitably incarnated many times. This has been partly explained. If one existence only be passed by the monad in each of the branch races through which it must pass at least once, the total number accomplished during a round period on one planet would be 343, — the third power of seven. But as a matter of fact each monad is incarnated twice in each of the branch. races, and also comes in, necessarily, for some few extra incarnations as well. For rea- sons which are not easy for the outsider to di- vine, the possessors of occult knowledge are especially reluctant to give out numerical facts relating to cosmogony, though it is hard for the uninitiated to understand why these should be withheld. At present, for example, we shall not be able to state what is the actual duration in years of the round period. But a concession, which only those who have long been students of occultism by the old method will fully appre- ciate, has been made about the numbers with which we are immediately concerned ; and this concession is valuable at all events, as it helps to elucidate an interesting fact connected with evolution, on the threshold of which we have now arrived. This fact is that while the earth, for example, is inhabited, as at present, by fourth-round humanity, by the wave of human THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 183 life, that is to say, on its fourth journey round the circle of the worlds, there may be present among us some few persons, few in relation to the total number, who, properly speaking, be- long to the fifth round. Now, in the sense of the term at present employed, it must not be supposed that by any miraculous process any individual unit has actually traveled round the whole chain of worlds once more often than his compeers. Under the explanations just given as to the way the tide- wave of humanity pro- gresses, it will be seen that this is impossible. Humanity has not yet paid its fifth visit even to the planet next in advance of our own. But individual monads may outstrip their compan- ions as regards their individual development, and so become exactly as mankind generally will be when the fifth round has been fully evolved. And this may be accomplished in two ways : A man born as an ordinary fourth-round man may, by processes of occult training, convert himself into a man having all the attributes of a fifth-round man, and so become what we may call an artificial fifth rounder. But indepen- dently of all exertions made by man in his pres- ent incarnation, a man may also be born a fifth rounder, though in the midst of fourth-round humanity by virtue of the total number of his previous incarnations.
184ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
If x stands for the normal number of incarna- tions which in the course of Nature a monad must go through during a round period on one planet, and y for the margin of extra incarna- tions into which by a strong desire for phys- ical life he may force himself during such a period, then, as a matter of fact, 24^ (x -\- y) may exceed 28 x ; that is to say, in 3^ rounds a monad may have accomplished as many in- carnations as an ordinary monad would have accomplished in four complete rounds. In less than 3| rounds the result could not have been attained, so that it is only now that we have passed the half-way point of evolution on this half-way planet that the fifth rounders are be- ginning to drop in. It is not possible in the nature of things that a monad can do more than outstrip his com- panions by more than one round. This consid- eration, notwithstanding Buddha was a sixth- round man ; but this fact has to do with a great mystery outside the limits of the present calcu- lation. Enough for the moment to say that the evolution of a Buddha has to do with some- thing more than mere incarnations within the limits of one planetary chain. Since large numbers of lives have been recog nized in the above calculations as following one another in the successive incarnations of an THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 185 individual monad, it is important here, with the view of averting misconceptions, to point out that the periods of time over which these incarnations range are so great chat vast inter- vals separate them, numerous as they are. As stated above, we cannot just now give the act- ual duration of the round periods. Nor, indeed, could any figures be quoted as indicating the duration of all round periods equally, for these vary in length within very wide limits. But here is a simple fact which has been definitely stated on the highest occult authority we are concerned with. The present race of human- ity, the present fifth race of the fourth-round period, began to evolve about one million of years ago. Now it is not yet finished ; but supposing that a million years had constituted the complete life of the race,1 how would it have been divided up for each individual monad ? In a race there must be rather more than 100, and there can hardly be 120, incarna- tions for an individual monad. But say even there have been already 120 incarnations for
1The complete life of a race is certainly much longer than
this ; but when we get to figures of this kind we are on very deli- cate ground, for precise periods are very profound secrets, for rea- sons uninitiated students ("lay chelas," as the adepts now say, coining a new designation to meet a new condition of things) can only imperfectly divine. Calculations like those given above may be trusted literally as far as they go, but must not rashly be made the basis of others.
186ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
monads in the present race already, and say that the average life of each incarnation was a century ; even then we should only have 12,000 years out of the million spent in physical ex- istence against 988,000 years spent in the sub- jective sphere, or there would be an average of more than 8,000 years between each incarna- tion. Certainly these intervening periods are of very variable length, but they can hardly even contract to anything less than 1,500 years, — leaving out of account, of course, the case of adepts who have, placed themselves quite out- side the operation of the ordinary law, — and 1,500 years, if not an impossibly short, would be a very brief, interval between two rebirths. These calculations must be qualified by one or two considerations, however. The cases of children dying in infancy are quite unlike those of persons who attain full maturity, and for obvious reasons, that the explanations now al- ready given will suggest. A child dying be- fore it has lived long enough to begin to be responsible for its actions has generated no fresh Karma. The spiritual monad leaves that child's body in just the same state in which it entered it after its last death in Devachan. It has had no opportunity of playing on its new instrument, which has been broken before even it was tuned. A re-incarnation of the monad, THE HUMAN TIDE-WAVE. 187 therefore, may take place immediately, on the line of its old attraction. But the monad so re-incarnated is not to be spiritually identified in any way with the dead child. So, in the same way, with a monad getting into the body of a born idiot. The instrument cannot be tuned, so it cannot play on that any more than on the child's body in the first few years of childhood. But both these cases are manifest exceptions that do not alter the broad rule above laid down for all persons attaining ma- turity, and living their earth lives for good or evil.