THE GOALS OF OUR SEVEN CHAINS
WE have already seen that each life-stream climbs steadily up the kingdoms, at the average rate of one kingdom in each chain, until it reaches the human kingdom. Continuing to evolve through the human kingdom, it eventually rises out of ordinary humanity, as we know it, enters the super-human kingdom, and passes along one or other of seven possible paths of future progress and service. We shall enumerate and describe these seven possible paths presently.
But the stage at which human entities emerge from the ordinary human evolution, and enter the superhuman kingdom, varies considerably, according to the chain in which the emergence takes place. Thus the level reached by the most advanced humanity in the fourth chain is a great deal higher than that attained in the first chain: the level that will be reached in the seventh chain will be a still higher one.
There is, in fact, what may be called a ”goal” set for humanity in each chain. This goal we may compare with the passing-out examination at an educational establishment. But, to complete the analogy, we must conceive of a certain class of students who pass out of the university after, say, only one year of tuition. They have reached a certain standard of education and, as the world needs all grades of workers, they may be considered qualified to perform certain grades of tasks in the outer world.
At the end of the second year of tuition, another group of students passes out: they will obviously have been able to reach a st andard higher than that attained by the first-year students, and consequently will be qualified to fill posts of greater responsibility in the outer world.
Similarly, after three years at the university, a third group of students passes out, again at a higher level, having
qualified themselves for posts of still greater responsibility, and needing more knowledge and experience. The process may be considered as continuing for seven years, until the seventh batch of students passes out, having attained a very high level and having learnt, perhaps, practically all that the university can teach them.
The university is then closed for a long vacation: or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is broken up, the buildings demolished, and the teaching staff dispersed. Such students who have not passed out of the university will resume their education in some future university, with a fresh staff of instructors, and an entirely new set of buildings. Returning from this analogy to our own seven chains in our Scheme, the goals, or
qualifying ”passing-out” examinations, are as follows:
For the First Chain . The First Initiation.
For the Second Chain . The Third Initiation.
For the Third Chain . The Fourth Initiation (that of the Arhat).
For the Fourth Chain . The Fifth Initiation (that of the Asekha Adept).
No definite information is available regarding the goals set for the fifth, sixth and seventh chains. We may, however, indulge in a few cautious speculations. It is well known that, whilst in the very early stages of evolution, progress is almost inconceivably slow, as we measure time, yet in the later stages it becomes almost equally incredibly swift. The Master Kûthhûmi has stated that ”when once a person enters upon the Path, if he converges all his energies upon it [we have ventured to italicise this qualification], his progress will be neither by arithmetical nor geometrical progression, but by powers.”
That is to say, it would not be in the ratio 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. (arithmetical progression), nor in the ratio 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. (geometrical progression), but in the ratio 2, 4, 10, 256, 65,536, 4,294,907,296, etc. Thus a rate of progress expressed by 2, becomes, four stages later, one expressed by a figure exceeding 4,000 millions. With such vast figures does nature achieve her immense purposes.
We may therefore legitimately assume that the progress made in the fifth, sixth and seventh chains will be enormously greater than that achieved in the first four chains. That this must be so is clear from the fact that the level of Arhat, reached at the end of the third chain, may be considered as halfway to that of the Adept, reached at the end of the fourth chain. Thus the fourth chain seems to afford as much progress as the three first chains.
It is stated in The Secret Doctrine (I, 228) that the Perfected Men of the Seventh Round of our chain will be ”but one remove from the Root-Race of their Hierarchy, the highest on Earth and our Terrestrial Chain.” That is to say, the perfected men of our humanity, after three-and-a-half more rounds of evolution, will arrive one stage below that at which now stands the ,”Lord of the World,” an Entity who will be described in Chapter XIX.
There are, moreover, a number of considerations which indicate a very high level of attainment for humanity at the end of our seventh chain. Thus, for example, even the buddhic consciousness gives a man his first touch of unity with the Logos. The Asekha Adept strives to raise the consciousness of His Monad into the consciousness of the Logos. The Monads are projected from the Logos in order that they may eventually return to Him as great and glorious suns, each capable of giving life and light to a magnificent system, through which and by means of which millions of other Monads may in turn develop. Each Monad has come, into manifestation through one of the Planetary Chain Logoi, and will eventually become part of a Heavenly Man, these Heaven-born Men being the true inhabitants of the solar system, the mind-born sons of the Planetary Logoi, destined themselves to be the Planetary Logoi of the future. We may therefore surmise that, at the end of the seventh chain, when our Scheme of Evolution is completed, the level we shall have reached will be,
shall we say, something commensurate with that of a Planetary Logos.
Diagram XVI may perhaps assist the student to memorise the goals set for our chains. In the diagram, the seven chains are arranged concentrically, the first being the innermost, the seventh the outermost. The wave of life which passes round the chains enters the first chain, and may be conceived as swinging round the globes and then, much as a stone is propelled when released from a whirling sling, projecting the most advanced
humanity up to a certain level, viz., that of the First Initiation.
The remainder of the life-wave enters the second chain, swings round its globes and, in so doing, this being on a larger circle in the diagram, attains a higher velocity, precisely as would happen to a stone when whirled in a larger circle, this higher velocity enabling it to project its most advanced humanity to a higher level, viz., that of the Third Initiation. Similarly with each of the succeeding chains, the velocity of evolution becoming greater and greater as the circles become larger, until the seventh circuit is able to project its most advanced members to a very high, but as yet unknown, level.
We have just seen that when an entity has achieved the level set for humanity in any given chain, he commences his superhuman evolution, and there open before him seven paths, of which he may choose one. The seven paths are as follows:
(1) He may enter Nirvâna, to become perhaps in some future world an Avatâra, or divine Incarnation. This is sometimes called ”taking the Dharmakâya vesture,” the Dharmakâya keeping nothing below the Monad.
(2) He may enter on the ”Spiritual Period,” a path which includes that of ”taking the Sambhogakâya vesture”; he then retains his manifestation as a triple spirit and can probably show himself in a temporary Augoeides.
(3) He may ”take the Nirmânakâya vesture,” retaining his causal body and all his permanent atoms.
(4) He may remain a member of the Occult Hierarchy.
(5) He may pass to the next chain, to help building its forms.
(6) He may join the Deva evolution.
(7) He may join the ”Staff” of the Logos. For further details of these seven paths the student is referred to
The Causal Body, p.321.
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