We have now completed our sojourn into the realms of time and space. Over the course of the 27 presentations to date, I have outlined the form and structure of the Universe. I have spent a lot of time trying to describe what we mean by the term consciousness. Consciousness does not stand by itself. For this reason I have always tried to link it to the matter and the motion aspects of all of creation. Another area I have focused on has been the envelopes of incarnation that a monad uses to experience the planes of matter in the Cosmic Physical Kingdom. The fact that we have different envelopes on successively higher planes of matter may be a novel idea to some. However, it is key to understanding what exactly constitutes a monad as it passes through the Human Kingdom. It is to these various planes of existence that I now wish to return and review what they exactly are and how they link together.
What is a plane? This term refers to all the matter in the Universe that is derived from a particular type of atom. This is an important concept to grasp. As an example, the Emotional Plane is the sum total of all the matter that is formed out of 48-atoms. We know that each plane has seven subplanes. The most energetic and highest of these planes is atomic and the lower six are termed molecular. It is a mistake to think of these molecules in the same way we as we think of molecules on Earth. It is however fair to say that these molecules are made out of atoms and on the Emotional plane, those atoms are the 48-atom and only the 48-atom.
All lower forms of matter contain higher forms. You would therefore be correct in stating that a 48 atom or molecule must contain all higher forms of matter. This goes all the way back to the 1st, the highest plane. However, to become a 48-atom, a primary atom has joined with 48 other primary atoms to form the next lower plane of existence. To get to the 48th plane, this process has been repeated 47 time. So an atom on the 48th plane is now composed of 2.75e+79 primary atoms, aka monads. Molecules on the lower subplanes, even more. As long as the primary atoms hold this configuration, they are deemed to be functioning on the 48th plane of matter and are distinct from the 47th and the 49th planes above and below.
In contrast, a ‘world’ refers to the portion of matter of a particular plane associated with a planet. For example, the Mental World is a sphere of mental matter that surrounds and interpenetrates the Earth. Just as we have envelopes of incarnation, the Planetary Logos has envelopes as well. The Mental world is what surrounds this planet on that plane of existence.
So let’s look at the subtle worlds that surround the Earth, being mindful always that we are in fact talking about the body of a very great being. However, remember back to my presentation on ‘Who or what is ‘God’? The planetary Logos is one monad that controls the collective evolution of a great many other monads that inhabit its envelope’s of incarnation. By the way, that includes us. We are part of this collective being as well. It is important to note that I am grounding this discussion in relation to our planet, but what I say relates to subtle planes in general.
In previous presentations, I have outlined that the galaxy is a series of 49 interpenetrating spheres of matter. When we come down the cosmic ladder and get to the Cosmic Physical Plane, our solar system comprises a series of seven interpenetrating spheres of matter from just seven planes. At the planetary level, the number of interpenetrating spheres decreases to three planes. These are the physical/etheric, the emotional and the mental/causal.
Like humans passing through the 4th Kingdom, the Earth is composed of five bodies or worlds. These worlds are the same I have shown you in countless diagrams and consist of the causal, mental, emotional, etheric and physical worlds. Other visible planets are similarly constructed. I use the term ‘visible’ because there are a number of planets in our solar system that are not visible to us. Why is this? I have mentioned to you that our Earth periodically undergoes a destructive and rebirthing process. In each one of these transformations, it moves between one of the five world that I have just listed. For this reason, several planets are in other phases of their evolution and if they are not on the physical plane as we are, then we will not see them.
I have spoken about God being a collective and our planetary logos being a monad undergoing its own evolution. Well here is the thing, this planet is in a similar relation to the planetary logos as your body is to you. We evolve, using our physical bodies, to expand our consciousness. Our bodies themselves are composed of tertiary matter that is itself evolving. So it should not then come as a surprise to you when I say that the planet is a living entity that is on a separate yet parallel path to our own. Now here is some complete speculation on my part. I have told you that seven parallel streams of evolution are associated with the planet. I mentioned ourselves and the devas. I strongly suspect, what I have just said to you about the planet itself being on its own, yet parallel path to us, just may be one of those five unknown parallel streams alongside the two we know about.
Esoterics indicates that the Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has had, or will ever have physical life on it. I personally am not so sure about that but I have no obvious alternative scenario to present to you. Just know that I question this assertion myself. It is nevertheless true to say that all planets, visible and invisible, are homes to subtle life-forms of one type or another.
When planets die, their bodies dissolve, just like ours. The Moon is a dead planet, not just an orbiting satellite. This statement implies that the Moon was once a functioning, breathing planet, just like ours. Yes it was and it was the physical embodiment of the previous chain to ours. Here I go again getting into Chains and Globes. I keep telling you I will give you indigestion by talking about them, yet I can not keep away from the topic. This perhaps could be because is my favourite topic in all of esoterics. So please indulge me for a few minutes as I tell you that as a dead planet, the moon will take billions of years to break down. Ok let’s think about this in a way we can understand more easily. You know a tree is a living organism. You also know by now that it is a monad undergoing its own evolution. When the tree dies and is turned into a piece of furniture, the group of monads associated with that tree have moved on, yet the table is still there for you to admire. The same is the case with the Moon.
Back to my favourite topic; some humans currently evolving on Earth began their human evolution on the moon. Approximately half the humans currently associated with the Earth started their human existence on the moon. Life on the moon and by life I mean all the grades of existence from plants upwards, never migrated lower than the etheric plane of existence. On the Earth chain, life has descended as low as the physical plane this time.
In a previous presentation I mentioned that there are a grade of devas known as the Barhishads and they were responsible for developing the blueprints of our bodies. This was also the case for all the life we find on our planet today. The blueprints were set up in the previous chain, the Moon chain. This goes a long way to explaining why Earth was originally etheric and how this allowed for a rapid establishment of physical life once the new round started. If you already have a blueprint that is tried and tested, you need fewer prototypes to get to your preferred design. You can see in the evolution of species on this planet that improvements have gradually been made. Biologists call this evolution. I call is Devas getting better at their job.
Why are planets spherical? The reason is because various grades of matter are concentrically arranged around an ensouling monad. Our physical world includes the solid planet, the liquid oceans and the gases atmosphere. The subtle worlds interpenetrate the physical world just as water interpenetrates the soil. Successively higher subtle worlds extend further out into space around our physical globe. The Emotional world extends half way to the Moon and the Mental world, even further. Our personal emotional bodies vibrate at a frequency that exists within this greater structure. This shared level of existence is a space that is occupied by all seven of the life streams that are evolving on this planet.
The lower subplanes of the subtle worlds are nearer the surface of the Earth and the higher subplanes further out. The Earth’s subtle bodies are largely contained within its own physical body, just like our own. The lowest emotional subplane, 48:7 is in alignment with the lowest of the physical subplanes, 49:7. This has interesting implications and explains one of our enduing myths. All the Earth’s solid matter is blow our feet and therefore, so is most of the emotional subplane 48:7. We know that this lowest of subplanes is where the most disagreeable ‘elemental essences’ hang out. The ones that resonate to fear, hatred, loathing, despair etc. Well this subplane in esoterics is known as the ‘Under World’. So ‘Hell’ is literally inside the Earth!
The diagram presented highlights the relationship between certain realms and where these realms have their effects. The realm described by the Catholic Church as purgatory is found on the emotional plane from molecular levels 48:5 to 48:7. The remaining levels of the emotional plane is where discarnate monads would think they were in Paradise. These plans are known as consensus environments. These environments are constructed by the desire forms of millions of monads over time. They think this is what paradise should look like and promptly create it through their desires. If the emotional plane is paradise, the mental plane seems to be heaven. The bliss that is experienced here is several orders of magnitude greater than on the plane below. Another way of categorising these realms is to say that the physical and emotional planes are the realms of desire. The mental plane is divided between the realms of form and the formless. Another way of saying this is concrete and abstract.
I wish to reiterate a point I have made on a number of occasions. Of the seven subplanes presented in each plane, only six of them, the molecular subplanes (x:2-x:7) are accessible to human investigation. Our atomic subplane is located in our triads. We pass through these subplanes as we ascend into higher planes, but we lose consciousness as we do so. This we do when we sleep or when we die. We only gain access to this highest of subplanes when we leave the Human and enter the Unity Kingdom.
I have presented a table that shows the names used for the seven worlds we have been discussing. I have drawn up several lists used by different authors and traditions. The list I subscribe to was proposed by Lee Bladon in his excellent book, The Science of Spirituality. Laurency is the author responsible for giving us the current revealed levels of Pythagorean Hylozoics. I find the designation of planes 46 to 43 clearer in Bladon’s list. I however use the numbering system devised by Laurency. Most esotericists have learnt about the different planes of matter from the writings of authors of the Theosophical Society. I discuss the variations here shortly. I always find it useful to refer the many concepts about the universe back to what is presented in the Kabbalah. All the information about esoterics started its journey into western thought with the publication of Blavatsky’s magnum opus The Secret Doctrine. We were therefore treated to a list of Sanskrit terms and I include them here for completeness. I also list direct translations of these terms.
I want to conclude my introduction to the Planes of Existence by looking at alternative names for the seven planes. I start with the Emotional plane (48) which is often called the Astral Plane. ‘Astral’ refers to light. When a clairvoyant uses their expanded vision to see into the etheric and emotional planes, three times as many stars appear to be visible. This multiplication effect happens just with expanded etheric vision. You do not need to ‘raise’ your vision to the emotional plane to see this spectacle. For this reason the term Astral should really refer to the Etheric plane. It should be noted that ‘night’ does not exist on the Emotional plane. The light found on the Emotional plane is not blocked by the Earth as it rotates on its axis. Sunlight passes unhindered. The Divine Plane (44), is incorrectly referred to as the Monadic Plane by Theosophists. They mistakenly believe the 3rd Triad to be the monadic. Now you know this can not be the case. The monad is found embedded in the 43:1 atom. This resides outside the triadic structure of six permanent atoms and three permanent molecules.
Now that I think about it, the Theosophists also call the 46th plane the Buddhic. How can this be? I have mentioned that the monad known as the Lord Buddha took the 8th initiation and left the Solar System. He basically went cosmic. This monad no longer functions through a triad. From now on, his journey through the higher planes in the Universe are only in an atomic form. Once you go buddhic you relinquish your triad. Therefore you do not have the apparatus to operate on the Cosmic Physical Plane. This may surprise some. They may say, but surely such an exalted monad can do whatever it wants in the planes below its level of consciousness. This is true up to a point. But remember even though you can expand your consciousness to encompass all the planes below, you still have to have a physical vehicle to attach that consciousness to. If you have dissolved that triadic structure, then you can not construct the required lower envelopes to build up a body to incarnate into. Even to descend into the higher planes of the Cosmic Physical Plane is not possible. This is the reason why I have bouts of palpitations when esotericists refer to the Unity plane as the Buddhic plane.
In the next presentation I wish to go on to look at each of the worlds, the physical, the etheric, the mental and the causal in greater detail. I discuss what you find and do there.
Hi Kazim, looking at the physical plane from the perspective of modern physics, 49.4-49.7 are all states of matter of decreasing energy. However at 49.4 you do start to enter the realm of quantum mechanics. certainly at the level of quarks, that make up protons and neutrons, and electrons you are squarely into quantum relativism, wave particle duality and electric charges which appears to align well with the definition of 49.3 and possibly 49.2.
I am wondering your thoughts of how the next higher level of matter, the photon fits in? A photon, as a massless (to sciences ability to measure) point energy source, definitely exists in the physical objective plane since we can see and interact with it, and is intricately linked to the electron as it is produced and absorbed by electrons changing energy states. Since everything, is composed of matter, is the photon a distinct molecule/atom on a higher plane of matter 49.2/49.1, or might it be an elemental composed physical, emotional mental, … matter? I have other thoughts about how photons come into existence from stars and cease to exist in black holes, but I still need to think on that one a bit more. Thanks!
Hi Richard
Sorry for the late reply. Just saw this message. Need to check my website more often! LOL
You are correct. The photon is matter. We know this from the Slit Experiment. We also know that there is only matter in the Universe, so it is pointless trying to speculate what else is going on, unless it is firmly rooted in matter.
From a universal perspective, the photon is an absolutely gigantic structure. The atomic plane that makes up the substrate of the 49th plane is not accessible to us at all until we reach Plane-46 ourselves, in our evolutionary process. So the photon must be blow that for us to interact with it. Which level it is on, I have not got a clue. The photon can not be made of any matter found on Plane-48 or higher or we simply would not see it with the Plane-49 faculties.
By the way, if you watch Wal Thornhill’s destruction of the Black Hole hypothesis, you may decide to adjust you model about where photons come from and go to. See posted link.
https://youtu.be/Dk2-lH9ewuA
Cheers
Kazim