At the beginning of this series, we looked at Rounds and Globes. We observed that each globe of a chain, in turn, becomes fully active; then it passes into a period of obscuration, whilst the next globe in the chain becomes fully active for a time. This process is repeated, with each globe of the chain going through seven periods of full activity, with intervening periods of obscuration, or prâlaya. What we will look at today is known as the Inner Round.
Another way of describing this phenomenon is to say that the Logos fixes Its attention upon a given globe, and life bursts out. When this occurs, the evolution of the kingdoms pushes rapidly forward. When the Logos withdraws Its attention from the Life Wave on a Globe, the life fades away; the wheels of progress slacken. The wave of life passes on to the next globe of the chain to which the logos’ attention is turned. But on none of the globes does the life ever die out altogether. The term Life-wave will be used for the transference of life from one globe to another.
Fig; The Passage of the Life Wave
This diagram represents the idea being communicated. We see one globe in the full blaze of the attention of the Logos, whilst the other six globes enjoy only a tiny beam of the Logos’ Radiance, and are consequently in a condition of obscuration, which is partial but not complete. The passing of the life wave from one globe to another is a gradual process and there is a considerable degree of overlap.
If we look at our own chain at the present time, although the attention of the Logos is now fixed especially on our earth, which is consequently enjoying a period of maximum activity, there are still representatives of all the kingdoms of life, simultaneously existing, upon every one of the six other globes of the chain. These representatives, or nuclei, serve at least three purposes:
I. They obviate the necessity of creating from scratch, the forms for the kingdoms of life to occupy, during the next and succeeding periods of full activity. They thus furnish the seed, from which the forms will develop when the attention of the Logos is once more directed to the planet concerned, in the next round.
II. They serve as evolutionary fields for entities that are lagging behind their fellow monads.
III. They serve as forcing-houses for certain entities who are making unusually rapid progress.
Let us now look at these three functions in more detail. It would make good sense to leave representatives of the kingdoms on each globe. If this did not occur, a vast amount of labour and time would have to be expended, especially by the devas, each time a globe came into full activity. This would be needed to build up, from scratch, the myriads of forms for occupation by the kingdoms of life. Such a course would be highly uneconomical and is fortunately rendered unnecessary by the device of leaving a nucleus of each kingdom on each globe.
Scientists have marvelled at at the explosion of life during the Cambrian expansion about 500 million years ago. Putting aside the date for this explosion, which is twice what it actually was, how did we get such a proliferation of life so quickly? The explanation of a remnant nucleus of lives would explain it. It is also interesting to note that about 600 million years ago, the Earth was supposed to have been a giant snowball. Could this have been a pralaya?
The nucleus of each kingdom remains small. It usually maintains its numbers at about the same level through the untold millions of years that elapse before that planet again becomes active. When its turn for full activity arrives and a vast number of entities are ready to incarnate on it, the stagnant race suddenly becomes wondrously prolific; great changes and vast improvements of all kinds are quickly introduced, and vehicles are soon evolved fit to receive the coming inrush of entities far more highly evolved than those in the original nucleus. This is illustrated in this diagram, which represents our own chain. The original seven kingdoms on Globe C are shown dotted, indicating that they have disappeared except for a much shrunken nucleus, as represented by the small squares. The wave of life then passes on to the next globe, the Earth, where it becomes fully active, the kingdoms then reaching their maximum size.
Fig: The nuclei of the planet in the Inner Round
When the time comes for the wave of life to leave the Earth and pass on to Globe E, the nuclei, which exist there will become prolific and expand until, as represented in the diagram by the arrows radiating outward from the nuclei to the larger squares, which represent the full-sized kingdoms. The nuclei on Globes A, B, F and G are ticking over, waiting for the life wave to pass through them once again.
We come now to the second function of the nuclei, the provision of a field of evolution for backward entities. Towards the end of every round, there are always certain entities, in all the kingdoms, which do not achieve quite what was expected of them; consequently, when the evolution on Globe F is completed, they are not fit to go on to Globe G. They are, accordingly, left behind, and continue to work on steadily among the remnant nuclei. They may, in the process of time, make sufficient progress to join the remnant nuclei on Globe G. Possibly, also, by some extraordinary impulse, occasionally some monads may hurry on and overtake the wave of life out of which they have dropped. More often, however, they will continue to lag behind, until they are overtaken by the wave of life on its next journey around the globes. In that case, they, we refer here of course to human
Monads, usually find themselves in a class of Monads lower than that to which they previously had belonged. Such laggards thus fall behind the life wave and, by losing one round, drop into an inferior class. As already said, a certain proportion of these laggards appear on every planet and in all the various kingdoms, e.g., mineral monads that fail to reach the vegetable kingdom, vegetable life that fails to reach the animal kingdom and animals that fail to become individualised as human beings. This next diagram illustrates the process.
Fig: The Inner Round: Speeding up
On Globe D, the Earth, is shown two classes of entities, Nos. I and II. Under certain conditions of a strong desire for advancement, an entity of Class II, if they are seen to be striving with exceptional vigour to improve themselves, may be separated from the great mass of their cohort of monads on this planet and passed by the Hierarchy into the Inner Round proper, taking their next incarnation, not on the Earth, but among the limited population on Globe E. In that case, they will spend the same amount of time that they would otherwise have devoted to incarnations in one root race on the Earth and will then pass on to the Emotional planet F. After a similar stay there, they will be transferred to Globes G, A and B, successively, and then to Globe C and on to the Earth.
Taking into account the fact that on each globe, these monads will have dwelled for a period of time equivalent to the normal period of a Root Race, the life-wave will have left the Earth by the time these monads workaround to it again and will have passed on to Globe E. Here they will rejoin the steam they came from, but now as a member of Class I; and with that Class, they will continue their evolution. By thus racing around the whole series of seven planets of the chain, they have raised themselves into a higher class of Monad.
Entities, engaged upon this special line of evolution, form the majority of the small population of Globes C and E at present. But on Globe C there is also a certain residue of primitive Humanity, which was left behind when the life wave passed from Globe C to the Earth, being unfit to come to the Earth with the rest of their cohort. This group of monads represents a stage of humanity lower than can be currently found on Earth. That level of human development is not going to be found for a long time before we reach Globe C in the fifth round since there appear to be no other monads needing manifestation at that level for the time being. Remember, each chain is a series of schools, with classes available for studies for a range of abilities. But each batch of Monads gradually evolves and if a monad is not able to or is too lazy to keep up, eventually, they will have to decamp to another chain, altogether, when a suitable one becomes available.
On that cheerful note, we will end this presentation and continue next time by starting to look at a very vexing topic, “Judgement Day”. What, exactly, does this term mean and how has it crept into our mythology?