We concluded the last presentation by mentioning in the 5th round, there will be, what is euphemistically called the “Great Separation”. At this time, approximately 24 billion human monads will leave this current chain and take up their future evolution in the next chain. This is a sobering thought.
After this “Great Separation,” the environment on Earth will be specially adapted for the rapid progress of the more advanced monads and will therefore be wholly unsuitable for entities at a much lower stage of evolution. The reason is obvious because of the gross vibrations of violent passion, which are necessary for the development of the inert and half-formed emotional bodies of 1. Young souls, will no longer be available. It is easy to imagine many ways in which this unsuitability will show itself. Thus, for example, in a world of high intellectual and spiritual development, where war and the slaughter of animals have long been things of the past, the existence of violent races of Humanity, full of undisciplined passions and desire for conflict, would, obviously, result in many serious difficulties and complications.
Those entities who are left behind will, as said, take their place in the next chain. They will not on that account suffer in any way. They will merely have a very prolonged period of rest. During this time, a certain amount of inner work is possible in their suspended condition. From that condition, they will descend into the earlier stages of the evolution of the next chain and will be among the leaders of the 1. Young humanity there. The remainder of that humanity will, of course, consist of human entities created from what is now, on the earth, our animal kingdom.
Another important reason why the great fifth round ”separation” is necessary, is that the later races of Humanity will be in much closer contact with the Hierarchy and the great devas than is now the case. It will therefore be necessary for them to hold themselves in an impressible condition, in readiness to receive and respond to an outpouring of influences. This, in turn, requires that they must live a peaceful and contemplative life, which would, of course, be an impossibility if there were still left in the world the disruptive monads who would attack and kill people for the slightest provocation.
The more powerful vibrations that will be active in this chain, would not rouse the higher nature of the monads who are destined not to make the “cut”. These vibrations would merely stimulate and intensify these monad’s lower passions so that they would gain nothing by being on Earth at that time. The presence of such monads makes impossible the progress of the more developed monads. It must not be assumed that all the monads, who succeed in passing the critical point in the Fifth round, will have the opportunity to attain the full goal set for this chain. What is that goal? To become an Asekha or Adept. A 45-self to you and me. On the contrary, it is estimated that only one-third of those who continue in the chain will become 45-selves. The other two-thirds will enter the next chain, the fifth, though not in its earlier stages; they will probably appear at about its middle point. For them, however, the matter will be complicated by the fact that the goal set for the fifth chain will be higher than that set for the fourth or present chain, i.e., it will be some level higher than that of the Asekha Adept (45).
Whilst we are dealing with this point, it is worth looking at what is likely to be the distribution of human monads at the end of our chain. We can enumerate six well-defined classes, though each of these might be further subdivided.
I. Those who, following the steeper Path, attain Adeptship (45) in rounds before the fifth.
II. Those who attain the goal set, and become Adepts in the seventh round. These are the vanguard of those who followed the usual path.
III. Those who attain the Arhat level (46) in the seventh round.
IV. Those who are on the three lower levels of the Path Proper, i.e., who have passed the 1st, 2nd or 3rd Initiations.
V. Those who ”failed”, at the critical point in the fifth round.
VI. The great body of the animal kingdom, who will arrive at individualisation into the human kingdom towards the end of the seventh round, and so will form the humanity of the Fifth Chain.
Of the total number of monads circuiting the Fourth Chain, approximately 60 billion, it is expected that about one-fifth will attain the Asekha (45) level before the end of the Seventh Round. Another fifth will by that time have gained the Arhat level (46); a third fifth will be on the lowest stages of the Path; the remaining two-fifths will have dropped out at the Great Separation in the middle of the Fifth Round.
Fig: Products of the Earth Chain
The diagram illustrates both the great ”separation” in the middle of the Fifth Round and also the distribution of human monads at the end of the chain. In the diagram, those who attained Adeptship (45) in rounds earlier than the seventh, are shown as reaching some level higher than that of the Asekha Initiation (i5), because, in all probability, they will have taken further Initiations by the time the chain is completed, and the diagram is intended to show the distribution at the end of the chain.
A similar phenomenon of a ”Judgement Day,” as was mentioned before, took place with regard to animals entering the human kingdom: this occurred in the middle of the fourth round of the present chain-the midmost point of our whole Scheme of Evolution, when the ”door was shut,” to use the commonly accepted phrase, against the animal kingdom joining the human kingdom. In this case, as in other Judgement Days, the statement must not be interpreted in too hard and fast a manner; for here and there an animal, by very special help, may still be assisted to evolve to a point where human incarnation is possible, but in almost all cases no human body can be found of sufficiently low development for its embodiment.
The door against further immigration into the human kingdom from the animal was shut only when no more were in sight or would be capable of reaching it without a repetition of the tremendous impulse given only once in the evolution of the Scheme, at its midmost point. This tremendous impulse was given by the descent of the Lords of the Flame from Venus and will be described in later presentations. An interesting point may be noted here. It seems as though the humanity of a chain can advance towards and enter the Path only when the individualising of animals on that chain has practically ceased and when only exceptional cases of individualisation are possible in the future. When the door of the human kingdom is shut against animals, then the door to the Path is opened to humanity.
The great body of our present animal life-stream, as previously explained, will arrive at individualisation only towards the end of the seventh round of our present chain and will therefore form the humanity of the next or Fifth Chain. But occasionally an animal, usually closely associated with humanity and specially developed in affection and intelligence, may be fortunate enough to attain individualisation in the present world period. Such an animal may be accommodated with a primitive human body at the commencement of the occupation by our lifestream of the next globe, Globe E in our present chain. Very few will be able to take advantage of this, which, so far as can be seen, will be the final opportunity to enter the human kingdom in the life of this chain.
The phrase ”shutting” the door” applies only to those animals who are coming up into the human kingdom in the present globe period, and not to those whose causal bodies, though primitive, are already formed. Thus the anthropoid apes, of whom Blavatsky spoke as still admissible to human bodies, belong to the animal kingdom of the Moon Chain, not to that of the Earth. They took up bodies produced by what is known as the ”sin of the mindless”, which will be explained in a later presentation. The apes we are speaking of are the gorillas, chimpanzees, orangoutangs, baboons and gibbons.
On that bombshell, let us enter into a mini-pralaya and reconvene next week, where we will continue to look at the underlying principles of the “Great Separation”. We are focusing on this main event in our chain, but there are a total of 400 “separations”, great and small in our chain, which will be outlined.