Today we start by looking at a fundamental principle that is repeated over and over again at many different levels throughout the Solar System. These are the seven great stages of Involution and Evolution. The classical way of looking at this is that there are three stages where matter Spirit descend into Matter and Life evolves into Form. In the fourth stage, there is a conflict between Matter and Spirit, between Life and Form. After this, the three remaining stages are of the ascent of Spirit. The process that is occurring here is that Life evolves through and out of Form.
As a Hylozoician, I do not see any distinction between spirit and matter, for there is always matter present so how can you evolve out of it? The Gnostic view of the Universe that leads to the renunciation of all things material, which is awkward as we are incarnated on the 4th Globe of the chain, is as dense as matter can get. So if we rephrase this concept of a descent from Spirit into Matter, we could say that monads descend into denser agglomeration of atoms until a point is reached where further descent is not possible. In this process, the monad comes to realise itself as a discrete point of created energy, encapsulated within form. In the words of the song, from here “The only way is up”.
Anyway, let’s get back to the old analogies because they are, nothing, if not poetic. During its descent, Spirit may be conceived as brooding over Matter, imparting qualities, and giving to Matter powers and attributes. The fourth stage, however, stands alone; Matter, having received or acquired various powers and attributes, comes into manifold relations with the informing Spirit. This is the great battle of the universe, the tremendous conflict between Spirit and Matter, the battle of Kurukshetra, of the vast hosts of the two opposing armies, as Hindu scriptures describe the process.
In the fourth stage of descent in this Field, is the point of balance. The Spirit, coming into innumerable relations with Matter, is at first overpowered; then comes the point of balance, when neither has the advantage over the other. Then slowly the Spirit begins to triumph over Matter, so that, at the end of the fourth stage, Spirit is the master of Matter, and is ready for the ascent through the three stages that complete the seven. This poetic view expresses life as a struggle, rather than a carefully planned set of experiences that allows the monad to grow and reach its full potential, without there having to be good guys (spirit) and bad guys (matter).
Here is a quote from Arthur Powell. “During the last three stages, the Spirit organises the Matter, which it has mastered and ensouled, and turns it to its own purposes; shapes it for its own expression, so that Matter may become the means whereby all the powers of the Spirit shall be made manifest and active, being shaped into the perfect vehicle which the Spirit needs in order to manifest itself perfectly.”
This depends on how you look at things. What is deemed to be Spirit is in fact a lump of matter, a monad, that is not particularly consciousness. The way the story is told you would think that somehow Spirit was beating Matter into submission for its own benefit. Where I would agree with this passage is that Spirit, i.e., the monad, does, through the use of an envelope of matter, ensoul more matter. But everything in this equation is matter and the process of ensoulment is as beneficial to Spirit as it is to Matter. As one’s consciousness evolves, the monad is then capable of manipulating and moulding matter to meet the requirements that every agent within creation plays within the Divine Plan of the Absolute.
During the descent of Spirit, often called the down-ward arc, there is not only a tendency towards greater materiality, the Spirit involving itself in Matter in order to learn to receive impressions through it, but there is also a tendency towards differentiation, the stream of Divine Life dividing and sub-dividing itself into an ever-increasing number of streamlets and units of consciousness. As the monad begins to ascend through and then out of the 1st triad, the monad is learning, not to dominate, but to manipulate matter. It starts by seeing this matter as an expression of itself. Witness the numerous TikTok videos where the camera is self-directed. This leads towards a tendency of even greater differentiation. This, however, leads eventually to a realisation that materiality is not where the monad needs to, ultimately, be focused. Where does one then go from here? It is towards Unity (46). At this stage, the monad, having learnt perfectly how to receive impressions through matter and how to express itself through it, and having awakened its dormant powers, learns to use these powers rightly in the service of the Logos and Life. This principle, as has already been said, is repeated over and over again, at many levels. It may be seen in operation in successive Chains, Rounds, Globes, Races, and Sub Races. If you remember back to the diagram of the seven planetary chains, you can see this descent and ascent as it happens at the macro level in our Solar System.
In the case of the Globes of any particular Chain, the diagram shows that the Globes of each Chain descend and ascend again in a degree of materiality. The three pairs of Globes, A and G, B and F, and C and E, in any Chain, are closely linked; but the earlier globes, A, B and C, may be regarded as rough sketches, the others, E, F and G, as the finished picture.
The first globe, Globe A, may be regarded as the root or seed of the Chain, and the last globe, Globe G, as the flower or fruit of the Chain. Hence Globe A is sometimes spoken of as the root world; Globe G, similarly, is sometimes called the seed world because, though it produces the fruit or final product of its own Chain, it also provides the seed for the following Chain. In the first three globes of a Chain, forms are evolved; in the fourth globe the gulf is spanned between the forms and over-brooding spirits, and the forms become ensouled; in the latter three globes, the spirits shape the forms to their will. It is worth thinking about what an over-brooding spirit is actually doing. Whatever vehicle a monad uses to experience life on Globe D, it has to be constructed it first. Now does that mean we were busily hammering away at a statue of ourselves? Of course not. For a start, it is the devas that do the hammering. But a relationship has to be built between the form we will eventually take and the matter that goes to make up that form. All is life, so it is not as if we are hovering over inanimate objects. We are not even individually conscious. But somehow, there is a magnetic exchange between our monads, and indeed the monads of all the four lower kingdoms, and the forms of tertiary matter that they will be linked to in furtherance of their evolution. Remember, your body is not a principle. It is just a collection of tertiary matter that is assembled by friendly devas to give us a physical vehicle to inhabit the lowest three subplanes of the 4th globe. When I use the term “us” I do not just mean us humans, but animals, plants and minerals as well. Remember we were once them.
Globe A of a Chain is sometimes called the archetypal globe because it contains the archetypes of the forms to be produced in the round. But, as Blavatsky said: ”the word archetypal, must not be taken here in the sense that the Platonists gave to it, i.e., the world as it existed in the mind of the Deity; but in that of a world made as a first model, to be followed and improved upon by the worlds which succeed it physically”. In future presentations when we come to consider races and sub-races, we will see exactly the same principles in operation.
In our Scheme of Evolution, we are at present just past the middle point. The central point of the whole Scheme would be in the Fourth Chain, Fourth Round, Fourth Globe, and Fourth RootRace. Hence the actual middle point fell in the time of the last great Root Race, the Atlantean. As the Âryan race, the latest to appear on this Globe is the Fifth Root-Race of the Fourth Globe, the human race as a whole is very little more than halfway through its evolution, measuring this purely arithmetically in terms of the stages through which it has to pass.
What have we learned today? Spirit descends into matter and then gets into a big bun fight with that matter, eventually beating it into submission and using it at its will. How does this happen? Over a series of globes, which are passed through seven times each. The first three globes of a round, serve as a rough sketch of the last three globes of that round. On each pass around a series of globes, a monad activates more sub-divisions of the seven subplanes of each envelope. On each successive round of a chain, the already activated matter is refined even further. There is a stage of perfection that is reached by each kingdom at the end of each chain. This will form the topic for discussion in the next presentation before we go on to look at the concepts of time and dates when all this activity was supposed to be occurring.