It has taken us 19 presentations to lay out a broad outline of the plan for the evolution of our Solar System. We looked at the field in which this evolution is occurring. They are the successive chains, rounds and globes. We have also had a cursory look at the streams of life, which enter this field, allowing various kingdoms of nature to evolve until the monad enters the 4th Kingdom, which we think of as the human kingdom but in reality, applies to all the seven streams of evolution occurring in our chain. But if we just look at ourselves, a stream of life enters the chain and eventually becomes a human and then goes on to what we euphemistically call the superhuman stage.
We have taken a broad-brush approach so far, looking at the entirety of the plan, and omitting many modifications that occur along the way. So where do we start? Let us start at the beginning of our chain, Chain One. If you look at this diagram you can see that this first chain consists of two globes on Plane-45, two on Plane-46, two causal globes (47:1-3) and then one globe on the Mental plane (47:4-7). If you were to look up into the night sky, you would see precisely nothing. There is no physical globe to speak of. This makes describing this chain challenging.
If we look at our standard model of the precession of globes from A to G, in the First Chain, we have to think of them not as globes but more like centres of light in a sea of light. I feel this is going to get poetic again. Somewhere in this sea of light is a foci, through which light is rushing. Hang in there with me. We seem to be building with “light” and only light. This, to eyes that can see, may look very pretty but how is change affected in this dazzling display? I have not got a clue but can say that somehow all this ebbing and flowing of light, modifies the the structure of the foci and the light swirling around it. Remember, light is matter, so although it seems very nebulous, the physical nebulae we see through our telescopes are clouds of gas, which are very physical. In the same manner, the matter of Plane-45 is being manipulated and energised in some way, as to affect the evolution of the “light”.
So, the image we can conjure up is of a whirlpool of light. If we transfer this analogy to water; if there was a whirlpool in a pond, it would be composed of water in a larger body of water. Now, just transfer this image to matter found on Plane-45, the Atmic plane.
From this very inadequate description of the compositions of the globes of the First Chain, we can be sure of one thing. We are dealing with an environment that is so different from our present globe in the Fourth Chain, as to make it virtually impossible to visualise what is going on. What we can say is that the forms, whatever they may be, are subtle and changing. Getting poetic again, we can think of them as the matter, “the stuff of which dreams are made”.
So if we do not really have a clearly demarcated field of activity, such as a globe, how do we mark successive rounds? With great difficulty. Each round seems to fade into the next, dissolving from view and these rounds are marked by a slight increase or decrease in the amount of light that is emitted. Progress is very slow. Think of the description in the Hindu scripture of the Satya Yuga, where lives last thousands of years without much change.
Fig, Shows an image of the Yuga cycle. (example in Yaga cycle file)
The monads of the First Chain develop very slowly, as rays of magnetised light play upon them. It is like a gestation; like growth within an egg, or of a flower bud within its sheath. This chain may be thought of as future worlds in the matrix of thought; worlds that are later to be born into denser matter. Hence this, the first chain, is sometimes called the Archetypal Chain. That description seems to be reused when we look at Rounds, as well as Globe cycles.
If we look back at this diagram, we can see that seven streams of life that enter a chain; one has just emerged fresh from the Logos. The other six have been brought over from a preceding scheme of evolution, a scheme of which we know nothing at present, except that it must have existed. It is worth remembering that our present humanity was in its animal phase on the Third Chain, its plant phase in the Second Chain and the mineral phase on the chain we are now discussing.
Every chain has the regulation seven kingdoms present, the lowest elemental to humans. But Chain One did not have an Emotional or Physical globe. Does this matter? Yes, it does, as the modes of evolution are considerably different as a result of this. Just to name one example, all evolution, not only starts but also progresses from “above,” there being no ”below” and no forms, in the ordinary sense of that word. There are instead centres of life, living beings without stable forms.
There are no emotional or physical worlds from which impulses can surge “upwards,” calling down the higher to ensoul and use forms existing on the lower levels, as happens on our globe. The nearest approach to such action on the First Chain occurs on Globe D, which is on the mental plane, where the animal-like thought forms somehow reach upwards, attracting the attention of the subtle centres of consciousness floating above them. What are these centres? They are monads of course, what else could they be? Then more of the life of the guiding Manu pulses out into these monadic centres floating above the animal-like thought forms. They anchor themselves to the animal thought-forms and ensoul them and the thought-forms become human. This is all very tenuous to grasp but you were warned at the beginning, this was not going to be easy to get your heads around.
The chief interest of the First Chain was the evolution of the Devas, those who live habitually on these high levels; the lower evolutions seem to play a subsidiary part.
The Humanity of the time was influenced by these devas, mostly by their mere presence, and by the atmosphere created by them. The vibrations set up by the Devic kingdom played on the lower human types, strengthening and vivifying them. Occasionally a Deva may have taken a human being, almost as a toy or a pet on the mental Globe D. To give an example, a Deva may deliberately help a human being, transferring matter from their own body into the human and thus increasing its responsiveness and susceptibility to these energies. Such a Deva would be a Rûpa or form-Deva, living normally in the Mental World, even today.
Those kingdoms, which could loosely be called vegetable and mineral, are really composed of mere thoughts. The monads who dream in them, as it were, float over them, sending down faint thrills of life into the airy forms. It seems that the monads are now and again forced to turn attention to these forms, to feel through them, to sense through them, when some external touch sends a drowsy signal to the monad.
The construction of thought forms is how the mind of the Ruler of the Seven Chains begins the process of creating a chain and evolving life through it. These thought forms are all products of the Logos’ meditation. In and through these thought forms, monads, who have acquired permanent atoms in some previous Scheme, become vaguely conscious. The monad is an atom and a very permanent one at that, but when we talk about permeant atoms in this context, we are talking about the beginning of the construction of the triad structure. The devas are heavily engaged in this process.
This nascent developing consciousness, although difficult to perceive, has differences in it. If you look at us, we are a monad focused through a permanent atom or molecule, inhabiting a physical envelope made of tertiary matter. On the First Chain, we were at the mineral level of consciousness, which is barely consciousness in any meaningful way. In this vortex of the globe we happened to be evolving through at the time, we could be hovering over some form of proto-mineral substance, composed of tertiary matter. As the ensouling monad, we may from time to time, be aware of this “body” of mineral matter that was somehow attached to us. Through it, we would feel the faintest ideas of pressure or resistance to pressure. That is all, we as developing monads, were capable of processing at the time. Minerals evolve just like everything else, so the next grade of mineral, which we could think of as a metal, would allow us to feel the sense of pressure more strongly and our resistance to it more definite. This residence would manifest as an effort to push outwards, causing an expansion. When this sub-conscious reaction was in several directions, the thought-model of a crystal was formed. This is the highest form of mineral.
From the point of view of the tertiary consciousness in the mineral, only the sub-conscious reaction is felt. From the point of view of the quaternary consciousness outside the mineral, trying to feel the reaction from outside, a vague discontent at the pressure is noted, resulting in a dull resentful effort to resist and push against it. Maybe the quaternary monad, which remember was us, was seeking expression and vaguely felt displeasure at its frustration.
If we fast forward for a moment, quaternary monads attached to crystals in the First Chain do not enter the Second Chain in the lowest forms of vegetable life but appear in higher vegetable life. Evolving through the Vegetable Kingdom these monads enter the third chain, the Moon Chain, at its middle point as mammals, becoming individualised there, and taking human birth in its fifth round. This is an example of the principle of the ” overlapping” of the kingdoms. If you are a mineral, the objective is to evolve to become a crystal, this is the apogee of mineral existence, even on our globe. I am friends with many crystals and interact with some of them regularly. I wonder how much I am speeding up their further evolution in subsequent chains?
Now imagine this; as mineral monads, we were having the most rudimentary of thoughts. Thoughts are not immobile, so a hill may turn over or float away, or even change its form. Consequently, there is no ”solid” earth, but a shifting panorama, as is appropriate to worlds which come no lower than the mental plane of matter.
The level of attainment set for the humanity of the First Chain was that of the First Initiation (i1). Those who reached this standard entered on one or other of the Seven Paths. This surprises me, as surely you have to be much more conscious, at least at level 46, that of Unity Consciousness. Here, in our chain, the First Initiation just moves the focus of the mound from the 49:1 permanent atom to the 48:1 permanent atom. That is moving from the 1. Young Soul to the 2. Community Soul. This is not very far along the human development chain. But on the first chain, there was no physical or emotional envelope to speak of, so taking the (i1) must have yielded very different results. If the newly minted human monad chose the fifth path, on the Second Chain, it would participate in building the forms of the humanity of this new chain. Those engaged in this task are known as the Fifth Creative Hierarchy.
The monads of the Firth Creative Hierarchy were called by Blavatsky, Asuras, which literally means ”living beings.” Later the term was confined to living beings in whom intellect, but not emotion, was developed. These Asuras, acting on the Second Chain as Barhishads, were quite literally the fathers of Humanity. These entities then went on to serve, on the third chain, as Agnisvâttas. Think of these beings as higher-order “forefathers” of humanity working in the sixth Creative Hierarchy.
Those human monads evolving in the First Chain, who did not reach the First Initiation, entered the Second Chain at its midmost point and were the leaders of humanity on this chain. Some graduated at the close of the Second Chain and went on to work on the Third Chain as builders of the forms of humanity.
To finish off our look at the First Chain, it is worth pointing out that as far as is known, there were no “failures” from this chain, consequently there was no “Day of Judgment” of the First Order. The First Chain in Hindu mythology is known as the first body of Brahma, the Body of Darkness or of Night. We have decided to call it the Archetypal Chain.