Where have we got to so far? We have covered the brief history of two chains in our Earth Scheme, the First and the Second. In that First Chain, we humans, today, were evolving through Mineral Kingdom. It is pointless equating the Mineral Kingdom on the First Chain, with what we see today, as the lowest globe in the First Chain only went down to a mental globe (D). If we are not talking about physical rocks and crystals, what was going on in that first chain to call one stream of evolution mineral? It is all about consciousness development and how the monads, who were at this stage of their evolution, interacted with the devic stream.
It is worth remembering that the evolution from the Mineral to the Human Kingdom involves the gradual isolation of a monad into its own set of envelopes, rather than sharing either, emotional and mental envelopes through a group soul. So on the First Chain, the monads at the mineral stage of consciousness (us), shared their mental, causal, unity and lower spiritual envelopes. They gradually became surrounded by an individual mental sheath, as they became surrounded by an etheric one on the fourth globe of our chain. I can not see why, as they did not need a mental envelope yet. Something else was going on but I have no indication of what that was.
In the Second Chain, our evolution continued and we began to “feel” in a different way and started to have likes and dislikes. We were in the Plant Kingdom now, but not as you know it, as Mr. Scott of Star Trek fame would say. Soon, or not so soon, depending on how you see your time horizons, the Second Chain dissolved and fed its life forms to the Third or Moon Chain. This chain follows the same pattern and descends a further stage in materiality, possessing two causal globes, two mental globes, two emotional globes and one physical globe. The middle globe (D), the scene of the greatest activity of the chain, still survives as our Moon. The Moon that we see at present is only what is left after it lost most of its matter, partly to Earth. Its inner core after the disintegration of the crust, was much smaller in size. It will eventually be totally destroyed in the seventh round of the Earth chain.
The level set for the humanity of the Moon Chain was that of the Arhat (46), or Fourth Initiation (i4). This is the first level of the 5th Kingdom of Nature and exists on Plane 46. The Moon Chain is known also as the Body of Twilight, the Sandhyâ. The ”successes” of the chain are known as Barhishad Pitris. They were destined to become our forefathers, the archetypes for Humanity in our chain. They were concerned, in the case of those who worked on the Earth Chain, with guiding physical evolution, for which purpose they entered the Seventh Creative Hierarchy. We have talked about three creative hierarchies so far, the 5th, 6th and 7th. In Theosophical terms, the creative hierarchy is divided into twelve Orders, with seven of them connected to our Planetary Chain. I hope you remember that the successes of the First Chain were the Asuras. They served on the Second Chain as Barhishad Pitris, and on the Third Chain as Agnishvâtta Pitris. These are all fancy names for “forefathers” of different grades.
Little is known of the first five rounds of the Moon Chain with regard to the animal kingdom, so let’s see what we know. This kingdom was of course the Mineral Kingdom in the First Chain, the Vegetable Kingdom in the Second Chain, and is now ourselves, the human kingdom in the Earth or Fourth Chain.
The crest of this particular life-stream entered the Moon chain as mammals at its middle point, appearing on Globe D (the Moon) in the fourth round. They did not need to come in any earlier.
The servers and other groups in the Moon chain
Leadbeater describes this animal life, as he was able to perceive it in his studies. I will share some of what he described for completeness. These mammals were curious creatures, small but extraordinarily active. The most advanced was monkey-like in form, being able to jump considerable distances. These fourth-round creatures were as a rule, first scaly in skin, the skin becoming later frog-like. Further in time, the most advanced types develop bristles, which form a very coarse harsh fur. Take note of this because you are seeing in this pattern what is repeated in the evolution of terrestrial life on our globe. It starts with reptiles, although it could refer to fish-like scales. I say this because on Earth amphibians are the older order. But Leadbeater says next came amphibians and finally mammals. It is worth noting that birds develop into the Devic Kingdom, not the Human.
The air was very different from our present atmosphere, heavy and stifling, reminding one of a choking, damp smog; but it obviously suited the Moon’s inhabitants. I don’t know the compositions of these gases. The small mammals we are considering had long bodies and short legs, a mixture of weasel, mongoose and prairie-dog, with a short scrubby tail, altogether clumsy and seeming to be unfinished. They were red-eyed and able to see in the darkness of their burrows; coming out of the holes, they raised themselves on their hind legs, which formed a tripod with their short strong tail, and turned their heads from side to side, sniffing. They were fairly intelligent and the relations between them and Humanity, in one district at least was observed by Leadbeater, to be more friendly than between wild animals and Humanity today on Earth. They were not domesticated but made no effort not scuttle away on the approach of the humans of that chain. In other parts of the globe, where humanity was less evolved, the animals life was eaten when they could be caught. Leadbeater seemed to imply that the younger evolved souls had cannibalistic tendencies as well. I am not sure if this was observed or was just part of the cultural prejudice of the times towards people who were considered to be less “civilised” than themselves. In these neighbourhoods, the wild creatures were timid and avoided human contact.
After this first stage of their evolution, these animals evolved into creatures that became arboreal, living in trees. Their limbs were double-jointed, the feet padded, with a thumb-like projection at right angles to the limb, like the spur of a cock. They were armed with a curving claw. Running rapidly along the underside of branches, like an over-active sloth. These animals used their claws to hold on to branches, the remaining part of the feet being useless. But when moving on the ground they walked on the pads of their feet, the spur being above ground level and therefore not impeding movement. Animals more highly developed than these, and far more intelligent, were monkey-like in form, live habitually in human settlements, serving in various ways the humanity to whom they are strongly attached. This is a colourful snapshot that Leadbeater gave us but it does highlight an idea that there were grades of mammals, like we have today and the most evolved were domesticated examples.
This class of domesticated animals became individualised on Globe D of the fourth round. On Globes E, F and G, they develop human emotional and mental bodies. The causal body, though fully formed, showed little development. These monads had three rounds of development as human beings and as we shall see later, leave the Moon Chain in the middle of the seventh round.
Now here is a fun tidbit of information that Leadbeater gave us. The master Morya and Koot Hoomi, aka Pythagoras, are both destined to be the Manu and the Bodhisattva, respectively, of the Sixth Root Race on the Earth in the fourth round. These two monads had their human beginnings here. So from their humble beginning, several Masters in the Earth Chain, more than just these two, evolved.
After leaving Globe D, the mammals that I described first, slept through the remainder of the fourth round and the first three globes of the fifth round. Very shortly after physical death, these animal monads lose their emotional and incomplete mental bodies and having no causal envelope, they sleep in a variant of devachan; what we call the Mental World. They were no longer in touch with Globe D. In the fifth round, on Globe D again, they appeared as large monkey-like creatures, leaping forty feet at a bound. Whether they leapt 40 or 30 feet in the air, the take-home image we have is of an animal kingdom, one that is destined to be us in the Fourth Chain. This kingdom gradually evolved through the globes and became more and more habituated to being amongst the humanity of the time.
To repeat; in the fourth human race on Globe D, monkey-like creatures became domesticated, acting as guardians of property, rather like guard dogs. They also were playmates to children and developed intense affection for their human masters. Amongst this group of animals were a number of the masters of today, who, by one-pointed devotion, individualise through Wisdom. These are one example of the three ”right” ways of individualising; more on this later.
Let us leave it there for today and finish off by looking at the evolution of the Animal Kingdom in the Third Chain in the next presentation.