The 1st Root Race was quite a tumultuous affair. Fortunately, life on this globe was etheric and so the upheavals of the globe did not affect these “humans, if you could call them that, in any negative way. These 1st Root Race monads lived a life of unknown duration. More land than had previously been present, slowly appeared above the surface of the watery desert, stretching out from the promontories of the first continent, and forming a vast horseshoe, the second continent, called the Hyperborean, or Plaksha. It occupied the area now called northern Asia, joining Greenland and Kamschatka, and was bounded on the south by the great sea which tossed its waves where the Gobi desert now stretches its wastes of sand. Spitzbergen formed part of it, together with Sweden and Norway, and it extended southwestwards over the British Isles. Baffin’s Bay was then land, which included the islands now existing there.
In its early phases, the climate of Hyperborea was tropical, and richly luxuriant vegetation clothed its sunny plains. We should not connect the name Hyperborean with the associations it now carries. It was originally an attractive environment, full of exuberant vitality. The name Hyperborean took on its gloomy associations in later days, when the land had been swept of its inhabitants by a change of climate, and broken up by many cataclysms. Some of the oldest known lands of the Earth are remains of the Hyperborean continent: these are Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, the most northerly parts of Norway and Sweden, and the extreme north cape of Siberia.
When the time was ripe for the 2nd Root Race to appear, the nature spirits built around the chhâyas, which we described as shadows but they really are an etheric envelope. Denser particles of matter, form a kind of stiffer shell on the outside, and ”the outer of the first became the inner of the second”, as described in the The Secret Doctrine.
Thus imperceptibly the first Root Race vanished into, merged in, and became the second, and the chhâya, which was all of the body of the first monads on Earth, became the etheric double of the second group of monads, the next root race. The 2nd Root Race showed two marked types, responding slightly to Unity consciousness (46). Unity Consciousness (46) is a big deal for us as this is where we are eventually heading. But don’t let this confuse you. In the 1st Root Race, Atmic consciousness (45) was the main driving force. It took this amount of willpower to make any sort of impression of this nascent humanity. Monads of the 2nd Root Race showed a kind of duality. This was the result of it adding a new sense to its meagre arsenal. In the 1st Root Race, monads had one sense, that of hearing. Now in the 2nd Root Race added to this was the sense of touch. The Monad in the 2nd Root Race were able to respond to the impact of water and air as well as of fire.
Faint, chant-like sounds issued from the nondescript forms that represented humanity, open vowel-like sounds, inarticulate, faintly indicating the stirrings of emotions that moved from hidden springs within their limited emotional envelopes. We have already discussed that although our envelopes have all seven subplanes present, they are not actively populated with elemental essences. These are added slowly, as the monad begins to engage more actively with its environment.
What limited consciousness that was present in these young monads, belonged to perceptions perceived in their mental envelopes, rather than a response to their current environment. It was almost like living in a perpetual dream world. There was a sense of a subjective, quiet enjoyment, arising from within, but little sense of pleasure or pain, stimulated from without. As stated, this was the Monadic consciousness, awake on the higher planes but not on the lower, and the forms were only slightly responsive, almost senseless, though more responsive than those of the 1st Root Race.
According to The Secret Doctrine, this race was called Kimpurushas, the children of the Sun and the Moon, ”the yellow Father and the White Mother”, hence of fire and water; and they were born under the planet Brihaspati or Jupiter. It is interesting to note that the stories told and the phrases used in The Secret Doctrine, rely heavily on wording already in existence in ancient Hindu literature. These stories are all recounted there, but would you know that they were referring to a root race and on which globe that race was found? I doubt it. Blavatsky took us one step nearer to understand the genesis of our species but it has taken many abridgements of this great book, to make it remotely accessible to us today.
The colour of the 2nd Root Race was a golden-yellow, described by Leadbeater as being sometimes glowing almost into orange, sometimes of palest lemon shades and these gorgeously-hued forms were filamentous, often tree-like in shape, some approaching animal types, others semi-human in outline, very heterogeneous in appearance, drifting, floating, gliding, climbing, crying to each other in flute-like notes through the vast tropical forests, brilliantly green in the sunlight, with flowering creepers starred with dazzling blossoms. These make a picture, described by Leadbeater, of gorgeous hues, the splendour of Nature in her exuberant youth, running over with life, movement, colour, outlines sketched in with a giant’s hand, colours flung from an overflowing palette.
Of the two root races discussed so far, the earlier showed no of trace of sexual differentiation, but multiplied by division and budding. This carried on in the 2nd Root Race. As the forms of these beings became harder, they were coated with a thicker shell of earthy particles. This led to the earlier forms of reproduction becoming impossible. Instead, small bodies were extruded from them, figuratively termed ”drops of sweat”, since they oozed out like sweat from the human skin. Leadbeater described these newly formed bodies as being viscid, which means having a sticky consistency. He also called them opalescent, which means have a shifting form of colours. These exudations gradually hardened, grew, and took on various shapes. This was certainly a novel way to reproduce.
There are many traces of this type of reproduction in the Hindu Purânic stories, where it is stated that all races were born from the pores of the skin of their ancestors. In the process of time, slight indications of sexuality began to appear in these ”sweatborn” of the 2nd Race and they showed within themselves the forming outlines of the two sexes and hence are spoken of as being androgynous.
The study of the lower kingdoms today reveals all these stages still persisting and we realise how the nature-spirits have been guided along a single plan, endlessly modified in details but ever the same in principles. This goes back to the point made in earlier presentations that evolution did not happen as we think. We have put the cart before the horse. We are the “horse” and it is we who have pulled the monads of the lower kingdoms through their development stages. Everything comes from above. We are the product of the Barhishads. We developed from a replica of their etheric bodies. Everything starts from the 1st Plane and builds out, all the way to the 49th plane of matter. From germs thrown off by this 2nd Race ” of humanity, the mammalian kingdom was gradually developed in all its immense variety of forms. Animals below the mammals were shaped by nature spirits from the types elaborated in the 3rd round, sometimes aided by human emanations.
If you recollect, the 2nd Root Race was a recapitulation of the 2nd round, and that the forms in the 2nd round were those known as ”pudding-bags.” The 2nd Root Race also had this curious formless pudding-bag appearance. Both the 1st and the 2nd Root-Races were evolving on the Earth, Globe D, before Globe C was fully deserted, except for the residue, which is always left behind, for reasons already discussed. There were primitive conditions on the Earth, available for some of Globe C’s inhabitants, who could no longer dwell on Globe C as conditions there were too advanced for them.
Into these Races, the Barhishads from Globe D of the Moon Chain brought a number of backward entities, who served as special coaches for the laggards already on Globe D; many of the laggards repaid the special care bestowed on them, and later on entered the first sub-race of the 3rd Root-Race, as its lowest type. They were known as the eggheads; we shall come to them again when we reach the 3rd RootRace, in the next presentation.
During the first and second Root Races the population of the Earth was very limited, and the special help, mentioned above, appears to have been given to enable as many animals as possible to be pushed on so that they could become human before the ”door was shut” in the middle of the 4th Root-Race.
In addition, everything possible was being done to facilitate the evolution of all the monads who had the potential to advance and achieve the goals set for the 4th Globe. This was being done in advance of the arrival of the Lords of Venus in the middle of the 3rd Root Race. On that encouraging note, let’s leave it there and take up the story of the 3rd Root Race, The Lemurians, in the next presentation.