Over the course of the last four presentations I have shifted my focus from looking at human consciousness development in its various manifestations to the actual stages that a monad passes through as it evolve, in the 4th, the Human Kingdom.
I divided these stages of development into five categories. Why five? The reason is that these stages of development are linked directly to where the monad has its focus of consciousness. This means that there is an objective way in which a researcher can ascertain what level of development a monad has reached. Is there any value in knowing this? The answer is a qualified ‘yes’. From the point of view of an educator, knowing how your pupil responds to inputs of any kind allows you to tailor content delivery that is likely to be most effective.
Let me put this in the context of the development of a notional single human being through the course of their life. When that monad first enters incarnation it does not comprehend the world around it. It apprehends it. I am sure you have all experienced a toddler pointing at an object and telling you what that object is. The the toddler sees the object and deduces what it is, based on previously assigned reference points. I used the word ‘deduced’ and this type of thinking is called Deductive thinking. It is one of four classes of mental comprehension that a monad expertises as it migrates thorough the five stages of development.
You have a young child in front of you. You know it has five envelopes of incarnation. The physical body itself, the etheric which drives it, the emotional body, the mental body and the lower causal body, known as the persona. They are there in all monads that are passing through the the Human Kingdom. If there is a physical changes in these envelopes, those changes must be being driven by some other factor. Enter the second component of the Trinity, Consciousness. Associated with these five physical envelopes is the capacity to think in a certain way. For the child, the level of thought they are capable of registering is deductive. Finally, the third aspect of the trinity is accounted for by noticing that the focus of will-power in the child is based on impulse when it is very young.
If you travel back in time, you find a period where most humans incarnated exhibited just these characteristics and no more. The reason for this is because these monads had just transitioned from the 3rd, the Animal Kingdom, to the 4th, the Human Kingdom. They were newly minted human beings. For this reason I call this stage the Young stage of human development. Although I have described a number of characteristics that would allow the observer to categorise the monad as being at this stage of development, I am sure there would be some that would accuse me of being subjective in my assertions. My reply to this is look to where the monad is focused. In which permanent atom or molecule does it reside? Wherever that is, it is an objective marker of the development of that monad. In the case of the Young soul, the focus is in the 49:1 permanent atom.
What drives the monad to migrate beyond this level of development? There are two facts. The first is experience, life experience. As the monad repeatedly incarnates, it experiences more and more of life. Where does it store this knowledge? It does so in a causal envelope that was provided to it by a solar deva. In fact, 13 solar devas to be precise. This envelope is an extension of the mental envelope but is separated from it because it functions on the second triad. Put simply, it vibrates at a much higher frequency than the etheric, emotional and lower mental envelopes. The division in two of what is a single mental envelope has huge implications for human development and I covered this in my presentation about the four stages to enlightenment. What I wish to focus on here is that the monad can learn through experience because it can store its memories somewhere. It is able, also, over a very long period of time, incarnate with differing subsets of this knowledge to help it evolve further when incarnated on the physical Earth. I do not want to dive into the rabbit warren of karma here, other than to say that we humans have the stunning ability to take one step forward and nine backwards as we inch our way forward through Human Kingdom.
I said there were two factors that drive our evolution. The second is that we are subjectively conscious half a plane ahead of where we are objectively conscious. This means that we are aware within ourselves, though not actively conscious of it, that there is more to life than what meets the eye. This pulls us inexorably forward in our journey. A journey to where? A journey back to where we came from, the source of all, the ABSOLUTE. That is a bit of a tall order to take in all at once. Let’s simplify it and say we are striving to enter the next kingdom, the 5th kingdom, called in the Bible, the New Jerusalem.
So the time has now come to advance our cause further. We are about to graduate to the next stage of development. What characterises this stage? The first and most objective metric is that the focus of the monad moves from the 49:1 permanent atom located in the etheric body, to the 48:1 permanent atom, located in the emotional body. So from a physical point of view, our home has changed. From a consciousness point of view we begin to expand our thinking capacity to not only deduce what is around us, but to be able to make associations between objects and events. The world becomes very dualistic, with things being good or bad, right or wrong etc. This dualism exists for a reason. It is there to help us understand a fuller spectrum of possible outcomes. When all you can understand is deduced, then associations are made by simple comparisons. When you can associate objects and events, a higher level of pattern recognition is made available to you. Your will-power also expands. It is now not just driven by impulse, but by desire as well.
If you notice a small child playing, it does so by itself. Life at this stage is about your basic needs and comforts. At the second stage of development, the monad begins to expand its consciousness field to include its family and close friends in its ecosystem. A network forms and this forms a community. In our past, we transitions from hunter-gathers to settled farmers. This lead to the establishment of communities. It is for this reason I call this stage of development, the Community phases. The emotional life of a moaned at this stage of development is much richer than the Young soul’s. The emotional body is filling up with elemental essences that reflect the monad’s use of its emotional faculties. A closer examination of this body would reveal that the preponderance of secondary matter is concentrated in the lower portion of this envelope. The colours of this matter are also dull and unappealing. The reason for this is the base nature of these emotions at this time.
This is just a phase and we eventually grow out of it, even if 85 per cent of Humanity has not done so yet. The small communities that we use to live in grew and with this so did the possibilities for the expression of different talents. The structure of society became much more diverse and a culture began to emerge that was more than the sum of needs of an agrarian society. There was a place for poets, artists, doctors and god forbid, lawyers! Some individuals within this expanded community began to think beyond the association between elements in their lives. They began to wonder what there could possibly be beyond what was already there. They began to Conceptualise. This is the next major step a monad takes when it is able to imagine outside the realms of its visible world. The expression of will-power is still mainly driven by desire, but the monad now begins to exhibit higher degrees of determination in the things that it does. This individual also begins to take an interest in matters outside its immediate circle of family and friends. It sees value is associations beyond its own spheres of influence and has interests in subject matters beyond its levels of competence. The soul has become Cultured and this marks the next stage of development.
The focus of secondary matter within its emotional envelope changes from the lower molecules to somewhere in the middle of this envelope. This soul has interest in other but there is still a tendency to value associations that benefit it directly. Genuine altruism has not appeared on the horizon yet. One thing to note is that although there a noticeable change in the appearance of the emotional body of a cultured soul, it is still focused in the 48:1 permanent atom. So is there a defining event that can register a change in this stage of development if we can not see a different location for the monad? Yes there is, but it is one that you don’t notice as it occurs. When the monad passes from the Community stage to the Cultured stage, it takes the first of four initiations. These initiations are linked to the transcendence of consciousness from one level to another. This is all beginning to sound very subjective again I hear you thinking. Well, there is an objective observation that ‘one who has eyes to see’ can make. At the 1st initiation (i1), energy flows from the 2nd, the sacral chakra, up to the 5th, the throat chakra. No longer is the monad focused on and driven by sensual desires, but a focus develops around the expression of creative energies that do not just lead to the propagation of the species. There is a considerable amount of flexibility between the expression of creative energies in these respective chakras. This is why so often, very created individuals have had a very colourful expressions of the energy from their 2nd, the sacral chakra. Lord Byron springs to mind.
In my discussion so far I have focused on the physical/etheric and emotional bodies and not mentioned the mental body. Is it sitting there doing nothing? Clearly not. If you are able to think, no matter how rudimentary that process is, you are active in your mental body. The lower mental body, usually just known as the mental body, has four molecular levels in it. We have talked about three stages of development so far. For ease of understanding, let us assume that as the monad migrates through each stage of develop, it is able to activate and subsequently use higher molecular levels in its mental body. I bring the mental body into focus now because the monad is about to move its focus into this body. No longer is it a permanent residence of the emotional body, it embeds itself in the 47:4 permanent mental molecule. So here we have a visible change of address for the monad. This is linked to the activation of the Heart chakra (4), as energy moves to it from the Solar Plexus chakra (3). What has changed in this individual? Well for starters, if you look at the emotional envelope, there is now a preponderance of secondary matter in the top three molecular levels. The top two levels enable the monad to feel a high degree of compassion towards its fellow human beings. No longer is there an underlying current of ‘what is in it for me’. These individuals give unconditionally and for this reason I term this phases the Compassionate stage.
The focus in and the activation of the the 47:4 permanent molecule brings to the monad the ability to think in a Universal manner. It is able to grasp whole concepts with its mental processes, seeing how disparate events and entities relate to one another. Things are no longer good or bad, black or white. They are what they are. The relationships between them become obvious to someone who has its focus embedded within the highest of the mental molecules. The expression of Will in such an individual is much more determined and single-focused when it needs to be. The advantage of surveying your domain from this vantage point is that you are able to see things clearly for the first time. You are no longer mired in the fog of the desire-world found in your emotional envelope. Your stronger will-power allows you control your emotional desires and your physical impulses, with the odd lapse when you see a particularly inviting Danish pastry!
We have covered four stages of development so far and seen the monad move its focus within two permanent atoms and one permanent molecule. We have seen how our mental processes have gone from being able to deduce the world around us, to being able to make associations, then conceptualise and finally to see things within a universal structure. Where do we go from here? There is one more stage that the monad must pass through before it can leave the 4th, the Human Kingdom. To do this, it must move the focus of monad from the 47:4 permanent mental molecule, located in the mental body, to the 47:1 permanent atom, located in the causal envelope. This is easier said than done.
One of the beauties of the triad structure that aids our passage within the 7th, the Cosmic Physical Kingdom, is that the three envelopes on each triad are able to communicate instantaneously between themselves. So a thought in the mental envelope can register a corresponding desire in the emotional envelope, that translates into an impulse that the etheric envelope can transmit to the physical brain to turn into an action. Communications between the 1st and 2nd triad are only properly established when a physical connection is built between the two halves of the mental body. This connection is called the ‘Rainbow Bridge’ in esoterics.
Let’s start with what can materially be seen in the envelopes of the monad. To complete its journey thought the 4th Kingdom, it must moves its focus into the 47:1 permanent atom. This is located at the centre of the causal lotus. A structure I described in some detail previously. I have talked about a change in the contents of the emotional body. If by the compassionate phases there was a preponderance of higher emotional molecules, what changes when a monad reaches the last phase of development? It begins to dramatically increase the number of atoms in this envelope. The monad may not be conscious of this. Atoms not molecules usually make up the the highest structure in any envelope. An increase in the number of these atoms means the monad is functioning at the highest possible levels of emotional activity. A soul at this level does not just feel compassion towards their fellow monads, but actually feels one with them. Will-power has reached a level where matter can begin to be controlled and thoughts can have real impact in their own plane as well as the planes below. This is called magic, White or Black.
What comes after Universal thinking? Causal thinking is the answer. Suddenly the monad does not just understand the effect of an event but the cause of it as well. This cause may not even be registered in the current environment but stretch back to previous events in the distant past. When a monad can achieve all this, it is said to have taken the 3rd initiation (i3) and is now a Conscious Soul Incarnate. The soul and the persona fuse into one expanded mental envelope. Unlike the 1st and 2nd initiations, the monad is left in no doubt that a change has taken place. For the first time, it is objectively conscious on the first three planes of matter, the physical/etheric, the emotional and the mental. The monad has become Enlightened.
Enlightenment is not an end in itself. It is a means to advancing not just the monads own evolution but the evolution of all life streams on this globe. Although the monad has struggled though the Human Kingdom for tens of thousands of incarnations, it is in no hurry to leave it. It surrenders its ego/soul into the service of the Hierarchy that governs us all all and finds its place of service within the Divine Plan. What is this grand plan I am taking about? It is the grand evolutionary plan of our Planetary Logos. We are part of its body and it is also evolving. At the moment we are more like a cancer than a useful functioning collective within its much greater body. When a monad enlightens, it comes to know it true place within a much bigger scheme and it willingly submits to tasks apportioned to it. In executing these directions, there is the small matter of clearing its balance-sheet of the remaining karma it has amassed as it traverse the 4th, the Human kingdom. This may make the handful of incarnation that remain with the 4th Kingdom a particularly gruelling experience, but the soul now knows why it is suffering the way it is and willingly accepts its burdens in the understand that it is preparing to eventually move to the 5th Kingdom. This it does after it takes the 4th initiation. Remember, the aim of your personal evolution is not to advance yourself as quickly as possible to the exclusion of others. You are part of a collective, the collective is called Humanity. To climb Jacob’s ladder involves not just ascending the rungs but also pulling up the next monad behind you. All for one and one for all.