From the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the Buddhist classification is not separately mentioned in the Vedântic division, as it is merely the vehicle of Prâna. It will also be seen that the fourth principle is included in the third Kosha (Sheath), as the same principle is but the vehicle of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind. It must also be noticed that the Vijñânamayakosha is considered to be distinct from the Mânomayakosha, as a division is made [pg 182] after death between the lower part of the mind, as it were, which has a closer affinity with the fourth principle than with the sixth and its higher part, which attaches itself to the latter, and which is, in fact, the basis for the higher spiritual individuality of man.
We may also here point out to our readers that the classification mentioned in the last column is, for all practical purposes, connected with Râja Yoga, the best and simplest. Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three distinct Upâdhis (Bases), in each of which his Âtmâ may work independently of the rest. These three Upâdhis can be separated by an Adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution.
The student will now be better prepared to see that between the three Upâdhis of the Râja Yoga and its Atmâ, and our three Upâdhis, Âtmâ, and the additional three divisions, there is in reality but very little difference. Moreover, as every Adept in Cis-Himâlayan or Trans-Himâlayan India, of the Patanjali, the Âryâsanga or the Mahâyâna schools, has to become a Râja Yogî, he must, therefore, accept the Târaka Râja classification in principle and theory, whatever classification he resorts to for practical and Occult purposes. Thus, it matters very little whether one speaks of the three Upâdhis, with their three Aspects, and Âtmâ, the eternal and immortal synthesis, or calls them the “Seven Principles.”
For the benefit of those who may not have read, or, if they have, may not have clearly understood, in Theosophical writings, the doctrine of the septenary Chains of Worlds in the Solar Cosmos, the teaching is briefly as follows.
1. Everything in the metaphysical as in the physical Universe is septenary. Hence every sidereal body, every planet, whether visible or invisible, is credited with six companion Globes. The evolution of life proceeds on these seven Globes or bodies, from the First to the Seventh, in Seven Rounds or Seven Cycles.
2. These Globes are formed by a process which the Occultists call the “rebirth of Planetary Chains (or Rings).” When the Seventh and last Round of one of such Rings has been entered upon, the highest or first Globe, A, followed by all the others down to the last, instead of entering upon a certain time of rest—or “Obscuration,” as in the previous Rounds—begins to die out. The Planetary Dissolution (Pralaya) is at hand, and its hour has struck; each Globe has to transfer its life and energy to another planet.[276]
3. Our Earth, as the visible representative of its invisible superior fellow-globes, its “Lords” or “Principles,” has to live, as have the others, through seven Rounds. During the first three, it forms and consolidates; during the fourth, it settles and hardens; during the last three, it gradually returns to its first ethereal form: it is spiritualized, so to say.
4. Its Humanity develops fully only in the Fourth—our present Round. Up to this Fourth Life-Cycle, it is referred to as “Humanity” only for lack of a more appropriate term. Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and butterfly, Man, or rather that which becomes Man, passes through all the forms and kingdoms during the First Round, and through all the human shapes during the two following Rounds. Arrived on our Earth at the commencement of the Fourth, in the present series of Life-Cycles and Races, Man is the first form that appears thereon, being preceded only by the mineral and vegetable kingdoms—even the latter having to develop and continue its further evolution through man. This will be explained in Volume II. During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like the Globe on which it lives, will be ever tending to reässume its primeval form, that of a Dhyân Chohanic Host. Man tends to become a God and then—God, like every other Atom in the Universe.
Beginning so early as with the Second Round, Evolution proceeds already on quite a different plan. It is only during the first Round that (Heavenly) Man becomes a human being on Globe A, (rebecomes) a mineral, a plant, an animal, on Globe B and C, etc. The process changes entirely from the Second Round; but you have learned prudence ... and I advise you to say nothing before the time for saying it has come....[277]
5. Every Life-Cycle on Globe D (our Earth)[278] is composed of seven Root-Races. They commence with the ethereal and end with the spiritual, on the double line of physical and moral evolution—from the beginning of the Terrestrial Round to its close. One is a “Planetary Round” from Globe A to Globe G, the seventh; the other, the “Globe Round,” or the Terrestrial.