As man never can be, so he never has been, manifested in a shape belonging to the animal kingdom in esse, i.e., he never formed part of that kingdom. Derived, only derived, from the most finished class of the latter, a new human form must always have been the new type of the cycle. The human shape in one ring [?], as I imagine, becomes cast-off clothes in the next; it is then appropriated by the highest order in the servant-kingdom below.[658]
If the idea is what we understand it to mean—for the “rings” spoken of somewhat confuse the matter—then it is the correct Esoteric Teaching. [pg 304] Having appeared at the very beginning, and at the head of sentient and conscious life, Man—the Astral, or the “Soul,” for the Zohar, repeating the Archaic Teaching, distinctly says that “the real man is the soul, and his material frame no part of him”—Man became the living and animal Unit, from which the “cast-off clothes” determined the shape of every life and animal in this Round.[659]
Thus, he “created,” for ages, the insects, reptiles, birds, and animals, unconsciously to himself, from his remains and relics from the Third and the Fourth Rounds. The same idea and teaching are as distinctly given in the Vendîdâd of the Mazdeans, as they are in the Chaldæan and Mosaic allegory of the Ark, all of which are the many national versions of the original legend given in the Hindû Scriptures. It is found in the allegory of Vaivasvata Manu and his Ark with the Seven Rishis, each of whom is shown the Father and Progenitor of specified animals, reptiles, and even monsters, as in the Vishnu and other Purânas. Open the Mazdean Vendîdâd, and read the command of Ahura Mazda to Yima, a Spirit of the Earth, who symbolizes the three Races, after telling him to build a Vara—“an enclosure,” an Argha or Vehicle.
Thither [into the Vara] thou shalt bring the seeds of men and women, of the greatest, best, and finest kinds on this earth; thither thou shalt bring the seeds of every kind of cattle, etc.... All those seeds shalt thou bring, two of every kind to be kept inexhaustible there, so long as those men shall stay in the Vara.[660]
Those “men” in the “Vara” are the “Progenitors,” the Heavenly Men or Dhyânîs, the future Egos who are commissioned to inform mankind. For the Vara, or Ark, or again the Vehicle, simply means Man.[661]
Thou shalt seal up the Vara [after filling it up with the seeds], and thou shalt make a door, and a window self-shining within [which is the Soul].[662]
And when Yima enquires of Ahura Mazda how he shall manage to make that Vara, he is answered:
Crush the earth ... and knead it with thy hands, as the potter does when kneading the potter's clay.[663]
The Egyptian ram-headed God makes man of clay on a potter's wheel, and so in Genesis do the Elohim fashion him out of the same material.
When the “Maker of the material world,” Ahura Mazda, is asked, furthermore, what is to give light “to the Vara which Yima made,” he answers that: