24. The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night,[368] ready for rebirth, came down. They saw the vile[369] forms of the First Third[370] (a). “We can choose,” said the Lords, “we have wisdom.” Some entered the Chhâyâs. Some projected a Spark. Some deferred till the Fourth.[371] From their own Rûpa they filled[372] the Kâma.[373]Those who entered became Arhats. Those who received but a Spark, remained destitute of knowledge;[374] the Spark burned low (b). The Third remained mind-less. Their Jîvas[375] were not ready. These were set apart among the Seven.[376] They became narrow-headed. The Third were ready. “In these shall we dwell,” said the Lords of the Flame and of the Dark Wisdom (c).
This Stanza contains, in itself, the whole key to the mysteries of evil, the so-called Fall of the Angels, and the many problems that have puzzled the brains of the Philosophers from the time that the memory of man began. It solves the secret of the subsequent inequalities or intellectual capacity, of birth or social position, and gives a logical explanation to the incomprehensible Karmic course throughout the æons which followed. The best explanation which can be given, in view of the difficulties of the subject, will now be attempted.
(a) Up to the Fourth Round, and even to the later part of the Third Race in this Round, Man—if the ever-changing forms that clothed the Monads during the first three Rounds and the first two and a half Races of the present Round can be given that misleading name—is, so far, only an animal intellectually. It is only in the present midway Round that he entirely develops in himself the Fourth Principle as a fit vehicle for the Fifth. But Manas will be relatively fully developed only in the following Round, when it will have an opportunity of becoming entirely divine until the end of the Rounds. As Christian Schœttgen says in Horæ Hebraicæ, etc., the first terrestrial Adam “had only the breath of life,”—Nephesh, but not the living Soul.
(b) Here the inferior Races, of which there are still some analogues left—as the Australians, now fast dying out, and some African and Oceanic tribes—are meant. “They were not ready” signifies that the Karmic development of these Monads had not yet fitted them to occupy the forms of men destined for incarnation in higher intellectual Races. But this is explained later on.
(c) The Zohar speaks of “Black Fire,” which is Absolute Light—Wisdom. To those who, prompted by old theological prejudice, may say: But the Asuras are the rebel Devas, the opponents of the Gods—hence Devils, and the Spirits of Evil—it is answered: Esoteric Philosophy admits neither good nor evil per se, as existing independently in Nature. The cause for both is found, as regards the Kosmos, in the necessity of contraries or contrasts, and with respect to man, in his human nature, his ignorance and passions. There are no Devils or the utterly depraved, as there are no Angels absolutely perfect, though there may be Spirits of Light and of Darkness; thus Lucifer—the Spirit of Intellectual Enlightenment and Freedom of Thought—is metaphorically the guiding beacon, which helps man to find his way through the rocks and sand-banks of Life, for Lucifer is the Logos in his highest, and the “Adversary” in his lowest aspect—both of which [pg 172] are reflected in our Ego. Lactantius, speaking of the Nature of Christ, makes the Logos, the Word, “the first-born brother of Satan, and the first of all creatures.”[377]
The Vishnu Purâna describes these primeval creatures (Tiryaksrotas) with crooked digestive canals:
[They were] endowed with inward manifestations, but mutually in ignorance about their kind and nature.[378]
The twenty-eight kinds of Badhas, or “imperfections,” do not apply, as Wilson thought, to the animals now known, which are specified by him, for they did not exist in those geological periods. This is quite plain from the said work, in which the first created are the “five-fold (immovable) world,” minerals and vegetables; then come those fabulous animals, Tiryaksrotas—the monsters of the Abyss, slain by the “Lords,” of Stanzas II and III; then the Ûrdhvasrotas, the happy celestial beings, which feed on ambrosia; and lastly, the Arvâksrotas, human beings—Brahmâ's seventh “creation” so-called. But these “creations,” including the latter, did not occur on this Globe, wherever else they may have taken place. It is not Brahmâ who creates things and men on this Earth, but the Chief and Lord of the Prajâpatis, the Lords of Being and terrestrial Creation. “Obeying the command of Brahmâ,” Daksha—the synthesis, or the aggregate, of the Terrestrial Creators and Progenitors, the Pitris included—made superior and inferior (vara and avara) things, “referring to putra” progeny, and “bipeds and quadrupeds, and subsequently, by his will [referring to the Sons of Will and Yoga], gave birth to females”[379]—i.e., separated the androgynes. Here, again, we have “bipeds” or men, created before the “quadrupeds” as in the Esoteric Teachings.
Since, in the exoteric accounts, the Asuras are the first Beings created from the “Body of Night,” while the Pitris issue from that of “Twilight”; the “Gods” being placed by Parâshara, in the Vishnu Purâna, between the two, and shown to evolve from the “Body of the Day,” it is easy to discover a determined purpose to veil the order of creation. Man is the Arvâksrota coming from the “Body of the Dawn”; and elsewhere, man is again referred to, when the Creator of the World, Brahmâ, is shown “creating fierce beings, who were denominated Bhûtas, and eaters of flesh,” or as the text has it, “fiends, [pg 173] frightful from being monkey-coloured and carnivorous.”[380] Whereas the Râkshasas are generally translated by “evil Spirits” and “enemies of the Gods,” which identifies them with the Asuras. In the Râmâyana, when Hanumân is reconnoitering the enemy in Lankâ, he finds there Râkshasas, some hideous, “while some were beautiful to look upon,” and, in the Vishnu Purâna, there is a direct reference to their becoming the Saviours of “Humanity,” or of Brahmâ.
The allegory is very ingenious. Great intellect and too much knowledge are a two-edged weapon in life, and instruments for evil as well as for good. When combined with selfishness, they will make of the whole of Humanity a footstool for the elevation of him who possesses them, and a means for the attainment of his objects; while, applied to altruistic humanitarian purposes, they may become the means of the salvation of many. At all events, the absence of self-consciousness and intellect will make of man an idiot, a brute in human form. Brahmâ is Mahat, the Universal Mind; hence the too selfish among the Râkshasas showing the desire to become possessed of it all—to “devour” Mahat. The allegory is transparent.