The Third Race had thus created the so-called “Sons of Will and Yoga,” or the “Ancestors”—the Spiritual Forefathers—of all the subsequent and present Arhats, or Mahâtmâs, in a truly immaculate way. They were indeed created, not begotten, as were their brethren of the Fourth Race, who were generated sexually after the separation of sexes, the “Fall of Man.” For Creation is but the result of Will acting on phenomenal Matter, the calling forth out of it the Primordial Divine Light and Eternal Life. They were the “Holy Seed Grain” of the future Saviours of Humanity.
Here we have to again make a break, in order to explain certain difficult points, of which there are so many. It is almost impossible to avoid such interruptions.[398]
The order of the evolution of the Human Races stands as follows in the Fifth Book of the Commentaries, and has already been given:
The first men were Chhâyâs (1); the Second, the “Sweat-born” (2); the Third, “Egg-born,” and the holy Fathers born by the power of Kriyâshakti (3); the Fourth were the children of the Padmapâni [Chenresi] (4).
Of course such primeval modes of procreation—by the evolution of one's image; through drops of perspiration; after that by Yoga; and then by what people will regard as magic (Kriyâshakti)—are doomed beforehand to be regarded as fairy-tales. Nevertheless, beginning with the first and ending with the last, there is really nothing miraculous in them, nor anything which may not be shown to be natural. This must be proven.
1. Chhâyâ-birth, or that primeval mode of sexless procreation—the First Race having oozed out, so to say, from the bodies of the Pitris—is hinted at in a cosmic allegory in the Purânas.[399] It is the beautiful allegory and story of Sanjñâ, the daughter of Vishvakarman—married to the Sun, who, “unable to endure the fervours of her Lord,” gave him her Chhâyâ (shadow, image, or astral body), while she herself repaired to the jungle to perform religious devotions, or Tapas. The Sun, supposing the Chhâyâ to be his wife, begat by her children, like Adam with Lilith—an ethereal shadow also, as in the legend, though an actual living female monster millions of years ago.
But, perhaps, this instance proves little except the exuberant fancy of the Paurânic authors. We have another proof ready. If the materialized forms, which are sometimes seen oozing out of the bodies of certain mediums could, instead of vanishing, be fixed and made solid—the “creation” of the First Race would become quite comprehensible. This kind of procreation cannot fail to be suggestive to the student. Neither the mystery nor the impossibility of such a mode is certainly any greater—while it is far more comprehensible to the mind of the true metaphysical thinker—than the mystery of the conception of the fœtus, its gestation and birth as a child, as we now know it.
Now to the curious and little understood corroboration in the Purânas about the “Sweat-born.”
2. Kandu is a sage and a Yogî, eminent in holy wisdom and pious austerities, which, finally, awaken the jealousy of the Gods, who are represented in the Hindû Scriptures as being in never-ending strife with the Ascetics. Indra, the “King of the Gods,”[400] finally sends one of his female Apsarases to tempt the sage. This is no worse than Jehovah sending Sarah, Abraham's wife, to tempt Pharaoh; but in truth it is these Gods (and God), who are ever trying to disturb Ascetics and thus make them lose the fruit of their austerities, who ought to be regarded as “tempting demons,” instead of applying the term to the Rudras, Kumâras, and Asuras, whose great sanctity and chastity seem a standing reproach to the Don Juanic Gods of the Pantheon. But it is the reverse that we find in all the Paurânic allegories, and not without good esoteric reason.
The King of the Gods, or Indra, sends a beautiful Apsaras (nymph) named Pramlochâ to seduce Kandu and disturb his penance. She succeeds in her unholy purpose and “nine hundred and seven years six months and three days”[401] spent in her company seem to the Sage as one day. When this psychological or hypnotic state ends, the Muni bitterly curses the creature who has seduced him, thus disturbing his devotions. “Depart, begone!” he cries, “vile bundle of delusions!” And Pramlochâ, terrified, flies away, wiping the perspiration [pg 185]from her body with the leaves of the trees as she passes through the air.