( a ) This sloka expresses the conception -- a purely Vedantic one, as already explained elsewhere -- of a life-thread, Sutratma , running through successive generations.
How, then, can this be explained?
By resorting to a simile, to a familiar illustration, though necessarily imperfect, as all our available analogies must be.
Before resorting to it, however, I would ask whether it seems unnatural , least of all "supernatural," to any one of us, when we consider that process known as the growth and development of a foetus into a healthy baby weighing several pounds evolves from what?
From the segmentation of an infinitesimally small ovum and a spermatozoon; and afterwards we see that baby develop into a six-foot man!
This refers to the atomic and physical [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Paracelsus calls them the Flagae; the Christians, the "Guardian Angels;" the Occultist, the "Ancestors, the Pitris;" they are the sixfold Dhyan Chohans, having the six spiritual Elements in the composition of their bodies -- in fact, men, minus the physical body.
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expansion from the microscopically small into something very large, from the -- to the naked eye -- unseen, into the visible and objective.
Science has provided for all this; and, I dare say, her theories, embryological, biological, and physiological, are correct enough so far as exact observation of the material goes.
Nevertheless, the two chief difficulties of the science of embryology -- namely, what are the forces at work in the formation of the foetus, and the cause of "hereditary transmission" of likeness, physical, moral or mental -- have never been properly answered; nor will they ever be solved till the day when scientists condescend to accept the Occult theories.* But if this physical pheno- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The materialists and the evolutionists of the Darwinian school would be ill-advised to accept the newly worked-out theories of Professor Weissmann, the author of Beitrage zur Descendenzlehre , with regard to one of the two mysteries of Embryology, as above specified, which he seems to have solved -- as he thinks.
For, when it is solved, Science will have stepped over into the domain of the truly occult, and stepped for ever out of the realm of transformation, as taught by Darwin.
The two are irreconcileable, from the standpoint of materialism.
Regarded from that of the Occultists, it solves all these mysteries.
Those who are not acquainted with the new discovery of Professor Weissman -- at one time a fervent Darwinist -- ought to hasten to repair the deficiency.
The German Embryologist-philosopher shows -- thus stepping over the heads of the Greek Hippocrates and Aristotle, right back into the teachings of the old Aryans -- one infinitesimal cell, out of millions of others at work in the formation of an organism, determining alone and unaided, by means of constant segmentation and multiplication, the correct image of the future man (or animal) in its physical, mental, and psychic characteristics.
It is that cell which impresses on the face and form of the new individual the features of the parents or of some distant ancestor; it is that cell again which transmits to him the intellectual and mental idiosyncracies of his sires, and so on.
This Plasm is the immortal portion of our bodies -- simply through the process of successive assimilations.
Darwin's theory, viewing the embryological cell as an essence or the extract from all other cells, is set aside; it is incapable of accounting for hereditary transmission.
There are but two ways of explaining the mystery of heredity; either the substance of the germinal cell is endowed with the faculty of crossing the whole cycle of transformations that lead to the construction of a separate organism and then to the reproduction of identical germinal cells; or, those germinal cells do not have their genesis at all in the body of the individual , but proceed directly from the ancestral germinal cell passed from father to son through long generations.
It is the latter hypothesis that Weissmann accepted and has worked upon; and it is to this cell that he traces the immortal portion of man.
So far, so good; and when this almost correct theory is accepted, how will Biologists explain the first appearance of this everlasting cell?
Unless man "grew" like the "immortal Topsy," and was not born at all, but fell from the clouds, how was that embryological cell born in him?
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menon astonishes no one, except in so far as it puzzles the Embryologists, why should our intellectual and inner growth, the evolution of the human-spiritual to the Divine-Spiritual, be regarded as, or seem, more impossible than the other?
Now to the simile.
Complete the physical plasm, mentioned in the last foot-note, the "Germinal Cell" of man with all its material potentialities, with the "spiritual plasm," so to say, or the fluid that contains the five lower principles of the six-principled Dhyan -- and you have the secret, if you are spiritual enough to understand it.
"When the seed of the animal man is cast into the soil of the animal woman, that seed cannot germinate unless it has been fructified by the five virtues (the fluid of, or the emanation from the principles) of the six-fold Heavenly man.
Wherefore the Microcosm is represented as a Pentagon, within the Hexagon Star, the "Macrocosm." ("[[ Anthropos ]],") a work on Occult Embryology, Book I.).
Then: "The functions of Jiva on this Earth are of a five-fold character.
In the mineral atom it is connected with the lowest principles of the Spirits of the Earth (the six-fold Dhyanis); in the vegetable particle, with their second -- the Prana (life); in the animal, with all these plus the third and the fourth; in man, the germ must receive the fruition of all the five.
Otherwise he will be born no higher than an animal"; namely, a congenital idiot.
Thus in man alone the Jiva is complete.
As to his seventh principle, it is but one of the Beams of the Universal Sun.
Each rational creature receives only the temporary loan of that which has to return to its source; while his physical body is shaped by the lowest terrestrial lives, through physical, chemical, and physiological evolution.
"The Blessed Ones have nought to do with the purgations of matter." (Kabala, Chaldean Book of Numbers).
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage explicitly maps the Microcosm (Pentagon) within the Macrocosm (Hexagon Star) and shows Jiva connecting to progressively higher principles across mineral, vegetable, animal, and human — a clear as-above-so-below structural reflection.
Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.
The seventh principle is described as 'one of the Beams of the Universal Sun' that is 'the temporary loan of that which has to return to its source' — a fragment of divine light temporarily lodged in the material body.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage describes a clear cascade from the Universal Sun through the six-fold Dhyanis/Dhyan Chohans down through the five lower principles to the physical body, with each level less perfect than the one above.
A historical or mythical chain of transmission for secret wisdom from master to disciple across time and cultures — the credential of the teaching, not merely its content. Distinct from oral_tradition (the spoken-not-written modality of transmission, which a lineage may or may not use) and hidden_sayings (the concealment-for-readiness of a teaching's meaning, independent of who transmitted it or in what unbroken chain).
The passage traces the teaching 'right back into the teachings of the old Aryans' and positions the Occultist tradition as inheriting and correcting the work of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Weissmann.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The passage states 'you have the secret, if you are spiritual enough to understand it' — implying that direct spiritual apprehension is the mode of access to this knowledge.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The 'spiritual plasm' or 'fluid that contains the five lower principles of the six-principled Dhyan' and the Dhyanis as non-physical beings that shape the physical body constitute a non-physical dimension interpenetrating the physical world.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage describes a directional descent from the Universal Sun's beams through the Dhyanis and five principles down to the physical body 'shaped by the lowest terrestrial lives, through physical, chemical, and physiological evolution.'
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage explicitly states 'the Microcosm is represented as a Pentagon, within the Hexagon Star, the Macrocosm' and details how the human being mirrors the structure of the higher spiritual principles.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The seventh principle is described as 'the temporary loan of that which has to return to its source' — an explicit statement of the soul's journey back to its divine origin.
The passage's central topic is the 'life-thread, Sutratma, running through successive generations' — the transmigration of the soul across lives is the explicit subject of the entire passage.