Page 55 (part 3)

Thus the twelve great gods, Jayas, created by Brahma to assist him in the work of creation in the very beginning of the Kalpa, and who, lost in Samadhi, neglected to create -- whereupon they were cursed to be repeatedly born in each Manvantara till the seventh -- are respectively called Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas: they are Tushitas (in the second Kalpa), and Adityas in this Vaivasvata period (see Vayu Purana ) , besides other names for each age. But they are identical with the Manasa or Rajasas, and these with our incarnating Dhyan Chohans. They are all classes of the Gnana-devas. Yes; besides those beings, who, like the Yakshas, Gandharvas, Kinaras, etc., etc., taken in their individualities, inhabit the astral plane, there are real Devagnanams, and to these classes of Devas belong the Adityas, the Vairajas, the Kumaras, the Asuras, and all those high celestial beings whom Occult teaching calls Manaswin, the Wise, foremost of all, and who would have made all men the self-conscious spiritually intellectual beings they will be, had they not been "cursed" to fall into generation, and to be reborn themselves as mortals for their neglect of duty. ------- STANZA IV. -- (Continued.) 15. S EVEN TIMES S EVEN S HADOWS ( chhayas ) OF F UTURE M EN ( or Amanasas ) ( a ) WERE ( thus ) B ORN, E ACH OF HIS OWN COLOUR ( complexion ) AND KIND ( b ). EACH ( also ) INFERIOR TO HIS F ATHER ( creator ) . T HE F ATHERS, THE B ONELESS, COULD GIVE NO L IFE TO B EINGS WITH [[Vol. 2, Page]] 91 SEVEN CLASSES OF PITRIS. B ONES. T HEIR P ROGENY WERE B HUTA ( phantoms ) WITH NEITHER F ORM NOR M IND, T HEREFORE THEY WERE CALLED THE C HHAYA ( image or shadow ) R ACE ( c ). ( a ) Manu, as already remarked, comes from the root " man " to think, hence "a thinker." It is from this Sanskrit word very likely that sprung the Latin "mens," mind, the Egyptian " Menes, " the "Master-Mind," the Pythagorean Monas, or conscious " thinking unit, " mind also, and even our "Manas" or mind, the fifth principle in man. Hence these shadows are called amanasa, "mindless." With the Brahmins the Pitris are very sacred, because they are the Progenitors,* or ancestors of men -- the first Manushya on this Earth -- and offerings are made to them by the Brahmin when a son is born unto him. They are more honoured and their ritual is more important than the worship of the gods (See the " Laws of Manu, " Bk. III., p. 203). May we not now search for a philosophical meaning in this dual group of progenitors? The Pitris being divided into seven classes, we have here the mystic number again. Nearly all the Puranas agree that three of these are arupa, formless, while four are corporeal; the former being intellectual and spiritual, the latter material and devoid of intellect. Esoterically, it is the Asuras who form the first three classes of Pitris -- "born in the body of night" -- whereas the other four were produced from the body of twilight. Their fathers, the gods, were doomed to be born fools on Earth, according to Vayu Purana. The legends are purposely mixed up and made very hazy: the Pitris being in one the sons of the gods, and, in another those of Brahma; while a third makes them instructors of their own fathers. It is the Hosts of the four material classes who create men simultaneously on the seven zones. Now, with regard to the seven classes of Pitris, each of which is again divided into seven, a word to students and a query to the profane. That class of the "Fire Dhyanis," which we identify on undeniable grounds with the Agnishwattas, is called in our school the "Heart" of the Dhyan-Chohanic Body; and it is said to have incarnated in the third race of men and made them perfect. The esoteric Mystagogy speaks of the mysterious relation existing between the hebdomadic essence or substance of this angelic Heart and that of man, whose [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * This was hinted at in Isis Unveiled, Vol. I. , p . xxxviii., though the full explanation could not then be given: "The Pitris are not the ancestors of the present living men, but those of the first human kind or Adamic race; the spirits of human races, which, on the great scale of descending evolution, preceded our races of men, and were physically as well as spiritually, far superior to our modem pigmies. In Manava-Dharma-Sastra they are called the Lunar ancestors." [[Vol. 2, Page]] 92 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. every physical organ, and psychic, and spiritual function, is a reflection, so to say, a copy on the terrestrial plane of the model or prototype above. Why, it is asked, should there be such a strange repetition of the number seven in the anatomical structure of man? Why should the heart have four lower "cavities and three higher divisions," answering so strangely to the septenary division of the human principles, separated into two groups, the higher and the lower; and why should the same division be found in the various classes of Pitris, and especially our Fire Dhyanis? For, as already stated, these Beings fall into four corporeal (or grosser) and three incorporeal (or subtler) "principles," or call them by any other name you please. Why do the seven nervous plexuses of the body radiate seven rays? Why are there these seven plexuses, and why seven distinct layers in the human skin? " Having projected their shadows and made men of one element (ether), the progenitors re-ascend to Maha-loka, whence they descend periodically, when the world is renewed, to give birth to new men. " The subtle bodies remain without understanding (Manas) until the advent of the Suras (Gods) now called Asuras (not Gods)," says the Commentary. " Not-gods, " for the Brahmins, perhaps, but the highest Breaths, for the Occultist; since those progenitors (Pitar), the formless and the intellectual, refuse to build man, but endow him with mind; the four corporeal classes creating only his body.