Page 64 (part 2)

Having assumed the form of a tortoise, Prajapati created offspring. That which he created he made akarot, hence the word kurma (tortoise). Kasyapa means tortoise; hence men say: 'All creatures are descendants of Kasyapa,' etc., etc. ( Hindu Class. Dict. ) He was all this; he was also the father of Garuda, the bird, the "King [[Vol. 2, Page]] 254 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. of the feathered tribe," who descends from, and is of one stock with the reptiles, the nagas; and who becomes their mortal enemy subsequently as he is also a cycle, a period of time, when in the course of evolution the birds which developed from reptiles in their " struggle for life, " -- " survival of the fittest, " etc., etc., turned in preference on those they issued from, to devour them, -- perhaps prompted by natural law, in order to make room for other and more perfect species. ( Vide Part II ., "Symbolism.") In that admirable epitome of "Modern Science and Modern Thought," a lesson in natural history is offered to Mr. Gladstone, showing the utter variance with it of the Bible. The author remarks that Geology, commencing with -- " . . . the earliest known fossil, the Eozoon Canadense of the Laurentian, continued in a chain, every link of which is firmly welded, through the Silurian, with its abundance of molluscous, crustacean, and vermiform life and first indication of fishes; the Devonian, with its predominance of fish and first appearance of reptiles; the Mesozoic with its batrachians (or frog family); the Secondary formations, in which reptiles of the sea, land and air preponderated, and the first humble forms of vertebrate land animals began to appear; and finally, the Tertiary, in which mammalian life has become abundant, and type succeeding to type and species to species, are gradually differentiated and specialized, through the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods, until we arrive at the Glacial and Pre-historic periods, and at positive proof of the existence of man." The same order, plus the description of animals unknown to modern science, is found in the commentaries on the Puranas in general, and in the Book of Dzyan -- especially. The only difference, a grave one, no doubt, -- as implying a spiritual and divine nature of man independent of his physical body in this illusionary world, in which the false personality and its cerebral basis alone is known to orthodox psychology -- is as follows. Having been in all the so-called "Seven creations," allegorizing the seven evolutionary changes, or the sub-races, we may call them, of the First Root-race of Mankind -- MAN was on earth in this Round from the beginning. Having passed through all the kingdoms of nature in the previous three Rounds,* his physical frame -- one adapted to the thermal conditions of those early periods -- was ready to receive the divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of human life, i.e., 18,000,000 years ago. It is only at the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "Follow the law of analogy" -- the Masters teach. Atma-Buddhi is dual and Manas is triple; inasmuch as the former has two aspects, and the latter three, i.e ., as a principle per se, which gravitates, in its higher aspect, to Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama, the seat of terrestrial and animal desires and passions. Now compare the evolution of the Races, the First and the Second of which are of the nature of Atma-Buddhi, their passive Spiritual progeny, and the Third Root-Race shows three distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically; the earliest, sinless; the middle portions awakening to intelligence; and the third and last decidedly animal: i.e., Manas succumbs to the temptations of Kama. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 255 FROM WORM TO MAN. mid-point of the 3rd Root Race that man was endowed with Manas. Once united, the two and then the three made one; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba to man, received their monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential, all have to remain dormant till each reaches its human form, before which stage manas (mind) has no development in them.* In the animals every principle is paralysed, and in a foetus-like state, save the second (vital) and the third (the astral), and the rudiments of the fourth ( Kama, which is desire, instinct) whose intensity and development varies and changes with the species. To the materialist wedded to the Darwinian theory, this will read like a fairy-tale, a mystification; to the believer in the inner, spiritual man, the statement will have nothing unnatural in it. Now the writer is certain to meet what will be termed insuperable objections. We shall be told that the line of embryology, the gradual development of every individual life, and the progress of what is known to take place in the order of progressive stages of specialization -- that all this is opposed to the idea of man preceding mammals. Man begins as the humblest and most primitive vermiform creature, "from the primitive speck of protoplasm and the nucleated cell in which all life originates," and "is developed through stages undistinguishable from those of fish, reptile and mammal, until the cell finally attains the highly specialized development of the quadrumanous, and last of all, of the human type. " (Laing, 335.) This is perfectly scientific, and we have nothing against that ; for all this relates to the shell of man -- his body, which in its growth is subject, of course, like every other (once called) morphological unit, to such metamorphoses. It is not those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through crystallization -- which is the same function, and bears the same relation to its inorganic ( so-called ) upadhi (or basis) as the formation of cells to their organic nuclei, through plant, insect and animal into man -- it is not they who will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the recognition of a Universal Deity in nature, ever-present and as ever invisible, and unknowable, and of intra -Cosmic gods, who all were men.** [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "Men are made complete only during their third, toward the fourth cycle (race). They are made 'gods' for good and evil, and responsible only when the two arcs meet (after 31/2 rounds towards the fifth Race). They are made so by the Nirmanakaya (spiritual or astral remains) of the Rudra-Kumaras, ' cursed to be reborn on earth again; meaning -- doomed in their natural turn to reincarnation in the higher ascending arc of the terrestrial cycle.' ( Commentary IX.