Page 68 (part 3)

It is from IT that issues the great unseen Logos, who evolves all the other logoi, the primeval M ANU who gives being to the other Manus, who emanate the universe and all in it collectively, and who represent in their aggregate the manifested Logos.* Hence we learn in the "Commentaries" that while no Dhyan Chohan, not even the highest, can realise completely "the condition of the preceding Cosmic evolution," "the Manus retain a knowledge of their experiences of all the Cosmic evolutions throughout Eternity." This is very plain: the first Manu is called Swayambhuva, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] planetary chain, etc.; and Nitya (perpetual) Mahapralaya for the Universe, death -- for man, nitya is the extinction of life, like the extinction of a lamp," also "in sleep at night." Nitya Sarga is "constant or perpetual creation," as Nitya pralaya is "constant or perpetual destruction of all that is born." "That which ensues after a minor dissolution is called ephemeral creation. . . . This is Samyama" (production, existence, and dissolution) ( Vishnu Purana, Book I., ch. vii. ) The subject is so difficult that we are obliged to repeat our statements. * But see the superb definitions of Parabrahmam and the Logos in Mr. Subba Row's Lectures on the Bhagavat Gita in the early numbers of the Theosophist of 1887, Feb., March, April, and May. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 311 THE FOUR EARLIER RACES. "the Self-manifested," the Son of the unmanifested F ATHER. The Manus are the creators of the creators of our First Race -- the Spirit of mankind -- which does not prevent the seven Manus from having been the first "pre-Adamic" men on Earth. Manu declares himself created by Viraj,* or Vaiswanara, (the Spirit of Humanity),** which means that his Monad emanates from the never resting Principle in the beginning of every new Cosmic activity: that Logos or U NIVERSAL M ONAD (collective Elohim) that radiates from within himself all those Cosmic Monads that become the centres of activity -- progenitors of the numberless Solar systems as well as of the yet undifferentiated human monads of planetary chains as well as of every being thereon. Each Cosmic Monad is "Swayambhuva," the SELF-BORN, which becomes the Centre of Force, from within which emerges a planetary chain (of which chains there are seven in our system), and whose radiations become again so many Manus Swayambhuva (a generic name, mysterious and meaning far more than appears), each of these becoming, as a Host, the Creator of his own Humanity. ( See " The Manus and the Manvantaras Explained by a Western Mystic and Mathematician. ") As to the question of the four distinct races of mankind that preceded our Fifth Race, there is nothing mystical in it, except the ethereal bodies of the first races; and it is a matter of legendary, nevertheless, very correct history. That legend is universal. And if the Western savant pleases to see in it only a myth, it does not make the slightest difference. The Mexicans had, and still have, the tradition of the fourfold destruction of the world by fire and water, just as the Egyptians had, and the Hindus have, to this day. Trying to account for the community of legends in the remote antiquity -- held by Chinese, Chaldean, Egyptians, Indians and Greeks -- and for the absence of any certain vestige of civilization more ancient than 5,000 years, the author of " Mythical Monsters, " remarks, that "we must not be surprised if we do not immediately discover the vestiges of the people of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand years ago. With an ephemeral architecture (as in China), the sites of vast cities may have become entirely lost to recollection in a few thousands of years from natural decay . . . and how much more . . . if . . . minor cataclysms have intervened, such as local inundations, earthquakes, deposition of volcanic ashes, the spread of sandy deserts, destruction of life by [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See preceding foot-note. ** See Manu I., 32, 33. Vaiswanara is, in another sense, the living magnetic fire that pervades the manifested solar system. It is the most objective (to us the reverse) and ever present aspect of the ONE LIFE, for it is the Vital Principle. ( See Theosophist, July, 1883, p . 249). It is also a name of Agni. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 312 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. deadly pestilence, by miasma, or by the outpour of sulphurous fumes." (" Mythical Monsters, " by Ch. Gould, p. 134.) And how many of such cataclysms have changed the whole surface of the earth may be inferred from this Stanza: " During the first seven crores of the Kalpa (70,000,000 years) the Earth and its two Kingdoms (mineral and vegetable), one already having achieved its seventh circle, the other, hardly nascent, are luminous and semi-ethereal, cold, lifeless, and translucid. In the eleventh crore* the mother (Earth) grows opaque, and in the FOURTEENTH** the throes of adolescence take place. These convulsions of nature (geological changes) last till her twentieth crore of years, uninterruptedly, after which they become periodical, and at long intervals. " The last change took place nearly twelve crores of years ago ( 120,000,000 ) . But the Earth with everything on her face had become cool, hard and settled ages earlier. ( Commentary, xxii. ) Thus, if we are to believe esoteric teaching, there have been no more universal geological disturbances and changes for the last 120 millions of years, and the Earth was, even before that time, ready to receive her human stock. The appearance of the latter, however, in its full physical development, as already stated, took place only about eighteen millions of years ago, after the first great failure of nature to create beings alone, without the help of the divine "Fashioners," had been followed by the successive evolution of the first three races ( See above Stanzas III. et seq .). The actual duration of the first two and a-half Races is withheld from all but the higher Initiates. The History of the Races begins at the separation of the Sexes, when the preceding egg-bearing androgynous race perished rapidly, and the subsequent sub-races of the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * This -- in the period of Secondary creation, so called.