849. ¹ While the Renaissance was obviously a slow and gradual process, most authorities would put its effective commencement somewhat later than this, and would connect it with the fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453
850. The latest of these efforts was the founding of The Theosophical Society in 1875. After careful consideration the Masters Morya and Kuthumi undertook the responsibility of that step, and chose that noble worker Madame Blavatsky to help Them on the physical plane. Most students of Theosophical literature know how she was prepared for what she had to do; how in due course the Brotherhood sent her to America to search for Colonel Olcott, the comrade who would supply what was lacking in herself-- the power of organization and of speaking to men and gathering them round him and shaping them into a movement in the outer world-- and how the Society was founded in New York, and later had its Headquarters removed to India.
851. As I write, our Society has completed its fiftieth year of service to humanity, and it is impossible to estimate the vast amount of good it has done in every department of human life. Its influence cannot in the least be measured by the number of its members or branches, although that is by no means insignificant, since it extends to every civilized part of the globe. But in each field of human endeavour it has sounded its characteristic note, the reverberations of which multiply around us in the words and work of statesmen and scientists, literary men and artists, and many others, of whom, great numbers perhaps have never even heard the word Theosophy. It has drawn attention to the realities of the invisible world and the power of mind. It has voiced the claims in outward life of the fact of brotherhood, seeking no uniformity in human life, but the organization for mutual support of widely different individuals, each of whom shall be strong in his special type, and all of whom shall be bound together by the indissoluble bond of respect for the man who is different from oneself. It has brought together East and West as never before; it has demanded fair play in the comparison of religions, and revealed with unmistakable clearness their essential unity of teaching and their common source. And it has brought thousands to the feet of the Masters to serve Them with all their power and with all their hearts for the good of mankind for all time to come.
852. THE RACES853. In its work for the world the Brotherhood deals not only with the present, but looks far into the future, and prepares for the evolution of new races and nations in which the qualities of humanity shall be developed in harmonious sequence. As we shall see in Chapter xiii, the progress of mankind takes place in no haphazard manner, but the formation of the races with their special characteristics, physical, emotional and mental (serving as classes in the great world-school, for the development of special qualities) is as precise and definite as the curriculum and time-table of any modern college.
854. The great Aryan race which, though not yet at its prime, dominates the world to-day with its supreme gift of intellect, has followed after the Atlantean race, the people of which still form the majority of mankind and occupy a great portion of the land surface of our globe.
855. THE COMING856. In this connection three great pieces of work are in hand at the present time, the first of which is the preparation for the physical embodiment and activity among men of the Bodhisattva or World-Teacher, who is the same great Personage, the Christ, who occupied the body of Jesus two thousand years ago. His coming must not be confused with the centennial events already mentioned; those belong to the First Ray, and are in the department of occult work that deals with the guidance of races and subdivisions of races; whereas this is an event which occurs only once in a long time, and is an activity of the Second Ray, the department of religion and education.
857. The World-Teacher is even now at our doors, and we may hope for everincreasing manifestations of His power, His wisdom and His love. The Order of the Star in the East was established in 1911 to prepare for that Coming by drawing together people of every sect and religion all over the world, who for various reasons believe in the near approach of the World-Teacher, and are willing to combine, in a grand effort to proclaim it to the world, and prepare themselves as far as may be to be useful servants of the Lord when He comes.
858. Since the Lord Maitreya has chosen to announce His coming to the world through our President, we are justified, I think, in assuming that His teaching will be somewhat along the line of the ideals that she has been promulgating with such wonderful eloquence during the last thirty-seven years. Some sects of Christians still cling to the superstition that He will come to judge mankind and to destroy the earth, so that there is a great element of fear and uncertainty connected with their beliefs. But all fear of God comes from a misunderstanding.
859. The Coming of Christ is indeed connected with an end-- not the end of the world, but the end of an age or dispensation. The Greek word is aion, which is the same as aeon in English; and just as Christ said two thousand years ago that the dispensation of the Jewish law had come to an end, because He had come to found a new one, that of the gospel, so will the era of that gospel come to an end when He returns and founds yet another. He will give the same great teaching; the teaching must be the same, for there is only one Truth, though perhaps it may be put a little more clearly for us now, because we know a little more. It will be promulgated in some fresh dress, perhaps, with some beauty of expression which will be exactly suited to us in this present day, and there will be some statement of it which will appeal to a large number of people.
860. It will certainly be the same, because if has appeared in all the existing faiths. They have differed much in their method of presenting it, but they all agree absolutely in the life which they ask their followers to live. We find considerable difference between the external teachings of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Muhammadanism; but if we examine the good men of any one of those religions and inquire into their daily practice, we shall find that they are all leading precisely the same life-- that they all agree as to the virtues a good man must possess and as to the evils he must avoid.
861. They all tell us that a man must be charitable, truthful, kindly, honourable, helpful to the poor; they all tell us that a man who is hard and grasping and cruel, who is untruthful and dishonourable, is making no progress, and has no chance of success until he changes his ways. As practical people we must recognize that the things of real importance in any religion are not the vague metaphysical speculations on matters of which no one can really know anything for certain, for these can have no influence upon our conduct; the important things are the precepts which affect our daily lives, which make us this kind of man or that kind of man in our relations with our fellow-men. Those precepts are the same in all existing religions; they will be the same in the new teaching, whatever it may be.
862. Perhaps we may go a little further than that in Predicting what He will teach. Surely, the great central truth which he will emphasize is that the evils of the world come from lack of love and brotherliness-- that if man will learn to love and to adopt the brotherly attitude, all evil will pass away and the golden age will dawn upon us. Not immediately-- we cannot hope for that; but at least men will begin to see for themselves, and to understand how much more is to be gained along that line than the other.
863. THE SIXTH SUB-RACE864. The second of these great events is the moulding of the form of body, emotions and mind of the sixth sub-race of our Aryan race, which has already begun to appear in America and Australia and perhaps in other parts of the world. The great modelling power of the Manu' s mind and will is at work on the inner planes, modifying even the physical type of the children of the new age, wherever they may be susceptible to it, and some of the junior members of the Brotherhood, working in the outer world, have their instructions to provide for these when possible the education and training that befits the new race. This work is small as yet, but it is destined to swell into voluminous proportions, until within a few short centuries the sixth sub-race will stand out distinct and admirable in its young manhood in the new world, while the old world continues to develop the fifth sub-race to its maturity and perfection. And perchance later still the sixth sub-race, radiant and glorious in its manhood, will shed its blessing upon the fifth, so that for the first time a race shall have a serene and dignified decline into fruitful and venerable age. That may be the reward of its present and coming service to the infant race, and of its fight, full of sacrifice but triumphant, against the powers of darkness, opening up possibilities for man such as the race has never known before.
865. We must try to understand what is meant by belonging to the new sixth subrace. Our ideas are liable to be too inelastic. When the sixth sub-race is fully established, it will show certain definite characteristics-- physical, astral and mental-- which are not to be seen in the average man of the fifth sub-race. Remember, it has to be built gradually out of the fifth sub-race, and these new characteristics must be developed one by one in each of the egos concerned. The process of' preparation is a long one, and may well extend over several lives. So when we look round and examine people (and especially young people) from this point of view, we must not expect to be able to say off-hand that one belongs to the new sub-race, and another does not.
866. A more accurate statement would be something like this: “A seems to possess about twenty-five per cent of the characteristics of the new sub-race; B has perhaps as much as fifty per cent; C has a large proportion-- perhaps seventy-five per cent; in D I cannot see anything lacking; as far as I can tell, he is a fully developed example.” And you must understand that the average boy or girl whom you think hopeful is probably an A, for B' s are as yet very rare in the world, and C' s and D' s practically non-existent, except in our own tiny circle. Remember also that developments are very unequal; a boy may have made a considerable amount of astral or mental progress before it shows much in his physical body; and on the other hand, through good heredity, he may have a physical body, capable of expressing greater advancement on higher planes than he has yet attained. Very few can expect to show all the signs yet; they may be well satisfied if they show one or two.
867. Even at its culmination it will not be uniform; for example, it is in the main a dolichocephalous race, but it will always have brachycephalous subdivisions; it will contain fair-haired and dark-haired people, people with blue eyes and people with brown. Naturally the astral and mental traits are the more important, but in most cases it is only by the physical appearance that one can make an estimate. The keynote is unselfishness, and the dominant is eager enthusiasm for service; and these must he accompanied by active kindliness and large-hearted tolerance. He who forgets his own pleasure, and thinks only how he can help others, has already gone far on the path. Discrimination and common sense are also marked characteristics.
868. If we wish to know for what physical tokens we may look, perhaps the most marked of all are delicate, well-shaped hands and feet, thin fingers and oval nails, especially thinness in fingers and thumb when seen edgewise. The texture of the skin is also important. It is always clear, and never coarse. Of faces there are three types-- the markedly oval with high forehead, the slightly less oval with broad forehead, and the practically brachycephalous (this last being rare; the definition of a brachycephalous skull is that its breadth is four-fifths of its length). There is about the person who is approaching the sixth sub-race a distinguishing expression which one who looks for it will soon begin to recognize.
869. We frequently hear from independent observers and students of their recognition of a new racial type seen especially in California, Australia and New Zealand. For example, in 1923 an address was delivered by Captain Pape to the British Association, dealing with what he called the AustralAmerican Race, and his remarks included the following description of its peculiarities:
870. The head tends to be dome-shaped, especially over the frontal region; there is a departure from what is known as the “low-set ear”; hair and skin are fine; eyes luminous, intelligent, but not full; bridge of the nose early developed; lips sensitive and mobile; eyebrows prominent; frontal brain development large; type of face somewhat triangular, but not sharp; general physiology harmonious, proportionate, healthy, not at all the “all brain and no body” type. The psychology of the new-race child manifests as a rapid response to sympathy, pity in suffering, power to comprehend principles easily, quick intuitions, thoroughness, sensitiveness, quick sense of justice, absence of parrot-like intelligence, eagerness to help others. They also show a dislike of coarse food, and often have not a large appetite along any lines. In other respects they are normal children but especially need sympathy and understanding teachers.
871. In the previous year there was a long article in The Los Angeles Sunday Times devoted to the subject of the new race appearing in California and New Zealand. After referring to some of the mental and physical characteristics ascribed to the children of the new race, it remarked particularly upon their qualities of exceptional poise and intuition.
872. THE SIXTH ROOT RACE873. The third great event is the foundation of the sixth root race, which is to take place physically in California about seven hundred years from now. A community will be established there with the Manu of that race, He who is now our Master Morya, at the Head of it, and beside Him His co-worker throughout the ages, the Master Kuthumi, who is to be the Bodhisattva of the sixth root race. We have written of that community in Man: Whence, How and Whither. Although it lies some hundreds of years ahead, which after all is but a brief time in the life of a man, as all of us will realize when we look back upon it, preparations are already afoot for that also, and The Theosophical Society is playing no inconsiderable part in those.
874. Every branch of the Society is or ought to be encouraging each one of its members in his efforts to apply in the outer world the Theosophical knowledge that he has gained; he must of course do that according to his temperament and ability, and his opportunities as he mixes with men; but all that helps the present race. Within the Theosophical Lodge, where so many different types of men forgather and must help one another, if the Lodge be true to its ideals, a breadth of character should be developed in the members, for they receive in this respect an education in the spirit of brotherhood which can scarcely be had elsewhere in the world. Most societies are organized for the attainment of one goal or one purpose, but in The Theosophical Society we know that although one model of perfection appeals most strongly to one man and another to another, the brotherhood of man will not be achieved by the triumph of any one ideal, be it love, or truth, or beauty alone, but by the twisting of all these strands into one mighty rope which will bind man for ever to the Divine. As was said in the Hitopadesha long ago: 875. Small things wax exceeding mighty,
876. Being cunningly combined:877. Furious elephants are fastened
878. With a rope of grass-blades twined.
879. Such is the spirit of brotherhood gradually acquired by the true Theosophist, holding to his fellow by inner impulse, not by outward compulsion; and membership in the Society is verily a training by the Masters which, if successful, will fit the man to be reborn in the community of the sixth root race when it is established on the physical plane.
880. CHAPTER XII881. THE CHOHANS AND THE RAYS
882. THE CHOHANS
883. IN the last chapter I have tried to describe some of the numerous avenues of work of the great Masters, but there are of course many others, about some of which we know practically nothing; yet what we do know indicates that the work is vast and varied, and that the Adepts deal with it in different ways, according to Their own temperaments and preferences. There is a sevenfold division running through all things, as I must explain more fully presently, and this appears also in the Great White Brotherhood. In the Hierarchy the seven Rays are clearly distinguished. The First or ruling Ray is governed by the Lord of the World; at the head of the Second Ray stands the Lord Buddha, and under These come respectively the Manu and the Bodhisattva of the root race which is predominant in the world at any given time. Parallel in rank with These is the Mahachohan, who supervises all the other five Rays, each of which nevertheless has also its own Head. In my next chapter I will explain what I can about the loftier ranks of the Hierarchy, attempting in this to render some account of the work of the Heads of Rays Three to Seven, and of the Masters Morya and Kuthumi, who stand at Their level on the First and Second Rays.
884. The title Chohan is given to those Adepts who have taken the sixth Initiation, but the same word is employed also for the Heads of Rays Three to Seven, who hold very definite and exalted offices in the Hierarchy. We are given to understand that the meaning of the word Chohan is simply “Lord,” and that it is used both generally and specifically, in much the same way as the word Lord is employed in England. We speak of a man as a lord because he possesses that title, but that is quite different from what we mean when we speak, for example, of the Lord Chancellor or the Lord-Lieutenant of the County. The term appears again in the name Dhyan Chohan, which occurs in The Secret Doctrine and elsewhere, and then it refers to Beings of every high station, altogether outside the Occult Hierarchy of our planet.
885. THE MASTER DJWAL KUL' S TABLE886. It is necessary at this point, if we are to understand at all this part of the work of the Masters, to digress a little and say something of what is meant by the Seven Rays. This is a matter of considerable difficulty. Long ago we received some information, very incomplete certainly, but still very valuable, about these Rays. I remember well the occasion on which it was given to us. Mr. Cooper-Oakley and I and a Hindu brother were sitting talking on the roof at Adyar in the very early days, when there was only the one headquarters house and twenty-nine acres of half-jungle behind it; and there came to us suddenly the Master Djwal Kul, who was at that time the chief pupil of the Master Kuthumi. He gave us a great deal of teaching in those days, and was always very kind and patient, and while He sat and talked to us that day this question of the Rays came up. Mr. Cooper-Oakley in his characteristic way said: “Oh, please, Master, will you tell us all about the Rays?”
887. There was a twinkle in our Teacher' s eye as He said: “Well, I cannot tell you all about them until you have reached a very high Initiation. Will you have what I can tell you, which will be partial and inevitably misleading, or will you wait until you can be told the whole thing?” Not unnaturally we thought that half a loaf was better than no bread, so we said we would take what we could get. We noted down the very interesting information that He gave, but much of it was incomprehensible to us, as He had foretold. He said: “I cannot tell you any more than that, for I am bound by certain pledges; but if your intuition can make out more I will tell you whether you are right.” Even that little fragmentary information was of very great value to us.
888. The following Diagram 3 is the table of Rays and their characteristics which He then gave to us:889. It was explained that the religion written opposite each Ray is not to be taken as necessarily a perfect exposition of it, but is simply that which now remains on earth as a relic of the last occasion on which that Ray exercised dominant influence on the world. The Magic of the First Ray and the characteristics of the Seventh were not given, we may imagine the first to be kriyashakti and the second to be co-operation with the Deva kingdom. The meaning of the Birth of Horus could not be explained, but one of the characteristics of the Fourth Ray was stated to be the use of the forces of action and interaction-the male and female forces of nature, as it were. Whenever phallicism occurs in the various religions, it is always due to a materialization and misconception of some of the secrets connected with this Ray. The true development of the Seventh Ray would be communication with and instruction from the higher Devas.
891. After what I have said above it should be clear that the information that has as yet reached us about the Rays is fragmentary. It is not only not a full account of the subject, but it is not even a perfect outline, for we were plainly told that there were huge gaps in the description given to us, which could not possibly be filled up till much later. So far as we know, very little has hitherto been written on this subject, and that little so guardedly expressed as not to be at all readily intelligible, and occult teachers are markedly reticent when questioned about it.¹
892. ¹ While the first edition of this book was passing through the press an important work on the subject appeared- The Seven Rays , by Professor Ernest Wood. The material which it gives is illuminative and is presented from quite a new angle.
893. THE SEVENFOLD DIVISION894. The essential thing to understand is that there is a certain sevenfold division of everything that exists in the manifested world, whether of life or matter. All life which exists in our chain of worlds passes through and belongs to one or other of Seven Rays, each having seven subdivisions. In the universe there are forty-nine such Rays, making, in sets of seven, the Seven Great Cosmic Rays, flowing from or through the Seven Great Logoi. In our chain of worlds, however, and perhaps in our solar system, only one of these Great Cosmic Rays is operating, and its subdivisions are our seven Rays. It must not of course be supposed that our solar system is the only manifestation of that particular Logos, since each of the Seven Great Logoi may have millions of systems dependent on it. As I have explained in The Inner Life:
895. The whole of our solar system is a manifestation of its Logos, and every particle in it is definitely part of His vehicles. All the physical matter of the solar system taken as a totality constitutes His physical body; all the astral matter within it constitutes His astral body; all the mental matter, His mental body, and so on. Entirely above and beyond His system He has a far wider and greater existence of His own, but that does not in the least affect the truth of the statement which we have just made.
896. This Solar Logos contains within Himself Seven Planetary Logoi, who are as it were centres of force within Him, channels through which His force pours out. Yet at the same time there is a sense in which they may be said to constitute Him. The matter which we have just described as composing His vehicles also composes theirs, for there is no particle of matter anywhere in the system which is not part of one or other of them. All this is true of every plane; but let us for a moment take the astral plane as an example, because its matter is fluid enough to answer the purposes of our inquiry, and at the same time it is near enough to the physical to be not entirely beyond the limits of our physical comprehension.
897. Every particle of the astral matter of the system is part of the astral body of the Solar Logos, but it is also part of the astral body of one or other of the Seven Planetary Logoi. Remember that this includes the astral matter of which your astral body and mine are composed. We have no particle which is exclusively our own. In every astral body there are particles belonging to each one of the Seven Planetary Logoi, but the proportions vary infinitely. The bodies of those Monads which originally came forth through a Planetary Logos will continue all through their evolution to have more of the particles of that Planetary Logos than of any other, and in this way people may be distinguished as primarily belonging to one or other of the Seven Great Powers.
898. THE SEVEN SPIRITS899. In Christian terms these seven great Beings are found in the vision of St. John the Evangelist, who said: “And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the Seven Spirits of God.” (¹Rev. iv, 5.) Those are the Mystical Seven, the great Planetary Logoi, who are life-centres in the very Logos Himself. Those are the true Heads of our Rays-- the Heads for the whole solar system, not for our world only. Out through one or other of that mighty Seven every one of us must have come, some through one, some through another.
900. They are the Seven Sublime Lords of The Secret Doctrine , the Primordial Seven, the Creative Powers, the Incorporeal Intelligences, the Dhyan Chohans, the Angels of the Presence. But remember that this last title is used in two quite different senses, which must not be confused. At every Celebration of the Holy Eucharist among our Christian brethren there appears an “Angel of the Presence,” who is in truth a thought-form of the Lord Christ, a vehicle of His consciousness, and so is rightly called a manifestation of His Presence; but these Seven Great Ones receive the title for a very different reason-- because They stand ever in the very presence of the Logos Himself, representing there the Rays of which They are the Heads-representing us therefore, since in every one of us is part of the Divine Life of every one of Them.
901. For though each of us belongs fundamentally to one Ray-- the channel through which he, as a Monad, flowed forth from the Eternal into Time-- yet has he within himself something of all the Rays; there is in him no ounce of force, no grain of matter, which is not actually part of one or other of these wondrous Beings; he is literally compacted of Their very substance-- not of one, but of all, though always one predominates. Therefore, no slightest movement of any of these great Star Angels can occur without affecting to some extent every one of us, because we are bone of Their bone, flesh of Their flesh, Spirit of Their Spirit; and this great fact is the real basis of the often misunderstood science of Astrology.
902. We all stand always in the presence of the Solar Logos, for in His system there is no place where He is not, and all that is, is part of Him. But in a very special sense these Seven Spirits are part of Him, manifestations of Him, almost qualities of His-- centres in Him through which His Power flows out. We may see a hint of this in the names assigned to them by the Jews. The first of them is always Michael, “your Prince,” as he is called; and this name means “The Strength of God,” or, as it is sometimes interpreted, “He who is like God in strength.” El, in Hebrew, means God; we find it in Beth-El, which is “The House of God”; and Elohim is the word used for “God” in the very first verse of the Bible. This word El occurs as a termination in the name of each of the Seven Spirits. Gabriel means “The Omniscience of God,” and He is sometimes called God' s Hero. He is connected with the planet Mercury, as Michael is with Mars. Raphael signifies “The Healing Power of God,” and He is associated with the Sun, which is the great health-giver for us on the physical plane. Uriel is “The Light or Fire of God”; Zadkiel is “The Benevolence of God,” and is connected with the planet Jupiter. The other Archangels are usually given as Chamuel and Jophiel, but I do not at present recollect their meanings or their planets.
903. St. Denys speaks of these Seven Spirits as the Builders, and also calls them the Co-operators of God. St. Augustine says that they have possession of the Divine Thought, or the Prototype, and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that God is the primary and these Angels are the secondary cause of all visible effects. Everything is done by the Logos, but through the mediation of these Planetary Spirits. Science will tell you that the planets are fortuitous aggregations of matter, condensations from the mass of the nebula, and so no doubt they are; but why at those particular points? Because behind each there is a Living Intelligence to choose the points so that they will balance one another. Truly wh