LECTURE VII
Berlin, 2nd October 1905
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine, called Jehovah a
Moon God.
(26)
There is a deep reason underlying this. In order to
understand it we must be clear about the further development of man.
In man as he is today, his higher forces are intermingled. His further
development depends on the emergence of his higher self from the
sheath of the lower forces and organs.
The brain is divided into three actual parts: into thinking, feeling
and willing sections. Later these three parts, like the three
divisions of an ant-heap, will be directed by man from outside. The
parts, however, from which the higher has been withdrawn do not remain
as they are today, but they then descend a further stage lower. This
is the reason why many people practicing a one-sided spiritual
development suffer a moral decline. In the case of western cultural
life there is less danger of this, for western science does not yet
compel the higher things of the mind to rise up out of the lower body.
Through Theosophy, on the other hand, man actually absorbs a wisdom
through which the ego is partially torn out of the usual environment
of the organs. It can happen that when a person who, through his
conventional milieu had observed ordinary moral standards, takes up
theosophical teachings, his worser qualities, which up to that time
had remained hidden, actually make their appearance. Frequently the
lower comes to the surface because one occupies oneself with spiritual
things without at the same time strengthening one's morality. This
fact brings with it a certain tragedy. Certain men of academic
standing, who in the sphere of western knowledge had been quite
admirable people, suffered through having come into the Theosophical
Society; in their case the lower nature made its appearance without
being mastered by the higher.
The same law is also to be found on a larger scale. The beings whom we
meet with on the Old Moon had not as yet incorporated their power of
thinking in a physical brain. The power of thinking in the case of the
Moon-Nirmana-kayas, Bodhisattvas, Pitris and pure human beings did not
yet work in a physical brain but in the ether masses surrounding them.
On the Old Moon the environment consisted not only of air, but also of
ether filled with wisdom. On the Old Moon thoughts were not in the
individual beings but they flew hither and thither in the ether. In
occultism therefore the Old Moon is also called the Cosmos of Wisdom.
(27)
The Old Moon was surrounded by Warmth Ether and other forms of
ether. In these ethers lived intelligence and reason, as they now live
in the human brain. Underlying this however there was development. At
the beginning of the Moon evolution wisdom still impressed itself into
beautiful forms. The beings who only possessed the lower human
members, physical body, etheric body and astral body, were directed by
these streams of wisdom. In the course of further development the
three lower bodies descended more deeply. When the Old Moon evolution
came to an end the beings who were wise, but did not possess wisdom in
a brain, had progressed so far that they could completely relinquish
these lower bodies. These beings who had now become Pitris and who no
longer needed to enter into such physical, etheric and astral bodies,
were the hosts of the Elohim in different stages. The lowest rank of
these Elohim is the Jehovah stage. Jehovah therefore is an actual Moon
divinity, who on the Old Moon passed through physical development.
Nevertheless on the Moon he was never able to work on the physical
surroundings, using a brain as the vehicle of thought. Only his
physical, etheric and astral bodies had worked on the physical
environment. This however he did through pictures. Thinking hovered
above. The name Jehovah does not designate a single being, but a rank
in the order of the hierarchies. Many beings can take on the Jehovah
rank, or assume it for a purpose. Eliphas Levi repeatedly emphasised
that with the designations Jehovah, Archangeloi, Angeloi, we have to
do with ordered ranks of beings.
The first human beings to receive teaching on the Earth received it
from Jehovah in pictures. That is why Genesis is a sum of great
pictures, pictures which Jehovah had experienced on the Old Moon.
While on the Old Moon, on the one hand,
(28)
only the lower being of
man was developed in physical, etheric and astral bodies on the
other hand the higher trinity was being cherished and fostered. These
principles had reached a certain degree of maturity, after having been
implanted; Atma on Old Saturn, Buddhi on Old Sun, Manas on Old Moon.
They could then develop further on the Earth. What came over on to the
Earth from the Old Moon as physical, etheric and astral bodies, are
the grotesque animals in which Atma, Buddhi and Manas gradually
incorporated themselves. The Moon Pitris had left aside the lower
parts, but to make up for this they had cherished and fostered Atma,
Buddhi and Manas in an objective way. Through their fostering care
they brought it about that a thinker could develop on the Earth. If
one looks at the external creatures on the Old Moon, these are the
sheaths which surrounded man, not man himself. The sheaths could be
made use of because what had to leave them had departed. [Gap in the
text ...] Now the remaining material could be condensed to form the
brain. In a germinal condition the matter for the brain was there, but
could only condense after the Pitris had left.
What took place in the pre-Lemurian Age is a preparation. The human
body is so worked upon that Atma, Buddhi and Manas can sink into it.
These principles enveloped themselves with Kama-substance. Let us now
imagine a jelly-like being which had freed itself from what had come
over from the Old Moon. This provides a physical foundation. In
addition to this there are Atma, Buddhi and Manas, and an astral body
which these principles organise around themselves. They work on the
jelly-like masses from outside until they are able to take possession
of them from within. Finally the spiritual penetrates the physical.
Now two kinds of beings have amalgamated. The moment the brain is
formed they interpenetrate one another. Through this, birth and death
entered into Earth-evolution. Previously human beings had themselves
built up the physical body; in the future this will be so again. But
because two beings are united who are only partially suited to one
another we have birth and death, and every period of time between
birth and death is a continual attempt to make these two beings fit
together better a swinging to and fro of the pendulum until
eventually a rhythmical condition is brought about.
Up to the middle of the Sixth Root-Race (epoch) this will continue,
until this rhythmical condition is attained and the one being has
become completely adapted to the other. And Karma is nothing else than
the measure of balance which the human being has already brought
about. In each single incarnation one attains a certain degree of
adaptation. After each incarnation man must ascend again to Devachan
in order to survey what has still to be done. Only when the balance is
achieved is Karma overcome and the human being can take up something
new, the true Wisdom, Buddhi, which until that time must be fostered
and cherished.
Future evolution must be prepared for. What man already produces from
himself, as preparation for the future human being, is the word,
speech. What man speaks remains in the Akashic Record. It is the
germinal beginning for the future human being. Speech is one half of
the former means of reproduction. Through speech man propagates
himself spiritually. The breaking of the male voice is connected with
this. One half of what is sexual has been carried over into speech.
The voice is the future organ of reproduction. In ancient
Hebrew the same word was used for sex and speech. Today man thinks and
the thought passes outwards through the larynx. The next stage will be
that feeling, warmth, passes outwards. Then the word will be the
expression of the inner warmth of the body. This can happen when
the pituitary gland (hypophysis) develops in the brain. The stage
following this appears when the pineal gland (epiphysis) is developed.
Then not only the warmth-imbued word will go forth, but the word will
remain, will be given form through the will, which then lives within
it. Then when one utters the word it becomes an actual being.
Related to this is: I think, I feel, I am (will). The word in this
sense is the word which undergoes a transformation from thinking,
into feeling and then into willing. This is a threefold process. First
the word is consciousness (in thinking) then life (the
warmth-permeated word), and lastly form, the word shaped through the
will. This latter is the word become objective. So here too, following
one another, we have: consciousness, life, form. Everything, which
today is form stems from earlier times and has arisen through such a
process. The physical body, the form, is the most perfected body; less
developed are the etheric body, life, and the astral body,
consciousness.
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