English
Periods of years expressed in figures simply bewilder the mind when we begin to talk of millions, and yet we know that the duration of a great root race must be counted in millions, that a great many millions of years are thus represented by even the briefest of the world periods which are connected with the great course of planetary evolution. It will not be an exaggeration of the truth to say that if we think of the whole Manvantara as representing the individual life of a man, such a lifetime as we are familiar with now, say one of seventy years, would stand in the same relation to the whole as one second ‘of time would stand in relation to the seventy years. Illustrations of this nature may, to some extent, help the mind in realising the length of the evolutionary THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 267 journey through which we have already passed, and in realising the rate at which the soul grows while it is left, so to speak, to the single influence of what may be thought of as the evolutionary drift. In looking backward over the progress achieved in the past by any soul not yet emerged from ordinary conditions— and such retrospect is possible for those whose faculties have already begun to function on Devachanic levels— there is something almost appalling in the tardiness in the growth observable. Each physical life has such infinitesimally minute contributions to make to the permanent individuality ! Look back, if you are able, for a dozen lives, and you will probably find so little difference between the spiritual individuality at this remote period and the corresponding individuality at this moment, that you might be tempted to think the time and strain and effort of all that existence but thrown away and wasted. But it has not been wasted really, any more than the corresponding interval of time has been wasted by the stalactite, that wonderful monument to Nature’s patience, which is not without its significance for observers who can appreciate analogies. And though progress may have been slow along the immeasurable course of bygone ages, the final result attained, even if we look merely at the spiritual individuality of the human being of our own period, is a growth the accomplishment of which eclipses that of the stalactite in the estimation of those who can appreciate the difference between the plane of Nature on which it has been achieved and that to which the perishable, however ancient, mineral form belongs. 268 THE GROWTH OF THE SOU. But what is the road to be travelled by the Ego in its development between this middle period of the Manvantara and the final culmination of its possi- bilities at a period in advance to be measured by the magnitude of that awful journey we have already taken, during which we have been shielded from a perception of its wearisome length by the torpor of our higher nature ? The distance to be yet travelled as measured on the scale of human condition, from the place at which the ordinary humanity now stands to that it should reach at the end of the Manvantara, is not less than that which separates a favourable example of modern civilisation—say a man of distin- guished literary culture or scientific attainments—from the primitive savage of Tierra del Fuego. It is the design of Nature that the majority of the whole human family shall at the end of the seventh round of planetary experience attain to a condition in which existence, in reference to this planetary chain to which we belong, will be, to begin with, more free than our present incarnate existence in as great a degree as the living man of to-day, so to speak, is freer than the stone. If we endeavour to invest the stone in our imagination with a consciousness, it must clearly be one of a very restricted character, and, amongst other conditions, it exists wherever it is put, not wherever it wills to go. Within limits the man can move about on the surface of this earth at his pleasure, but compared with the being he may become, he is as much in prison in his present vehicle, and as much chained down to one spot by the limitations of his capacity, as in com- THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 269 parison with him the stone itself is subject to restric- tions. The final example of perfected humanity will use whatever body he then retains as a mere instrument of his convenience, to be worn or left aside at pleasure. The higher realms of Nature, of which I have been speaking in endeavouring to describe the course of human experience between death and re-birth, and others again immeasurably transcending these, will be accessible to him as readily as the various rooms in the house in which he lives may be accessible to him now. From any one globe of the chain to another he will be able to pass as freely as within the various phases of each. Forces of Nature as far transcending any with which modern science is acquainted as these transcend the resources of the African savage will lie within his reach and command, for his moral nature will have attained altitudes corresponding with the development of his power and knowledge, and by that time his Will will be so completely welded with that which controls the whole of Nature, and is represented to our ordinary thinking by the idea of Divinity, that no care on the part of Nature for his own or others’ welfare will render it necessary to subject him to the disabilities of ignorance. Language entirely fails to do more than hint in the vaguest fashion at the kind of exaltation thus within the possibilities of human progress, but that progress may in some faint degree be appreciated with the help of the thought that it will amongst other things embrace all knowledge con- cerning this whole Manvantaric design—an absolute and complete understanding of every intricacy in 270 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Nature’s stupendous mechanism, and will embrace the answer to every moral enigma which the experience of life may suggest, or to which in the weary efforts of our speculative thinking in the present day we may turn continually in despairing sorrow, holding on with what strength we may to the vague trust that in superior wisdom there resides, beyond our reach, a clue to the mysteries of evil. That is the course along which human evolution has still to travel, but it ought to be manifest to any reason- able thinker that the scheme thus set forth, involving, as it does, the elevation of Man to levels which we are in the habit of thinking God-like, is not to be accom- plished by any process of evolution pressing upon him from without. In a certain sense, though even this 1s, perhaps, a strained one, it may be said that up to the present period of evolution, primeval germs of human consciousness have been brought to the position in which we now stand under the influence of external forces or guidance, but before a man can be invested by nature with God-like attributes, he must engender within his own consciousness the will to be God-like, and he must, as it were, put the whole force of his own intention into the undertaking. He must be actuated by an intelligent will as well as by vague aspiration towards progress; he must make the choice between good and evil with his eyes open; he must determine whether he would rather grasp whatever good things connected with progress it may be possible for him to monopolise for himself, or whether he would rather join his forces to those who are endeavouring to THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 271 serve the purposes of God, and to promote the acceleration of the whole undertaking. It will only be by individual effort at each step of man’s progress as he goes on through the ordinary course of Nature that he will really ascend along the gentle upward spiral, but at this point it is impossible to describe the course of normal evolution without making some reference to that kind which is abnormally hastened. If a man follows the normal course no great magni- tude of effort, so to speak, will ever be required from him at any given moment, but his growth towards ultimate possibilities of his own development will be correspondingly slow. On the other hand, the extent to which, by emphasising that effort to an enormous degree of intensity, it is possible for him from this stage of human advancement onward to accelerate his own evolution, will be found to eclipse the boldest conjectures which any one might form from the point of view of comprehending the whole evolutionary scheme without actually knowing what have been the results of abnormal effort on the part of those who have gone in advance of the rest. But whether he concentrates his effort or distributes it, for the evolution of the latter half of the Manvantara he must contribute his own effort to the evolutionary tendency or he will fall back into the rear. This will be better intelligible when we come to study the condi- tions of abnormal progress, but meanwhile explana- tions are still wanting to complete our picture of the whole evolutionary field, within the almost boundless range of which the growth of the soul proceeds. 272 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. The planetary series with which our present Man- vantara is concerned, with all its marvellous intricacies as regards its physical manifestation alone, with all its unseen conditions of existence around it, with all its magnificent possibilities of consciousness having to do with the spiritual planes of Nature, is but one of a series of such with which this human family is concerned.