EVOLUTION AND OCCULTISM/PART 4
The Evolution of Man
An Address at the Parliament of
Religions, Chicago, 1893
[Publisher's Note: The first page of this
lecture was badly damaged in the original copy. We have interpolated words
where possible and enclosed them in brackets]
In
finishing this brief description of some of the leading Theosophical teachings,
I have been desired to talk about and deal with the Evolution of Man. Man, as
you take him in the past, man as we see him in the present, man as we shall see
him the future, the very first fruits of that [?] men living on the earth
to-day.
Evolution
in o[ur West]ern civilization has been a word of power [for the] minds of men.
Those glimpses that life [allows] of evolution give us but half the [?] for us
but half its circle, and with [?] give us an unintelligible, inexplicable
theory of a life that comes from no[where and] finds no intelligible goal. For
just [as we] see in our W[estern] evolution that life [?], that certain [?]
action of force and of [?] has out of [matter] made life, that out of
unintelligence springs existence, that out of the brute springs the man, so
evolution springing from the lower stages of life is to pass onward and onward
to an end as emotionally, as intellectually unsatisfactory as its beginning is
vague. For in the latest presentments of science we are told that in this chain
of evolution the latest link shall be as low as the first; gradual retroaction,
gradual degradation, until worlds evolved only from matter by energy shall
resolve back again into uninhabited desolation, either burned by fire or frozen
into obliviousness of life, until, disintegrated once more, they will be built
up again in the far-off future of existence.
Such
an evolution, were it true, would be the dreariest theory of life that human
mind could conceive--unintelligible to the brain, unsatisfactory to the heart.
Far other is Evolution as we have learned it from the ancient books, as it has
been traced for us by the Masters of Wisdom; for they tell us of that spirit,
to a description of which we have just been listening, out of which springs a
universe, the universe passing back, full of life, to expand into the Divine
All-Consciousness. They tell us of an Involution which is the Source and the
Fount of Life. Spirit involving itself in matter that it may become the
mainspring of Evolution, and may gradually mould matter into a perfect
expression of itself. And then this descent of Spirit into Matter--this
expansion of Life from within, passing through stage after stage of evolution,
reaches its lowest point in the Mineral Kingdom, thence begins the long climb
upwards, thence, by expanding energy, we can pass onward, stage by stage, to
the early evolution of Man, Man as he appeared in the present phase of the
earth's existence, first of all living things, the pattern of all forms, containing
every possibility that that stage of the evolving globe was to produce. Passing
from stage to stage, till the animal body was builded, till the astral form
into which the physical was moulded was ready to gather the physical together
and make a possibility of material human life. Then in that focussed the life
energy of the world, gathering to itself the forces which knit the molecules
together and co-ordinated all into the astral and physical bodies. And then as
the last touch of animal man, of this lower and transitory existence which was
to be the garment of the soul, we find appearing the passional, the emotional,
the instinctual nature, that which Man has in common with the brute, and out of
which in course of evolution that part of the brute nature also took its rise.
So that we come to a stage or human evolution where the animal side of Man is
completely builded; the tabernacle of the flesh is ready for its tenant; the
house of the soul ready for the incoming mind, and Man at this stage of his
existence nothing more than a beautiful animal should appear in the
possibilities of adaptation built into a similitude that would be able
gradually to be moulded by the indwelling soul into a perfect instrument for
expression on the lower plane of life; and then, to that abode builded for the
mind, comes the thinking entity, that is, the real Man--Man whose very name
comes from the root that means thought, Man whose very name in our own tongue
is identical with the Sanscrit word which is the root of thinking; so that in
our very title in the world we bear the impress of our special characteristics,
that the human soul is the thinking energy. The thinker that makes the complete
Man a possibility came not from the lower world, not given by material nature, not
evolved from the astral plane, not given birth to by the lower life, not taking
its origin in the passional, the emotional, the instinctual nature--Man's soul
comes from above, not from below, not climbing upwards from the brute, but the
focalized reflection of the Spirit.
That
is the soul that came to Man as animal and took him into his charge, to build
him up to the divine: for this thinker is the God in every man, the God who has
evolved from Matter, the God who has descended that he may subdue to himself
the lower nature and render every plane of existence translucent to a vehicle
of the Divine. This God in Man is the teacher, the Guide, the instructor, the
Helper, and also in his lower aspect the gatherer of experience out of which he
shall build up character which he shall carry back with him to the higher work
that lies before him in periods of existence yet unborn in the universe, that
are still in the obscurity of eternity.
This
thinker, this God descended into matter, has a dual aspect, one face turned to
the Divine which is its source, the other face turned to matter which he has
come to dominate and to subdue. These are the higher and the lower minds, the
rational, and, in its union with the lower nature, the animal soul in Man: so
that in its double nature you have the aspect that is turned to the brute to
train it; you have the aspect turned to the spirit that strives ever upward
towards union with the purely divine. And the whole life of man is the
battle-field of that dual nature--the God struggling with the brute, in order
that the brute itself may become divine. That is the way that Man evolves, that
is the building up of the divine in the midst of the earth on which we live. Do
you doubt that God is in every Man? Do you doubt that the essence of humanity
is divinity itself? Men talk of others as sunk in evil. Men speak of their own
race as corrupt, and by the very degradation they ascribe to it they make it
more degraded than otherwise it would be; for we tend to reproduce the opinion
that surrounds us. If we are evil and brutal, we tend then to take on, as it
were, the character which is ascribed to us too often even by the religious
faiths. But if Man be divine, if the very heart of Man be light, then you can
appeal to the divine within the lowest, and know that answer will come, however
muffled be the veil of flesh. Would you have proof that God in Man is present
in the vilest, present in the most degraded, present in every son of man whose
life seems that of the brute rather than of God? Come with me to one of our
English villages far away from the ordinary haunts of men--a village which,
once all beauty, has been defaced by the greed of those who possess it and the
carelessness of those who live in it. We have some mining villages in our
country, I am ashamed to say, where the lives that are lived are lives of the
lowest, of the most ignorant and most degraded. Not all of our mining
population are thus. Some of them are strong and self-reliant men, but it is
not of them I am thinking now. I am thinking of some villages I know where if
you walk down the village street you would find gathered in front of the
public-house men whose language soils those ears that hear it, who speak foul
words, who are gambling, betting, drinking, finding all pleasure in the senses,
and you would say, "No light of the divine is there." Are you so
sure? Wait and watch them as you wait, and as you are there, thinking how
degraded men can be, how they seem to be nothing but the vilest of living
creatures--listen to a sound there that makes every man spring to his feet, in
order that with every sense alert he may hear the sound distinctly and
understand what it means. There is a far-off rumbling that seems to shake the
ground on which they stand. The far-off rumble that comes louder, louder,
louder, till with a mighty clap as of a thunderbolt there is a crash, a roar,
and a pillar of smoke that comes up from the earth, and from mouth to mouth the
word flies, "Explosion in the mine below," and men are there, living
or dead, one cannot tell. In a moment the whole village is alive, .men, women,
and children rushing to the mouth of the pit. There are cries of women who know
not if they are wives or widows, wailings of children who know not if they be
fatherless, and the strong men gather around the pit, the pit that is black
with smoke, and unheeding that fiery death that is beneath--there is a
struggling at the mouth of the pit, men struggling with men, and struggling for
what? Come near them and you will hear the words that flow from their lips.
"Go back, you've got a wife or mother. Let me go down who have none to
care if I die." And the men who were swearing, who were gambling, who were
drinking, hearing that cry of men in agony, forget their brutehood and remember
the God that is within, and they fight to go into the cage, they struggle for
the chance to sacrifice their lives for their comrades; and down they go, down
into the hell of the burning mine, to see if some comrade be there still with
the life within him and they can bring back to woman or to child the
breadwinner of the family, the support and guardian of the home. Do you dare to
tell me those men are not divine? Do you dare to say that where-sacrifice is
pleasant, the very source of sacrifice is absent from the heart of man ? I tell
you there is none however degraded, none however ignorant, none however vile,
in whom the divine spirit has not His Sanctuary in the innermost heart, who
shall not at length become pure as the little child with love that raises him
from the mire of sin, and that energy of divine life which has in it the
promise of triumph, however far off that day of triumph is. And Man evolving by
this inner force, life after life, makes slow progression till a time comes in
the life of the man when more rapid growth begins to be possible; the time when
the man by gradual evolution is beginning to understand the far-off possibility
of reuniting, as it were, the higher and lower mind. When the upward striving
of the lower mind is beginning to reach by aspiration that higher one of which
it is the ray. When the higher mind, having worked for ages in human evolution,
is beginning to be able to impress itself on the tabernacle so that that
tabernacle is conscious of the indwelling of the God, and then there comes a
time when the man thus evolving begins consciously to set before himself a
definite aim to bend all his efforts in a definite direction, and there will be
evil in the heart only or in the heart and lips as well, yet a conscious
acceptation of Man's true goal in life, the service of his race and the giving
of himself for Man. And then the man who has reached that point in evolution
vows himself to the service of all that lives, and puts before him for all
future lives that may come to him the one object of growing so that he may help
others, of learning in order that he may enlighten their ignorance, of
strengthening himself that his strength may be of help in raising the world of
which he is a part, and then the lives consciously directed become more rapid
in their evolving energy, life after life adds more and more rapidly to the
vision of the soul, to the power of the lower mind to respond, till, stage by
stage, the story grows deeper and higher, till step by step the life becomes
purer and purer and fuller; and the last cycle of births is entered, which when
completed will leave the man one of those who have triumphed over sin anddeath;
and when these last lives are beginning, one lesson comes from those who have
already achieved, one special direction is given to the disciple by which his
life is to be guided, by which his safety on the path is to be secured. You may
read it in the same book that I quoted this afternoon. Those fragments of the
Book of the Golden Precepts, that are the very hymn book of every true
disciple, and there you will find that the law of life must be compassion, that
the law of life must be feeling and suffering and enjoying with others, that no
tear must be allowed to fall till the effort has been made to wipe it from the
sufferer's eye; but that every tear not wiped from the eye of a brother must
remain burning on your own heart till that which caused it is removed. And then
these lives of continual effort for others bring at last the evolved Man to the
point where perfection is reached and triumph over death secured. They lead him
to the point at which, once more to quote the same book, "He holdeth Life
and Death in his strong hand." He is no longer a disciple, he stands
complete in knowledge; he is no longer a combatant, the victory lies behind him
and the spoils of victory are in his grasp. What shall he do with them? How
shall he spend them? Weary with ages of struggle, what shall be his final
choice? He stands on the threshold of that world, separated from ours by difference
of condition, which no bridge is able to span. He stands on the threshold of
that state of consciousness, so misunderstood in the West, called Nirvana, that
mighty state of all consciousness and all knowledge which no words can syllable
and no heart of Man conceive. He opens the door that leads to that sublime
condition. It is his by right of struggle; it is his by right of conquest. His
very foot is on the threshold of the doorway, and one moment he pauses ere he
crosses the threshold. And as he stands there, Lo, a Voice, the Voice of
Compassion itself, sounds in his hearing, and he pauses to listen. "Shalt
thou escape while all that lives must suffer? Shalt thou be safe and hear the
whole world cry?" And in the silence that follows, the cry of the world is
heard. Across the abyss comes the sob of humanity, orphaned humanity, that is
without guide and helper, and that sees one of its greatest passing out of
sight. All the cries of men in agony, all the shrieks of women trampled under
foot, all the wailings of little children in our world, make one mighty chord
of anguish, and they cry to him to stop. What has his life been for many a life
past. It has been a life hearkening to every cry of pain that comes to it. It
has been a life that responds to every appeal for help that reaches its
hearing. All the life has become divine compassion. Can it be deaf when help is
needed by men? And in that silence, broken only by the sob of anguish, in that
silence is made the great renunciation, the door of Nirvana is closed by the
hand that opened it, from the threshold that might have been crossed the foot
is withdrawn, and the Master turns back. He chooses the great renunciation, he
chooses voluntarily to live in the world for the helping and the guidance of
men. He brings back the strength he has conquered, the wisdom he has gained,
the love that is his very nature, and he lays them all at the feet of humanity
that he is willing to serve--his knowledge for its guidance, his purity for its
cleansing, his strength for its uplifting, his infinite compassion to have
patience with its folly, forgiveness for its wickedness, endless endurance till
it learn wisdom also by experience through which it passes. Those are the men
that we call Masters. Those, the mighty souls to whom we give our heart's
homage, not because they are wise so much as because they are loving; not so
much because they are strong as because they are Compassion absolute. Those are
the guides and the teachers, those the examples that stimulate us to work.
Behind
the movement which we have been considering for the last two days stand those
servants of men, inspiring all that is best and noblest in it. I do not mean
guiding its policy, I do not mean driving it along every step of its life, for
they let their servants learn by their own mistakes, desiring not mere puppets
that they control, but men and women evolving toward perfection. That is the
strength that lies behind our movement as behind every other great movement for
the spiritual good of men, for it matters not whether we know the Masters--they
know us. And they give their help to every one who works for Man, no matter
whether his eyes be blinded or whether they be opened to the light they shed.
That is the secret of our strength. What is it that in this Parliament of
Religions has drawn crowd after crowd at all its sessions, to learn the truths
that a few amongst us have here been employed in imperfectly setting forth?
Youngest, you may say, of any movement as the world knows us, though in reality
the oldest of all, what is it in this Theosophical Society, not yet in its
twentieth year of life, which is making the eyes of all men turn towards it and
making the hearts of all men ask what it has to give ? Men are hungry for
spiritual truth. Men are longing for spiritual knowledge. They ask for a
knowledge of the soul which shall not be based only on faith; for a guidance in
life clear and definite that may satisfy the heart and the reason alike. And
this movement was started by those Masters of Wisdom to feed the hunger of the
soul which the cycle of time had brought round again; and they sent into the
world their messengers that they might make this movement possible. Who is its
true founder so far as the material world is concerned? They selected, these
great souls that stand beside this Society, a Russian woman, outcast from home
and friends, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who went out form her Russian home,
leaving wealth, rank, princely position behind her, eager only for knowledge of
the truth and union with the divine life. Through many a land she travelled,
through may a clime she wandered, one after another she examined the teachings
of the world, till the eye of the soul was opened and the Master she served
sent her out to do his work. Penniless she came back to the world. Told to go
to America, she went to France--as far as her money took her--and there coming
into possession of a few pounds, enough to land her in New York, but no more;
yet nothing could stay her. She went with the word behind her; that word he
gave her; and she came alone and friendless to your country to face the
materialism of the West and to proclaim as live again the true and ancient
Wisdom-Religion. She was scoffed at and derided, laughed at and defamed. Every
foul word that the malice of foul minds could image was heaped on her one head.
They never thought she was a woman and had none to help her, and they did
right, for that lion-heart asked no sort of consideration, and she would not
use sex as defence against cruelty. She lived her life, she gathered round her
men and women who got some glimpse of the strength that was within her, and the
beauty of the divine life that she enshrined. They tried to crush her with
calumny, tried to destroy her influence. What is the Answer? The answer is that
two years and a half after she passed away there are thousands of men and women
scattered the world over to thank her for the life she lived, for the guidance
that she gave to life. They thought they had crushed her with their Hodgson
babble; they thought that they could crush her with all their Psychical
Research Society Reports, and the answer is that we are living to-day and we
stand as testimony to her work, as witnesses to the life she has made possible
for us. How has such a movement spread? How has such a Society been possible?
Because of a spiritual life that lies behind it that no slander can wound and
no power of man can touch. And to-day, to-day, those who made the movement
possible glance over the Western world to see where some souls may be found
willing to be helpers with them in the redemption of humanity, willing to share
with them in the toil and triumph that lie behind. Here and there there is some
soul that catches glimpses of the light that shines from behind the veil, and gives
itself in its pure measure as they had given themselves for men. Such are the
helpers of the Masters. Such the co-workers that they are seeking, and not one
of you but, if you chose to take the higher path, might make to-day your first
step along the road, a step, it may be, feeble, uncertain, and halting, but if
made out of love to Man and devotion to the spirit has in it the certainty of
final success--is the beginning of the journey that shall lead you to be
co-worker in the spirit. That, then, is the final appeal that from this
platform comes to every man or woman ready to give himself for the helping and
the saving of man. There are so many that want help, is there none to give it?
so few to speak for the spiritual life among so many that are sunk in the
flesh. And this I say to you, that no joy of earth, no hope that gilds an
earthly future, and no delight that comes of earthly triumph; no such joy, no
such happiness, no such ecstasy, bears any more proportion to the joy of the
spiritual! life than the fog that surrounds some mining village is radiant as
the sunshine, or the pettiest joy of the gnat in the sunshine can emulate the
power and delight of the intellect in man.
For
greater than intellect is spirit, brighter than Mind is the Supreme Life; one
joy, one peace inexhaustible. Such is the possibility that lies in front of
you; for those who have got one glimpse of that, no earthly power has longer
charm or desire. Before the radiance of that divine life, all glory of earth is
poor and dim. This is not matter of faith, it is matter of knowledge; and every
one whose vision is even partly opened will till you that that only is the real
life, and that the knowledge of the Divine is that which alone can satisfy the
heart of Man.
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