THE FOURTH LEGEND
In the Other Worlds
There are many stories about the lives of different people from their birth to death. But there is a legend about the path of a man from death to birth. Listen to this legend. Cognize another side of the world. Let's understand what the human being is.
Leaving from the Dense World
Thus I've left my physical body forever. Though I've been leaving it even day for some hours but always returned - that was called the slip.
But now I've thrown it off for good as a worn out cloth. For the date of my leaving of the Dense World has come. That date was determined by the Lords of Karma when I was born. The duration of life in the Dense World is determined for each person. The body, I left, served me as a "conductor'' in the Dense World. It was no more than an instrument for action in that world.
I've been deprived of the possibility to live in this world when I threw that body off. This world stopped to exist for me any more.
I've not yet left the Physical World completely. I've only thrown off a dense part of the physical body, that consists of solid, liquid and gaseous particles. That dense part got the name of the "cold corpse" I took all the "life" of that body with me: warmth, electricity and other energies - all that is called the "ethereal body" in the East.
Having the ethereal body as my external envelope I became invisible for people in the Dense World. Though if I wanted it very much I could assume the appearance of a "ghost" and show myself to my folks in the form of a cloudy figure. But I did not do it because the ones, who've seen me, could be frightened by that. Moreover, at the moment of leaving of the physical body I w as very busy: I've been living through all my life again. In those short seconds the panorama of all my life went before my eyes. From all the forgotten nooks one picture after another came forward, one event after another.
At my death hour the prevailing sense of all my life has been revealed. The leading thought of my life has been cleared up. I saw myself in a way I really was. Solemn was that minute when I stood face to face with my life.
It was so good that all of them who were by my death-bed behaved silently and reverentially. They realised themselves in the solemn presence of Death and were solemnly keeping silence. Nothing drew away my attention from reviewing of my past life, which was rushing before my internal vision. Nobody violated the calm flow of thought.
Those who invade the silence with one's own grief behave themselves selfishly and rudely. That silence is so much necessary for the leaving one. Loud crying and noisy complaints can disturb a dying man and violate his concentrated attention. It is unacceptable to call him to the earthly spheres when the spirit took off already.
Approximately in 36 hours after death I left my ethereal body. It rushed about my grave of my dense body for a while. The thrown off ethereal body can be seen sometimes by sensitive people as a "ghost" on a cemetery. In some weeks it disintegrates and disappears in the air.
Living in the Subtle World
Having become free from the physical forces, dense and ethereal bodies, I found my self in another world - the Subtle World, which became visible and real for me now.
I've remained the same except for my subtle body, which became external for me now. This subtle body is a vehicle and a medium of desires, feelings and emotions. Having that body with its organs of perception ("subtle" vision and so on) I could immediately participate in life of the Subtle World and its inhabitants.
Actually, I had that body before in the Dense World though it w as invisible there. It was hidden behind the rough envelope of a dense body. By means of the subtle body I could desire, express my feelings.... That possibility completely remained in the Subtle World. Though in earthly life I could conceal my feelings, desires and emotions. But now in the Subtle World they have become visible just like a dense body was visible in the Dense World.
The Subtle World is not so much some special place, but rather a state I have plunged in after the loss of my physical body. My consciousness remained the same as it was in the Dense World. All the dead ones continue the same life in the Subtle World as they led on the earthly plane. Often they are even unconscious of their passage into the other world.
Everyone gets involved in the world, a state generated by man himself. In the Subtle World all the sensations depend on the development and state of consciousness. Therefore everyone finds there either hell or purgatory or paradise. The Subtle World consists of seven planes or seven spheres corresponding to different stages of spiritual and intellectual development. The lines dividing the strata of the Subtle World do not coincide with those of conventional classifications on Earth. If in the Dense World a man can pretendingly conceal his true essence and have a position which does not correspond to the level of his development, in the Subtle World it is absolutely impossible. Anyone there gets into such a sphere, which he or she has reached through the spiritual development.
Yes, in the Subtle World one cannot be hypocritical and wrap his dirty thoughts in the cover of apparent virtue. Even during earthly life people transform their appearance through their passions, and the face of a depraved scoundrel assumes the most repulsive expression. In the Subtle World the inner character is certainly expressed through the external appearance. The external appearance of a man completely corresponds to his real nature. Either he is radiant with beauty, if his soul is a noble one, or he repulses with his ugliness, if this nature is dirty.
In the Subtle World every intention is accompanied by an obvious change in the outer world. Bestial appetites form the bestial appearance of a subtle body. Evil passions disfigure it to the most horrible extent. And what is most remarkable is that man himself never sees his self-transportation.
Having foreseen such a fate, isn't it worth to take the necessary precautions in time, at least for the sake of appearance? Isn't it worth to learn in the Dense World to think so as not to be ashamed before anyone in the Subtle World?
After all if a man is fully convinced of the good quality of his thoughts, he can fear nothing; not for an instant will he be confused by his appearance. And it can be beautiful!
There is some sort of hell in the Subtle World: the state of criminals and depraved ones is very agonizing in the lowest strata of the Subtle World. Furious and malicious ones who have lived only by the sensual pleasures suffer a lot here. It happens because of the impossibility to satisfy their malice, passions of flesh, for they have no instrument for that - a physical body. They literally bum in the flame of their insatiable passions.
Spheres of the Subtle World differ one from another in density. Those distinctions in the properties of matter of the Subtle World cause the separation of beings living in the different spheres of that World. Though the inhabitants of one sphere can visit all the underlying spheres, but in order to ascend to the higher spheres, they have to achieve the proper level of spiritual development.
The inhabitants of the Subtle World are the sources of light - they are luminous, illuminating by themselves the space around. But the luminosity of even, being of the Subtle World depends on the degree of perfection that they have achieved. Hence the division of the dark and the light ones is comprehensible. The light one is luminous, but the dark one does not radiate any light.
The lowest strata of the Subtle World well in twilight, because the light of their dwellers is faint - they cannot think of Light. The higher the consciousness and thought, the more luminous is the miraculous radiance. Those inhabitants of the Subtle World who desire light have no scarcity of it. A thought of Light generates the Light. In the Subtle World the voice is not needed and replaced by swift thought. Not the words are perceived here but thoughts.
People communicate mentally and do not need languages. How wonderful is the possibility to think in one's own language and at the same time to be understood by people of many countries.
There is a very absorbing possibility in the Subtle World to create by means of thought anything man wants out of the subtle matter. The richer is the imagination of a man, the more varied is his creation. The more cultured is a man, the more beautiful is his creation. That is why all dreamers, poets and painters have boundless opportunities to use all their abilities and aspirations there.
Having released from my physical body. I felt myself free from many straitened duties. A man does not have to prepare food for himself in the Subtle World. He does not have to think of housing and clothes. There is no need of rest there as well. Therefore I had a lot of free time there which I've devoted to the broadening of my consciousness, observation of the heavenly worlds and studding of the natural laws.
The possibilities of the inhabitants of the Subtle World are wonderful from the viewpoint of the Dense World. Here I could transfer from one object to another and from one place to another with the velocity unattainable for earthly understanding. The things which seem a fantasy or a fairy-tale to an earthly man are the reality in the Subtle World. All those tales which say of the "cap of invisibility", "flying carpet", "good and evil fairies" and so on, are written by the authors who remember the laws and the phenomena of the Subtle World.
The Subtle World is not only our state of being, it is actually a complete world with its potentialities and obstacles. For the laws and the conditions of life in the Subtle World are completely different. Thus, time and space are perceived quite differently there.
In the Subtle World thousands of earthly years may seem as one moment and one moment as the eternity. But after all, the same things happen on Earth too. A person absorbed in joy of creation or happiness does not notice the flow of the years. And one terrible minute may seem infinitely long. Also in dreams one can make sure that for the very interesting dreams (rich in content) time is not needed. The gravest events and long conversations are instantaneously perceived.
The inhabitants of the Subtle World make flights on thousands of earthly miles for a few seconds. There is no such conception as proximity and distance there, for all phenomena and objects are equally within the reach of eye not depending on distance from the observer.
Also any being and any thing there are transparent and visible in the same way from all sides.
The external appearance of the Subtle World is different too - luminous matter of that world is not like the earthly covers. Flowers are inferior to the richness of forms but their colours are unspeakably complex comparative to the earthly colours. Snow is whiter and more crystal than the earthly one; images of seas and mountains are in transformed state. Whoever has seen the colour of the Subtle World and heard its resounding, understands that for such a World the best definition is - The Subtlest.
Finally the time of my stay in the Subtle World is over. The time "to die" has come for me here. It means to throw off the worn-out subtle body which has become a "subtle corpse" and to move into the next higher world.
The Bliss of the Fiery World
When the connection with the subtle body had finally broken, I plunged into a brief unconsciousness. Then a feeling of bliss made me awake. That feeling was vivid, infinite and unimaginable for earthly consciousness. I've awakened with a feeling of inexpressible joy, peace and tranquillity which was exceeding any imagination.
The most charming melodies were sounding softly around me. The most delicate tints of luminous colours were waving before my opened eyes. The very sound seemed to me the music of light. All my being was imbued throughout with light and harmony. Then through the golden haze the beloved faces delicately began to appear. They were refined in beauty that reflected their noblest emotions. They were unblemished with troubles and passions of the inferior worlds. How one can convey in words the bliss of that awakening, the radiance of the first heavenly dawn, the radiance of the heavenly world!
What is the world where I've awakened? That was the Fiery World or rather that part of it which is called the Mental World. That is a world of consciousness, a world of mind. Though this is not the mind which manifests itself through the brain, but the one which freely acts in its own world, not restrained by the physical matter.
Here the "fiery body" started to serve me as the "external" one. It is also called a "body of thought" or a bearer of thought. It is the concrete mind, the intellect. It creates the concrete thought. Its method is the logic of the external thinking. It proves, discusses something, makes conclusions.
I had the fiery body in my earthly life too, though at that time it was concealed behind the covers of the subtle and dense bodies. Now this body became naked and external for me. It is built of the spirit-matter of the Mental World and it has more or less developed organs of perception of that world. The level of that development depends on the level of cultural and spiritual development of a man.
The life in the Fiery World is more creative than in the Subtle World. The "matter of thought" makes "the matter of feeling" seem clumsy, heavy and dim, though in comparison with the physical matter "the matter of feeling" is so magically transparent and light.
There are no shadows in the Fiery World; the luminosity of all parts of that World produces a continuous glow. The radiance of auras is like cloud arches, and rays areas streams and waterfalls. Fiery blossoms are distinguished by their radiance, but they may be compared in structure with roses; small vortical rings form, as it were, a combination of petals. Similarly, ozone, in the higher state, reproduces, as it were, the odour of evergreens.
In the Mental World all that a man thinks of is immediately reproduced in shapes, for the rarefied and subtle matter of the Fiery-World is of the same kind as the matter constituting the forms of our thoughts. It is the environment where our thinking manifests itself. That matter immediately turns into definite shapes under the influence of thought. That is why everyone really creates one's own heaven. The beauty of all the surrounding infinitely increases in correspondence with the richness of one's thought energy. As far as man develops his spiritual powers his heaven becomes more refined and beautiful. A man himself creates all restrictions in the Mental World, and therefore everyone's heaven broadens and deepens simultaneously with the broadening and deepening of a soul.
There is no division of time and space in the Fiery World. In those heavens we constantly stay with those whom we've loved and honoured during our earthly life and who had gone earlier or are still alive on Earth. We see them around us being as happy as we are, in the form we used to love on Earth. And we preserve full consciousness of our earthly sensations; for in the Fiery World earthly sprouts of love flourish.
As to the connection between souls, the communion in the Fiery or Mental World is closer and more delicate than anything we know on the Earth. For there are no obstacles between one soul and another in the Fiery World. The significance of life of the soul in the Fiery World is as great as that on the Earth. The space does not have the separating meaning here. And each soul can come into contact with another soul, merely by directing its attention to it. Such contacts happen not only with the "quickness of thought", but also with perfect fullness, if the souls are of one level of evolution. All the thoughts lightningly transfer from one soul to another; or rather every soul sees the way how a thought of another soul is created.
During that state a person reaps the reward for his unselfishness on Earth. He is entirely absorbed in the bliss of his personal earthly affections, preferences and thoughts. He reaps here the fruits of his worthy actions. Neither pain nor sadness, nor even shadow of grief clouds the clear horizon of his pure joy.
The Fiery World is the world of Bliss and inexpressible joy, but it is also something greater than a place of the blissful calm for a tired soul. All the valuable in mental and moral experiences of a person in his last earthly life, becomes a subject to internal processing for its gradual conversion into the mental and moral qualities, which man will bring with himself into the next incarnation.
Actually the life in the Subtle World is not a blissful dream in the land of flowers at all. It is not the aimless idleness. But that is a country where the mind and the heart, free of rough matter and petty cares, are developing. That is a country where the future progress is being provided the duration of time spent in that heaven depends on the amount of materials taken from the last earthly life by a person. The harvest useful for nourishment and realization in the Mental World, consists of all pure thoughts and emotions, generated during the earthly life, of all mental and moral efforts and aspirations, all recollections of the unselfish labour for the benefit of a neighbour, all that may be introduced into soul's harmony and, consequently, can serve for the development of the soul.
Thus, I stayed in the Mental World for a period corresponding to the spiritual stock brought from the Earth. Here all the good, made during the last life, has got its complete realization.
And when everything was already exhausted, when the last drop from the chalice of joy was drunk up, everything which had been converted into abilities, and is of the eternal value, got into myself. I had thrown off the last one of my temporary envelope - the mental body. It dissolved in the Mental World and I reached my true motherland - the Fiery World.
Yes, the Fiery World is the true motherland of a man, where he is "home". He comes back here after his journey to the earthly world, to the "vale of tears". He went there as at school in order to learn and to collect the experience. Here a man himself - his immortal part - not burdened with anything, experiences his own life in full measure of that self-consciousness and knowledge, that he has succeeded to achieve.
The Mental and the Fiery Worlds are in their essence the one great world of thought: the first world is the world of concrete thought, and the second one is the world of an abstract, "fiery" thought. Therefore the Mental World may be regarded as the lowest sphere of the Fiery World. In the supreme sphere all the superpersonal is the subject to conversion, that is the thoughts which belong to the superior, abstract sphere.
The supreme sphere of the Fiery World - the abode of the Immortal Man - consists of three subdivisions. A man stays in any one of them according to the level of this evolution. The enormous majority of 60 milliards of souls, making up a mass of our humanity, stays on the first and the lowest level. That backward majority ascends only to the lowest sphere of the Fiery World and for a short moment, only after throwing off all the temporary envelopes. For a short moment such a soul awakes to the consciousness. The lightning-like recollection illumines all the past, and the soul sees all the causes that have generated it. The same flash of prevision illumines the future of the soul and it sees all consequences that will occur in its nearest existence. That is all that the majority of people is able to experience in this sphere of the Fiery World.
But there are souls that, during their earthly existence, have prepared, by thoughts and noble life, that crop the harvest of which is reaped right in that sphere of the Fiery World. Here a person starts to experience the true life, worthy existence of the soul itself, not restrained by the envelopes belonging to the lower worlds. Here a man gets to know his past and examines the causes which he has brought into life.
He registers their interaction and the consequences generated by those causes. He even sees some part of their influence on his future life.
A comparatively small number of souls of higher evolution stays in the next second sphere of the Fiery World. During their earthly life they manifest themselves as innately cultured and naturally refined people. These are the souls, which during their earthly being devoted all their energy to the supreme mental and moral life. For them there is no cloak covering the past, their memory is perfect and uninterrupted. The Immortal "Selves" of the Teachers and the Initiated ones (the Adepts) and of their closest disciples stay in the most supreme sphere.
What is the Self?
I've experienced several "deaths", I've thrown off all my temporary envelopes one after another at certain intervals of time. Those envelopes are the dense and the ethereal bodies, the body of feelings and finally the mental body. And now I remained but myself, having nothing to throw off and hence immortal and eternal. What is that immortality, what is the eternal Self?
This Self is triple. The most supreme part is a particle of God. It is a spark of the Spirit-Fire, the Ray of Absolutism. In the East it is called Atma. That Divine core is contained in Buddhi - the spiritual soul, the spiritual mind, the body of "bliss". It is called the "heart", the ability of prevision, the ability of penetration into the essence of things by instant illumination It is called the intuition or sensation.
The conjunction of Atma and Buddhi makes the grain of the spirit - the Divine eternal Monad. This fiery grain of the spirit is indestructable and immutable, indissoluble and eternal. It is the same for all people. And it manifests itself as unconscious basis of each person. Consciousness of a man accumulates and grows around the grain of the spirit. It is called Manas or the "Thinker". That is the supreme mind, the mind of abstract mentality, the mind of ideas, the self-consciousness. It corresponds to the logic of fiery synthesis, illumined by the light of intuition.
That is the undecayable treasury of all results of life experiences which are worth preserving. The acquired mental and moral qualities are stored there. Otherwise they would not be able to grow.
Atma, Buddhi and Manas together make up the immortal Self of a man. That is the Eternal Man, the individualized Divine Self. It manifests itself as character in the bodies enveloping it. His presence grants the feeling of Self equally to body and soul. Being self-conscious this Self often deceptively identifies itself with that envelope where it acts the most energetically.
For instance, the Self of a sensual man merges with the physical and subtle bodies. The Self extracts from them its joy and considers itself and those bodies as one, for all its life is in them. The Self of a scientist is contained in his mind, because all his joy emanates from the mind activity. All his life is concentrated in the mind. And only a few people can ascend to the abstract heights of the spiritual philosophy and to feel the Eternal Man as their true Self.
The influence of the Supreme Self on its bodies is called the conscience when it concerns morality. And it is called the flashes of intuition when it illumines the intellect. If those flashes are so unceasing that they become usual, then their totality is called the genius. And everyone of us is carrying in oneself that universal treasure.
That Eternal Man has no immediate manifestation in our worlds. For that purpose He needs conductors - the bodies corresponding to those worlds where the man manifests himself. In the East the totality of the envelopes in which the man acts in the Mental, Subtle and Dense Worlds is called the "Personality". It is created for each earthly incarnation.
And the supreme triad (Atma-Buddhi-Manas) is an immortal tree which produces out of itself a personality just like leaves existing in spring, summer and autumn time of the earthly life. This supreme triad is called the individuality. It lives eternally, getting enveloped in bodies and throwing them off just like a man puts new clothes on and put the worn-out ones off. The individuality is the eternal collector of the achievements of the multitude of incarnations.
The process of leaving of the physical incarnation is called death. This process does not make any difference for the individuality. Having thrown off all the bodies the Eternal Man remains himself. And he is again at home, though actually he has not left his abode at all; he merely concentrated a part of his will and consciousness through the mediation of conductors of the lower matter.
Man lives and manifests his activity in three worlds: in the dense world he manifests himself in his acts, in the Subtle World - in his desires, in the Mental World - in his thoughts. For each of those worlds and for the purpose of communion with them a man has a body or a conductor of consciousness made up of the matter of that world. Man uses those conductors for some time. And when he stops needing them any longer he throws them off.
For the individuality the things that we call life and death are only the temporary aspiration of a part of its consciousness into the lower worlds and then the return of the consciousness into the superior worlds. Death is merely a change releasing a man from the heaviest of all the chains which bind him. Death is merely the birth into the broader life, a return to the true abode after a brief exile on the earth. It is a transition from prison to the freedom of mountain air. Death is the greatest of the earthly illusions. There is no death, but only a change in life conditions.
I am Going to be Born Again
When the time of my stay in the Fiery World was over, for me as for every thinker came a moment of clairvoyance. For an instant I saw my past and causes made in that past which would be acting in my future. And the general contours of my incarnation showed themselves without a cover. Everyone who starts a new earthly life has a spark of light when he understands what makes him accept one or another testing. Thus the tasks of the earthly life are caused.
What makes the Earth to rotate? It is the Cosmic Law: as hunger pushes on a hungry man to the food in the same way the law of incarnation directs the prepared spirit to the date of its incarnation. Then a moment comes when the spirit starts to feel sharply the magnetic attraction to the earthly incarnation. For, only earth is the hearth where our energies transmute, renew and accumulate.
Higher spirit does not oppose natural change of being. He rejoices at the possibility to perfect a new side of his life. He helps to find difficult tasks in order to test his consciousness on them. The higher spirit strives to the difficult path.
It is difficult to approach the earthly spheres from the Subtle World. Such plunges may be compared to the work of divers. As the driver must wear a heavy diver's suit in order to resist the pressure of the ocean, so he who approaches Earth must also sheathe himself in a dense body.
The experienced swimmer springs from the heights into the depths of the water. He feels daring and joy at returning to the surface. So, too, the conscious spirit plunges into carnate matter, in order to rise again to the mountain heights. Experience makes such a testing joyful.
Finally the time of my stay in the Fiery World was over and I descended to the Mental World. I radiated some part of my energy through vibrations which attracted the matter of the Mental World to me and enveloped me in that matter. I built a body of thought out of this matter, of course with the help of the Higher Beings. That body was necessary for beginning the new chapter of the eternal history of my life.
When the body of thought was built I descended to the Subtle World in it. My energies, continuing to strive outwards, also drew the matter of the Subtle World around me. My subtle body - the body of desires - was built out of that matter.
Then I built the ethereal body out of the ethereal matter of the Dense World. Ethereal body is the exact copy of the future physical body. It is rather the original for it starts to exist earlier than a physical body. The physical body in its uterine period precisely copies the ethereal body.
When all these envelopes were created the time came for me to be physically born. A highly developed man who lives with his higher consciousness himself chooses a family, where he should be born. For undeveloped people this question is solved by the Lords of Karma. They determine the family and conditions where such man must be born following the same desire and strivings which the man has created.
Physical body is given to the man by his parents. They can transmit not only the physical heredity to him but also the typical features of that race and nation where the man is born. This is the only heredity which man gets from his parents. All the rest he brings into new life himself Mental and moral qualities are not transmitted from parents to the descendants.
Thus genius cannot be inherited. Genius is not transmitted from parents, from father to the son. Instead of being a completion of a gradually perfected family, genius appears quite suddenly. If he has the descendants then he transmits only his corporal qualities but not the mental ones. The child of a genius is often born a block-head. And usual parents give life to a genius.
THE FIFTH LEGEND
The Eternal Life
We Become Gods out of Animals
In the previous legend it was told how a man after his death in the Dense World and life in the Subtle and Fiery Worlds again returns to earth for the next life. Thus repeats the life of every man. One needs to think about the Russian word for man - Chelovek. It means the spirit or Chela coming for centuries. "Vek" stands for "the century". The whole change of incarnations, all the value of consciousness are expressed in one word.
Man obtains life experience through an endless row of successive lives. In the intervals between incarnations, that is during stay in the Fiery World, that experience turns into abilities and character of the man. With those abilities and that character, created in the previous lives, man enters the new life. And each new life continuing the preceding one starts with that step of development where the man had stopped in his previous life. Thus his consciousness develops. This evolution of consciousness of even,- man goes with a definite plan which consists in his dormant Divinity. Carrying out that plan man lives his separate lives and each of this lives is one day at school of the Eternal Life. Thus, people, instructed by the Great Teachers, learn the lessons necessary for transition from one class to another.
For a young soul who has recently left the animal state, the plan of learning is the egoism with its inexorably persistent "I want that" in order to strengthen the centre of this individuality. Thus study the people of the first class. They are completely undeveloped. Their mental development is in embryo yet. They cannot bridle their ungovernable wild passions, their rough nature. These people are born amongst savages and semi-civilized races and also in retarded and criminal types of civilized societies. They incarnate many times in one and the same subrace and they can be delayed for a long time in the lower strata of the Subtle World.
But after numerous lives in the class of savages the plan changes. And the lesson he would gradually learn is not "I" but "We".
He must now learn to share with each other and not to demand anything only for himself. The second class is the people of mediocre development with limited world outlook. The mental horizon of such people does not cross the limits of their family, state or nation. They reincarnate many times in one and the same subrace. They have a short rest in heavenly spheres the du ration of which depends on the achieved results in their spiritual development during earthly life. These first two classes of "savages" and the "civilized ones" are represented by more than nine-tenth of the whole humanity.
Then goes the next stage of spiritual development when the wish to share the burden of others becomes a basic note of a human life. "Let me help you" - thus says the plan of Logos to a human heart which strives to spirituality. The third class is of the cultured people, who strive to some high goals and have some high ideals. Their mental horizon widened to the understanding of oneness of humanity. They reincarnate 2-3 times in each subrace. The period between two incarnations differs and can last up to hundreds and thousands of years - 700-1200 years on an average.
The fourth class is of the disciples of the Teachers of Wisdom. Those people create their future with know ledge. The plan of Logos for a disciple is to live in the name of this Teacher. And with each day the disciple becomes a nobler guard and a nobler conductor of the grace, that Teacher creates for the world. The disciples voluntarily renounce long bliss in the Fiery World, that they have the right on, in order to accelerate their evolution. They reincarnate right after the death. Every one of them has a Teacher, who chooses a family and proper conditions for the disciple to be born in.
On the very last step, on the step of the Master of Wisdom, the plan of Logos becomes fully completed. And a soul lives in inexpressible oneness of man and God. "Not my will I'm seeking for but the Father's one" - is the prayer of action. The fifth class are the real flowers of humanity who completed their human evolution and, having achieved human-god state, guide our evolution. They do not need the reincarnations and they incarnate only on their wish for this evolution and for the benefit of humanity. When the Teacher assumes birth he decides himself where and w hen he will be born. For he is the absolute master of this destiny.
Thus the dates of stay in other worlds are extremely diverse.
They can change from some months to millennia. Everything depends on the development and mastery of a person.
Any life is a certain lesson, certain task which needs to be fulfilled. If man was successful in resolution of problems raised then he quickly moves forward in his evolution. If he is less successful then he returns for many times to the same conditions, the same environment where he has not showed any success.
We Walk through the Epochs
Root races and their subraces play their roles in the drama of life in order to give us the experience. That is why the Hierarchy brings physical differences into the subraces and places them now amidst the mountains, now on the sea shore. That is why the Hierarchy sends different aspects of One Truth to the subraces. Those aspects are expressed in religions and philosophies that appear in different subraces under the guidance of Hierarchy.
Let's imagine a soul which has been born in turn in every subrace. Starting with the day of birth in the first subrace of the Atlanteans, what peculiar experience the soul will receive being incarnated as primitive giant-like man - a silent highlander, enduring and keen to the changes of sun and clouds? Being incarnated as the Toltec in Atlantis or Peru the soul will receive the experience of an administrator in one of the amazing patriarchal governing which constitute the fame of Toltecs Such administrator would have taken upon himself all the burden of cares for the well-being of some village in province. In this life-long service to his fellow-citizen this man learns to suppress his own ego.
Being a Turanian colonist man gets accustomed to wander in search of new lands and to struggle with nature on new settlements. As a martial primitive Semite, first of all he will learn to be a fighter, developing the quickness of decisions and realising that his life does not belong to him but to his tribe.
As a sea-farer and seller in the Akkadian subrace the man cognizes the magic power of the sea. He cognizes the necessity to take into account the psychological moments in goods distribution That man w ill also develop the mental power in business competition. And as a Chinese farmer, he never leaves his farm, which he inherits from his forefathers. He gets to know his numerous villagers closely, sharing their cares and sorrow and learning to cognize the inner sense of life, which is far from wars and trade.
Tracing the wanderings of the soul let's see its manifestations in the Fifth Race. Probably, life in India has left its indelible imprint on it. This life gave it something of the philosophical and abstract view of life so characteristic of the Hindu man. Later in Ancient Egypt, amid its practical and happy nation not surrendering to dreams, the soul develops another side of its nature.
And if the man would had been born an Arab in the heart of a desert, wouldn't that desert leave its imprint on his soul? It would provide him with refined keenness, feeling of invisible life in nature and its magnificence. As the Iranian born in civilization, which directs him to the success in trade, he has to learn resourcefulness and initiative for honest conduct of his trade.
Then as the Celt, probably the Greek in Athens, what new perception will appear in him when he is sure that Gods are everywhere both on land and sea, that he is of the divine origin humself, born to transform his life through arts? His ideal is thorough know ledge which develops wholeness of nature and healthy spirits of the heart.
As the Roman he is firm in his confidence that religion, family and state are one whole thing. He also has that deep feeling of lawfulness in order to learn to govern. Or as a French or Italian he sensitively and quickly responds to the emotions and gets fascinated by the ideas beyond any material considerations.
And later he is born as a representative of the Tevtonian subrace in Scandinavia or England or in America. What new abilities can his soul acquire in addition to the ones it already has? Those are the practicalness and the ability of superpersonal judgement, thanks to scientific investigations, honesty in business sphere and individualism. And wouldn't Beethoven, Wagner and Shakespeare give him a new understanding of life?
We can already predict some qualities of the sixth subrace which is emerging now in Australia, New Zealand, America and in other places. Those qualities are the feeling of brotherhood and new understanding of relations between parents, co-operation in deeds and material evolution, intuition, the ability to approach global problems in the new way, release from traditions of the old world, love for sun light. fresh air and everything that draws people together.
Let's also imagine how different must be the experience of a soul in the same subraces if it incarnates in a feminine body doing feminine duties New feelings and new points of view will develop in that soul. It would probably be poorer without that experience. And since the human being should possess the qualities inherent not only in people of different statuses but also in different sexes, he incarnates both in a masculine and in a feminine body. The number of masculine and feminine incarnations depends on ability of a soul to turn the obtained life experience into the abilities. Usually there are not more than seven and not less than three incarnations in one sex in a row.
Thus do rise and fall the civilizations, developing one or another quality in people. But at the base of all lies the process of reincarnations. Civilizations appear and disappear only for the purpose to become a field of experience for us, give us new feelings in different lives. The civilizations are created out of ashes. They are given to play their special role and then they submerge into the sea depths or get destroyed in a fiery cataclysm. But all of them serve only as scenes in a drama, designed by Logos for us. So that playing our roles well and right we could become like Him some day.
The man successively goes through all the epochs and races, all cultures and public generations in order to fully develop by his own efforts, all those divine qualities laid in him as potentialities and creativeness.
Each change of life is like a remedy. It cures some unhealthy side of a man. The stone which is not ground good enough won't shine. Great incarnations sometimes change into, as they were, insignificant ones. Who knows what valuable subject must be found during difficult path?
A king may find himself a labourer, and a shoemaker may become a senator - incarnations vary according to psychic principles and not according to earthly distinctions.
Noble incarnations alternate with the labour ones. Labour incarnations can raise the consciousness higher than all the rulers of the world. All fields of hard labour are full of delight. The persecuted one learns more than the persecutors.
We Meet through the Centuries
Each soul develops under influence of its own separate eternity. But it doesn't follow the path to the realization of its Divinity alone, but together with other souls which learn to love. True connection of Love between them remains forever. And whatever the earthly envelopes are, true love will break through them as a spark from one soul to another. Physical kinship is not that important. The power of true love w ill always manifest as love and service, no matter what kind of earthly conductor of a soul is outlined by the Lord of Karma for it.
Let's trace two examples of such meetings, separated by centuries - two legends of the eternal love.
In the first example, the souls L, K and B are connected with each other by close ties of love. Those ties were forged for many past lives. L and K belong to that type of souls which spend 1200 years in the subterranean worlds between two earthly lives. B belongs to the type of souls which spend only 700 years in the subterranean world. It is clear that L and K cannot participate in all lives of B. During that time when B had 31 incarnations, L had only 20, K - 24. L meets B and they become husband and wife. But in that life they do not meet K. When L is horn again he becomes a husband of A and brother-in-law of B. But during the interval L and B had one life in which they met K.
During 31 lives B meets Z. 12 times while he meets Z, and together only 8 times. The connection between L and B is especially strong. Whatever their physical relationship is - as husband and wife or wife and husband, or as brother and sister, or as the beloved ones, who cannot get married - one soul always speaks to another. In one of K's lives being incarnated as woman K adopts a little girl L. Latter L, being incarnated as a man, adopts a little boy K.
In the second example one can trace how differently the ties of love manifest through 14 lives of R and D when they meet.
When R changes the sex and incarnates as woman two times, in the first case her beloved one incarnates as her husband. When D changes sex and incarnates as a man for three lives, in his third life he meets R - also a man. And a feeling of extraordinary mutual sympathy and friendship appears between them. In another incarnation R is a priest and a little orphan girl was carried to him for initiation in the temple. That girl was D.
In a little while a feeling of warm friendship appears between them. The priest becomes her spiritual father and leader. Then goes another life when they are husband and wife again. In two next lives love kindles again in their hearts. But their feeling is going under difficult conditions. In next life D does not meet R. And only during a new incarnation do they unite again as husband and wife.
In their present life they did not meet. But whether it is stipulated in the plan of the Lords of Karma for them to live apart or to unite, it is indubitable that they will meet again in the next lives as a married couple or father and son, or as friends. In any case, in the future they will meet as ones loving each other, being able to manifest the many-sidedness of love. This many-sidedness is expressed in devotion and, self-sacrifice for the sake of the beloved one, independently of the conductors which will be sentenced to them by the Lords of Karma.
Accumulating Treasures
The purpose of the multiform experience of numerous lives of a man is to open the different sides of our consciousness: full exposure of forces potentially concealed in us, the exposure of beauty and grandeur which One Life endowed us. The individuality of a man is being made up for centuries through many lives. His strivings and his abilities are the result of accumulations from the previous lives. The new life is given to man in order to perfect his individuality, to add something positive into the Chalice of accumulations. The sense of reincarnation is in that perfection. The observed difference in abilities is the result of greater or smaller development, greater or smaller human individuality. Sharp differences in mental or moral inclinations which are constantly met within families are explained by the fact that mental and moral qualities belong to the individuality itself.
Throughout his spiritual journey man accumulates his own load, which he guards within his consciousness. It is instructive to observe the acquisitions of knowledge and inclinations already manifested in childhood, which cannot be explained in any other way except as former accumulations. The stratification of observations over the extent of many lives, laid in the depths of consciousness, is called dormant wisdom.
The so called gift of discerning is not a gift at all. It is a consequence of labours and experience.
The discerning is acquired through many accumulations Imagination is the consequence of former experiences. Man cognized many states and through that he refined his judgement. It may be noticed that patience is developed to the extreme in certain people while others are totally lacking in this quality. The reason is that the possessors of patience have built it up over many lives. Patience is a quality that is earned with special difficulty, both in the earthly and in the subtle sojourn. Thus, a patient man is a worker of vast experience while an impatient one is a novice in life.
All the experience of the past lives and their know ledge is kept in the Chalice which is one for all incarnations. The Chalice is located in the intransigent body of a man, in the eternal man. Only for a disciple of the Master of Wisdom comes the moment some day when the understanding of many mysteries becomes possible, including the mysteries of his past lives. And that moment is determined by the Master Himself.
Each man bears a secret within himself. Rarely does the curtain of the past roll back during one's earthly life. Only by transcending the boundary of Earth is man enlightened in the realization of a portion of his secret. Remarkable is the process when the Chalice of accumulations reveals: the memory is suddenly illumined, and the past stands out in all justice. The imperishable accumulation can be a treasure.
The premature knowledge of incarnations is very harmful for the ascending spirit. That is why that knowledge is so wisely concealed by Nature. And Nature always acts according to the Laws of Expediency Often the premature knowledge of incarnations can drive a man to despair by revealing some betrayal in the past. Or it can increase the self-conceit - one of the most impeding qualities. Therefore one ought to bless the wise cover of mystery, especially while ascending the spirit himself takes that cover off himself. He sees his incarnations and their sense becomes clear to him.
Virtually not everything is erased from the memory when man is born for a new life on earth. In the first years of life many children remember their previous life and sometimes they tell strange things about themselves And usually the adults take no notice of that or treat it as fantasy.
The adults can also have some recollections from the past life. Getting into conditions analogous to those which were around the man in his previous lives he can recall the event from the previous life corresponding to the situation of the current life by the association of ideas. But not every one can make the right estimation of that recollection.
Human evolution is the evolution of consciousness. One can compare evolution of the human being with a necklace. Each pearl of that necklace is one of the physical manifestations strung on a thread of the spirit. But it is better to imagine this evolution as a complex mixture. Every new item on the earthly plan adds new ingredient which changes the whole composition.
One may regard a sequence of reincarnations as a sequence of separate lives, but it is better to look upon the changing reincarnations as one life. One may call the intervals between reincarnations a dream or a day. In the past perhaps it was a dream, in the future perhaps a day. This depends upon the success of evolution.
"We shall not die, but change" - can one speak any more clearly about the eternal life? The never-dying man, the Phoenix rising out of his own ashes is ordained from antiquity.
Life does not stop. Having understood that the whole attitude to earthly existence will change, knowing all the immutability and eternity of life one can go without fear. Having understood the ineradicability of our essence one can put that value on a scale.
Only through shortness of the path here one can understand the grandeur of Infinity and learn the perfectment of the spirit. Only the understanding of oneness of the path will make people live by beauty and die as wayfarers who continue their journey. Merciless fate of death will turn into the summon of the cosmic life.
THE SIXTH LEGEND
The Law of the Cosmic Justice
The Enigma of Life
It is said that you cannot escape your destiny....
Who is in charge of the human fate? Who grants happiness to some people and suffering to another - and sometimes for the whole life? Why are some people born with a silver spoon in their mouth? They succeed in everything. And other ones are very unfortunate. Why are some people healthy and beautiful and other ones crippled from the very birth and ugly? Why does such an inequality in fortune and misfortune exist?
Observing the life one can come to the conclusion that there is no justice in this world. For everywhere we see how good people suffer and the unworthy ones enjoy the life.
Something is often said about the "undeserved" happiness and suffering. In Cosmos everything is so harmonious, expedient and natural. Do arbitrariness and fortuity rule 'n such Cosmos when it deals with the man and his life? The innate feeling of justice in the man protests and revolts against such injustice in human life.
The legends of the East say that only those reason about injustice in gifts of the Destiny w ho have only one given life of a man in mind. Legends assert that one cannot judge about fortuity and arbitrariness in Cosmos only because of one fragment of the eternal life of a man, regarding only his last incarnation. They say that everything will be clear and take its places if we trace the life of a man in its past or examine his past lives. It is asserted that our present life is the exact result of our preceding lives. Thus events seem to us as they were appearing from the emptiness, as they were accidental. But it is an illusion which originates in our ignorance. People who are not aquainted with the cosmic law s do not see the causes. They consider the result of the unknown laws as good or bad destiny.
The man has lived many lives on Earth. In those lives he has been thinking, wishing, acting both in good and bad ways. He created the forces which helped or delayed him and the others. Upon entering this life everyone of us comes from the far past, embracing many lives. And when we undertake our earthly task again we bring our destiny with us - the way we've created it ourselves. The legends assert that there is no fortuity in the world. Everything that is happening is connected with the preceding cause. The world we live in is the world of justice and order.
You Must Reap What You Have Sown
There is no small earthly justice. But there is the Great Cosmic Justice. This Cosmic Justice is conducted by the law of cause and effect - the Law of Karma. This is the faultless Law of Retribution which says: you must reap what you have sown. According to that Law the suffering one in his life equally reaps the fruit of what he has sown. If man lives a happy life then he has deserved it by his past life. And if he leads an unworthy life then he is preparing future suffering for himself.
Cosmic justice rewarding everyone according to his deeds is the back blow: good for good, evil for evil. This retribution to people for their deeds is made by the cosmic law.
The destiny of a man is made by his deeds according to which the Law of Karma manifests the proper results. The consequences of man's deeds, words, wishes, thoughts inevitably return to him either as punishment and suffering or happiness and joy.
Karma is a result of man's activity. And all his life is the result of Karma. Consequently, the man creates his fortune all by himself.
When a man cries out Why?,- he is neither thinking of the past nor the future.
Bewailing his fate, he forgets that he inflicts upon himself a severe penalty. Man shouldn't blame heaven and destiny for the evident injustice, ruling amidst the humanity; he is a saviour and a destroyer himself.
You Owe, You Pay
The legend says that nothing goes tracelessly. Every deed of a man, every word, every wish and every thought is automatically imprinted on invisible (for us) tablets. Everything is put down into the "Book of Life" of a man, and sooner or later one has to give an account of everything.
Thus, nothing can touch the man that has not been deserved by him. And from his side the lack of memory and knowledge cannot impede the execution of the Law. In no case can man suffer, without having deserved it. Not from without comes the proper estimation of Karma. The harming one first of all harms himself. Whither then so many unfortunate ones? They are reincarnated beggars, thieves, murderers. Usually in their pouch are to be found old debts. Manifestly they bear the weight of payment.
A wise philosopher, having been sold into slavery, exclaimed, "Thanks! Evidently I can pay back some old debts". An emperor, nicknamed the Golden, was terrified, "Luxury pursues me. When will I be able to pay off my debts?" Thus have wise people understood that former lives surely do not elapse without incurring indebtedness.
Often easy karma is also a difficult test, for seldom can a man amidst prosperity ascend on the next step of spiritual perfection. It is better to be the paying one than the receiving one. For every payment finishes the past, while receiving can bind again.
A man can go along his path in a way he finds it necessary. He who walks by the right path will arrive at his goal. Each deviation will lead away from the direct path. When a traveller wanders into a thicket he is obliged to surmount many obstacles. The surplus of self-conceit and the lack of knowledge generates a lot of mistakes. And one has to pay for them. After each mistake immutably follows the suffering. It will continue until man understands that one cannot violate the cosmic laws. The suffering is the main teacher of humanity.
The man who is ignorant of the laws does not conform to them. Directed by selfish motives he commits the deeds which cause him suffering. Thus, ignorance of the Cosmic Laws is a source of constant sufferings for a man. And until he violates them he will suffer, for he creates bad karma.
Observing the lives of people all over the world there will be no exaggeration to say that in major part of those lives there are more "bad" karma than "good" one. That is, in general, there is more tiresome labour than happy activity and joy. On the modern level of human evolution there is more suffering than pleasure and joy in the amount of forces gathered by all of us. Our evil balance exceeds the good one. For in the past lives we did not want to follow the wisdom. We had selfish lives not caring whether we cause harm to somebody with our selfishness.
Karma is created not only by every man separately but also by different kinds of groups. Creating his karma the man binds himself with other people in this process. Thus, he becomes a member of different groups - family, nation, race. As a member of those groups he participates in the karma of every collective. Therefore besides individual karma man can have a family karma, a karma of a group, nation, state, the karma of humanity.
The group karma is made up by the deeds and strivings for achievement of some goal by a family, society, a certain class, party etc. All the participants, in creating such sort of karma, will have to meet not only with their rivals but also between themselves. They will have to do it in order to untangle the knots of karma which have been made. Karma of big collectives such as nation and state draws people in such collective calamities as wars.
The Ways of Creating Karma
Some part of Karma that man creates during his current life is absorbed at the same life. The rest part of Karma is postponed till the time the conditions for its extinction are created. Thus, depending on the time of execution a Karma can be mature, accumulated and originating one. Mature Karma is that part of total amount of created Karma that is defined by the Lords of Karma for extinction during the current life. Therefore it is inevitable. The accumulated Karma is the karma, which could not be extinguished because of some reasons. There were no conditions for their extinction. This Karma is always open for change. The originating Karma is the karma, which we create by our deeds, wishes or thoughts during our current life. This is the crop for the future.
There are incompatible kinds of Karma, which cannot be at the same place and4emand different physical bodies for their manifestation. Sometimes there appear the obligations in respect to some people. And those people must meet again for that reason. Sometimes karma must be accomplished in a certain nation or certain social position .For some time ago the basis was laid for such sort of Karmas.
Therefore upon the incarnation, fitting life conditions are given for each soul. They are made by the Lords of Karma - those invisible reasonable Beings who govern the great Laws of Cosmic Justice. In the plan of Logos they act as the distributors of Karma. With omnipresent wisdom the Lords of Karma choose and join different parts of human karma in order to make a common plan of a given human life. They neither reward nor punish. They just fit the personal forces of a man, that are coming from his past in such a way that his karma would facilitate his motion forward and his evolution. No matter what the Lords of Karma would give to the man - joy or sorrow, well-being or misfortune - they have in mind only the true purpose of the man's existence. And at the present stage that goal is not to be happy or unhappy but to progress along the line pointed by the Plan of Evolution.
Thus the Lords of Karma distribute the Karma of people. With infinite compassion and wisdom, not stepping away from justice even by a hair breadth, they build a body, suitable for a genius for one soul and a body like wood for another. Their only care is to lead the man a step further on the path of evolution. Assistance and difficulties, joy and grief, opportunities and privations - these are the bricks which prepare the Ego for its temporary abode. The Lords of Karma neither add nor take away anything. They but distribute forces, created by the souls, in such a way that the ultimate goal of a man would be achieved as soon as possible in a period of passing from birth to death.
Creating the Karma we deal with the power and its consequences. That power belongs either to the Dense World of action or the Subtle World of desire, or the Fiery World of thought. We use all three kinds of power. While striving, dreaming, wishing, acting we put the power of all the three worlds into motion. With each deed, wish and thought man changes his attitude to Cosmos and the attitude of Cosmos to him.
Virtually, all the Karma has its origin in the human thought. Karma is created, and gets heavier or lighter mainly by thoughts. Thought is the most powerful factor in creating Karma. These are our intentions and thoughts that create Karma. And deeds are the minor factors. Motive is much more important than the deed itself. Therefore people make up big Karma not by external but internal life. The internal life influences Karma hundred times over. Any crime appears small in view of the inner preparation. Such preparation is often protracted.
How to Live Rightly?
If the Law of Karma is the Law of Retribution, then one shouldn't take upon oneself the execution of the Law of Karma. For it is immutable by itself. Man shouldn't revenge oneself for injustice done to him. This is within the authority of the Higher Judgement - the Law of Karma. The words "Vengeance is mine!" are referred to the Law of Cosmic Justice.
No one of us can know that returning the blow with the vengeance in heart we continue or even increase our Karma instead of extinguishing it. Therefore we must forgive our personal enemies.
Otherwise we will never exit the vicious circle of Karma.
The legend says that the destruction of earthly enemies by murder means the creation of a powerful enemy in the Subtle World. Ancient warriors used to say to the enemy: "If you kill me, so much the worse for you. In Heaven the battle ground is more favorable for me and there I shall retaliate." Thus, in their own way did the ancients express the eternity of life and karma.
The legend points that we should resist evil. The resistance to evil is a necessary condition of evolution. There are many ways of resistance to evil without aggravating Karma. And first of all the forces of the Spirit are the best way. The rebuff to an enemy made with no spite in the heart is hundred times more powerful. The duty of every spiritually developed consciousness is always to be on the watch and to nip evil as far as possible.
The man is summoned to the world construction amidst chaos. He must cultivate courage of the eternal vigil in himself. He must create a participant of the cosmic battle out of himself. And this battle is constantly raging around him. If he does not want to be submerged by the waves of chaos he should always be ready to resist every evil. We cannot become people who are non-resistant to evil not having become the betrayers of all the humanity at the same time.
As the man lives his life his Karma gets extinguished. But at the same time new Karma is being created. The quality of new Karma will depend on wisdom of a man. If sufferings teach him murmurlessness and sympathy, if his sorrows and troubles prompt him to correct the mistakes he has made, if he reasonably pays his karmic debts, then in that case his new Karma will be good, not bad. But if he embittered and harms other people then his Karma will be bad.
The man depressed by all kinds of sorrows and misfortunes shouldn't murmur on his fate and lack of justice. For his troubles are the results of his past mistakes and sins. One needs to take them staunchly, with obedience and resignation. With such attitude we can remove many troubles and tortures away from ourselves. People who do not know the Law strengthen the calamities of their lives through those tortures. The future of a man depends on his own efforts. And the Law which brings him sufferings will bring him joy with the same inevitability if he sows good seeds.
A person makes his karma himself creating equally his own abilities and his own limitations. And acting with those abilities, created by the man himself, and encountering the limitations evoked by himself, it is in his power to strengthen or weaken his abilities, to broaden or narrow his limitations. Thus, we are all the lords of our tomorrow, no matter how our today is restraint by the results of our yesterday.
Inviolability and inevitability of the Cosmic Laws is the necessary condition for sure success and clear prevision of one's future. Man can become the Lord of his destiny only because he lives in the world governed by the Law. In this world knowledge can give the penetration into the activity of one's soul and the power to direct one's future, to build a better character of one's own and better future conditions of life. And then the knowledge of the Law of Karma becomes a power for him which supports, understands and inspires him.
Usually the majority of us, paying the karmic debts creates confused new Karma. It combines good and bad, but the wiser one of us will have greater amount of good than bad. Unless man consciously applies to the plan of evolution there will be no great changes for him from life to life. Rises and falls of fortunate and unfortunate fate, sorrow and joy alternate in successive lives. And only when a person definitely decides to follow the Plan of Logos - to live not for himself but for his fellows - his evolution starts to speed up. Then his progress becomes fast increasing as it were in geometrical progression.
We should not think that the destiny chosen for an individual cannot be changed. A person can change his destiny reacting on the circumstances in an unusual way.
Through unrestrained aspiration forward to the perfection man can outrun his Karma. And it may not catch him up. The one who stops in his development receives full downpour of Karma. When the man striving to perfection develops his spiritual forces, directing them for the benefit of evolution and for the benefit of his neighbour he not only extinguishes his Karma but also lightens the consequences of evil Karma of the humanity.
The forces of Light do not invade human Karmas in force of the Law of free will. But obeying another great Cosmic Law - the Law of Sacrifice, they often take upon themselves the Karma of human mistakes, delusions and crimes. They release humanity from the heaviness of its karmic consequences. They are those Redeemers, as Christ, who come to the world at different times in order to give the necessary impetus to the evolution of humanity of the planet.
THE SEVENTH LEGEND
Gods Came from Venus
It occurred unimaginably much time ago. The steps of our young history are measured by millennia. And what does "much time ago" mean in a cosmic scale? Cosmic steps are measured by millions of earthly years.
So, 18 million years ago there was a dawn of origin of the physical man. At that time the event of cosmic significance occurred in our Solar System - Gods descended the Earth from Heaven.
What is the god? Is there anything higher than the man in nature? Man knows many things lower than himself: first goes the animal then the plant and then the stone. And maybe there is someone higher than a human being? A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast a man. And what about a man? May be the next step is the divine creature.
There is nothing fully completed in the World. Everything changes, develops, perfects itself. And we already know that Cosmos is infinite. Thus, may be everything is possible in the cosmic range?
So, listen to the legend. It says about the things that happened at that time. No man saw how the Divine Creatures came on Earth. But the legend knows it from those Creatures Themselves. It knows it from those who are called Kumaras.
Just as a human being is not the last step in the chain of creatures, the Earth too is not the highest planet in the Solar System, There are superhuman planets - Venus, Jupiter. Those planets passed ahead of our planet for the whole step. At that time seven Great Spirits, seven Kumaras came from Venus.
Do you remember the legend which says that Cosmos was created by the Hierarchy of Builders? Thus the Universe is governed by the Great Hierarchy of Creative Forces of Cosmos. The principle of Hierarchy saturates all cosmic manifestations. It is an eternal and immutable law of the Universe. The multitude of Hierarchs of different steps of power and authority participate in the governing of Cosmos.
Hierarchy is not coercion, it is the law of the Universe. The entire Universe is saturated with this principle of Hierarchy. The subjection of the lower to the higher lies at the foundation of Cosmos. Hence, humanity, being part of the Cosmos, cannot isolate itself from this principle.
There is one chain of the Hierarchy of Light continuing in Infinity. All true Bearers of Light appearing and still staying on our planet now, are Its links. The Brothers of Humanity work with the cosmic energies in conformity with all courses of the luminaries.
Who are those Hierarchs called the Great White Brothers? They were all men - in other worlds and the preceding Manvantaras. They are former people grown up into Gods. There are no gods who have not been people some time ago.
Each entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience. All the Hierarchs had to pass through the human stage. They went along the difficult path of human evolution through many, many lives. Only through this way the Leaders of humanity are forged. If they do not pass through earthly sufferings, they cannot respond to people's sufferings. If they do not experience the sweat of toil, they cannot guide people in their labour. Self-abnegation, mercy, compassion, courage are forged in life. Nothing abstract can mold the strength of the spirit.
Each Hierarch must go through the human evolution in order to stay at the head of some planet afterwards. Mahatmas are the Great Souls having completed their earthly path. It means that they have reached Nirvana - the highest step of Being. But the Brothers of Humanity willingly renounced it for the affirmation of human evolution.
They have not left for the other higher worlds voluntarily. They consciously accepted the earthly life. They could be far away from here but preferred to stay with suffering humanity. They allow themselves only educational flights on the other planets. Only in rear cases they allow themselves long sojourns on other planets. And such sojourns are not the alienation but, vice versa, those are like yam connecting the threads.
The spirit of a Mahatma can fly through the interplanetary space, being fully conscious. The Great White Brothers, as Christ and Buddha, are the far stars in comparison with us, the earthly people. Spiritual powers of Theirs, Their magnitude unmatch any recognized human genius unless They Themselves were incarnated as those geniuses. But with time we also will become such divine creatures - it is the purpose of human evolution.
They came on our planet when the humanity was at its infantile state. They came to us in order to be our Teachers, our Instructors. They came to help the humanity on its way from a human being, the beast, to the human being, the god. They came in order to conduct the plan of Logos on Earth. For the flourishing and fall of civilizations is not the mechanical development. Peoples appear and disappear according to the Divine Plan. From the very beginning of existence of humanity. Logos outlined what races and peoples and what suitable religions for them and sciences will appear on Earth one after another. The executor of His will on our planet is the Great White Brotherhood which brings His Plan to realization.
Casualness cannot guide the progress of humanity. The world is governed by the Cosmic Reason. The Crown of the Cosmic Reason is the collective Reason of the Hierarchy of Light. The Great Brothers reveal all the chosen ways of progress. They are the Propellers of evolution. For centuries their creativeness leads the humanity.
The Hierarchy of Light, which brought Light on the dawn of humanity, continues to bring it through all along the slow process of evolution. Great Kumaras came on Earth for acceleration of the evolution of humanity. They give the evolutionary direction to us but do not invade our Karma. Their activity constantly disturbs the unwillingness of people. But since They cannot coerce the will of people. They act with boundless patience inspiring and directing everything and everyone, and observing the humanity' with boundless love.
Tirelessly They appear on all turning points of history of our planet, on the thresholds of all the races, of all the great events. They incarnate in all races and nations as founders of religions or philosophies, as great wise men and Instructors of peoples. They assume earthly envelope in order to give new shift to the human consciousness. On all the paths of humanity stand those Leaders, those Fiery Keepers of Light.
The entire trend of thought issues from this Source. They give the foundation of consciousness to humanity and lead its growth. They move the consciousness of humanity to the understanding of Cosmic Laws. They Saturate the consciousness with One Truth given to humanity in garments of various philosophies and religions, corresponding to the time.
All great teachings, religions, philosophies were issued from One Source. Inexhaustible Chalice of Wisdom is kept in inviolable stronghold. Its secular Keepers know when and how many drops must be poured out of it in order to wash the consciousness of humanity. In all times only that part of the Truth was transmitted which could be assimilated by humanity.
Humanity has drawn its power not out of itself but from the Great Hierarchy of Light. We owe it the most valuable, the highest and the most vital. If there was not the great self-sacrifice of that Higher Spirits and if there were no efforts of Their disciples and friends, then our humanity would have been now in the state of cave-dwellers. Without that leadership the human evolution would have been delayed for millions of years.
Through out the history of humanity can be traced a recognition of the Higher Spirit - the Comforter, and a great number of such concepts. The testimony of all ages and peoples! Under varying conditions people have sensed the same supreme, ineffable Origin.
One can find the most multiform signs of great reality preserved by peoples. This is not self-interested suggestion, but a discernment of truth. All nations knew about Guardian Angels and have preserved these traditions for millennia. All Teachings knew about the Mighty Protectors of humanity who guided nations.
There is a Stronghold of Know ledge and Life. The Brotherhood of Mahatmas exists These are the Older Brothers of humanity who devoted themselves to the great knowledge in the name of general good. They observe the evolution of the world. All great discoveries, all great ideas issue from this Source of Knowledge and Light. This beacon of humanity exists on our Earth but not in the spheres beyond the clouds.