The New Age by Capt. P. G. Bowen (The Theosophical Path)

The New Age  by Capt. P. G. Bowen

I will begin by summarizing the teachings, as far as I know them, concerning 'Ages' in general.

1. This world on which we are wakingly conscious is one of a chain of seven spheres. It is No. 4 of the series of seven, and is the 'lowest,' or most material - that is to say, that upon it consciousness manifests in a more limited form than upon any of the other spheres.

2. The seven spheres form a single entity which I shall refer to as the Planetary Chain, or simply the Planet. This Planetary Chain includes not merely the seven spheres, but every entity from lowest elemental atom to highest spiritual being which lives and moves within the Chain. The Planetary Chain is a moving river of life. The hierarchies of beings which evolve upon or within it may be likened unto the great tides, the tidal waves, the rollers, the surges, the waves great and small, down to the invisible ripples upon the surface of the river. I am endeavoring to suggest a picture to the mind which, if appreciated, will help towards a better understanding of what the Planetary Chain really is. 

3. The Life-waves flow along the chain of spheres in regular succession, from Sphere No. 1 to Sphere No. 7; and thence (after a period of rest, or sleep) back again to Sphere No. 1. These 'waves,' 'wavelets,' etc., etc., in their totality form the vital pulsations of the great evolving Being which the Planetary Chain is. Seven of those great pulsations complete the life of the Planet. Seven circuits of the Chain of seven spheres complete the life of the hierarchy of beings which constitute any one wave. For clarity's sake, because the term is familiar to Theosophists, I will call one 'pulsation' of the Planetary Chain, or one circuit of a Life-wave round the spheres, a Planetary Round. When I speak of a 'life' being completed, it must be understood that I refer merely to the completion of a particular evolutionary cycle. The spiritual entities which manifest in any cycle do not die on completing it, but pass into a state of rest whence they emerge later on a new and higher cycle of manifestation ; and so on through eternity. Progress has no end.

4. Man, by which term I mean the spiritual beings which, on this sphere, and in this age, manifest as human beings, forms one of the Life waves which flow around the Planetary Chain. Man completes his evolution in seven Rounds of the Planetary Chain, and visits each sphere seven times. We have at present completed three Rounds, and are upon Sphere No. 4, a little over midway upon our fourth Planetary Round. 

5. As the Planetary Chain, the Great Being, the Great Hierarchy, has its seven great pulsations, or Rounds, so also have the lesser beings or lesser hierarchies, which it includes, their corresponding pulsations, or 'rounds.' Each of the seven spheres has its seven 'pulsations' in each Planetary Round, and these are what are familiarly called the RootRaces of Mankind. This does not mean that the 'pulsations' of our sphere consist solely of the human 'Life-wave.' This is simply one of a multitude, but it is important for present purposes because it concerns human consciousness. Each Root-Race evolves a certain aspect of consciousness, and seven are needed to evolve the complete Man - complete, that is, relative to the sphere, and the Round. 

I now pass to direct consideration of Man himself. Man's nature, like that of the Planetary Chain or the sphere, is sevenfold, and every aspect of it is in strict correspondence with an aspect of the greater Being within which he lives and moves. 

This doctrine of Correspondences is perhaps the most fundamental and important in the Occult Philosophy. Some clear understanding of it is necessary if the student hopes to begin to comprehend life. A complete understanding is possible only to high initiates, but this is fortunate, for the Law of Correspondences provides a key wherewith mighty occult forces may be unlocked.

Man is of seven aspects, or Principles, which are usually enumerated as follows:

1. SthUia-sarira Physical Body - instrument of contact with this earth plane.

2. Linga-sarira Astral Body - model of the physical, and vehicle of life in this plane.

3. Prana .......... Vitality - life as manifest on this plane.

4. Kama .......... Desire - passional and emotional nature.

5. Manas ........ Abstract Mind - mind existing independently, and apart from Desire.

6. Buddhi ........ Spiritual Soul.

7. Atman .......... Spirit - the SELF. 

Each of these human Principles corresponds to one of the Rounds of the Planetary Chain. Here I shall deal with the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh principles only. I would here interject a warning to students not to form hasty conclusions concerning the nature of the correspondences of the first, second, and third principles from anything which I say in this connexion.

Each Round develops, or evolves, a particular principle in the Planetary Chain. The Fourth Round, our present Round, evolves the Principle of Desire in the Planet. I ref er those who may demur at this statement to page 260 of Volume I of M adame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, (edition of 1888), where it is stated unequivocally that the Fourth Round develops the Fourth ( middle ) Principle in the planet, and this Fourth Principle is Desire. The apparent contradiction between this statement and the teaching that the Fourth Round ( and fourth sphere ) is the most material, is also explained.

This present Round is the Great Age of Desire. 

The Fifth Round which evolves the Fifth Principle in the Planet will be the Great Age of Mind. 

The Sixth Round will be the Great Age of Spiritual individuality. 

The Seventh Round will be the Final Age of Universal UNITY, which is the life of the spirit. Correspondentially with the foregoing the Root-Races on their lesser cycles on each sphere evolve aspects of the race at large. The Fourth Root-Race evolved Desire. The Fifth, our present Root-Race, evolves Mind.

Bearing in mind the facts above stated, we see that our human evolution is going on within the universal plane of Desire, represented by the principle which the Planet has evolved in this its Fourth Round. Our Root-Race, the Fifth, is evolving Mind in its own lesser cycle ; but this Mind, having to work within the plane of desire, is naturally dominated by it, with the result that Fifth Root-Race humanity - that is, Mankind in the mass - are still under the sway of Desire, and use such Mind as they have evolved to serve and feed it. Men in the mass are simply animals who think a little, and are self-conscious. This is not to say that there are not numerous exceptions to the rule. 

We have now to consider the 'pulsations' of the Root-Race, the lesser race-cycles, or 'ages' which run their courses within each greater Race. There are seven of these, usually called Sub-races, to each Root-Race. Each Sub-race on its own lesser cycle follows out the Law of Correspondences. Thus the Fourth Sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race would be evolving forth a desire-element, and the Fifth Sub-race would be evolving a mind-element, and so on. This principle runs through every cycle no matter how narrow: of course each ( primary) Sub-race has its own 'pulsations,' sub-sub-races; and each of these sub-sub-races has its seven sub-sub-sub-races: so on without end. 

Let us now examine these Sub-races, and consider what general characteristics their humanity should show. Consider the Fourth (primary) Sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race : in this we see a sub-section of Mankind at large ( the Fifth Root-Race l evolving its own Desire-principle. B ut already the Root-Race is evolving :11ind within the Universal plane of Desire ; therefore in the Sub-race we have what amounts to a working over, or a refining, of the Universal Desire within the field of the RootRace principle, Mind. This Root-Race Mind, as already shown, is a mere slave to Desire : in the Fourth Sub-race it will remain unchanged, but will have as its master a more refined and 'civilized' set of desires. 

I will call the point just made, Point No. 1, and will return to it later.  Consider next the Fifth (primary) Sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race. Here should be a sub-section of :Mankind engaged in evolving its own Mind-principle. It is evolving already within the Root-Race principle ( Mind), and within the Universal Fourth principle. The Sub-race ( Mind) evolution means a working over, a refining and intensifying of the Race-mind ; hence we should have a comparatively alert and powerful mentality in this sub-section of humanity, a mentality capable in a considerable measure of ordering and controlling Desire. 

I will call this Point No. 2. 

These ideas which I am putting forward here are not, I am aware, of a kind familiar to students of Theosophy. As far as I am aware they represent original thinking, but I am putting them forward solely in the hope that they may stimulate others into doing a little thinking for themselves, and not with the notion that they are any sort of revelation.

Turn back to those Points I have left. Point No. 1 outlines broadly the character which a Fourth Sub-race man of our Root-Race should, reasonably and logically, be expected to show. Is this character familiar? I think it is, for indeed it is that of so-called civilized humanity in the mass. And Point no. 2 ! Is the character broadly sketched there commonly found among civilized men at large? Do we commonly see a refined and alert mentality winning victories over the world of Desire ? We see individual examples of it, of course, but it is most surely not a characteristic of the race at large. 

What then emerges from comparison of those points? It is this, that we civilized human beings in the mass do not belong to the Fifth Sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race but only to the Fourth. 

The belief, universal among Theosophists, that we are in the Fifth Sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race is an excellent example of the pernicious habit of relying upon authority instead of thinking for ourselves. I want to shake students out of their faith in authority, and drive them into using and developing such mind as they possess. Many will loudly protest that my contentions conflict with the teachings of H. P. Blavatsky, and will ask if I intend to set myself up as a greater authority than she. This brings me to a point which is well worth examining. What exactly were Madame Blavatsky's teachings upon this matter of Races? 

On pages 444 to 446 of Volume II of The Secret Doctrine ( 1888 ed.) a good deal is said about Races. On page 444 we find the following:

They [the Americans] are, in short, the germs of the Sixth sub-race, and in some few hundred years more, will become most decidedly the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present European or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics. 

This is the passage which appears to have given rise to the dogma ( it is nothing else) that we Europeans are in our Fifth Sub-race. 

Before going farther, I will draw attention to a thing which all esoteric students know, and which all beginners in esoteric studies should understand, namely, that information concerning esoteric matters given out by a genuine teacher is always shrouded by 'blinds.' These 'blinds' are of many kinds: some are known to esotericists, others are not known. A common 'blind' consists in what to the uninstructed appears like a loose or haphazard use of words, or terms. The same term will be encountered designating two or more obviously different things with the result that the student is left guessing at the teacher's real meaning. Or again, a single idea will be presented in such dissimilar ways, that the student is left befogged on the matter. Now those pages of The Secret Doctrine mentioned, and also pages 434-5 of Volume II, where H. P. B. tabulates racial evolutionary cycles, are thickly covered by 'blinds.' In the following passage on page 435, H. P. B. is quite obviously writing of the same thing as that dealt with in the passage already quoted :

... each Family-Race has an average existence of about 30,000 years. Thus the European 'Family Race' has still a good many thousand years to run .... [Italics ours]

She is 'obviously' speaking of the same thing as in the passage on page 444, I say, but is she really doing so, or giving quite other hints? Even if I knew the answer I should not give it. 

Now compare these two passages with the tabulation given on page 434. 1. Root-Race ; 2. Sub-race ; 3. Family-race ; 4. Family-race subdivided into national, tribal races, etc., etc., and one may well pause and ask oneself if it is possible to say at all what H. P. B . 's teachings on these matters really were. It is in fact only possible to do so through the intuition. Those terms 'Sub-race, Family-race, Tribal-race, etc.,' are clearly terms to which no fixed meaning can be attached. 'Subrace' may just as fitly apply to the three hundred and forty-third part of a Root-race as to a seventh part. In simple fact The Secret Doctrine is in the main not written to convey facts but to reveal laws to the discerning student which he should use to aid him in uncovering truth for himself. The pages from which I have quoted reveal laws which I am endeavoring to apply, in part, to the subjects I am considering here. 

Before one can make even a guess at what Family-race means, one needs to consider the probable duration of a Root-Race. Considering that 18,000,000 years have elapsed since the middle of the Third RootRace, and that we are about in the middle of the Fifth, it cannot be very wrong to imagine that the Root-Race has a life of nine million years. At that calculation, Family-race would mean a 'sub-sub-sub-race,' seeing its duration is 'approximately' 30,000 years. I am not dogmatizing, but just throwing out hints to stimulate thought. 

Nothing emerges more clearly than that we 'civilized' Europeans are not in the Fifth ( primary ) Sub-race of our Root-race. I will assume that we are in the Fifth 'Family' race of the Fourth Sub-race, of the Fifth Root-Race, but, as I have shown, this Family-race is a very minor race cycle. The Sixth Sub-race lies far ahead of us on our evolutionary path, and there are no signs at all that any 'N cw Age' is nigh its flowering for the mass of mankind.

II 

THERE is much, very much, in this matter of evolutionary cycles, or 'Ages,' beyond what has been said, which intimately concerns individual man. No New Age is imminent for mankind in the mass; but though planetary and race conditions profoundly affect the individual they do not bind him immutably. Each man has the power within him to become unto himself the \Vay, the Truth, and the Light, if only he will seize the reins of his own individuality firmly.

I will now turn from the survey of races to that of individuals. The Sixth Family-race - the 'New Age,' or the next step on the ladder of evolution - is not at hand for the race at large ; but that is not to say that it may not be at hand for certain individual men. I will consider what the distinguishing marks of a Sixth Family-race man may reasonably be expected to be, and then see if these are to be found in any of our fellow-men. 

The Sixth 'age,' whether Planetary Round, Root-Race, Sub-race, Family-race, or lesser cycle down to the least, has its correspondence with the sixth human Principle. This is Buddhi, or the Spiritual Soul. Direct KNOWING - that is to say, the power of gaining knowledge by direct perception without approaching it through a chain of reasoning such as this which I am using here - is the most distinctive mark of the development of the Spiritual Soul in man. This power of direct knowing is INTUITION. 

Intuition is a word which misuse has deprived of most of its meaning. We apply it ir.discriminately to mere instincts and feelings about things. We speak of 'woman's intuition,' but this, if analysed, will seldom be found to be anything more than an emotional or passional attraction towards certain things or persons, or a similar repulsion from others; it comes from nothing more than a specially fluidic condition of the Emotional Body, more common among women than among men of certain races, such as the English. It frequently leads aright, and those occasions are remembered and quoted as examples of genuine intuition ; but more often it leads astray, though such failures are always forgotten. It is a dim, distant reflexion, only, of the KNOWING which the Spiritual Soul exercises.

A Sixth Family-race man, like all humanity, lives and moves within the Plane of Desire - the Principle which the Planet is evolving in this its Fourth Round : he has the general diffused quality of Mind common to the Fifth Root-Race : and he has the ordinary 'civilized' desires which belong to our Fourth (primary) Sub-race. Thus far we have the basic ingredients of a very ordinary character. Moving into his minor Sixth 'age,' which I call for convenience' sake the Family-race, means that there occurs in him a certain awakening of the Spiritual Soul. Remembering the influences of the larger cycles in which he moves we can readily appreciate with what difficult conditions the Spiritual Soul has to strive in order to manifest. In the ordinary way, indeed, our Sixth Family-race man may in all likelihood appear even less than 'ordinary' ; but in brief moments, or in special conditions, he will startle by exhibiting a peculiar clarity and brilliance. When alone and quiet and withdrawn from the world's turmoil he will also have wonderful moments which will lighten for him the heavy burden of life ; for indeed these forerunners of the 'New Age' have no comfortable or happy lives. Withdrawal from the world is their true line : while in it their lives are anxious ones. Their flashes of KNOWING speak to them of so much that is higher that the world seems devilish by contrast.

I am picturing what I conceive to be the state of a Sixth Family-race man, here and now. But when this Family-race flowers generally the conditions I describe will be greatly modified. Then the Family-race as a whole will be living in its own conditions, and individual difficulties will cease to be such a burden. They will persist however as a racial characteristic in regard to the outer world. 

Now, we may inquire whether individuals such as I have described are to be met. The answer is, of course, in the affirmative. They may not be very common, but they are sufficiently numerous for all who observe to know them. 

Are there any examples of the Seventh Family-race in existence? The answer is, certainly, Yes. They are naturally less numerous than those of the Sixth, yet, because they are so much more impressive it is easy to imagine that they are more numerous. Their characteristics are not easy to define, because indeed the manifestation of the Spirit ( the Seventh Principle) is indefinable : we can recognize it, but we cannot say in what it consists. It may be said however that the Seventh Family-race man, like the Sixth, is fundamentally a very ordinary person, but with the indefinable, blinding quality of SPIRITUALITY added. They are apt to be no more happy, those pioneers of a Coming Race, than are their brothers of the Sixth, for their common lower nature constantly makes them fall or stumble. Relief for them however lies not in retirement from the world, but in searching for fields in which to manifest the thing which is awake within them.

And the Fifth (primary) Sub-race - are there any forerunners of it among individual men? Quite a considerable number! In my Point No. 2 I indicated what Fifth Sub-race development is: MIND for the first time in human evolution attains the power of dominating Desire in the Fifth Sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race. Fifth Sub-race men are not uncommon, and their qualities make them easily recognisable in any surroundings. The Intuitive man and the Spiritual man of the Sixth and the Seventh Family-races of the Fourth ( primary ) Sub-race fail to impress unless granted their own special conditions, but not so the man of the Fifth Sub-race : he impresses unmistakably. 

Is it possible, it may be asked, that the mentally dominant man of the Fifth Sub-race is more advanced than the intuitive, and the spiritual men of the Fourth Sub-race, although he lacks any apparent spiritual quality ? It is not merely possible, it is so ! I repeat what I drew attention to before : evolution is not a direct ascent, but an ascent by cycles. The Fifth Sub-race man must have passed through the Sixth and Seventh Family-races of the Fourth Sub-race before reaching his present state. These former intuitive and spiritual 'Ages' have passed into obscuration for him, but the lessons they provided have become a part of his permanent nature. He is now on an altogether higher cycle. 

The Fifth Sub-race man, like the Fourth, must advance through all the Family-races of his sub-race. If we knew how to distinguish them we could observe Fifth Sub-race men of various Family-races. Those most readily distinguishable belong to the Fourth Family-race wherein Desire again emerges in a minor cycle. In such men the common spectacle of a great mentality falling victim to, or deliberately yielding to, strange weaknesses may be observed. Then we have the men of the Fifth Family-race of the Fifth Sub-race, readily distinguishable as men of extraordinary talent, or even of genius, though not true genius. The men of true genius belong to the Sixth Family-race of the Fifth Subrace : in them the faculty of the Spiritual Soul - direct knowing - appears to illuminate the developed intellect.

Farther I shall not go, but this is not to say that individual evolution stops dead at a few examples of men of the Sixth Family-race of the Fifth Sub-race. In very fact there are on this earth examples of every stage of evolution - every 'AGE' up to the highest in this Planetary Round. But those far advanced races are beyond our knowing or perceiving. On this subject I can say little that is definite, but merely hint. Read pages 445-6 of Volume II of The Secret Doctrine ( 1888 edition) and see what arises in mind as a result. It may be much, or it may be little : all depends upon what 'age' one lives in. 

We may read in the letters of the Masters themselves of Fifth, and even Sixth ROUND men ; and some of these are named. But such matters form but glimpses of a mystery too deep for me to pretend to plumb. What I have said, and what still remains to be said, may serve to show the intelligent student that there are keys to all mysteries, and that these are to be searched for in the deeps of one's own consciousness, and are not to be got from the hands of any 'authority.' What I say here is said in an unusual way, and to many may appear to be a 'new' teaching, but it pretends to be nothing of the kind. It is simply a more or less vague approximation of certain truths of which I have caught glimpses, and I put it forward in the hope that it may stimulate a few into exerting the perceptive faculties concealed within us all. 

A determined attempt to achieve a working knowledge of cyclic law would relieve many earnest students from much trouble and confusion of mind. Many of these think that if by some mighty effort they could leap away from the common life into a spiritual state they could afford to dispense with any intervening development of Mind. 'Mentality,' 'intellectuality,' anything to do with 'mind' seems to be despised by these worthy but confused people. In their thinking, such as it is, they lose sight completely of what 'Man' is. One of the Teachers once said in this connexion :

Man is not Buddhi (Spiritual Soul). Man is Manas (Abstract Mind). He is separate, imperfect Man while Manas is bound by Kama (Desire). He becomes perfect Man when Manas mounting on Kama unites itself with Buddhi. 

In simpler words, Buddhi is not the Man, nor is it in itself individual, but universal. Individual Man is the pure Mind-Principle. While the Mind is held by Desire, pure Mind cannot manifest. What manifests is the Desire-Mind ( Kama-Manas ) and that means separate, personal Man. Mind must conquer Desire and free itself from it before it can turn upward and unite with the Spiritual Soul, forming in the union immortal individual Man. It is the Mind which experiences and learns. Buddhi does neither: it merely contemplates and remains ever the same. To create the future immortal, angelic Man Manas must coalesce with Buddhi, bringing with it the fruit of its accumulated experiences gained through its passage through matter. Before it can do this it must have emancipated itself from, and trodden upon, Desire. 

It depends then upon how well and truly he has learned the lessons which his planetary existence affords him whether any individual man is stepping forward into his 'New Age,' or whether he remains buried deep in the old. More than that, from the moment man wakes to consciousness of any struggle between Manas and Kama - between the Thinking Self and the Animal-, or Desire-Self - his destiny is in his own hands: if he fails to hasten his progress the loss and the responsibility is his own. 

There is no more important and splendid and inspiring teaching in our Occult Philosophy than that which tells us that if we but rouse the will into action we may, in the space of a few incarnations, leave our old 'Age' and sweep ahead, not merely into the next minor age, but into ages aeons ahead of the race at large. We may even do it in a single life : time is the greatest illusion. In an hour, a minute, a flash of a second, we may bridge a gulf of a million earth-years - pass in consciousness from the conditions of one Sub-race to that of its successor. Already, in our last return into incarnation, in our pre-birth life, in our growth up to our present state, we have recapitulated our evolution from Sphere No. 1 of the First Planetary Round. It is possible to go as far ahead again - an infinitely remote possibility, of course, but a possibility !

For the man who bends all his energies upon the task of learning the occult laws which rule existence, and struggles to live according to them, the 'NEW AGE' is always at hand. Minute by minute he is stepping from one cycle to a higher. But only by effort, and by right effort is this advance made. There is no such thing as just existing and in the end being carried forward by the stream of evolution. That way means circling round and round and ending by finding oneself a hopeless straggler, far behind the advancing host of those who were once one's fellows. 

"Thou art not only the guide and the lamp; thou art the Path thyself." So said one who is believed to have trodden the Path to within sight of its end. But let it be understood that when I say 'end' I am using a term relative to this planetary manifestation only ; because there is no end: progress is eternal. 

"Man, know thyself ! " is the adjuration of the sages of all ages. Before concluding I will reiterate an idea already put forward : 

"Man is MIND. He is the Fighter, the Warrior who must conquer matter, and the realm of the beast. Then he must bring his spoils and lay them at the feet of the serene CONTEMPLATOR who will reward him by sharing with him his own robe - the Robe of Wisdom." 

That is how a wise man who taught me much put the matter in his own 'un-English' way.

Part of the lesson is not beyond common comprehension. The Mind collects its spoils and makes its conquests, not to enrich itself, but the Higher Self, the Self of all ; therefore we must never make a god of mere mind. Yet we must value it in the highest, for it alone can conquer the lower nature, and bring us at last into the Kingdom of Perfection. 

The New Age for any one of us means each new step forward and upward on the endless ladder of evolution. Whether we are moving boldly into the light of our New Age, or are moldering among the stale fogs of the old, depends upon ourselves alone. If a man elect to be Time's servant, shackled to his master's chariot-wheels, he must be content to wait till the old cycle slowly rolls away and the new slips unperceived beneath his feet. But if he elect to become the Pilgrim of the Secret Path, and travels that Path with the power of awakened Manhood, his feet will ever be pressing the Threshold of some NEW AGE.

From : The Theosophical Path Vol. XLill, No. 2 OCTOBER, 1933