(From p. 160 to p. 184, Vol. I.)
Mars and Mercury bear an occult relation to the earth which will not be explained. V. I. p. 163. This is not because no explanation exists, but because, as said (p. 164 footnote), these explanations belong to high grades of initiation.
Figures and Numbers the key to the whole system; V. I. p. 164, last line. This has often been stated. Among the Jewish cabalists it is said that the Universe is built by number, weight, and measure, and that harmony is the law reigning over all. Now if the hint given be true, that figures and numbers will not be given for the above reasons, then it is useless for students to bother their minds about the occult meaning of numbers, as so many now do; for this occult meaning cannot be found without assistance.
Venus in Her 7th Round. See italicised para, on p. 165, where it is said that that planet is in her last round. This must be her 7th. Hence the men there are as gods to us, and, if the argument from analogy is to be relied on, some of her great light must emanate from those beings and not all be from the sun.
Mars with Two Moons Not His Own. See p. 164, ital. para. This is taken from the letter by a Master who, replying to the query as to why Mercury and Venus have no satellites, says: "It is because Mars has two to which he has no right and—for other reasons". That is, we infer that Mars absorbed these moons or dragged them off into his orbit at some time enormously distant and still keeps them. They cannot therefore stand to him in the same relation as our moon does to us. One of the "other reasons" may be that, Venus being in her 7th round, all vestiges of old moons have been sublimated and absorbed into her atmosphere.
Esoteric Metaphysics must be understood. V. I. p. 169 last para. This rule is laid down by the Adepts and is therefore of greater weight than if formulated by a student. It is useless to attempt to master the system on the lines of modern research, which at best are empirical, very faulty, and leading almost always to a materialization of the whole scheme. Meta-physic deals with the real because the ideal, and physical science with the phenomenal and therefore illusory and changeable.
Evolution of the Monad a Basic Principle. P. 171, 1st line, V. I. This is laid down with extreme clearness and should not be forgotten. It is not expanded so that inattentive minds may get it through much repetition, but it is postulated once for all. It is still altogether too customary for students to separate the Monads, first from the globes and then from the beings thereon. They cannot be thus divided off. All the globes and their objects are and ever will be monads in stages of evolution, just as we who now study the question are monads ourselves in other stages. The false notion should at once be discarded that there was a time when there were no monads on the globe but that there was here in waiting this ball of earth coming from no one knows where, and that later on monads arrived to occupy it.
If we carry out the principle laid down, then the globe is the creation of the monad; and when the globe is evolved, at once monads needing that experience enter into its corporeality to continue its existence. These later monads are those far behind in the race who will, in some succeeding period of evolution, be in a position to evolve on their own account some new-globe in ages yet far distant, for the carrying on of the same process eternally. For, as a material object cannot spring out of nothing, neither can education or knowledge or ability to plan arise out of nothing, but must be based upon and flow from some prior experience or education. So it must be that even now there are monads encased in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms which have never been farther than that, and will during the remainder of the race evolution continue their education in those lower kingdoms until their time shall come when, the door opening for their exit, they will pass out and higher to make room for others.
Limit to Number of Monads. Although there can be no such thing as a metaphysical limit to the monads, yet practically, for the purposes of any one manvantara, there must be a limited number of monads included within its evolutionary sweep. Since a manvantara, however vast and inconceivable by us, is wholly a finite period, it sets its own limit—within the illimitable absolute—for the monads attracted to it. This of necessity must be, since the natural world which makes experience possible, being finite because material, sets the limit by reason of its capacity being bounded. See 1st para. p. 171, V. I.
The Fate of the Anthropoid Apes. This interesting question is raised first on pp. 173 and 175 V. I. and not disposed of. There, in describing the course of the evolution of the monad, it is said that the laggards will not be men at all in this cycle save one exception. On p. 184, 2d para, it seems to be answered. "In this Round * * the anthropoids destined to die out in this our race when their monads will be liberated and pass into the astral human forms, or the highest human elementals, of the sixth and the seventh Races, and then into lowest human forms in the fifth Round." These descendants of men through union with animals will thus be karmically rewarded in the next round after this, instead of having to wait until another manvantara.