kingdom of God is within, and that only those facts which are realised within the individual consciousness as truths are of any real value. In the meantime, that which many know, and have ascertained within themselves to be truths of an incontrovertible nature for them, may here be stated; to the intelligent reader will then arise the opportunity and the responsibility of ascertaining for himself their falsity or truth.
The Founding of the Hierarchy
Its appearance on the planet.
It is not sought, in this book, to deal with the steps which led to the founding of the Hierarchy on the planet, nor to consider the conditions preceding the advent of those great Beings. This can be studied in other occult books in the occident, and in the sacred Scriptures of the East. Suffice it for our purpose to say that in the middle of the Lemurian epoch, approximately eighteen million years ago, occurred a great event which signified, among other things, the following developments:—The Planetary Logos of our earth scheme, one of the Seven Spirits before the throne, took physical incarnation, and, under the form of Sanat Kumara, the Ancient of Days, and the Lord of the World, came down to this dense physical planet and has remained with us ever since. Owing to the extreme purity of His nature, and the fact that He is (from the human standpoint) relatively sinless, and hence incapable of response to aught on the dense physical plane, He was unable to take a dense physical body such as ours, and has to function in His etheric body. He is the greatest of all the Avatars, or Coming Ones, for He is a direct reflection of that great Entity who lives, and breathes, and functions through all the evolutions on this planet, holding all within His aura or magnetic sphere of influence. In Him we live and move and have our being, and none of us can pass beyond the radius of His aura. He is the Great Sacrifice, Who left the glory of the high places and for the sake of the evolving sons of men took upon Himself a physical form and was made in the likeness of man. He is the Silent Watcher, as far as our immediate humanity is concerned, although literally the Planetary Logos Himself, on the higher plane of consciousness whereon He functions, is the true Silent Watcher where the planetary scheme is concerned. Perhaps it might be stated thus:—That the Lord of the World, the One Initiator, holds the same place in connection with the Planetary Logos as the physical manifestation of a Master holds to that Master's Monad on the monadic plane. In both cases the intermediate state of consciousness has been superseded, that of the Ego or higher self, and that which we see and know is the direct self-created manifestation of pure spirit itself. Hence the sacrifice. It must here be borne in mind that in the case of Sanat Kumara there is a tremendous difference in degree, for His point in evolution is as far in advance of that of an adept as that adept's is in advance of animal man. This will be somewhat elaborated in the next section of our subject.
With the Ancient of Days came a group of other highly evolved Entities, who represent His own individual karmic group and those Beings who are the outcome of the triple nature of the Planetary Logos. If one might so express it They embody the forces emanating from the head, heart, and throat centres, and They came in with Sanat Kumara to form focal points of planetary force for the helping of the great plan for the self-conscious unfoldment of all life. Their places have gradually been filled by the sons of men as they qualify, though this includes very few, until lately, from our immediate earth humanity. Those who are now the inner group around the Lord of the World have been primarily recruited from the ranks of those who were initiates on the moon chain (the cycle of evolution preceding ours) or who have come in on certain streams of solar energy, astrologically determined, from other planetary schemes, yet those who have triumphed in our own humanity are rapidly increasing in number, and hold all the minor offices beneath the central esoteric group of Six, who, with the Lord of the World, form the heart of hierarchial effort.
The immediate effect.
The result of Their advent, millions of years ago, was stupendous, and its effects are still being felt. Those effects might be enumerated as follows:—The Planetary Logos on His own plane was enabled to take a more direct method in producing the results He desired for working out His plan. As is well known, the planetary scheme, with its dense globe and inner subtler globes, is to the Planetary Logos what the physical body and its subtler bodies are to man. Hence in illustration it might he said that the coming into incarnation of Sanat Kumara was analogous to the firm grip of self-conscious control that the Ego of a human being takes upon his vehicles when the necessary stage in evolution has been achieved. It has been said that in the head of every man are seven centres of force, which are linked to the other centres in the body, and through which the force of the Ego is spread and circulated, this working out the plan. Sanat Kumara, with the six other Kumaras, holds a similar position. These central seven are as the seven head centres to the body corporate. They are the directing agents and the transmitters of the energy, force, purpose, and will of the Planetary Logos on His own plane. This planetary head centre works directly through the heart and throat centres, and thereby controls all the remaining centres. This is by way of illustration, and an attempt to show the relation of the Hierarchy to its planetary source, and also the close analogy between the method of functioning of a Planetary Logos and of man, the microcosm.
The third kingdom of nature, the animal kingdom, had reached a relatively high state of evolution, and animal man was in possession of the earth; he was a being with a powerful physical body, a co-ordinated astral body, or body of sensation and feeling, and a rudimentary germ of mind which might some day form a nucleus of a mental body. Left to himself for long aeons animal man would have eventually progressed out of the animal kingdom into the human, and would have become a self-conscious, functioning, rational entity, but how slow the process would have been may he evidenced by the study of the bushmen of South Africa, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and the hairy Ainus.
The decision of the Planetary Logos to take a physical vehicle produced an extraordinary stimulation in the evolutionary process, and by His incarnation, and the methods of force distribution He employed, He brought about in a brief cycle of time what would otherwise have been inconceivably slow. The germ of mind in animal man was stimulated. The fourfold lower man,
a. The physical body in its dual capacity, etheric and dense,
b. Vitality, life force, or prana,
c. The astral or emotional body,
d. The incipient germ of mind.
was co-ordinated and stimulated, and became a fit receptacle for the coming in of the self-conscious entities, those spiritual triads (the reflection of spiritual will, intuition, or wisdom, and higher mind) who had for long ages been waiting for just such a fitting. The fourth, or human kingdom, came thus into being, and the self-conscious, or rational unit, man, began his career.
Another result of the advent of the Hierarchy was a similar, though less recognised development in all the kingdoms of nature. In the mineral kingdom, for instance, certain of the minerals or elements received an added stimulation, and became radioactive, and a mysterious chemical change took place in the vegetable kingdom. This facilitated the bridging process between the vegetable and animal kingdoms, just as the radio-activity of minerals is the method of bridging the gulf between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. In due course of time scientists will recognise that every kingdom in nature is linked and entered when the units of that kingdom become radioactive. But it is not necessary for us to digress along these lines. A hint suffices for those who have eyes to see, and the intuition to comprehend the meaning conveyed by terms which are handicapped by having a purely material connotation.
In Lemurian days, after the great descent of the spiritual Existences to the earth, the work They planned to do was systematised. Offices were apportioned, and the processes of evolution in all the departments of nature were brought under the conscious wise guidance of this initial Brotherhood. This Hierarchy of Brothers of Light still exists,
