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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
A to Z
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RACES OF MEN, ACCORDING TO HESIOD
Symbolic of five stages of essential constituents
of the human soul in manifestation.
The "Golden race signifies the Divine sparks" or spiritual egos (atma-buddhic).
These are the guardians of mortal men," "shrouded in darkness,"
being obscured (dying) in the lower nature (earth), judges of good
and evil, and bestowers of wealth of high qualities. They are monads
of the higher life, and become the individualities of the souls of
humanity.
The "Silver race signifies the monads of the lower life which
energise the lower qualities and build up the forms. They become the
personalities of human beings, having but transient lives in the
incarnating cycle. They evolve slowly from low forms of life in
instinct and ignorance; and when the personalities are perfected
their period of existence is ended.
The "Brazen race stands for thought-forms of the lower mind,
transitory opinions, prejudices, theories, arguments, speculations,
which "slay each other" and disappear. They are all of the matter of
mind (metal) and have been aroused by the astro-physical (ash-trees)
activities.
The "Divine race of heroes" signifies the higher qualities (buddhi-manasic)
which are divinely implanted in the soul, where they combat the
lower qualities. The twelve or more higher qualities won for the
soul Wisdom and Love (Sheep of Edipus), or Wisdom (Helen). At the
fall of mind, when the higher qualities became obscured (died) to
the lower consciousness, they abode away from mind (man) potentially
on the buddhic plane (Islands of the blest), where they are
nourished by the spiritual the food (honey) of transmuted qualities
of the lower nature (earth).
The present "Iron race" symbolises the desires, passions, appetites
and sensations allied with mind (kama-manasic), which cause untold
misery and suffering to the lower consciousness. Every variety of
condition produces disharmony, and "faith and justice" have no place
in the self-seeking desire-mind. But "good will still be mixed with
the evil," and a time will arrive when the lower nature will become
effete (hoary-templed) and so it then will be destroyed.
"Ovid (Meta. I. 89) makes the races of men four in number,-golden,
silver, brazen, and iron. The first enjoyed a perpetual spring, the
earth producing everything spontaneously for them in the time of the
second the divisions of the seasons took place: the third were
martial, but not yet utterly wicked: the fourth gave way to every
species of vice and crime, and Zeus destroyed them by a deluge of
water."
In this series the "Divine race is omitted, and the fourth race is
the same as Hesiod's fifth race. The "divisions of the seasons
symbolize the re-incarnating cycles, and the deluge of water
signifies an out-pouring of Truth which destroys the illusion of the
lower nature.
“Aratus (Phænomena) speaks of but three races of men,-the golden,
the silvern, and the brazen. Unable to endure the third race, who
first forged arms and fed on the flesh of the labouring ox, Justice
flew up to heaven and became the constellation of the Virgin."
Buddhi (justice) was repelled by the lower qualities, which had no
reverence for the higher, and retreated, as it were, to the higher
planes, ready in the fullness of time to give birth to the Self.
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