Awareness - Life - Form
GA 89
Planetary Evolution X
5 November 1904, Berlin
Seven times seven metamorphoses have to be gone through to get from the beginning to the end of evolution:
7 states of conscious awareness 7 worlds or states of life 7 form states
The seven states of conscious awareness are
deep trance
dreamless sleep
dream state
waking state
psychic state
hyperpsychic state
spiritual state.
The seven worlds or states of life are
first elemental world
second elemental world
third elemental world
mineral world
plant world
animal world
human world.
The seven form states or metamorphoses of form are
In reality these seven globes or form states are not seven different globes but just one orb; this goes through seven successive states. Each state needs to be transformed into the next. To do this calls for a spirit which represents a specific sum of energy and takes the orb from one level to the next. Such a spirit is called ‘prajapati’. These sublime spirits, with their tremendous powers, were given that ability in earlier evolutions. They have a long learning stage behind them. This has made them into energies able to transform one orb into the next in the new universe.
These seven states of form are gone through in all seven worlds of life and in all seven states of conscious awareness. We can see now that anything they achieve in one cycle these spirits (prajapati) can also achieve in the others—on Earth, for example, on the Moon, and so on, so that states of the same kind can always be brought about by spirits of the same kind.
This happens with all cycles, on all seven planets. The prajapati of form exist once and for all; here they are the lowest prajapati that have to bring about the final transformation, coming into play whenever a transition becomes necessary.
The arupa and archetypal states differ markedly from the other five levels. The form state really begins on the rupa plane. There is as yet no form on the arupa plane, only the potential for it, and on the archetypal plane form gives itself its own form; it is all life there. Because of this the first and seventh states of form are really states of life, with the seventh always in the nascent (beginning to evolve) state of the first which is to follow, or where the seventh (archetypal) has become what was in the nascent state at the first.
The archetypal state of form is such that form has become life; on the arupic level form is still life. We therefore really have only 5 prajapati of form, for 2 of the 7 already belong to the higher prajapati of conscious awareness. We might say that stages of life and states of form are merely condensed states of conscious awareness, or perhaps the passive side of active awareness, or perhaps the actual negative aspect of the world view, with conscious awareness the positive aspect. The first and last of the prajapati of form states thus belong to the higher hierarchy of the prajapati of conscious awareness.
Every spirit also goes through the worlds of life. This brings us to the prajapati of the rounds, each of them controlling one world of life. Seven states of life are transformed one into the other by seven spirits. Each time we have completed the seventh round we are at a state corresponding to that of the first round, but at a higher level. The human being entered into Earth evolution with an awakening clear daytime conscious awareness; he is now developing this, and by the end of the seventh round the human being will have brought to full development the potential which he had in the first round, at the beginning.
These seven rounds are the seven days of creation in Genesis.70See Genesis (note 46). We are now in the fourth day. In the second chapter of Genesis we have a specific description of the fourth round—the creation of the human being, the time when this happened being the middle of the Lemurian age. It will only be on the seventh day that the human being will truly have developed in the image of God with regard to his physical, astral, mental and arupa bodies. Principles that were content by the end of Moon evolution, had become potential by the beginning of Earth evolution.
We can really only call six rounds ‘rounds of life’, for the seventh is a round of the next higher state of conscious awareness. As there are thus only six states of life there are also only six prajapati of life. We add one of the prajapati of life to the seven prajapati of conscious awareness, and then there are also two prajapati of form. We thus really have ten prajapati of conscious awareness, including the one which arranges the transition to the six prajapati of life, and two which arrange the transition to the prajapati of form. This gives us
10 prajapati of conscious awareness
6 prajapati of life
5 prajapati of form
or 10 + 6 + 5 = a total of 21 prajapati.
Stanza 4 of Dzyan in H. P. Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine refers to this: Ten is called ‘The One from the Egg’71See Special note in this volume = 0. From the egg (0), the 10 prajapati of conscious awareness, came first of all the first prajapati of life, followed by six other prajapati of life and five prajapati of form = 1065,72See esoteric lesson given in Hamburg on 14 March 1909 [in German] in GA 266/1. or 21 (10 + 6 + 5, value of Jehovah).
Concerning the chakras of the astral body,73In terms of a second, anterior vertebral column. See lecture given on 29 Sept. 1905 in #GA 93a, Foundations of Esotericism (note 13). just as the human physical body has senses, so does the human astral body have senses. They lie in a row. One of them is above the larynx. They are called chakras, sacred wheels. They do not move in ordinary people, but in a seer they are mobile and rotate. The chakra above the larynx is essentially in a leaf form. All astral chakras are called ‘lotus flowers’. The one above the larynx is called the 16-petalled lotus flower. This wheel evolved gradually in human evolution. [See Fig. 9j It was only in the Lemurian race, in the middle of the Lemurian age, that ideation, the ability to think, gradually began to develop. Only the last Lemurian race had developed it to a reasonable degree. At that time, the first of the lotus petals shone out, and every race that followed added another, if development went normally:
- seven petals in the seven sub-races of the fourth root-race, the Atlantean race,
- seven petals in the seven sub-races of the fifth root-race, the Aryan race (five up to now, as we are in the fifth sub-race)
- one petal in the first sub-race of the sixth root-race.
Then all 16 petals of the ability to form ideas will light up.
From the third sub-race of the fourth root-race onwards, memory also developed. The memory current also changes over to the wheels in stages, through five sub-races of the fourth Atlantean root-race, through seven sub-races of the fifth root race and through four sub-races of the sixth root-race.
The average human being therefore has 13 petals of the ability to form ideas developed, and memory has reached its 10th petal. If memory, which started with the 4th petal of the ability to form ideas meets up with the stream of ability to form ideas, the chakra begins to rotate. In normally developed people this would be in the 4th sub-race of the 6th root-race. The wheel will then go round like a whirlwind. With each successive race the light will move on to another spoke in the wheel, or another petal of the lotus flowers.
The wheel will be finished with the first sub-race of the sixth root-race. At present, the average person still lacks three spokes, which are a dark void. The wheel has not one vortex, but two.
The second stream crosses the first. In the third sub-race of Atlanteans memory was added. Memory will continue until the fourth sub-race of the sixth root-race. After that it will be lost, having become superfluous.
When memory made its appearance in the fourth sub-race, illumination of the ability to form ideas had progressed as far as the fourth spoke; three sub-races were without memory. The last part of the memory stream meets with the other stream. In the fourth sub-race of the sixth root-race the wheel will finally begin to move. When the wheel is set in motion, the human being will give his word to the astral world. Anything he will say then will have an immediate effect on others. Thus another person will feel the kindness that is expressed in a word; he will feel every word.
The human manu of the sixth root-race, who will guide this race, being the first human manu,74See Zur Geschichte und aus den Inhalten der ersten Abteilung der Esoterischen Schule 1904–1914, GA 264, S. 199 ff. will only be able to live with human beings when they have developed so far that they can talk to the master. They will only be able to do this when this chakra is wholly developed, when the human word goes over directly into the stream of the wheels. This would normally be in the fourth sub-race of the sixth root-race. Lagging behind would mean that not all 16 spokes develop. The individual would then not be able to speak in the presence of the master, with the result that he could not be guided by the master at this state in evolution. It is particularly important to develop this chakra, and that will depend on whether the human being gets out of the habit of wounding with his voice.75See note 65.
Human beings have 16 opportunities—in going through 16 sub-races—to develop this chakra. If they do not do so, they will follow the 16 ways of perdition through the word.76Also mentioned in the lecture given in Berlin on 23 December 1904 in The Temple Legend, see note 22.
In the metamorphoses that follow, the [last petals of the 16-petalled lotus flower] are developed further, plastic, then in thought matter, then archetypally. In the following round the 16-petalled lotus flower will truly be a vegetative petal or leaf at the physical level. The spokes will then be real leaves, and the mineral element will have vanished altogether.
In the 7th root-race, the chakra will develop which is called the two-petaled lotus flower and lies between the eyebrows. (Fig. 9)
