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The Sixth Lesson: Within the Mind of the One.803
but, remember the one is Finite, and the other Infinite, and the results are
correspondingly weak or strong.
Obeying the laws imposed upon it, the Mental Principle then involved
itself in the Energy Principle, or Prana, and the Universal Energy sprang
into existence. Then, in obedience to the same Laws, the Prana involved
itself in the Akasa, or Universal Matter Principle. Of course each “involving”
practically “created” the “wrapper,” “sheath” of the lower Principle. Do you
see this? Each, therefore, depends upon the Principle higher than itself,
which becomes its “Parent Principle,” as the Yogis express it. And in this
process of Involution the extreme form of Matter was reached before the
process of Evolution became possible. The extreme form of gross Matter is
not known to us today, on this planet, for we have passed beyond it. But the
teachings inform us that such forms were as much grosser that the grossest
Matter that we know today, as the latter is gross in comparison with the most
ethereal vapors known to Modern Science. The human mind cannot grasp
this extreme of the scale, any more than it can the extreme high degree of
manifestation.
At this point we must call your attention to certain occult teachings,
widely disseminated, which the highest Yogi teachers discountenance, and
contradict. We allude to the teaching that in the process of Involution
there was a “degeneration” or “devolution” from higher to lower forms of
life, until the gross state of Matter was reached. Such a teaching is horrible,
when considered in detail. It would mean that The Absolute deliberately
created high forms of life, arch-angels, and higher than these—gods in
fact—and then caused them to “devolve” until the lowest state was reached.
This would mean the exact opposite of Evolution, and would mean a “going
down” in accordance with the Divine Will, just as Evolution is a “going up” in
accordance with the Divine Will.
This is contrary to man’s best instincts, and the advanced Yogi teachings
inform us that it is but an illusion or error that men have created by
endeavoring to solve spiritual mysteries by purely intellectual processes.