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The Eighth Lesson: The Ascent of Man.835
the Ancient Yogi Teachings of the Unfoldment of Living Forms, from Monad
to Man. The Eastern teachers scorn to “prove” anything to their pupils, who
sit at the feet of teachers and accept as truth that which is taught them, and
which has been handed down from the dim ages long past. But this method
will never do for the Western student—he must have it “proven” to him
by physical facts and instances, not by keen, subtle, intellectual reasoning
alone. The Eastern student wishes to be “told”—the Western student wishes
to be “shown.” Herein lies the racial differences of method of imparting
knowledge. And so we have recognized this fact and have heaped up proof
after proof from the pages of Western Science, in order to prove to you the
reasonableness, from the Western point of view, of the doctrine of Physical
Unfoldment as taught for ages past by the Yogi gurus to their chelas. You
have now the Eastern Teachings on the subject, together with the testimony
of Western Science to the reasonableness of the idea.
But, alas! Western Science, while performing a marvelous work in piling
up fact after fact to support its newly-discovered theory of Evolution, in a
way utterly unknown to the Oriental thinker who seeks after principles by
mental concentration—within rather than without—while actually proving
by physical facts the mental conceptions of the Oriental Teachings, still
misses the vital point of the subject-thought. In its materialistic tendencies it
has failed to recognize the mental cause of the physical unfoldment. It is true
that Lamark, the real Western discoverer of Evolution, taught that Desire
and Mental Craving, was the real force behind Evolution, but his ideas were
jeered at by his contemporaries, and are not regarded seriously by the
majority of Evolutionists even today. And yet he was nearer to the truth
than Darwin or any other Western Evolutionist. And time will show that
Science has overlooked his genius, which alone throws the true light upon
the subject.
In order to see just this difference between the Darwinian school and the
Yogi Teachings let us examine into what causes the Western Evolutionists
give for the fact of Evolution itself. We shall do this briefly.