Daily Theosophy

why are there clearly distinct streams of evolving beings in living nature: like insects, or anaerobic microorganisms, birds, ferns, flowering plants, mammals and reptiles, sea urchins etc. etc. And what do they do for each other? – and we humans can study how they relate and how they influence each other. So among the main branches of biology are the recognition and study of evolution, and ecology.

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(Evolution)

Evolution

Evolution literally means: rolling forth, or unfolding. A plant evolves from a seed, an animals from an egg or egg cell, a species evolves from an earlier species in which its essence was embodied, and nature as a whole evolves from Adi’s heart. Like a seed, Adi’s heart contains everything that is to be. Evolution takes time though. Adi’s heart, being totally blissful, brings forth, by its own wish and will-energy, the faculty of feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and thinking, and all the elements known as earth, water, fire, air, space and even more, only by the influence of Adi’s will-energy, which ‘dualizes’ primordial, extremely subtle matter into positive and negative electricity and magnetisms, attraction and repulsion, and by these contrary forces the minutest particles attract and repel each other, and thus they form clusters, small ones such as atoms and from that molecules – more or less like human beings of which some cluster together in one pub, others in another pub, drinking the same things, but still they don’t like to visit each other’s pubs. So they cluster together in groups. That is how all the different (92+) chemical elements of physical matter are formed, but also those of more subtle, invisible types of matter. From this matter all living entities, all little bits of seemingly differentiated aspects of Adi’s heart build bodies – physical bodies, emotional bodies, mental bodies, and bodies which cause the other bodies. With our eyes we can only see our physical bodies, but with our inner feelings we feel our emotional body, and with our mind we work in our mental body. Ultimately all bodies are vehicles for Adi’s heart, or of your own heart – which is the same – and emotions and feelings and thinking, and then causal bodies which contain the causes of the other bodies.

To help our mind to understand the enormous complexity of nature, all that exists was divided into different realms or kingdoms of nature. That is why we speak of an elemental kingdom, a mineral kingdom, a vegetable kingdom, an animal, a human, a divine kingdom, and even other kingdoms higher than the divine kingdom. And we further subdivide these kingdoms is smaller units, like orders, families, genus, species, subspecies etc. Every one of these divisions is characterized by a stage of development which is dominated by one of the elements in particular. So. For example the mineral kingdom develops the element of earth, and makes the earth very beautiful, creating gems and crystals and thousands of different types of stone, water drops, snowflakes, mountains, rivers and seas. They all have some state of consciousness of their own, even though they haven’t developed active vitality, higher feelings, emotions and a mind and conscious wisdom. But every mineral has some type of specific, characteristic consciousness. If we go back (in evolution) to the elemental kingdoms, we actually talk about invisible beings who represent one particular element, who are the real elements. For example gnomes and their relatives of different types are conscious and active beings which together form the element earth. Together they are the element earth. Not the visible earth, like sand and rocks and lakes, because these belong to the mineral kingdom, but the earth-consciousness. There are also elemental beings of water, not real water, but beings such as undines who are fluid like water and can take all kinds of forms, like real water in different cups or lakes or rivers or seas. They are related to our feelings. Then there are invisible beings belonging to the air, not the air that we breathe, but the creatures behaving like gases, moving up and down, above the earth and the water and up to space. They are related to our thoughts, but not usually the best ones, so they are very dangerous and deceive us all the time if we are not mindful. Then there are beings of great intelligence who are striving upwards, like salamanders, not the amphibians of our ditches and ponds, but invisible beings which would look like fire. They may be intelligent, and conscious and joyful, but they are not self-conscious, like we are, and they feel no responsibility. Because they have no physical bodies they do not die as we do, they do not suffer, and they are unconcerned, even more unconcerned as human or animal babies. Responsibility exists in humans and gods (and still higher beings) only. All these creatures belong to the great cycle of evolution, carry an aspect of Adi’s heart, and always make progress. So these together – which exist in innumerable different classes and species, like plants and animals do, form the elemental kingdom. So if you ever read in ancient Indian or Greek and other scriptures, always remember that the elements are not really what we call earth, water air, fire, plasma etc., but that invisible realms with particular properties and powers are meant. The chemical and physical elements we see (so earth, water etc.) actually all belong to the minerals, that means the material kingdom and its invisible models only. Plants have had all experiences of elementals and minerals kingdoms in their particular line of evolution in the past, but now they are plants. They develop active vitality. That is why they grow, recognize and enjoy light and air and sun and kindness, and why they strive upwards to the sky and the sun or perhaps other things they like (like some people, or music). All plants have something in common with streams of energy, and therefore move basically strait upwards and downwards in forms like thunder bolts, from their center just at or under the earth. There are also other creatures which we often call plants, like molds, mushrooms, lichens, yeasts, and germs, but they actually are in a somewhat different stage of development of consciousness and elements, like standing above the mineral and below the plant kingdom. On the other hand, precious and branched crystals are – I think – the highest forms of the mineral kingdom, as its where stretching out to become plants in the future. And if you look around you, you might recognize plants that already stretch out to the animal kingdom, and animals which still look in many respects like plants. But animals have left behind all they could be learned as plants, and now develop their personal desires. They are fully conscious of what they want, and therefore develop attributes to walk and fly, and beaks and intestines and active sexual organs. It’s all just the desires of animal hearts to experience and to understand the practice of active desire. The mineral kingdom is used for their bodies, and the mineral becomes much more pliable and subtle than they could be on their own. And animals have all the vitalities they developed, and learned to work with when they where plants. That is why animals are also called ‘the fourth kingdom’ because they have already fully developed the elemental, mineral and plant aspects within themselves. Human are the fifth kingdom and have a developed mind, and we humans, as said, are just in the beginning of development of our mind. After a million years average people will probably find even an Einstein very stupid. The sixth kingdom would be what we call gods. They need no more physical bodies like minerals, plants, animals and humans, and they have fully developed minds, and are working on their spiritual intuition, which is much higher than the divisive, quarrelling dualistic mind. Among the god there are no longer quarrels and misconceptions as we humans have in our mind-field. And they are fully self-consciousness, and their consciousness is gigantic compared to any human consciousness. Compared to them we human are only Mr. Beans, and very dull and miserable.

So these were a few of the things Praja saw and knew, and of course she wanted to teach some things to human beings. Even scientists understand only very little of what she teaches, and what she teaches is only very little of what she knows. Just it is as much as we can possibly understand in the course of thousands of years to come. Classical scientists of our days are too haughty to even have a look at Praja’s ideas, because they think that science was only invented recently and by Western culture, and that all that was written and said more than a few centuries ago was either fantasy or nonsense. But that idea will change in the coming centuries, when one learns to understand ancient scriptures of eastern and other cultures without prejudices and preconceived believes. The teachings of Praja, reflected in so many old thought systems will become their guidelines, and the scientists will work out the details according to the wishes of the time in which they live. We have interesting times ahead.

Praja’s teachings have little to do with Darwinism and neo-Darwinism as taught at schools and universities and on television. Darwin covers only a very minor aspect of evolution, and only the material and morally lowest aspect of evolution, actually selfishness, egoism as basis for evolution. But from Praja’s point of view everything is based on compassion, wisdom, consciousnesses helping each other, and also includes all invisible and otherwise imperceptible beings and forces and powers of Nature. Compassion, mind, feeling, vitality, cooperation and wisdom are just as much facts in nature and players in evolution as physical matter and its inherent properties. When we understand that, we will not only study living beings, but also love them, respect them, help them and regard them as our teachers. We will listen to the wise ones, and be a good example for the less wisely developed beings of nature.

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(Ecology)

Ecology

The real meaning of Ecology, another very important branch of biology, is closely linked with evolution. Ecology studies how living beings interact and experience each other, and how they make use of each other qualities and energies.