A VERY LONG JOURNEY (Part I)

The concept of Involution and Evolution is a beautiful one when approached intuitively and may clarify greatly our view of incarnating Life, its journey into physical manifestation and its eventual departure through the instrumentality of Time, Space and Matter. Using the creative imagination (humanity’s greatest tool) try to visualise very simply this wonderful concept of Life’s entrance into manifestation and its eventual exit.

This first section on Involution presents the barest of outlines mapping our long journey as Life Beings into matter. The subject material requires a far greater mind and a well-formulated thesis to explain each point fully. Notwithstanding these limitations, try to keep the perception open, read intuitively between the lines, and simply follow the thread – the Silver Thread!

Imagine seven unique dimensions forming altogether a Cosmic Physical Plane (CPP). Each of the seven dimensions are a world quite distinct from the others in nature and function. These seven fields are equipped with the necessary materials which will provide those bodies of perception for the Life Beings who are to enter into them during the long cycle called involution. These tools of perception (later to be called bodies) will be needed by these Beings of Life for future use in the much later cycle called evolution; they will be created from the substances of each plane during the long involutionary cycle and developed gradually to functioning capacity at each stage of the succeeding evolutionary cycle.

These seven planes are the Fields that have been prepared for the Beings of Life who come in order to experience them, and who will, in time, and in the space provided, become the Knowers and Transformers of the Field itself. These Life Beings are our true Selves, pure, divine, and intrinsically beautiful. Within them are three major spiritual characteristics which will, in time and through many cycles of involution and evolution, manifest in all their glory within the seven cosmic physical planes. 

The powers of Divine Intelligence, Love-Wisdom and Will are the true nature of these Life Beings and will be drawn out into full expression through their interplay with matter on the various planes. These latent expressions of divinity are to manifest within each of the planes in course of Time and will be the very cause of transformation and evolutionary development of the cosmic physical plane itself. All in creation is truly in process of development.
Many of us are familiar with names like Sanatkumara, the Christ, the Buddha, and many more whose names remain unnamed and lost in humanity’s long and forgotten historical existence. The three names mentioned above are three great examples of those Beings of Life who have come into the cosmic physical planes, as we have, passed through each of the stages (the human stage being but one), and have gone beyond. They are our Great Brothers and their advanced Life expressions pervade and irradiate the worlds, ever lighting the way forward that we may follow.

It is very difficult at the stage we are at to acknowledge the Life within ourselves, hidden as It is within the various sheaths of matter that surround It; nonetheless, the essential glory of each Life Being ever remains, latent and obscured only for the time being, until the required tools for clear perception are consciously evolved. These instruments of perception are steadily being developed in time and space, and through the processes of evolution, even if we are not consciously aware of it.

We have come a very long way indeed as we stand today, and are very old beings in terms of time and experience – despite the fact that we cannot remember; we have already passed through the very long involutionary cycle and find ourselves presently at different stages of consciousness on the upward arc of our journey. The process of involution is now far behind us as we stand collectively as human beings, but there are countless other Beings of Life who now stand at the earlier stages on the downward arc as we once did.

In the beginning, Life Beings first make their appearance on the second highest plane of the cosmic physical plane, but from that point in the CPP they descend no further. Here they remain in their pristine existence throughout the long sojourn of consciousness within the seven cosmic physical planes. How do they do this?

As a spider weaves a web out of itself in space, as trees grow from out the earth, and as hair grows from the body of man, just so each Life Being projects and weaves a stream of Life from Itself into the lower planes in order to gain sustenance and experience.

In its gradual descent into matter through the projected stream of Life, it attracts to itself the substances of each plane, forming in the process various sheaths/bodies which will be further developed and used as tools for perception on the evolutionary cycle much later on.

The acquisition of matter from each of the descending planes continues until the lowest is reached – the physical plane. Here the Life-Stream accumulates, as it did on the higher planes, the necessary material required to form a physical body, the final sheath on the final plane of its involuted journey into matter. The process of descent from the highest plane to the grossest is lengthy in time and execution, but on the inner planes during this downward cycle, consciousness of time is non-existent and the process is mechanical.

These inchoate sheaths that are now fastened onto the Life-Stream remain undeveloped for aeons, with no consciousness of experience in the early stages; the faculty of memory comes much later as the Life Beings (who are ever situated on the second highest plane) learn to wield the matter of their various sheaths from their high vantage point through the instrumentality of consciousness, which is steadily developed on the upward arc of the evolutionary cycle.

In the final stages of involution, the Life-Stream interacts directly and for a very long period of time, with the environmental conditions of the physical plane, and is, at this point, equipped with all that is required for the upward journey on the evolutionary arc. It must now learn to rise upwards through all the planes, its aim and purpose being to merge finally with its true self on the second highest plane. It does this by the steady conscious development of innate capacity latent in each of its dormant vehicles that are situated on the various planes. These developments are attained through expansions of consciousness, created by the juxtaposition of the Life-Stream and the differentiated matter of each plane (remembering that the long process of involution has already provided the Life Being with all the various instruments, undeveloped at each stage). As the inner consciousness expands through experience, so do the forms in which it dwells, gaining in the process, knowledge and understanding of its inner capacity.

We may wonder at this point, if we have followed the journey so far, ‘ Why the Life Beings descend into matter at all?’

The answer is twofold. Firstly, it provides a means of development for the varying levels of matter within the seven planes: through the spiritual Presence of Life-Beings within matter, matter evolves. The atom, as we know it in science, is the building block of the universe, and as an elementary Life-Being, is itself subject to the law of evolution, as are all creative Beings.

Secondly, as human beings we are more evolved Life-Beings, and are now immersed in matter as a means of attaining full realisation of who we are; for here we are, indeed, in a world, conscious of ourselves as a being, but not really knowing in truth what we are and why we are. In this long and recurring process of living and dying repeatedly within these planes of matter, we learn to wield matter more effectively on the various planes, until we return finally to that point of emergence on the second highest plane from whence we came, knowing in full understanding and through much-gained experience, who and why we are.

The aim of the evolutionary cycle in broad terms is the full expression of Divine Life within the cosmic physical planes, and the final liberation of that Life from the fetters of matter within the planes. Consider our Great Brother, the Christ, and see what has been accomplished by one of these Beings of Life who was engaged in this very long, difficult, and beautiful journey. Through His consummated achievement lies the enduring promise of attainment for us all.

INDEED, LIFE IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

TO BE CONTINUED . . .