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The Externalization of the Hierarchy - Section II - The General World Picture
The second cause arose slowly out of the first. Matter and spirit, focused in the human family and expressing their basic qualities and essential nature, were eternally in conflict. In the early stages and during the long Lemurian cycle, infant humanity steadily evolved and yet in spite of this the lines of cleavage, though present, were not recognized. The latent spark of mind served only to bring a relative enlightenment to the five senses and their purely physical application. The physical life was strong; the deductive or self-registering life was practically nil. The life of humanity was then focused within the physical body, thus fortifying and stimulating the animal nature and developing the physical organism and the various internal organs through the unfoldment of the five senses; man became primarily a selfish and a fighting animal with, however, at times, vague tendencies towards something dimly sensed as better and with moments of high grade desire which was not aspiration and the urge to progress, as we know it, but their embryonic forms. It is not possible for modern man to vision or understand such a state of consciousness, for he has left it too far behind. The focus of the life force was also in the region of the adrenal glands, producing animal courage and resistance to shock. But the dualism of man's essential nature was, as always, present and the lines of cleavage gradually appeared; slowly yet steadily, the pioneering souls (a very small minority) shifted their consciousness gradually higher into the solar plexus and a recognition of the factor of desire for that which was material and a capacity for emotional [120] reaction began to develop. Hitherto, in Lemurian times, desire and instinct were identical. Ponder on this, for it is interesting because it concerns a state of consciousness of which modern man knows practically nothing. But, in Atlantean times, the lines of demarcation between what constituted purely physical life and that which - though still material - could be the goal of effort and thus acquired, began to control the purely animal nature; man began to be acquisitive and to surround himself with that which he wanted. The lines of cleavage between the instinctual animal and acquisitive man began to be more clearly defined. Gradually the mental element unfolded among these pioneers just as the intuitive element is today unfolding among the mental types; men began to acquire some form of mental perception and to bring what little mind they had to the processes of increasing their material possessions. The stage of civilization (which is basically a recognition of group relation) began. A period of urban existence superseded that of a pure nomadic and agricultural existence. Men began to congregate together for their greater material comfort and protection, and the rhythmic processes of concentration and their worldwide extension began. These cycles are similar to the inbreathing and the outbreathing of the physical organism of man. Some day a study will be made of these basic and controlling factors of human existence, dispersion or decentralization, and community life or the expression of the herd instinct on a higher or lower turn of the spiral of existence. The past few hundred years have seen a major problem arise in the present tendency of humanity to collect together in great cities and to congregate in vast herds, leaving the countryside denuded of its population and creating serious problems of sustenance, of health and also of crime. Right before our eyes this rhythm is today changing and a serious problem is being solved; cities are being evacuated and - as men and women are driven forth for one reason or another into the country - the lords of evolution are forcing the breaking up of the rhythm of concentration and substituting for it the rhythm [121] of dispersion. This will do much for the race and will facilitate the unfoldment of a subjective synthesis which will greatly enrich humanity and give new values to living. The lines of cleavage between the animal, instinctual nature and some form of desire (embryonic aspiration) steadily grew during Atlantean times and this early civilization began to demonstrate its own note and to set new standards of material comfort and of selfish control on an increasingly large scale as the urban existence developed. It is perhaps difficult for us to visualize a world as densely populated then as is the modern world but so it was. The animal nature, being dominant, the tendency was towards sexual relationship and the production of large families, just as it is among the lower orders in our civilized areas today, for the peasantry and the slum dwellers produce more children than do the intelligentsia. In those far-off times, the only people who had any true measure of intelligence were the disciples and initiates; they guided and guarded infant humanity, much as modern parents guide and guard their children, and as the state assumes responsibility for the welfare of the nation. The Hierarchy was, in those days, present upon the earth as the priest-kings and they acted as focal points of attractive energy, drawing to themselves those in whom the more intangible values were slowly assuming a vague control, thus making the lines of cleavage between materialism and spirituality still more clear and definite.
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