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A Treatise on Cosmic Fire - Section Two - Introductory Questions
Three of the sacred planets, it should be remembered, are the home of the three major Rays, of the embodied forms of the three logoic aspects or principles. Other planets are embodiments of the four minor rays. We might consider - from the standpoint of the present - that Venus, Jupiter and Saturn might be considered as the vehicles of the three super-principles at this time. Mercury, the Earth and Mars are closely allied to these three, but a hidden mystery lies here. The evolution of the inner round has a close connection with this problem. Perhaps some light may be thrown upon the obscurity of the matter by the realization that just as the Logos has (in the non-sacred planets) the correspondence to the permanent atoms in the human being, so the middle evolution between these two (God and man) is the Heavenly Man, whose body is made up of human and deva monads, and Who has likewise His permanent atoms. Always the three higher principles can be distinguished in importance from the four lower.

The key is hidden in the fact that between the number of a globe in a chain and its corresponding chain lies a method of communication. The same is true likewise of the correspondence between a chain of globes and a scheme of analogous number. The connection between Venus and the Earth lies hid in number, and it took a moment of mysterious alignment between a globe, its corresponding chain and the scheme of allied number to effect the momentous occurrence known as the coming of the Lords of Flame. It occurred in the third root-race in the fourth round. Here we have an analogy between the quaternary and the Triad, carrying the interpretation up to a Heavenly Man. The chain was the fourth chain and the globe, the fourth. The fourth [300] chain in the Venus scheme and the fourth globe in that chain were closely involved in the transaction.

h. The progress of development of the Heavenly Men is by no means uniform. One point has not been emphasized hitherto, and that is, that the problem before each of Them is dissimilar, and, therefore, it is not possible for man correctly to gauge the work done by Them and Their relative point of attainment. It has been said that as Venus is in the fifth round, the Venusian Lord is further progressed than His brothers. This is not altogether so. Just as in the development of humanity three main lines may be seen with four lesser lines merging into one of the three main lines, so in connection with the Heavenly Men, there are three main lines of which the Venusian is not one. The Lord of Venus holds place in the logoic quaternary, as does the Lord of Earth.

The main idea underlying the question we have been endeavoring to answer has to do with the relationship between the schemes, chains, rounds, and races, and it should be borne in mind that these manifestations bear the same relationship to a Heavenly Man as incarnations do to a human being. This gives the opportunity here to bring out perhaps a little more clearly the place of cycles in the evolution of all these Entities from a man up to a cosmic Logos, via a Heavenly Man and a solar Logos. (S. D., I, 258.) Just as it is pointed out in the Secret Doctrine that there are greater and lesser cycles in the evolution of a solar system, so it can be predicated equally of a Heavenly Man, of a human being, and of an atom This brings us, therefore, to another statement:

i. The cycles in the evolutionary process of all these Entities may be divided mainly into three groups, though necessarily these groups can be extended into septenates and into an infinity of multiples of seven. [301]

In connection with a solar Logos the cycles might be called:

  1. One hundred years of Brahma.
  2. A year of Brahma.
  3. A day of Brahma.

These periods have been computed by the Hindu students and are the sumtotal of time as we understand it or the duration of a solar system.

In connection with a Heavenly Man we have the corresponding cycles to those of the Logos:

  1. The period of a planetary scheme.
  2. The period of a planetary chain.
  3. The period of a planetary round.

Within these three divisions, which are the differentiations of the three great cycles of incarnation of a planetary Logos, are numerous lesser cycles or incarnations but they all fall within one or other of the three main divisions. Such lesser cycles might be easily comprehended if it were pointed out that they mark such periods as:

  1. The period of manifestation on a globe.
  2. The period of a root-race.
  3. The period of a subrace.
  4. The period of a branch race.

In order to apprehend even cursorily the identity of manifestation of a planetary Logos in a root-race, for instance, it must be remembered that the sumtotal of human and deva units upon a planet make the body vital of a planetary Logos, whilst the sumtotal of lesser lives upon a planet (from the material bodies of men or devas down to the other kingdoms of nature) form His body corporeal, and are divisible into two types of such lives:

  1. Those on the evolutionary arc, such as in the animal kingdom. [302]
  2. Those on the involutionary arc, such as the totality of all elemental material forms within His sphere of influence. All the involutionary lives, as earlier pointed out, form the vehicles for the spirit of the planet, or the planetary entity, who is the sumtotal of the elemental essences in process of involution. He holds a position (in relation to a Heavenly Man) analogous to that held by the different elementals that go to the makeup of man's three bodies, physical, astral and mental, and he is - like all manifesting beings - threefold in his nature, but involutionary. Therefore, man and devas (differentiating the devas from the lesser Builders) form the SOUL of a Heavenly Man. Other lives form his BODY, and it is with body and soul that we are concerned in these two divisions of our thesis ON FIRE. One group manifests the fire of matter, the other group the fire of mind, for the devas are the personification of the active universal mind, even though man is considered manasic in a different sense. Man bridges in essence; the devas bridge in matter.
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