Coming of the middle of the Third Race.

Virendra Taneja‎Delhi Theosophical Federation

Now in the Theosophical books that period of the Coming is called the middle of the Third Race. We are now in the Fifth Race, your own Root-Race. The Fourth Race, as you know, includes the Chinese, the Japanese, the Mongolians, and so on. Those belong to the Fourth Race, which exceeds the Third and Fifth in numbers. The Third Race people are dying out, save where they have intermarried with later Races. In ordinary ethnology they are spoken of as Lemurian. We use that word in the Theosophical books also. The Lemurians, the Third Race, went through the subdivisions, or sub-races, and in the middle of the evolution of that Race came the Sons of the Light, the Sons of the Fire, as They are called in some of the books. They founded the Occult Hierarchy of our world. The greatest of your Rshis belong to that Body. I just spoke of the Four Kumaras. They were of Those who originally came to our world for its helping, and who are still with us. Of Them it is that you read as living in the White Island, spoken of in your Puranas. That White Island is part of Central Asia, very carefully guarded from intrusion, but still existing. That is not the original cradle of our Race, but the nursery, as it were, in which it grew up. You remember that remarkable book of Mr. Tilak on The Arctic Home of the Aryan Race, where he came very, very near to the occult truth. The land, where the germs of the great Fifth Race were chosen for its evolution, was even before that. They were chosen by the Lord Vaivaswata Manu. On that we shall have to speak tomorrow. I only want to put before you now the great triple divisions seen in the Hierarchy. You have at first the Group of Rulers, the four Kumaras at the head of them, the Rulers of the world. They have to do with Nations, They have to do with Races, they have, to do, through the high Devas, with the configuration of the world as regards land and water, and the tremendous ca­tastrophes and cataclysms, earthquakes and tidal waves, which change the whole surface of our world in the distribution of land and water. The times of those are their work. Therefore we give them the name Rulers. They are the true inner Rulers of our world.
Then we come to the great Group of the Teachers of mankind. In that you find all the Founders of the great religions, the Buddhas Religious, as you find the Manus in the first. We shall go more fully into that­ – the Buddhas, the Founders of world-faiths, the Teachers. They all belong to that great Group. Then there comes the third Group which I have called here the Forces. The reason why I use that word is that each of these Groups uses a particular kind of force for its work. The Rulers use a particular kind of force, the Teachers use a particular kind of force, and the others comprise all, the remaining forces that carry on the activities of the world. The first great group of Rulers act by Will-Power. This, as I said, in the lower form is Ichchha, in the higher form, Will. Will or Power is the natural characteristic of the Rulers. It is that force, the force of the Will, by which the Rulers, the Occult Rulers, of the world work. Then when you come to the great teaching Group, there you find that they work by Jnanam, Knowledge. They, as Teachers, have the detailed knowledge of our world, so that just when a new religion is to begin, then we shall see a new type of man has been formed. When the new type is formed by the Rulers, the Teachers step in to teach that new type, and to help it to evolve. The third great Group, the Group of Kriya, Activity, which I shall simply call here the, Forces – for want of a better word perhaps – these bring about all the activities of our world, and they again are directed by a Group of great Beings, so that you may think of this Occult Government of the World as divided into three Groups according to the qualities, or the Aspects, of Ishvara Himself. The Groups are the same in their nature as you will see, or as you may see, in your Shastras; so that if you look at the names in the Hindu Shastras, you will see Mahadeva, in whom the characteristic is Ichchha (Will); then Vishnu, whose great characteristic is Jnanam (Wisdom); and then Brahma, whose great characteristic is Kriya (Action). You see how orderly the whole thing is – Ishvara at the centre of all with his triple manifestation; the copy of Saguna Brahman, the Sachchidananda Brahman, manifested in the totality of the universe. Then you come by a long descent, as it were, to the Ishvaras of systems, and there the great triplicity comes in of what you may call specialised forms, the Ishvaras there showing out the three Aspects in the three corresponding Gunas. It is the Government of a World in the system. Coming down much lower, there you will find these three again, separated for the work that is to be done. Thus we have the Rulers characterised by Will, the Teachers characterised by Wisdom, the Forces charac­terised by Activity – all in perfect order of sequence, so that if you learn the arrangement of the inner world, you will be able to ascend step by step, and realise that the arrangement that you find in the great Scriptures of the world is the highest. There is then that in the lower, the lower being fashioned after the like­ness of the higher, the Supreme reflecting Himself downwards and downwards, till you come to the single globe. The analogy is perfect. So it is written: “As above, so below”. We come thus to our own Occult Hierarchy, whom you think of as Rshis, the mighty Ones who appear from time to time in your Puranas and Itihasas, in the early days walking among men, consoling men, helping men, when each Race is being founded. Of course the lecture of tonight is one as to which, for most of you, verification is impos­sible, but the sketch of these things is necessary in order that you may have a big picture, and then come down through that picture to our own little spot of world – quite an insignificant place in the enormous universe. Here we should be able to study more closely. Here we should be able to find out really what is going on, the Forces behind those who are apparently the rulers, the teachers and the actor in our world, the true Inner Government of the World, by Power, by Wisdom, by Activity, as manifested in the Occult Hierarchy of our world, with the Four Kumaras at its head. ­