WHAT IS MAN?
In our quest for self-consciousness, this is one of the most fundamental questions we must ask. It is doubtful whether many of us know the answer to this question. The fact that not many people know the answer to this question is attested to by what we see before us on earth today, in the chaos and the confusion that reign supreme. It is a shame that a being who claims to know as much as we do, who even claims he has learned to master nature, does not even know anything about his origin and the purpose of his life. What foolishness alone lies in this fact? Yes we have technology, we have science, in spite of all these however, one could almost say that we have failed as human beings; we have failed in those aspects which are human; the family, religion and so on. Those aspects that are concerned with the inner core of man. We have knowledge but we lack the right kind of knowledge and this deficiency is what manifests in all the wars we have fought and the wickedness that have prevailed. It is doubtful whether the knowledge we have has made us into better human beings. It has not prevented history from repeating itself. What we have is intellectual knowledge which does not allow us to see into the souls of our neighbours and attend to the needs of other human beings. It does not allow us to live to the joys of others and to create works which will generally benefit mankind. This intellectual knowledge only recognises how we can exploit our neighbours for our own material improvement, it allows us to act in such a way as not to realise that we are harming others with our actions. That is what intellectual knowledge does because it is not concerned with human beings or their welfare because the intellect which is lifeless cannot cope with matters which are living. Spiritual knowledge by contrast is concerned with life itself and its improvement; with human beings and their welfare. What therefore is man? Various creation stories of differing peoples could be examined, but the one that closely represent to some extent the nature of the happening is that given in the Bible. One thing we must bear in mind however, is that man is more than the flesh we see with our physical eyes. Man represents more than the flesh. The physical body, is nothing more than what we need in order for us to function here on earth. It is nothing more than an implement, a tool that we need in order for us to be able to live here. In fact in any realm in the entire creation, man needs the essence of that environment in order for him to make himself understood and really live in that environment. That indeed is the natural thing. Therefore, in order for us to live on earth, we need the substance of the environment of the earth, which of course is the physical body. Many of us indeed have realised the fact that the human being as such could not just be the physical body. The reality within us speaks to the contrary even though the scientists, forever overlooking the real process always try to convince us otherwise. The nature of our experiences if we are atttentive is proof enough that we could not just be the physical body. Many of us fortunately have attained this conviction. Since Creation as a whole is divided into many realms each complete in itself and each of a different nature, we would therefore so to speak have to clothe ourselves with the essences of these differing realms in order for us to journey through them. Man, has the bodies of all the layers that Creation is composed of in him telescoped into each other but his core, his essence, his being, is Spirit. Spirit therefore is what he is. It is that immortal spark which animates all the bodies that he bears. The bodies therefore are lifeless coverings needed in order for us to be able to live and work in the various realms of creation and which fall behind whenever we leave these realms just like we drop the physical body behind on earth at earthly death. Therefore, all the bodies that man bears with him are mortal, lifeless and nothing but animated instruments or tools of man. What however animates these bodies is the spirit. It is this spirit that forms the core of man, it is this spirit that needs to travel through all the layers of Creation in order to experience and to learn. It, however, being of a different consistency must clothe itself with the essence of the various environments. The spirit of man originates from a special part of the vast Creation which is non-material and is called the spiritual realm or Paradise. It is of an entirely different nature and lies far above the material creation. The essence of man therefore, is a special substance called spirit, which originate from a special realm above the material part of creation. The details of the various layers of Creation can be found in the book "In the Light of Truth" the Grail Message by Abd-ru-shin but it suffices to say here that Creation can be broadly divided into three parts:
We will leave the first out of our consideration because this concerns a layer that lies above the origin of the human spirit. We will only concern ourselves with that layer from which we derive our origin; the spiritual part. This part is where the core of man, his essence, in short where man originates. It is the realm to which he automatically returns after all his wanderings in the material part. The spiritual part has three main subdivisions however; we as human beings on earth only originate in the lowest part. We originate as unconscious spirit seeds or germs who are in need of development into self-consciousness or self-awareness. We originate in the spiritual realm but we were created in such a way that we could not immediately become conscious of ourselves and our environment. In the spiritual realm itself we could only exist as germs, as seeds, unconscious of self, whereas still within the spiritual there exist other spirit creatures who could already develop immediately into self-consciousness and therefore do not need a process of development through experiencing that we human beings need. We human beings therefore, in order for us gradually to awaken to self-consciousness need to go through a long process of experiencing, which experiencing gradually help to awaken us to the consciousness of self, to responsibility. We are more or less like infants, even worse, who need to go through a long process of development through experiencing in order finally to come to awareness of who we are, what we can do and what powers lies at our disposal. In the picture given in the book "In the Light of Truth" the Grail Message by Abd-ru-shin, we were like seeds who had been sown in the soil of the world of matter,in order gradually to germinate, then grow into a tender plant and then gradually over a long period through resistance into a strong tree. It is exactly the same process whether it concerns the material seeds of the earth or spiritual seeds. We are therefore, nothing more than seeds which have the potential within it to become a tree, a spiritual tree, but before these potentials can be realised, we need to go through a gradual process of development which consists of experiences. These experiences however, which we need for our development, which we absolutely need on our path to self-consciousness can only be gained in the material part. The material part of creation is made up of two big components:
The first comes before the latter, yet it is still matter. This is what has been broadly referred to as the Beyond. It is different in consistency, lighter and as such lies higher than the gross material part. Both are matter and are therefore lifeless. We must realise that the spiritual realm from which the human spirit originates is immortal, therefore the spark within man is also immortal, that is, it has life within itself. The material however is transient in that the forms changes with time. There is always the process of growing, ripening and decay after which comes a disintegration of the existing forms and the formation of other forms through new combinations. Therefore the world of matter in general is transient. This huge world of matter in which man (the spirit seed) has to descend in order for it to gain the experiences he needs is however at the beginning without form. The various elements and materials are there but these have to be combined in different ways in order for forms to appear. But before we go further, one must realise that the gross material world and the ethereal world also have subdivisions; proceeding from above we have
All these refers to realms or layers in the Ethereal world. The world of Gross Matter can be broadly divided into three:
The last consists of the earth and all the celestial globes we see with our physical eyes and with the help of material aids such as telescopes and so on. The world of medium gross matter we are not able to see with our physical eyes because it is of a different consistency and as such requires the eye of the same substance in order for it to be seen and this applies to all the layers. Therefore, the stars, the planets, the asteroids and nebulae and so on only belong to the world of heavy or dense gross matter. The billions of stars and galaxies that we see only belong to this lowest rung of Creation! How vast indeed Creation must be. All these however, at the beginning were without definite form. All the celestial bodies and all that they contain had to be formed, had to be shaped into the form they have today. Without this forming, this shaping, the world of matter would remain only nebulae, gas and dust. All these elements had to be aggregated into planets. The planets had to accrete. The elements had to be combined in so many ways to form what we see before us today. It will indeed not be possible for us to descend into material creation to commence our journey of experience if the latter is not prepared beforehand to receive the human spirit. A suitable environment had to be prepared for him otherwise it would be impossible for him to live in this part. A body had to be prepared for him through a long process of evolution. Therefore for him to commence on his journey at all he needed to have both the ethereal and gross material worlds prepared to receive him. Scientists already know about the accretion of planets. But what lies behind it? Who prepares these worlds? This is where we introduce a special realm of Creation which according to the Abd-ru-shin, is called the Animistic realm. In this realm exist beings referred to as the elemental beings whose responsibility it is to prepare the way for the human spirit. The world of matter therefore was formed through the activity of the Animistic beings who are also called the forces of Nature and without whose activity it would be impossible for the human spirit to gain the experiences he so much needs for the attainment of self-consciousness. He would have had to remain only a spirit seed without the possibility of ever realising his potentials. The world of matter being lifeless and without inherent movement, these are the beings who bring movement and heat into it. This layer however, where the elemental beings originate completely surrounds the world of matter and separates the latter from the spiritual realm. In order for us however, to become self-conscious, we had to traverse all the layers of Creation that lies below our point of origin. On our journey down to this earth, we have had to pass through all the realms below the spiritual. This involves firstly the Animistic realm, then the various subdivisions of the ethereal realm and the all the subdivisions of the world of gross matter until finally we find ourselves on this earth. The spirit seed being foreign to all these layers lying below it had to cover itself with all the essences of these realms in order for it to pass. What matters more is that we had to pass through and experience life on everyone of these layers. For this to happen however, it is absolutely necessary that we acquire a body of the essence of each region; just as it is impossible for a man to really live and experience on earth and make himself understood without the use of a physical body. Each of these layers of Creation has its own special characteristics, its special law which forms part of the whole. The human spirit however, has to pass and live through each of these layers to learn exactly how things are and how the Laws of God operate in each region. He has to, through experiencing become conscious of all the laws of the Creator as they manifest on each level of Creation and this experiencing and knowledge is what brings to him after a long period of time the self-consciousness which is his goal. He would have gained a lot of experience, he now becomes knowing. He knows himself, his fellow men and his environment, he now knows how the laws operate and how the household of Creation is organised. He is fully aware of his powers and nothing in Creation is strange to him anymore . By the time he goes through all these realms of Creation and is able to return home to Paradise he would have completed the cycle of his wanderings which he started when he first left as a spirit seed so long ago; only this time he does not return as a spirit seed but as a fully matured human spirit aware of himself and his responsibilities. The human spirit therefore makes two journeys: the downward one from Paradise to this earth and the upward one from the earth gradually to Paradise at the completion of the cycle of experience. On coming downwards he acquired all the cloaks, the bodies of the different regions including the physical body of the earth. On going back however, he drops the layers, body after body until in the spiritual realm he becomes a fully matured spirit without all the material bodies, but not a spirit seed. In his journeys downwards and then upwards, the core, the spirit seed gradually changes from just being a seed, germinates and gradually takes on the human form which is the form taken naturally as a result of increasing self-consciousness. This happens gradually until he returns to the spiritual realm as a human spirit in a human form. This form it did not have when it left Paradise. This form was gradually acquired through increasing self-consciousness or self-awareness brought about by his experiences acquired by passing through all the layers that Creation is made of. The purpose of life is already clear from this. It is to gain self-consciousness through recognising by experiences all the Laws of God. To recognise through experiencing, to come to know the Work of the Creator and through this gain an idea of His Greatness. Come to recognise Him through an experiencing and knowledge of His Work which is Creation. No other way is open to the human spirit. These experiences finally gives us that recognition of the Creator which is the purpose of our lives. That is what self-consciousness is. There is no other way to the proximity of God. There is no other way to understanding Him other than to come to know these steps down from Paradise layer by layer to this earth and then back up there layer by layer. This is what guarantee knowledge of Him through His Works. The purpose of life is thus clear to us: to recognise the Creator through His Works. To gain self-consciousness through the experiencing of His Works.
Finally we attain a likeness of the image of God. On our way back home
however, not a single step must be missed, otherwise a rung will be
missing on our ladder of self recognition. Self-consciousness consists of
these rungs, these steps, an experiencing of each layer of Creation in an
upward direction from this earth through medium and fine gross matter,
through the various divisions of the Ethereal and Animistic realms and
finally back to the spiritual. Every single step must be thoroughly
experienced and absorbed as an integral part of our being. Every single
step will be examined but before we do that the evolution of man and his
descent from Paradise must be examined.
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