Inner and Outer Rounds
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
In one of his letters to A. O. Hume, Master M. writes:
The present mankind is at its fourth round. . . . On their fifth round after a partial Nirvana . . . they will be held responsible henceforth in their descents from sphere to sphere. . . . This downward course has not yet begun but will soon.[1]
According to this, the fifth Round has not yet started but will soon. However, in another letter to Mr. Hume Master K.H. seems to write that there are men who have actually gone through all the globes left in this Round and have started the fifth Round:
No one can be more than one round ahead of his kind. . . . We have fifth round men among us because we are in the latter half of our septenary earth ring. In the first half this could not have happened.[2]
The obscuration of the planet on which are now evoluting the races of the fifth Round men — will, of course “be behind the few avant couriers” who are now here.[3]
To this seeming contradiction, Master K.H. writes to A. P. Sinnett:
Neither M. nor I have contradicted each other in our respective statements. He was speaking of the inner — I, of the outer Round. There are many things that you have not learned but may some day; nor will you be able to ever comprehend the process of the obscurations until you have mastered the mathematical progress of the inner and the outer Rounds and learned more about the specific difference between the seven.[4]
In an article written by the chela S. T. K***Chary who was asked to throw some light on this matter, he states:
A Planet may be said to be in a state of Obscuration when a small portion of it of it is inhabited....
... Neither theory contains the whole truth about the esoteric doctrine in question. It is certainly much more complicated in its details than is generally supposed.[5]
According to A. P. Sinnett
The great bulk of humanity is driven on from one planet to the next by the great cyclic impulse when its time comes for such a transition, but the planet it quits is not utterly denuded of humanity, nor is it, in every region of its surface rendered, by the physical and climatic changes that come on, unfit to be the habitation of human beings. Even during obscuration a small colony of humanity clings to each planet, and the monads associated with these small colonies following different laws of evolution, and beyond the reach of those attractions which govern the main vortex of humanity in the planet occupied by the great tide-wave, pass on from world to world along what may be called the inner round of evolution, far ahead of the race at large. What may be the circumstances which occasionally project a soul even from the midst of the great human vortex, right out of the attraction of the planet occupied by the tide wave, and into the attraction of the Inner Round - is a question that can only be a subject for us at present of very uncertain conjecture.
According to C. W. Leadbeater
C. W. Leadbeater seems to agree with the explanation given by Master K.H.. CWL says:
In the inner round the ego runs on ahead of the life-wave, and by making an extra journey round the globes raises himself one class higher.
A globe "passes into obscuration" when the attention of the LOGOS is turned away from it, and thus His Light is withdrawn. It passes into a kind of coma, and there is a residuum of living creatures left behind; these creatures do not seem to increase in number during this period. But while the Races die out, the egos inhabiting them having passed on, the globe becomes a field for the Inner Round, a place to which egos in a transition state can be transferred for special treatment in order to quicken their evolution. The globe to which the attention of the LOGOS is turned starts into active life, and receives the streams of egos ready to go forward on their journey.
The seven life-waves which ensoul our seven kingdoms have always for their principal field of action the planet to which the attention of the LOGOS is for the moment directed; but a certain small proportion of their action is always manifesting in the other worlds of the chain also. Thus, although the attention of the Planetary LOGOS is now fixed upon our earth, there are yet representatives of all the kingdoms simultaneously existing upon every one of the six other globes of our chain. These are often described as the seed from which the forms will develope when the life-wave reaches the planet-- that is to say, when the special attention of the Planetary LOGOS is turned to it once more.
These forms have remained in existence upon their respective planets ever since they were first filled by the lunar animal-men in the first round, and in this way the trouble of what might be called fresh creation for each globe in each round is avoided. The life ensouling these forms during the comparative obscuration of those planets is still part of the great wave, and is still moving onward in connection with it. It serves other functions besides that of providing the seed for the incoming wave, since it is also employed as a means of more rapid evolution for certain classes of monads.
It is by the special treatment thus given that it is possible for the second-class monad to overtake the first class and become one of its members. Under certain conditions of strong desire for advancement, if he is seen to be striving with exceptional vigour to improve himself, he may be separated from the great masses of his fellows on this planet, and passed by the authorities into what is called the Inner Round, and may take his next incarnation among the limited population of Mercury. In that case he will spend there about the same time that he would otherwise have devoted to incarnations in one root-race, and will then pass on to the astral planet F. After a similar stay there he will be transferred to globes G, A and B successively, and then to Mars and to the Earth.
As in each of these spheres he will have made a stay about equivalent to the normal period of a root-race, the life-wave will have left the Earth before his return, but he will overtake it upon the planet Mercury, and will then join the ranks of the first-class monads and share the remainder of their evolution and their varied opportunities of more rapid development. Entities engaged upon this special line of evolution form the majority of the small population of Mercury and Mars at the present time. In the latter planet there is also a certain residuum of primitive mankind which was unprepared to pass on when the life-wave left for the Earth-- a race which represents a stage of humanity lower than any at present existing within our cognisance. It will probably be extinct long before we reach Mars in the fifth round, since there appear to be no other egos needing manifestation at that level for the moment.
According to G. de Purucker
G. de Purucker gives a different account of inner and outer Rounds. He says:
There are outer rounds and inner rounds. An inner round comprises the passage of the life-wave in any one planetary chain from globe A to globe G once around, and this takes place seven times in a planetary manvantara.
The outer round comprises the passage of the entirety of a life-wave of a planetary chain along the circulations of the solar system, from one of the seven sacred planets to another; and this for seven (or ten) times.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 44 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), ???.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 67 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), ???.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 70-C (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), ???.
- ↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 113 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), ???.
- ↑ S. T. K***Chary, [Note to] "Cosmical Rings and Rounds", The Theosophist 4:9 (June, 1883), 232.