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The Origin of Life

If we desire to solve the problem of existence, and find out why we are here, the first step is to ascertain the origin of life, for if we can trace whence we have come, and the path by which we have already achieved our present evolution it may be easier to ascertain what is the direction in which we are traveling and this will give us a conception of the development necessary to bring us further along on the path of advancement.


But when we speak of the Origin of ‘Life’ it must be distinctly understood that that means ‘life’ and not form; in fact, all through the studies it should be borne in mind that definite technical terms are used to make certain distinctions and that unless this is borne in mind, unless we remember that each term applies to a certain idea or thing, and to no other, we shall not be able to escape confusion. Philosophers of the past have made that great mistake of giving different names to the same things and ideas, speaking promiscuously of that thing or idea by these various names. Such a method can only result in chaos, and we know that that has been the hallmark of philosophical speculation. What we are after now is the origin of ‘life’ itself, independent of the form through which we see it manifested. We therefore turn to the index of words in The Rosicrucian Cosmo- Conception on pp. 541. There we find ‘life’ under the grouping of the letter L. and opposite a page No. 563. This refers to the page in the index where we shall find all the references to life. Accordingly, we turn to that page and looking through the descriptive references that promise a clue to what we are looking for, we turn around to page 564 where there is one which says “life did not originate anywhere at any time; it is.” 


Turning now to page 504 we find the reference we are looking for:

“Seed Stratum: Material scientists have been baffled in their efforts to discover the origin of life, how the first living things came forth from previously dead matter. “In reality, according to the occult explanation of evolution, the question should be how the ‘dead’ things originated. THE LIFE WAS THERE PREVIOUS TO THE DEAD FORMS. It built its bodies from the attenuated, vaporous substance long before it condensed into the earth’s solid crust. ONLY WHEN THE LIFE HAD LEFT THE FORMS COULD THEY CRYSTALLIZE AND BECOME HARD AND DEAD. Coal is but crystallized plant bodies; coral is also the crystallization of animal forms. The life leaves the forms and the FORMS die. Life never came into a form to awaken it to life, life departed from the forms and they died. Thus ‘dead’ things came to be.


“In this fifth stratum is the primordial fount of life from which came the impetus that built all the forms on earth. It corresponds to the Region of Abstract Thought.” In 1868 Huxley announced that he had found a sticky jelly-like substance taken from the bottom of the sea, which was a mass of protoplasm and non-living; this he called “Bathybius,” from two Greek words meaning “deep” and “life,” and David Strauss in 1872 wrote in his book, The Old Faith and the New, that no man who believed in Bathybius can at the same time believe in the teachings of the Christian church.


Haeckel, in his History of Creation, made Bathybius the central root from which all terrestrial life has grown, and the scientific world at that time claimed that all life—past, present, and future—would develop from ooze at the bottom of the sea, and that all who believed in any Divine agency as having a hand in the matter of life and its manifestations upon earth were well on their way to an asylum. But in 1875 the Ship “Challenger” made deep sea soundings and found Bathybius to be nothing but sulfate of lime.


Thus the scientific dogma of that day died, neither has science been able to find any better theory, and the origin of life is to the scientists a mystery despite the repeatedly upcropping stories that Professor so- and-so, in this place, or Doctor somebody else, in that place, has succeeded in evolving life, for to weld life to form is the pre- rogative of the Angels during the present period of manifestation. And until in a future day the wizards of the laboratory purify themselves as the priests of the Most High God, and in that attitude of mind and soul approach the laboratory table, it will be impossible for them to know anything, save of the dead forms which are all that we can work with at our present point of evolution. Moreover, even if we were able to weld life and form as the angels are, in plants, animals, and men, that would not discover the origin of life. That mystic first chapter of St. John’s Gospel would still be supreme authority upon the matter: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, in it was Life and the Life became the light of men, without it was not anything made that was made.”


Turning now to the last paragraph of our Quotation from the Cosmo—we read there that “the Fifth Stratum of the earth is the primordial fount of life from which came the impetus that built all the form on Earth; it corresponds to the region of Abstract Thought.” Then turn to the chart on page 54, and read there what is said about the world of Virgin Spirit, the world of Divine Spirit, the world of Life Spirit and the Region of Abstract thought. This is an easy method of following the descent of Spirit into matter.


We are of course particularly interested in the study of the human “life,” which we know at the present time manifests as an ego, and we therefore turn to our index of words to find if a definition of that word can be found in the Cosmo. Opposite the word “Ego” in the list of words, page 540, we find the page number, 575; we find and turn to that page in the index, we read, “Ego (see Human Spirit).” Then below that, “the Ego is a Virgin Spirit involved in a three-fold veil of matter which obliterates its original divine consciousness and engenders the illusion of a separate self, page 216.” There we have a detailed description of how before the beginning of manifestation the Spirit enjoyed a divine consciousness in the bosom of Deity; that the pilgrimage through matter was undertaken in order that each spark from the divine Flame might attain consciousness; that during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods each Spirit was encased in three veils of matter of gradually increasing density, until at last it could no longer look outward and perceive others; then it turned its gaze within and saw itself.


This last happened in the Region of Abstract thought, the fifth realm of nature, counting from the physical world upwards to finer matter, and this is the counter-part of the fifth stratum of the Earth to which the paragraph in our quotation at the beginning of this article refers. Thus you see why it is said on page 504, that this stratum contains the primordial fount of life from which all the forms have been built that have ever come upon earth. If you turn to the diagram of the Seven World Periods on page 197, you will see that during the Earth Period wherein we are now, none of the worlds allotted to that period are in the region of abstract thought, therefore that and the other worlds that are on beyond may be described as Chaos, but this name is not synonymous with confusion and Void, by any means, as will be made clear if you turn to the chapter on Chaos pp 246, by reading on through that chapter to pp 258 it will be made plain that we must learn to think of Chaos as the spirit of God which pervades every part of the infinite.


To sum up, the Rosicrucian Teaching concerning the origin of Life is: that it originates “in” God, that it is “in” Him, because nothing exists outside of Him, but that “in” Him it has neither beginning nor end. It Is. In the second place we learn that in the concrete regions of the material universe, life can  only  be  known  when  manifesting through a form, which may be either physical, etheric, or of finer material still, but in the Spiritual realms of the Universe, beginning with the Region of Abstract Thought, Life and form, Spirit and matter merge, so that in this Chaos we live in the ideas of God and attune ourselves to them, bringing with us to rebirth each time, a better understanding of the divine idea, and building forms which express in a greater measure the divine purpose.


Students are requested to consider this chapter very carefully, reading all the portions of the Cosmo suggested and if any questions suggest themselves please send them in so that we may take up the study in a thoroughly systematic manner and secure satisfaction to everybody.


Studies in The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception by Brother Daniel




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