THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER IX

RE-EXISTENCE

Section 2

Four kinds of units. Progression of units.

To understand the purpose of the doer’s re-existences and the length of time they continue, one should keep in mind the origin of the doer, some of the changes it has undergone, its ultimate destiny and where it now stands in the plan and purpose of the Universe. Noetic destiny, as the presence or absence in the human of a certain amount of Light of the Intelligence, is the factor on which all else depends. It is the final statement of the account.

The spheres have in them units, divided into four great kinds: nature, aia, Triune Self, and Intelligence units, (Fig. II-H). These are four sections in each of which is completed a course of development. At the end of the course the opposites in a unit are adjusted to and are equal to each other.

The least developed unit of nature has the potentiality of becoming an Intelligence. The least developed unit of nature is the primordial unit in the fire element, the most developed is the breath-form. The breath-form ceases to be a unit of the nature kind when its active and passive sides have been made equal, and when it becomes an aia. This is brought about by the Triune Self which it had served. Eventually the aia becomes a Triune Self. The Triune Self kind is on the intelligent-side of the Universe and is of three parts: psychic, mental and noetic. When a Triune Self has completed its course the active and the passive sides of its three parts are equal. Then the doer and the thinker act independently of and coordinately with each other and are both in agreement with the knower, which is oneness. The unit of the Triune Self kind becomes an ultimate unit of the Intelligence kind.

The units in the fire sphere are in constant activity. Fire units are the first manifestation out of Substance. There is activity only, in each unit; the opposite is latent and potential. When the potential side comes into evidence as passivity the unit leaves the fire sphere and becomes an air unit of the sphere of air. There the active side dominates the passive. Later on the passive side of the unit dominates the active side and the unit enters the sphere of water as a water unit. When the passive side of the water unit dominates the other side so that all activity ceases, the unit becomes a unit of the sphere of earth.

In the manifested part of the earth sphere is the light world, (Fig. I-B). It is on the nature-side and corresponds to the noetic atmosphere of a Triune Self. The light world is composed of units which have been roused from their inactivity in the earth sphere by the Light of the Intelligence in the noetic atmosphere of Triune Selves. The units of the light world are nature units which reflect, and appear to be, Light. In these units there is that which is not manifest in the light world. That eventually progresses and becomes a life unit in the life world; and, similarly, there is that in the life unit which becomes a form unit in the form world. Then the unit enters the physical world and comes successively to the light, the life, the form, and at last to the physical plane of the physical world. On each of these planes the unit passes through four states of matter, which on the physical plane are called the radiant, the airy, the fluid, and the solid. The unit progresses from one state to another. So it advances to new functions and states in which it is conscious. It does not change as an individual unit.

Time is of different kinds, in the physical, the form, and the life worlds; in the light world is eternity, an everpresent now, in which all changes are in the present and the effect is in the cause, because there are no divisions to distinguish past from future. The changes in the units are in the Realm of Permanence, where the Conscious Light, as Truth, prevails and shows things as they are. In the human world changes are brought about by the mental and psychic atmospheres of the doer and physical atmosphere of the body. In the temporal human world the lights of nature prevail as stars and sun and moon, and the body senses measure the time as night and day, of the changes of masses of the sun and moon and earth in their relation to each other.

The units of the physical world pass through these systems, but do not lodge in them until the units are units of the radiant, airy, fluid and solid states. They must have been part of the structure of a human body before they can be compounded and become chemical elements and enter into the compound bodies of nature on the physical plane. They cannot be part of the physical structure of the stars, the sun, the moon, the earth and rocks, plants or animals until they have passed through the structure of a human body.

The stage in which a unit is part of a human is that in which it is a part of a cell. A cell has one cell link unit which as a link holds many cell units, in the solid state. A cell link unit holds one form link unit which as a link holds many form units, in the fluid state. A form link unit holds one life link unit which as a link holds many life units, in the airy state. A life link unit holds one breath link unit which as a link holds many breath units, in the radiant state.

A cell is made up of four holding or compositor units which are links retaining each a few or a host of units as they pass in streams through the cell. These are transient units, each functioning in one of the four states,—the radiant, airy, fluid or solid. They remain in the cell a short time and then flow on with the stream. Each cell in the human body has such streams flowing through it from the birth to the death of the body. After transient units have been so retained for a while in a human body they may be imprisoned in a rock, flowing in the ocean, floating in the air, sparkling in the sunlight. They return to a human body, not necessarily the same one, and go back to outside nature.

There are passing through the transient units in the human body, free units which are affected gradually by their passage so that they will in time become transient units. They are not part of the structure of a human body, of a chemical element or of any object of external nature. The transient units are the mass of a human body, of a chemical element or any object of external nature.

The matter, that is, the transient units, which is arranged so as to be the cell is gradually carried away by the stream, but the cell link unit organizes other matter into the cell, holding all the time its form link unit which holds its life link unit which holds its breath link unit, each of them attracting units of its own kind. The four link units keep the cell in organization. The cell link unit holds cell matter of the plasm which comes from one of the four kinds of food; the form link unit holds form matter making up the plasm; the life link unit holds the life matter; and the breath link unit holds the inspiriting matter.

Food is required to retain some of the units in the four streams passing through the cell. When no food is taken the cell is like a net that does not retain the fish in the stream. Food accrues to the net, fills it out and makes some of the transient units stick and so be caught.

The cell unit is stamped, like a coin, with the mark of the body to which it belongs. When the body dies the cell unit goes into external nature, enters into the structure of the bodies of animals or plants, and it may be taken into human bodies. Like coin circulating in foreign countries, it comes back to the source where it was coined, when the organizer of the body calls for it.

The cell unit appears first in a cell in some part like the neck or the buttocks, a part not directly connected with any system. Then it appears in some organ of the generative system and its cell forms a part of the cell structure there. The unit changes its place from time to time until it has built and has functioned through cell after cell in all parts of the generative system. Then the cell unit travels, while it keeps on organizing and reorganizing its physical cells, through the respiratory, the circulatory and the digestive systems; and in each of them it occupies successively all parts in the organs, except that of an organ unit.

Then instead of moving from place to place as it had done so far, it remains in one of the organs of the digestive system. Then it goes back to the generative system, this time as an organ unit.

Each organ exists on a fourfold plan. The organ unit dwells through the whole organ and holds one cell unit, which is the cell link unit around which the other cells of the organ are arranged and upon which they depend. The cell link unit holds the form link unit of the organ; that form link unit of the organ holds the life link unit; and that holds the breath link unit of the organ. Around these four link units are grouped and held by each, fleeting units of its own kind, and through the transient units pass the free units.

The cell unit that is in line to become an organ unit is eventually impressed through its own breath link unit by the breath link unit of the organ, through its own life link unit by the life link unit of the organ, through its own form link unit by the form link unit of the organ and is itself impressed by the organ unit. The breath link unit of the cell becomes the breath link unit of the organ, the life link unit of the cell the life link unit of the organ, the form link unit of the cell the form link unit of the organ and the cell unit changes to the organ unit. A cell unit may change its position in one of the systems from time to time during the life of the body, but the organ unit remains the organ unit of its organ for the life in which it becomes the organ unit. The organ unit manages the functioning of its organ. It keeps all the parts of the organ working together, and keeps all the units, from the cell units to the breath units, in their proper relations while they are in the organ. The cell link unit keeps the other cell units, the form link unit keeps the other form units, the life link unit keeps the other life units and the breath link unit keeps the other breath units in order. The product of the organ is passed on to other organs. Thus the organs of the digestive system act together in the functioning of that system as a whole and affect each other. When the organ unit has worked its own organ long enough it has also impressed on it the workings of the other organs in the system and so becomes eventually the unit of another organ. The change begins at the end of the digestive system, the anus.

The highest organ in the generative system is the eye. The unit of the eye adjusts the cells and regulates the curvature of the eyeball and of the lens; steadies the nerve endings in the retina; focuses the eye, and emits and takes in radiant matter by means of which to make contact with the object. Anything that is seen is contacted by the unit of the eye. The sun, or the remotest star, if seen, is actually contacted. The unit of the eye is the instrument which the sense of sight uses for seeing. It becomes familiar with the sense of sight through the optic and other nerves. It does all this under the influence of the sense of sight and becomes ever more sensitized to fire units, breath units and radiant matter. When the unit of the eye is adapted to the sense of sight and has served its time, it becomes the manager of the whole generative system and functions as the sense of sight.

The sense of sight or light unit, the breath unit of the four systems of the body, passes to become the sense of hearing, which is the life or air unit of the body; that passes to become the sense of taste, which is the form or fluid unit; and that passes to become the sense of smell.

The sense of smell immediately connects with the functions of the breath-form, which is the last and direct link between the nature-side and the aia. The aia belongs to the intelligent-side, (Fig. II-H).

The sense of smell as contact touches particles in the solid-solid state of the object smelled. Smell is actual physical contact as of particles of cabbage, camphor, or musk. It is not so with taste. The sense of taste does not contact gross physical particles, but it reaches into the solid-solid units and takes the fluid-solid units, the essence, from gross physical food, which is food to the structure of the body. To the sense of smell, but not to the fluid body, the odor is food.

The sense of smell impels the action of the digestive system and relates all the organs of the digestive system to each other and to each of the other systems, by the breath which is the active side, the life, of the breath-form. And, further, it is through the sense of smell, functioning as contact, that all sense impressions are received. So things seen, heard, or tasted, are passed through the sense of smell, by the breath, to feeling in the nerves.