“2.    THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS.

 
LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES THE LAST ATOM (OF FORM, STHULASARIRA, EXTERNAL BODY).

 
THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY BEADS (PEARLS).

 
This sloka expresses the conception – a purely Vedantic one – of a life-thread, Sutratma, running through successive generations.

 
Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the offspring of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris);

 
in its qualitative and physical aspect it is the direct progeny of the “Ancestors”, the lowest Dhyanis, or Spirits of the Earth;

 
for its moral, psychic, and spiritual nature, it is indebted to a group of divine Beings, the name and characteristics of which will be given in part II.

 
Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits; distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly, the vehicles of some of them.”

H. P. Blavatsky