HIERARCHY
660. There is no hierarchy in the Centre and from the Centre; but this is much more the case with the realisation of the Centre.
661. The grades in the sphere of beings are the grades of the withdrawal from the centre of being and the grades of the returning to the centre of being.
662. Being superior is being more archaic, i.e. being closer to the arkhé.
663. Superiority means being close to the spirit; being close to the spirit means being close to myself, and »being close« means that forces arising from the direct contact with myself pervade states and processes of consciousness just as they pervade the context of being - the being itself - emerging from the states and processes of consciousness.
664. Every hierarchy is gradual, but not every graduation is hierarchical, since only those grades can be considered hierarchical which, on the one hand, are stages on the path leading from the general forms of existence and consciousness toward transcendence, and, on the other hand, which are stages on the path of becoming leading from transcendence toward the world in esse.
665. The superior precedes the inferior both in essence and in time, but not especially in essence and not especially in time, because »temporalness« is only a projection of essentiality.
666. Superior things never originate from the inferior. Everything that came into existence is manifested by the descent of the superior.
667. The hierarchy of castes: the ativarņa brāhmaņa is both polar and solar; the brāhmaņa is polar and lunar; the ksatriya is solar; the vaiśya is lunar; the śūdra is terrestrial; the pañcaka is subterrestrial; and the avarņa is subterrestrial and infernal.
[The ativarņa brāhmaņa is the proto-caste above all the castes, where the brāhmaņa and the ksatriya compose an integral union. The brāhmaņa is the sacerdotal, the ksatriya is the noble, the vaiśya is the craftsman-merchant, and the śūdra is the workers’ caste. The pañcaka (»the fifth«) is the collective name for the subcastes below the casts. The avarņa is the extra-casteness in the sense of subcastesness. Polarity is the manifestation of the celestial and extra-samsārian origin, while solarity represents the regal and ruling power over the conscious forces.]
668. The advancement of a technical civilisation does not assess superiority. Superiority can only be measured by the relation to the origin, beyond the origin to the beginning, and beyond this to the unbegun.
669. Each stage of existence has its level of truth.
670. The hierarchy of existence corresponds to that of consciousness.