Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00415)

Maybe we should call you PAN and not Pam!

"From the highest antiquity trees were connected with the gods and
mystical forces in nature.  Every nation has its sacred tree, with its
peculiar characteristics and attributes based on natural, and also
occasionally on occult properties, as expounded in the esoteric
teachings." -Theosophical Glossary p. 337

"The Occult reason why the Norse Yggdrasil, the Hindu Asvatha, the
Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, and the Tibertan Zampun, are one with
the Kabalistic Sephirothal Tree, and even with the Holy Tree made by
Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden-who among the Western scholars can
tell?  Nevertheless, the fruits of all those 'Trees,' whether Pippala or
Haoma, or yet the more prosaic apple, are the 'plants of life,' in fact
and verity." - SD II 97

"We see two kinds of trees, one of which denudes itself entirely and
remains expressionless for a large part of its cycle, and another which
slowly and continually renews itself in every part, never ceasing to
give expression, and often holding in evidence the old leaf, the new
leaf, the blossom and the fruit." -The Friendly Philosophy,   6
"The Symbol for Sacred and Secret Knowledge was universally in
antiquity, a Tree, by which a Scripture or a Record was also meant."-SD
I 128; and "The Symbol fo the 'tree' standing for various Initiates was
almost universal.  Jesus is called 'the tree of Life.' As also all the
adepts of the good Law, while those of the left Path are referred to as
the 'withering trees.'  "-SD II 496

"Throughout all Asia Minor, the Initiates were called the 'tree of
Righteousness,' and the cedars of Lebanon, as also were some king of
Israel.  So were the great adepts in India, …" -SD II 495-5

The Asvatta is the Tree of Life, and its Macrocosmic aspect is thus
described : - "The tree was reversed, and its roots were generated in
Heaven and grew out of the Rootless Root of all-being.  Its trunk grew
and developed, crossing the planes of Pleroma, it shoot out crossways
its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly differentiated
matter, and then downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. …Thus
the Asvattha, tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to
immortality, is said in the Bhgavatgita to grow with its roots above and
its branches below (ch. xv).  The roots represent the Supreme Being, or
First Cause, the LOGOS; but one has to go beyond those roots to unite
oneself with Krishna, who, says Arjuna (xx), 'is greater than Brahman,
and First Cause…the indestructible, that which is, that which is not,
and what is beyond them.'  Its boughs are Hiranyagarbha (Brahm or
Brahman in his highest manifestations, say Sridhara and Madhusudana),
the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas.  The Vedas are its leaves.  He only
who goes beyond the roots, shall never return, i.e., shall reincarnate
no more during this 'age' of Brahma." -SD I 406

"Says the 'preceptor': 'Accurately understanding the great Tree of which
the unperceived (Occult nature, the root of all) is the sprout from the
see (Parabrahmam) which consists of the understanding (Mahat, or the
universal intelligent Soul) as its trunk, the branches of which are the
great egoism, in the holes of which are the sprouts, namely, the senses,
of which the great (Occult, or invisible) elements are the
flower-branches, the gross elements (the gross objective matter), the
smaller boughs, which are always possessed of leaves, always possessed,
of flowers…which is eternal and the seed of which is the Brahman (the
deity); and cutting it with the excellent sword-knowledge (secret
wisdom)-one attains immortality and casts off birth and death.
This is the Tree of Life, the Asvattha tree, only after the cutting
which the slave of life and death, MAN, can be emancipated." -SD, I 536

"To the follower of the true Eastern archaic Wisdom, to him who worships
in spirit nought outside the Absolute Unity, that ever-pulsating great
Heart that beats throughout, as in every atom of nature, each such atom
contains the germ from which he may raise the Tree of Knowledge, whose
fruits give life eternal and not physical life alone ….He cares little
whether it be the seed from which grows the genealogical Tree of Being,
called the Universe.  Nor is it the Three in One, the triple aspect of
the seed-its form, colour, and substance-that interest hi, but rather
the FORCE which directs its growth, the ever mysterious, as the ever
unknown.  For this vital Force, that makes the seed germinate, bust open
and throw out shoots, then form the trunk and branches, which, in their
turn, bend down like the boughs of the Asvattha, the holy Tree of Bodhi,
throw their seed out, take root and procreate other trees-this is the
only FORCE  that has reality for him, as it is the never-dying breath of
life"-SD II 588-9

"While the Macrocosmic tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute
Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic tree are the Serpents
of the manifested Wisdom.  One is the One and All;  the others are its
refrlected parts.  The 'tree' is man himself, of course, and the
Serpents dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link
between Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth."-SD II 98

Let us then go to the tree within us-"the abode of Pitris (elementals in
fact) of a lower order' and make it the Tree of Everlasting Life.
"Pippala, the sweet gruit of that tree upon which come spirits who love
the science, and where the gods produce all marvels." -SD II 97-8

May these be seed thoughts for meditation and help lead on and up,
Sophia


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