Theos-Talk Archives (January 1999 Message tt00120)

Mahatma Letter XXV:

"But the *complete* recollection of all the lives - (earthly and devachanic)
*omniscience* - in short - comes but at the great end of the full seven
Rounds (unless one had become in the interim a Bodhisatwa, an Arhat) - the
"threshold" of Nirvana meaning an indefinite period".

Mahatma Letter No. X:

"Meditation here means the superhuman (not supernatural) qualities, or
arhatship in its highest of spiritual powers".

SD, I, 206/207:

"(b) There are four grades of initiation mentioned in exoteric works, which
are known respectively in Sanskrit as “Sçrôtâpanna,” “Sagardagan,”
“Anagamin,” and “Arhan”—the four paths to Nirvana, in this, our fourth
Round, hearing the same appellations.  The Arhan, though he can see the
Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the
Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela (pupil) to a higher
Initiate.  Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan who
would reach the apex; of the ladder of Arhatship. There are those who have
reached it even in this fifth race of ours, but the faculties necessary for
the attainment of these highergrades will be fully developed in the average
ascetic only at the end of this Root-Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh.
Thus there will always be Initiates and the Profane till the end of this
minor Manvantara, the present life-cycle.  The Arhats of the “fire-mist” of
the 7th rung are but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy—the
highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain.  This “Root-Base” has a name
which can only be translated by several compound words into English”—“the
ever-living-human-Banyan.” This “Wondrous Being” descended from a “high
region,” they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation
of the sexes of the Third Race.

This Third Race is sometimes called collectively “the Sons of Passive Yoga,”
i.e., it was produced unconsciously by the second Race, which, as it was
intellectually inactive, is supposed to have been constantly plunged in a
kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the conditions of
the Yoga state.  In the first or earlier portion of the existence of this
third race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the “Sons of Wisdom,”
who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Third Race, produced by Kriyasakti
a progeny called the “Sons of Ad” or “of the Fire-Mist,” the “Sons of Will
and Yoga,” etc.  They were a conscious production, as a portion of the race
was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual, superior
intelligence.  It was not a Race, this progeny.  It was at first a wondrous
Being, called the “Initiator,” and after him a group of semi-divine and
semi-human beings.  “Set apart” in Archaic genesis for certain purposes,
they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis,
“Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras”—to form the nursery for future
human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle.  These “Sons of
Will and Yoga” born, so to speak, in an immaculate way, remained, it is
explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.

The “BEING” just referred to, which has to remain nameless, is the Tree from
which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and
Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., etc.,
have branched off.  As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the
profane—the ever invisible) yet ever present Personage about whom legends
are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of
the Sacred Science.  It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same.
And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts
throughout the whole world.  He is, as said, the “Nameless One” who has so
many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown.  He is
the “Initiator,” called the “GREAT SACRIFICE.  For, sitting at the threshold
of LIGHT, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will
not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle.
Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post? Why does he
sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he
has naught to learn which he does not know—aye, neither on this Earth, nor
in its heaven ? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back
to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in
this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life.  Because he
would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he
is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in
liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion.  Because, in short,
he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect
may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE."