Theos-Talk Archives (September 1999 Message tt00175)

Sept 21st 1999

This are offered as being some of the key ideas to hold in mind while
studying  the "Secret Doctrine."


In The SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol. I,  HPB speaks in the following words of
the ANCIENT SOURCE of THEOSOPHY  (pp.  272-3) :

"The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages...but such
is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have
actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and
prophets to marshal,  to set down and explain in the bewildering
series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of
geometrical signs and glyphs.

The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel
of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary
profane...would have perceived but the external work of form.

But modern science believes not in the "soul of things," and hence
will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony.

 It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one
or several isolated individuals. That it is the uninterrupted record
covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective
experiences were made to test and to verify the traditions passed
orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and
exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity.

That for long ages, the "Wise Men" of the Fifth Race, of the stock
saved and rescued from
the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives
in learning, not teaching.

How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and
verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the
independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and
perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations
to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted
till it was checked and confirmed by the visions - so obtained as to
stand as independent evidence - of other adepts, and by centuries of
experience."


SOURCE OF THEOSOPHY

What is the Source of Theosophy ?  This is indicated on p. 269 as:

"the grand panorama of ever-recurring Law--impressed upon the plastic
minds of the first races endowed with Consciousness by those who
reflected the same from the Universal Mind."  This is of prime
importance.  It is our eternal inheritance and it is interior to our
own minds.  Is it not that which drives us towards securing a
perfection of Knowledge which leads to "right action.?"  The DHYANIS
impressed us with those facts.  "Right action" is the effort that we
put forth to let others know about Theosophy, its metaphysics, its
history and its practical application as a "living power in our
lives."

On pages 298-9 HPB states that it is possible that the revelation of
the Occult doctrines and truths as given in the SD may be premature.
However, she indicates "that [in 1877 by the publishing of ISIS
UNVEILED] a corner of the Veil of Isis had to be lifted, and now
[1888, in publishing THE SECRET DOCTRINE] a larger rent is made."
(298-9)

She indicates in letters [published under the title of FIVE MESSAGES
TO THE AMERICAN THEOSOPHISTS], that the cycle for an enormous psychic
precipitations had come, and partially this work (the S D) was to
provide those who needed the information with a base for understanding
those psychic manifestations that were suddenly pouring out of the
Astral Light and the muddy realms of the Kama-Loka..

These statements and ideas may prove to be valuable :

Gautama the Buddha, after learning the wisdom of the ancient
"Upanishads," and finding that it differed little from that which the
"Teachers of Life" inhabiting the snowy ranges of the Himalaya taught,
"determined to save the whole world by popularizing it."  ( p. 271)


ONE LAW -- ONE CAUSE  -- ONE SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE

The fundamental Law in the Theosophical system is the existence of:

"One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE, the ONE RADICAL
CAUSE...Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System.
(p. 273)

"All the fundamental truths of nature were universal in
antiquity...modern scientific research... shows us everywhere that
Divine power operating through natural Forces.  That Universal Being,
that contains all, and which is all, puts into motion the Soul and the
World, all that nature comprises..." (p. 285, 289-92)

"Parabrahm [ the ABSOLUTE ] and Mulaprakriti [ Root, or Primordial
SUBSTANCE ]  are One, in reality, yet, two in the Universal conception
of the manifested..."  (273)

"Matter is eternal.  It is the Upadhi (the physical basis) for the One
infinite Universal Mind to build
thereon its ideations." (280).  "Everything is the product of One
Universal creative effort...There is nothing "dead" in
Nature...Everything is organic and living..." (281)  "The real
substance of the concealed Sun is a nucleus of Mother substance
(primeval really homogeneous matter)." (290 & fn)

"The Primordial essence is of a monistic nature, and manifests itself
not only as vital activity, a spiritual force, an invisible,
incomprehensible, and indescribable power, but also as vital matter of
which the substance of living beings consists.-- Quoted from Prof.
Crookes. (p. 283)

"Spirit is living, and Life is Spirit, and Life and Spirit...produce
all things, but they are essentially one and not two."  (284)  "The
corporeal cannot express the incorporeal." (p. 286)

"There is not one finger's breadth (angula) of void Space in the whole
Boundless Universe." (289)


THE UNIVERSE IS "MAYA" BECAUSE IT IS TEMPORARY

"The Universe...is [named] Maya-illusion because it is
temporary...compared to the eternal immutability of the ONE."  (p.
274)

"During the great mystery and drama of life known as the Manvantara,
real Kosmos is like the object placed behind the white screen ... the
actual figures and things remain invisible...men and things are thus
but reflections on the white field of the realities behind the snares
of MAHAMAYA, or the
great Illusion."  (p. 278)

"The entire Universe is worked and guided from within outward,  "is
guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless series of
Hierarchies (sacred hosts) of sentient Beings, each having a mission
to perform and...who are "messengers" in the sense that they are the
agents of Karma and Cosmic Laws. "  (p. 274)

"The Universe was evolved out of its ideal plan, upheld throughout
Eternity in the "unconsciousness"  of that which the Vedantins call
Parabrahm [the ABSOLUTE]....an infinite and eternal ENERGY from which
all things proceed...the active Power, the "perpetual motion of the
great Breath" only awakens Kosmos at the dawn of every new Period,
setting it into motion by means of the two contrary Forces
(centripetal and centrifugal, positive-negative, male-female,
physical-spiritual), and thus causing it to become objective on the
plane of Illusion." (p. 280-1& fn)

"Everything that is, was, and will be, eternally is, even the
countless forms which are finite and perishable only in their
objective, not their IDEAL form."  (p. 280-281)


CONSCIOUSNESS IS UNIVERSAL --  PRESENT IN EVERY BEING

"Everything in the Universe...is endowed with a consciousness of its
own kind, and on its own plane of perception...There is no such thing
as "dead" or "blind" matter, as there is no "Blind" or "Unconscious"
Law.  (For Occult philosophy, the "noumenal essence" has more reality
than any of their objective counterparts.  p. 275)

"There is but One indivisible and absolute Omniscience and
Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom
and infinitesimal point of the whole finite Kosmos...Space...the first
differentiation of its "reflection" in the manifested World is purely
spiritual, and the Beings generated in it are not endowed with a
consciousness that has any relation to the one we conceive of.  They
can have no human consciousness or Intelligence before they have
acquired such, personally and individually...The whole order of Nature
evinces a progressive march towards a HIGHER LIFE.  There is design in
the action of the seemingly blindest forces."  (p. 277)


STAGES OF INTELLIGENCE IN EVOLUTION

"...each of these Beings either was, or prepares to become a man."

They are of three distinct classes:

1.  those "Monads" who are preparing to become "men-minds;
2.  Those Monads who are men/minds at present (all of us humans) and,
3.  Those who, as Adepts and Sages have graduated from the human
stage. [ see SD I 277 top,  I 632 top]

The Sages and Adepts are said by HPB to be the "Living Ones," because
they are the streams projected on the Kosmic screen of illusion from
the ABSOLUTE LIFE;  beings, in whom life cannot become extinct..."
(p. 275)

The extent of their help and guidance is outlined (p. 280)  It is :
"...the Dhyan-Chohanic thought reflecting the ideation of the
Universal Mind."  (p. 280)


MAN -- THE MEETING POINT OF MANY LINES OF KARMA

The crucial, the focal point of all evolution is mankind.  This is
because:

"Man...being a compound of the essences of all those celestial
Hierarchies may succeed in making himself...superior, in one sense, to
any hierarchy or class or even combination of them...by paralyzing his
lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full knowledge of the
NON-SEPARATENESS of his HIGHER SELF from the One absolute SELF, man
can, even during his terrestrial life, become as "One of Us."  [ see
also: SD I 134-5, 130-1, 268,   II 98] . (p. 276-7)

"The God in man...[is] often a highly Spiritual Dhyan Chohan in him
besides the presence of his own seventh Principle [ATMAN]."   (p. 295
fn,  see also SD II 70-80, 93-4, 167, 254-5).

These ideas, which are part of the "Three Fundamentals ( SD I 14-19)"
have been found to be most helpful when kept in mind during the study
of Theosophy. It is hoped that this will prove to be of help.


Dallas
dalval@nwc.net 




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