Theos-Talk Archives (May 2002 Message tt00028)

Saturday, May 04, 2002

Dear Friends:

May 8th 2002 will mark the 111th year since 1891 when on May 8th H P
Bs body died.

Her legacy to the world and to us has changed many a direction in a
man's career. In fact her writings and her message of THEOSOPHY has
already sensibly affected our world.

More than ever we demand answers, we seek for causes, we desire to
know why things happen.

The message of Theosophy was designed to change the "Manas and the
Buddhi of the race of man."
(Manas -- mind frame; Buddhi -- wisdom base.)

What does it consist of:

It points to Mind and thought as the prime movers of individual
progress. It points to Wisdom as the history of the choices and
actions of the past, of its present power as the Law of Karma, and of
the future of altruism and cooperation to which all may aspire and act
for.

It points to the universality of the world of truth, of spiritual
values and of ideals. It declares that the rules and laws of the
World and our Universe are fair and harmonious, and demands from each
of us the practice of altruism. This is epitomized in the phrase:
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.

This, UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD is the first Object of the T S, and of all
Theosophical bodies everywhere. Theosophy means Divine Wisdom. Its
practice is devotion to universality and impersonality. It demands
that everyone exercise the same opportunity to be free -- to seek, to
ask and to learn.

It declares Nature and its existence (as innumerable Monads) are
facts.

Truth ever prevails as an invariable and changeless background -- an
ABSOLUTENESS. It is ever-present, whether there is manifestation or
non-manifestation. It is the ONE LAW.

These truths and facts cannot be concealed, veiled or made a mystery
of.

Ignorance is a passing phase. It is always supplanted by the
discovery of the truth that underlies all misconceptions.

It declares that Nature is ONE -- a sensitive and organized whole. It
is ruled by Law and Laws. these are fair, clear, compassionate,
educative and just for all.

The Universe and its components are neither born nor does it, or they
die. It exists forever. It is the Power to Perceive. Consciousness
that is unlimited, deathless and permanent. These identical powers
are presenting every one of its components, the immortal Monads.

Spirit (perfection and truth), Matter (substance, forms and
ever-changing limitations), and Mind (thought, action, desires and
feeling) are the three divisions of universal DIVINITY that are ever
present. The Deity, the Presence is superior to these and unaffected
by them. It is therefore the OBSERVER and the WITNESS as well as the
SCRIBE and the RECORDER.

Every being without exception is included in its limitless vastness.

It is also know by synonyms such as Divinity, Deity, God, Universal
Law, Universal progress or the universal Evolution of every individual
component of nature. For al. there is a singular goal: which can
only be characterized as "Sublime Perfection."

This is Universal Brotherhood.

When this is grasped then selfishness, greed, pride, isolation,
disappear.

-----------------------

H P B from time to time wrote tales, stories and used allegories to
illustrate wisdom already present or to expose some aspect of Nature
that needs attention from us who aspire to learn something of her
secret workings.

Here are two: One on the universal symbol of the Lotus. The other on
the dark areas that surround our psyche -- which have to be known and
mastered so that our progress may be assured.

Best wishes,

Dallas


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THE LEGEND OF THE BLUE LOTUS

By H. P. Blavatsky[


The title of every magazine or book should have some meaning, and
especially should this be the case with a Theosophical publication. A
title is supposed to express the object in view, symbolizing, as it
were, the content of the paper. Since allegory is the soul of Eastern
philosophy, it may be objected that nothing can be seen in the name
"Le Lotus Bleu," save that of a water plant -- the Nymphea Cerulea or
Nelumbo. Furthermore a reader of this calibre would see but the blue
colour of the list of contents of our journal.

To avoid a like misunderstanding, we shall attempt to initiate our
readers into the general symbolism of the lotus and the particular
symbolism of the Blue Lotus. This mysterious and sacred plant has been
considered through the ages, both in Egypt and in India, as a symbol
of the Universe. Not a monument in the valley of the Nile, not a
papyrus, without this plant in an honoured place. On the capitals of
the Egyptian pillars, on the thrones and even the head-dresses of the
Divine Kings, the lotus is everywhere found as a symbol of the
Universe. It inevitably became an indispensable attribute of every
creative god, as of every creative goddess, the latter being,
philosophically considered, only the feminine aspect of the god, at
first androgynous, afterwards male.

It is from Padma-Yoni, "the bosom of the Lotus," from Absolute Space,
or from the Universe outside time and space, that emanates the Cosmos,
conditioned and limited by time and space. The Hiranya Garbha, "the
egg" (or the womb) of gold, from which Brahma emerges, is often called
the Heavenly Lotus. The God, Vishnu, -- the synthesis of the Trimurti
or Hindu Trinity -- during the "nights of Brahma" floats asleep on the
primordial waters, stretched on the blossom of a lotus. His Goddess,
the lovely Lakshmi, rising from the bosom of the waters, like
Venus-Aphrodite, has a white lotus beneath her feet. It was at the
churning of the Ocean of Milk -- symbol of space and of the Milky
Way -- by the Gods assembled together, that Lakshmi, Goddess of Beauty
and Mother of Love (Kama) formed of the froth of the foaming waves,
appeared before the astonished Gods, borne on a lotus, and holding
another lotus in her hand.

Thus have arisen the two chief titles of Lakshmi; Padma the Lotus, and
Kshirabdi-tanaya daughter of the Ocean of Milk. Gautama the Buddha has
never been degraded to the level of a god, notwithstanding the fact
that he was the first mortal within historical times fearless enough
to interrogate that dumb Sphinx, which we call the Universe, and to
wrest completely therefrom the secrets of Life and Death. Though he
has never been deified, we repeat, yet he has nevertheless been
recognised by generations in Asia as Lord of the Universe. This is why
the conqueror and master of the world of thought and philosophy is
represented as seated on a lotus in full bloom, emblem of the Universe
thought out by him. In India and Ceylon the lotus is generally of a
golden hue; amongst the Buddhists of the North, it is blue.

But there exists in one part of the world a third kind of lotus -- the
Zizyphus. He who eats of it forgets of his fatherland and those who
are dear to him, so say the ancients. Let us not follow this example.
Let us not forget our spiritual home, the cradle of the human race,
and the birthplace of the Blue Lotus.
Let us then raise the veil of oblivion which covers one of the most
ancient allegories -- a Vedic legend which, however, the Brahman
chroniclers have preserved. Only as the chroniclers have recounted the
legend each after his own manner, aided by variations* of his own, we
have given the story here -- not according to the incomplete
renderings and translations of these Eastern gentlemen but according
to the popular version. (* Cf. the history of Sunahsepha in the
Bhagavata, IX, XVI, 35 and of the Ramayana, Bk. I. Cap. 60; Manu, X,
105; Koulouka Bhatta [the Historian]; Bahwruba and the Aitareya
Brahmanas; Vishnu Purana, etc., etc. Each book gives its own version.)
Thus is it that the old bards of Rajasthan sing it, when they come and
seat themselves in the verandah of the travellers bungalow in the wet
evenings of the rainy season. Let us leave then the Orientalists to
their fantastic speculations. How does it concern us whether the
father of the selfish and cowardly prince, who was the cause of the
transformation of the white lotus into the blue lotus, be called
Harischandra or Ambarisha? Names have nothing to do with the naive
poetry of the legend, nor with its moral -- for there is a moral to be
found if looked for well. We shall soon see that the chief episode in
the story is curiously reminiscent of another legend -- that of the
story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in the Bible. Is not this
one more proof that the Secret Doctrine of the East may have good
reason to maintain that the name of the Patriarch was neither a
Chaldean or a Hebrew name, but rather an epithet and a Sanskrit
surname, signifying abram, i.e., one is non-Brahman,* a debrahmanised
Brahman, one who is degraded or who has lost his caste? After this how
can we avoid suspecting that we may find, among the modern Jews, the
Chaldeans of the time of the Rishi Agastya -- these makers of bricks
whose persecution began from eight hundred to a thousand years ago,
but who emigrated to Chaldea four thousand years before the Christian
era -- when so many of the popular legends of Southern India resemble
the Bible stories. Louis Jacolliot speaks in several of his twenty-one
volumes on Brahmanical India of this matter, and for once he is right.

[* The particle a in the Sanskrit word shews this clearly. Placed
before a substantive this particle always means the negation or the
opposite of the meaning of the expression that follows. Thus Sura
(god) written a-Sura, becomes non-God, or the devil, Vidya is
knowledge, and a-Vidya, ignorance or the opposite of knowledge, etc.,
etc. [

We will speak of it another time. Meanwhile here is the Legend of



THE BLUE LOTUS


Century after century has passed away since Ambarisha, King of
Ayodhya, reigned in the city founded by the holy Manu, Vaivasvata, the
offspring of the Sun. The King was a Suryavansi (a descendant of the
Solar Race), and he avowed himself a most faithful servant of the God,
Varuna, the greatest and most powerful deity in the Rig-Veda.* But the
god had denied male heirs to his worshipper, and this made the king
very unhappy.

[* It is only much later in the orthodox Pantheon and the symbolical
polytheism of the Brahmans that Varuna became Poseidon or Neptune --
which he is now. In the Vedas he is the most ancient of the Gods,
identical with Ouranos of the Greek, that is to say a personification
of the celestial space and the infinite gods, the creator and ruler of
heaven and earth, the King, the Father and the Master of the world, of
gods and of men. Hesiod's Uranus and the Greek Zeus are one. [

"Alas!" he wailed, every morning while performing his puja to the
lesser gods, "alas! What avails it to be the greatest king on earth
when God denies me an heir of my blood. When I am dead and placed on
the funeral pyre, who will fulfill the pious duties of a son, and
shatter my lifeless skull to liberate my soul from its earthly
trammels? What strange hand will at the full moon-tide place the rice
of the Shraddha ceremony to do reverence to my shade? Will not the
very birds of death [Rooks and ravens] themselves turn from the
funeral feast? For, surely, my shade earthbound in its great despair
will not permit them to partake of it."

[* The Shradda is a ceremony observed by the nearest relatives of the
deceased for the nine days following the death. Once upon a time it
was a magical ceremony. Now, however, in addition to other practices,
it mainly consists of scattering balls of cooked rice before the door
of the dead man's house. If the crows promptly eat the rice it is a
sign that the soul is liberated and at rest. If these birds which are
so greedy did not touch the food, it was a proof that the pisacha or
bhut (shade) is present and is preventing them. Undoubtedly the
Shradda is a superstition, but certainly not more so than Novenas or
masses for the Dead. ]

The King was thus bewailing, when his family priest inspired him with
the idea of making a vow. If God should send him two or more sons, he
would promise God to sacrifice to Him at a public ceremony the eldest
born when he should have attained the age of puberty.

Attracted by this promise of a burnt-offering of flesh -- a savory
odour very agreeable to the Great Gods -- Varuna accepted the promise
of the King, and the happy Ambarisha had a son, followed by several
others. The eldest son, the heir to the throne for the time being, was
called Rohita (the red) and was surnamed Devarata -- which, literally
translated, means God-given. Devarata grew up and soon became a
veritable Prince Charming, but if we are to believe the legends he was
as selfish and deceitful as he was beautiful.

When the Prince had attained the appointed age, the God speaking
through the mouth of the same Court Priest, charged the King to keep
his promise; but when each time Ambarisha invented some excuse to
postpone the hour of sacrifice, the God at last grew annoyed. Being a
jealous and angry God, he threatened the King with all His Divine
wrath.

For a long time, neither commands nor threats produced the desired
effect. As long as there were sacred cows to be transferred from the
royal cowsheds to those of the Brahmans, as long as there was money in
the Treasury to fill the Temple crypts, the Brahmans succeeded in
keeping Varuna quiet. But when there were no more cows, when there was
no more money, the God threatened to overthrow the King, his palace
and his heirs, and if they escaped, to burn them alive. The poor King,
finding himself at the end of his resources, summoned his first-born
and informed him of the fate which awaited him. But Devarata lent a
deaf ear to these tidings. He refused to submit to the double weight
of the paternal and divine will.

So, when the sacrificial fires had been lighted and all the good
towns-folk of Ayodhya had gathered together, full of emotion, the
heir-apparent was absent from the festival.

He had concealed himself in the forests of the Yogis.

Now, these forests had been inhabited by holy hermits, and Devarata
knew that there be would be unassailable and impregnable. He might be
seen there, but no one could do him violence -- not even the God
Varuna Himself. It was a simple solution. The religious austerities of
the Aranyakas (the holy men of the forests) several of whom were
Daityas (Titans, a race of giants and demons), gave them such
dominance that all the Gods trembled before their sway and their
supernatural powers -- even Varuna, himself.

These antediluvian Yogis, it seems, had the power to destroy even the
God Himself, at will -- possibly because they had invented Him
themselves.

Devarata spent several years in the forests; at last he grew tired of
the life. Allowing it to be understood that he could satisfy Varuna by
finding a substitute, who would sacrifice himself in his place,
provided that the sacrificial victim was the son of a Rishi, he
started on his journey and finally discovered that he sought.

In the country which lies around the flower-covered shores of the
renowned Pushkara, there was once a famine, and a very holy man, named
Ajigarta,* was at the point of death from starvation, likewise all his
family. He had several sons of whom the second, Sunahsepha, a virtuous
young man, was himself also preparing to become a Rishi. Taking
advantage of his poverty and thinking with good reason that a hungry
stomach would be a more ready listener than a satisfied one, the
crafty Devarata made the father acquainted with his history. After
this he offered him a hundred cows in exchange for Sunahsepha, a
substitute burnt-offering on the altar of the Gods.

[* Others call him Rishika and call King Ambarisha, Harischandra, the
famous sovereign who was a paragon of all the virtues. ]

The virtuous father refused at first point-blank, but the gentle
Sunahsepha offered himself of his own accord, and thus addressed his
father: "Of what importance is the life of one man, when it can save
that of many others. This God is a great god and His pity is infinite;
but He is also a very jealous god and His wrath is swift and vengeful.
Varuna is the Lord of Terror, and Death is obedient to His command.
His spirit will not for ever strive with one who is disobedient to
Him. He will repent Him that He has created man, and then will burn
alive a hundred thousand lakhs* of innocent people (*A lakh is a
measure of 100,000, whether men or pieces of money be in question.),
because of one man who is guilty. If His victim should escape Him, He
will surely dry up our rivers, set fire to our lands and destroy our
women who are with child -- in His infinite kindness. Let me then
sacrifice myself, oh! my father, in place of this stranger who offers
us a hundred cows. That sum would prevent thee and my brothers from
dying of hunger and will save thousands of others from a terrible
death. At this price the giving up of life is a pleasant thing."

The aged Rishi shed some tears, but he ended by giving his consent and
began to prepare the sacrificial pyre.*

[*Manu (Book X, 105) alluding to this story remarks that Ajigarta, the
holy Rishi, committed no sin in selling the life of his son, since the
sacrifice preserved his life and that of all the family. This reminds
us of another legend, more modern, that might serve as a parallel to
the older one. Did not the Count Ugolino, condemned to die of
starvation in his dungeon, eat his own children "to preserve for them
a father"? The popular legend of Sunahsepha is more beautiful than the
commentary of Manu -- evidently an interpolation of some Brahmans in
falsified manuscripts. ]

The Pushkara lake* was one of the spots of this earth favoured by the
Goddess, Lakshmi-Padma (White Lotus); she often plunged into the fresh
waters that she might visit her eldest sister, Varuni, the consort of
the God Varuna.** Lakshmi-Padma heard the proposal of Devarata,
witnessed the despair of the father, and admired the filial devotion
of Sunahsepha. Filled with pity, the Mother of Love and Compassion
sent for the Rishi Visvamitra, one of the seven primordial Manus and a
son of Brahma, and succeeded in interesting him in the lot of her
protege. The great Rishi promised her his aid. Appearing to
Sunahsepha, but unseen by all others, he taught him two sacred verses
(mantras) of the Rig-Veda, making him promise to recite these on the
pyre. Now, he who utters these two mantras (invocations) forces the
whole assembly of the Gods, with Indra at their head, to come to his
rescue, and because of this becomes a Rishi himself in this life or in
his next incarnation.

[* This lake is sometimes called in our day Pokker. It is I place
famous for a yearly pilgrimage, and is charmingly situated five
English miles from Ajmeer in Rajisthan. Pushkara means "the Blue
Lotus", the surface of the lake being covered as with a carpet with
these beautiful plants. But the legend avers that they were at first
white. Pushkara is also the proper name of a man, and the name of one
of the seven sacred islands" in the Geography of the Hindus, the septa
dwipa.

** Varuni, Goddess of Heat (later Goddess of Wine) was also born of
the Ocean of Milk. Of the "fourteen precious objects" produced by the
churning, she appeared the second and Lakshmi the last, preceded by
the Chalice of Amrita, the nectar which gives immortality. ]

The altar was set up on the shore of the lake, the pyre was prepared
and the crowd had assembled. After he had laid his son on the perfumed
sandal wood and bound him, Ajigarta equipped himself with the knife of
sacrifice. He was just raising his trembling arm above the heart of
his well-beloved son, when the boy began to chant the sacred verses.
There was again a moment of hesitation and supreme grief, and as the
boy finished his mantram, the aged Rishi plunged his knife into the
breast of Sunahsepha.

But, oh! the miracle of it! At that very moment Indra, the God of the
Blue Vault (the Universe) issued from the heavens and descended right
into the midst of the ceremony. Enveloping the pyre and the victim in
a thick blue mist, he loosed the ropes which held the youth captive.
It seemed as if a corner of the azure heavens had lowered itself over
the spot, illuminating the whole country and colouring with a golden
blue the whole scene. Filled with terror, the crowd, and even the
Rishi himself, fell on their faces, half dead with fear.

When they came to themselves, the mist had disappeared and a complete
change of scene had been wrought.

The fires of the funeral pyre had rekindled of themselves, and
stretched thereon was seen a hind (Rohit)* which was none else than
the Prince Rohita, Devarata, who, pierced to the heart with the knife
he had directed against another, was burning as a sacrifice for his
sin.

[* A play upon words. Rohit in Sanskrit is the Dame of the female of
the deer, the hind, and Rohita means "red". It was because of his
cowardice and fear of death that he was changed, according to the
legend, into a hind by the Gods. ]

Some little way apart from the altar, also lying stretched out, but on
a bed of Lotuses, peacefully slept Sunahsepha; and in the place on his
breast where the knife had descended was seen to bloom a beautiful
blue lotus. The Pushkara lake, itself, covered a moment before with
white lotuses, whose petals shone in the sun like silver cups full of
Amrita's waters [The Elixir which confers Immortality.], now reflected
the azure of the heavens -- the white lotuses had become blue.
Then like to the sound of the Vina [A species of the Lute. An
instrument, the invention of which is attributed to Shiva.] rising to
the air from the depth of the waters, was heard a melodious voice
which uttered these words and this curse:

"A prince who does not know how to die for his subjects is not worthy
to reign over the children of the Sun. He will be reborn in a race of
red haired peoples, a barbarous and selfish race, and the nations
which descend from him will have a heritage ever on the decline. It is
the younger son of a mendicant ascetic who will become the King and
reign in his stead."

A murmur of approbation set in movement the flowery carpet that
overspread the lake. Opening to the golden sunlight their hearts of
blue, the lotuses smiled with joy and wafted a hymn of perfume to
Surya, their Sun and Master. All nature rejoiced, save Devarata, who
was but a handful of ashes.
Then Visvamitra, the great Rishi, although he was already the father
of a hundred sons, adopted Sunahsepha as his eldest son and as a
precautionary measure cursed in advance anyone who should refuse to
recognise, in the last born of the Rishi, the eldest of his children
and the legitimate heir of the throne of Ambarisha.

Because of this decree, Sunahsepha was born in his next incarnation in
the royal family of Ayodhya and reigned over the Solar race for 84,000
years.

With regard to Rohita -- Devarata or God-given as he was -- he
fulfilled the lot which Lakshmi Padma had vowed. He reincarnated in
the family of a foreigner without caste (Mleccha-Yavana) and became
the ancestor of the barbarous and red-haired races which dwell in the
West.

* * * * *

It is for the conversion of these races that the Lotus Bleu has been
established.
If any of our readers should allow themselves to doubt the historical
truth of this adventure of our ancestor; Rohita, and of the
transformation of the white lotus into the blue lotus, they are
invited to make a journey to Ajmeer.

Once there, they need only to go to the shores of the lake thrice
blessed, named Pushkara, where every pilgrim who bathes during the
full moon time of the month of Krihktika (October-November) attains to
the highest sanctity, without other effort. There the sceptics would
see with their own eyes the site where was built the pyre of Rohita,
and also the waters visited by Lakshmi in days of yore.

They might even have seen the blue lotuses, if most of these had not
since been changed, thanks to a new transformation decreed by the
Gods, into sacred crocodiles which no one has the right to disturb. It
is this transformation which gives to nine out of every ten pilgrims
who plunge into the waters of the lake, the opportunity of entering
into Nirvana almost immediately, and also causes the holy crocodiles
to be the most bulky of their kind.

--- H.P.Blavatsky


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offered by


Dallas

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continued in Part II

Begins a BEWITCHED LIFE by H P B