Theos-Talk Archives (May 2002 Message tt00030)

PART I

Friday, May 03, 2002


Re: KARMIC VISIONS by H.P.Blavatsky


Dear Friends:


It is significant that this article - story was published in LUCIFER
in the week of the death of Frederick the III of Prussia from cancer
of the throat. The story was actually written and put into type
before the King died.

Every once and a while, H P B would publish a story, or a tale that
illustrated Theosophical doctrines.

In KARMIC VISIONS she gives us a view of some of the previous causes
and factors relating to the life of the SOUL-EGO that was Frederick
III of Prussia. Apparently, he was a reincarnation of the ferocious
Clovis of early Frankish history.

We have much to learn here about the operations of Karma, and the
states that the Soul-Ego passes through after death. But the story
tells its own gripping tale and benefits us all.

Best wishes,



Dallas



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KARMIC VISIONS


Story / Article by H. P. Blavatsky


Oh, sad no more! Oh, sweet
No more!
Oh, strange No more!
By a mossed brook bank on a stone
I smelt a wild weed-flower alone;
There was a ringing in my ears,
And both my eyes gushed out with tears,
Surely all pleasant things had gone before.
Buried fathom deep beneath with thee, NO MORE!

--TENNYSON
(The "Gem," 1831)

I

A CAMP filled with war-chariots, neighing horses and legions of
long-haired soldiers. . . .

A regal tent, gaudy in its barbaric splendour. Its linen walls are
weighed down under the burden of arms. In its centre a raised seat
covered with skins, and on it a stalwart, savage-looking warrior. He
passes in review prisoners of war brought in turn before him, who are
disposed of according to the whim of the heartless despot.

A new captive is now before him, and is addressing him with passionate
earnestness. . . . As he listens to her with suppressed passion in his
manly, but fierce, cruel face, the balls of his eyes become bloodshot
and roll with fury. And as he bends forward with fierce stare, his
whole appearance--his matted locks hanging over the frowning brow, his
big-boned body with strong sinews, and the two large hands resting on
the shield placed upon the right knee--justifies the remark made in
hardly audible whisper by a grey-headed soldier to his neighbor:

"Little mercy shall the holy prophetess receive at the hand of
Clovis!"

The captive, who stands between two Burgundian warriors, facing the
ex-prince of the Salians, now king of all the Franks, is an old woman
with silver-white dishevelled hair, hanging over her skeleton-like
shoulders. In spite of her great age, her tall figure is erect; and
the inspired black eyes look proudly and fearlessly into the cruel
face of the treacherous son of Gilderich.

"Aye, King," she says, in a loud, ringing voice. "Aye, thou art great
and mighty now, but thy days are numbered, and thou shalt reign but
three summers longer. Wicked thou wert born . . . perfidious thou art
to thy friends and allies, robbing more than one of his lawful crown.
Murderer of thy next-of-kin, thou who addest to the knife and spear in
open warfare, dagger, poison, and treason, beware how thou dealest
with the servant of Nerthus!" [The "Mother Goddess," The "Nurturer
of the World."]
"Ha, ha, ha! . . . old hag of Hell!" chuckles the King, with an evil,
ominous sneer. "Thou hast crawled out of the entrails of thy
mother-goddess, truly. Thou fearest not my wrath? It is well. But
little need I fear thine empty imprecations. . . . I, a baptized
Christian!"

"So, so," replies the Sybil. "All know that Clovis has abandoned the
gods of his fathers; that he has lost all faith in the warning voice
of the white horse of the Sun, and that out of fear of the Alemanni he
went serving on his knees Remigius, the servant of the Nazarene, at
Rheims. But hast thou become any truer in thy new faith? Hast thou not
murdered in cold blood all thy brethren who trusted in thee, after, as
well as before, thy apostasy? Hast not thou plighted troth to Alaric,
the King of the West Goths, and hast thou not killed him by stealth,
running thy spear into his back while he was bravely fighting an
enemy? And is it thy new faith and thy new gods that teach thee to be
devising in thy black soul even now foul means against Theodoric, who
put thee down? . . . Beware, Clovis, beware! For now the gods of thy
fathers have risen against thee! Beware, I say, for. . . ."

"Woman!" fiercely cries the King--"Woman, cease thy insane talk and
answer my question. Where is the treasure of the grove amassed by thy
priests of Satan, and hidden after they had been driven away by the
Holy Cross? . . . Thou alone knowest. Answer, or by Heaven and Hell I
shall thrust thy evil tongue down thy throat for ever!" . . .

She heeds not the threat, but goes on calmly and fearlessly as before,
as if she had not heard.

". . . The gods say, Clovis, thou art accursed! . . . Clovis, thou
shalt be reborn among thy present enemies, and suffer the tortures
thou hast inflicted upon thy victims. All the combined power and glory
thou hast deprived them of shall be thine in prospect, yet thou shalt
never reach it! . . . Thou shalt . . ."

The prophetess never finishes her sentence.

With a terrible oath the King, crouching like a wild beast on his
skin-covered seat, pounces upon her with the leap of a jaguar, and
with one blow fells her to the ground. And as he lifts his sharp
murderous spear the "Holy One" of the Sun-worshipping tribe makes the
air ring with a last imprecation.

"I curse thee, enemy of Nerthus! May my agony be tenfold thine! . . .
. May the Great Law avenge. . . ."

The heavy spear falls, and, running through the victim's throat, nails
the head to the ground. A stream of hot crimson blood gushes from the
gaping wound and covers king and soldiers with indelible gore. . . .

II

Time--the landmark of gods and men in the boundless field of Eternity,
the murderer of its offspring and of memory in mankind--time moves on
with noiseless, incessant step through aeons and ages. . . . Among
millions of other Souls, a Soul-Ego is reborn: for weal or for woe,
who knoweth! Captive in its new human Form, it grows with it, and
together they become, at last, conscious of their existence.

Happy are the years of their blooming youth, unclouded with want or
sorrow. Neither knows aught of the Past nor of the Future. For them
all is the joyful Present: for the Soul-Ego is unaware that it had
ever lived in other human tabernacles, it knows not that it shall be
again reborn, and it takes no thought of the morrow.
Its Form is calm and content. It has hitherto given its Soul-Ego no
heavy troubles. Its happiness is due to the continuous mild serenity
of its temper, to the affection it spreads wherever it goes. For it is
a noble Form, and its heart is full of benevolence. Never has the Form
startled its Soul-Ego with a too-violent shock, or otherwise disturbed
the calm placidity of its tenant.

Two score of years glide by like one short pilgrimage; a long walk
through the sun-lit paths of life, hedged by ever-blooming roses with
no thorns. The rare sorrows that befall the twin pair, Form and Soul,
appear to them rather like the pale light of the cold northern moon,
whose beams throw into a deeper shadow all around the moon-lit
objects, than as the blackness of night, the night of hopeless sorrow
and despair.
Son of a Prince, born to rule himself one day his father's kingdom;
surrounded from his cradle by reverence and honours; deserving of the
universal respect and sure of the love of all--what could the Soul-Ego
desire more from the Form it dwelt in?

And so the Soul-Ego goes on enjoying existence in its tower of
strength, gazing quietly at the panorama of life ever changing before
its two windows--the two kind blue eyes of a loving and good man.

III

One day an arrogant and boisterous enemy threatens the father's
kingdom, and the savage instincts of the warrior of old awaken in the
Soul-Ego. It leaves its dream-land amid the blossoms of life and
causes its Ego of clay to draw the soldier's blade, assuring him it is
in defence of his country.

Prompting each other to action, they defeat the enemy and cover
themselves with glory and pride. They make the haughty foe bite the
dust at their feet in supreme humiliation. For this they are crowned
by history with the unfading laurels of valour, which are those of
success. They make a footstool of the fallen enemy and transform their
sire's little kingdom into a great empire. Satisfied they could
achieve no more for the present, they return to seclusion and to the
dreamland of their sweet home.

For three lustra more the Soul-Ego sits at its usual post, beaming out
of its window on the world around. Over its head the sky is blue and
the vast horizons are covered with those seemingly unfading flowers
that grow in the sunlight of health and strength. All looks fair as a
verdant mead in spring. . . . . .

IV

But an evil day comes to all in the drama of being. It waits through
the life of king and of beggar. It leaves traces on the history of
every mortal born from woman, and it can neither be scared away,
entreated. nor propitiated. Health is a dewdrop that falls from the
heavens to vivify the blossoms on earth only during the morn of life.
its spring and summer. . . . It has but a short duration and returns
from whence it came--the invisible realms.

How oft 'neath the bud that is brightest and fairest,
The seeds of the canker in embryo lurk!
How oft at the root of the flower that is rarest--
Secure in its ambush the worm is at work. . . .

The running sand which moves downward in the glass, wherein the hours
of human life are numbered, runs swifter. The worm has gnawed the
blossom of health through its heart. The strong body is found
stretched one day on the thorny bed of pain.

The Soul-Ego beams no longer. It sits still and looks sadly out of
what has become its dungeon windows, on the world which is now rapidly
being shrouded for it in the funeral palls of suffering. Is it the eve
of night eternal which is nearing?

V

Beautiful are the resorts on the midland sea. An endless line of
surf-beaten, black, ragged rocks stretches, hemmed in between the
golden sands of the coast and the deep blue waters of the gulf. They
offer their granite breast to the fierce blows of the northwest wind
and thus protect the dwellings of the rich that nestle at their foot
on the inland side. The half-ruined cottages on the open shore are the
insufficient shelter of the poor. Their squalid bodies are often
crushed under the walls torn and washed down by wind and angry wave.
But they only follow the great law of the survival of the fittest. Why
should they be protected?
Lovely is the morning when the sun dawns with golden amber tints and
its first rays kiss the cliffs of the beautiful shore. Glad is the
song of the lark, as, emerging from its warm nest of herbs, it drinks
the morning dew from the deep flower-cups; when the tip of the rosebud
thrills under the caress of the first sunbeam, and earth and heaven
smile in mutual greeting. Sad is the Soul-Ego alone as it gazes on
awakening nature from the high couch opposite the large bay-window.

How calm is the approaching noon as the shadow creeps steadily on the
sundial towards the hour of rest! Now the hot sun begins to melt the
clouds in the limpid air and the last shreds of the morning mist that
lingers on the tops of the distant hills vanish in it. All nature is
prepared to rest at the hot and lazy hour of midday. The feathered
tribes cease their song; their soft, gaudy wings droop, and they hang
their drowsy heads, seeking refuge from the burning heat. A morning
lark is busy nestling in the bordering bushes under the clustering
flowers of the pomegranate and the sweet bay of the Mediterranean. The
active songster has become voiceless.

"Its voice will resound as joyfully again to-morrow!" sighs the
Soul-Ego, as it listens to the dying buzzing of the insects on the
verdant turf. "Shall ever mine?"

And now the flower-scented breeze hardly stirs the languid heads of
the luxuriant plants. A solitary palm-tree, growing out of the cleft
of a moss-covered rock, next catches the eye of the Soul-Ego. Its once
upright, cylindrical trunk has been twisted out of shape and
half-broken by the nightly blasts of the north-west winds. And as it
stretches wearily its drooping feathery arms, swayed to and fro in the
blue pellucid air, its body trembles and threatens to break in two at
the first new gust that may arise.

"And then, the severed part will fall into the sea, and the once
stately palm will be no more," soliloquises the Soul-Ego as it gazes
sadly out of its windows.

Everything returns to life in the cool, old bower at the hour of
sunset. The shadows on the sun-dial become with every moment thicker,
and animate nature awakens busier than ever in the cooler hours of
approaching night. Birds and insects chirrup and buzz their last
evening hymns around the tall and still powerful Form, as it paces
slowly and wearily along the gravel walk. And now its heavy gaze falls
wistfully on the azure bosom of the tranquil sea. The gulf sparkles
like a gem-studded carpet of blue-velvet in the farewell dancing
sunbeams, and smiles like a thoughtless, drowsy child, weary of
tossing about. Further on, calm and serene in its perfidious beauty,
the open sea stretches far and wide the smooth mirror of its cool
waters--salt and bitter as human tears. It lies in its treacherous
repose like a gorgeous, sleeping monster, watching over the unfathomed
mystery of its dark abysses. Truly the monumentless cemetery of the
millions sunk in its depths. . . .

Without a grave,
Unknell'd, uncoffined and unknown. . . .

while the sorry relic of the once noble Form pacing yonder, once that
its hour strikes and the deep-voiced bells toll the knell for the
departed soul, shall be laid out in state and pomp. Its dissolution
will be announced by millions of trumpet voices. Kings, princes and
the mighty ones of the earth will be present at its obsequies, or will
send their representatives with sorrowful faces and condoling messages
to those left behind. . .

"One point gained, over those 'uncoffined and unknown'," is the bitter
reflection of the Soul-Ego.
Thus glides past one day after the other; and as swift-winged Time
urges his flight, every vanishing hour destroying some thread in the
tissue of life, the Soul-Ego is gradually transformed in its views of
things and men. Flitting between two eternities, far away from its
birth-place, solitary among its crowd of physicians, and attendants,
the Form is drawn with every day nearer to its Spirit-Soul. Another
light unapproached and unapproachable in days of joy, softly descends
upon the weary prisoner. It sees now that which it had never perceived
before. . . . . .
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CONTINUED IN PART II