Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00067)

3

Some more important considerations on human evolution

Dallas

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We are Never 'Left Alone," or "Abandoned" by the Adepts


"Never have we been left alone. Always there are beings greater in
evolution than we, who return to this field of physical existence to
help us, to wake us up to a perception of our natures. Such has been
the mission of all Divine Incarnations down the ages. Those beings
have come and lived among us, have become "in all things like unto
us," as was said of Jesus, in order that the human words They spoke
should be words we would understand. They meet us on the basis of our
ideas and try to clarify them and set them in a true course. They can
do nothing to stop what (338) we have done and what we want to do;
They can not interfere; but They can help us to see the right
direction, if we are so willed...Always They try to help us, even when
we are proceeding along wrong lines and bringing upon ourselves the
suffering such wrong lines entail--even then They try to direct the
results into a better channel..."	RC -- FP p. 337-8



Chrestos and Christos


"One has to die in chrestos, i.e., kill one's personality and its
passions, to blot out every idea of separateness from one's "Father,"
the Divine Spirit in man' to become one with the eternal and absolute
Life and Light (SAT) before one can reach the glorious state of
Christos, the regenerated man, the man in spiritual freedom."	HPB
ARTICLES III 190 fn

"...Christ--the true esoteric Saviour--is no man, but the Divine
Principle in every human being. He who strives to resurrect the
Spirit crucified in him by his own terrestrial passions, and buried
deep in the "sepulchre" of his sinful flesh; he who has the strength
to roll back the stone of matter from the door of his own inner
sanctuary, he has the risen Christ in him. The "Son of Man" is no
child of the bond-woman--flesh, but verily of the free-woman--Spirit,
the child of man's own deeds, and the fruit of his own spiritual
labour."	HPB ARTICLES III 168-9


"We may learn from the Gospel according to Luke, that the "worthy"
were those who had been initiated into the mysteries of the
Gnosis..."those who knew that they could die no more, being equal to
the angels as sons of God and sons of the Resurrection." In other
words, they were the great adepts of whatever religion; and the
words apply to all those, who, without being Initiates, strive and
succeed, through personal efforts to live the life and to attain the
naturally ensuing spiritual illumination in blending their
personality--(the "Son") with (the "Father"), their individual divine
Spirit, the God within them. This "resurrection" can never be
monopolized by the Christians, but is the spiritual birth-right of
every human being endowed with soul and spirit, whatever his religion
may be. Such individual is a Christ-man. On the other hand, those who
choose to ignore the Christ (principle) within themselves, must die
unregenerate heathens--baptism, sacraments, lip-prayers, and belief in
dogmas notwithstanding."	HPB ARTICLES
III 176



The Path of the Individuality


"H.P.B. said, "Do not follow me nor my path; follow the Path I show,
the Masters who are behind." [HPB ARTICLES I 123] This she knew to be
the safe course for all, for each one will judge of the words and
deeds of a personality from his own standpoint and understanding, some
under-rating, some exaggerating, and some with indifference...there is
recognition of those who are traveling the same path, and in that
recognition, there is comfort and help which extends from the smallest
to the greatest--a great band of brothers which includes the Masters
as the Guides and the Consummation. "Whosoever does it unto the least
of these, does it unto me."	
RC -- FP. p. 151-2



Avatara and Siddha Purusha

"A Siddha Purusha (perfect man) is like an archaeologist who removes
the dust and lays open an old well which has been covered up by ages
of disuse.

The Avatara, on the other hand, is like an engineer who sinks a new
well in a place where there was no water before. Great Men give
salvation to those only who have the waters of piety hidden in
themselves, but the Avatara saves him too whose heart is devoid of
love and dry as a desert."
RC -- FP p. 151-2



Divine Incarnations are Volunteers -- Renouncers of Bliss


"...those who of their own free will enter bodies to help humanity
pass through them like any human being, but are not involved in them.
They feel like any human being, and go through much more than most, so
that there may be fresh in their bodily experience all feelings that
afflict or ease humanity. Their grief--if it may be called so--is
over the inability of humans to understand because of the purely
personal elements which prevail in mankind.

"Masters feel pain but are not disturbed by it." That feeling is
sympathy--a feeling with the condition. They know what any one feels
under the circumstances, but They also know that the so-called
sufferings of others are not due to the circumstances, but to a false
attitude toward them...(195) The pain we feel most in mental pain..."
RC -- FP p. 194-5



Divine Incarnations:-- Jesus & Buddha -- Their Missions


"I produce myself among creatures" has reference to voluntary and
conscious incarnation of high spiritual beings--avatars, saviours of
the people --including not only the incarnation itself but the
influence of a spiritual kind that attends the being...The Gita says
that They come "whenever there is an insurrection of vice and
injustice in the world." There is an analogy between this and what
was hinted about earthquakes by WQJ, who wrote at the time of an
earthquake that some soul of use had been born...There is reason to
think that the mission of Jesus was a minor one, being in a falling
cycle, and that it was not so much to disclose as to cover up the
avenues to occult knowledge, so that the following times of the
decadence of spirituality should not have dangerous weapons left for
selfish, unprincipled and ignorant people to use; hence he
accentuated ethics. This does not mean that the being known as Jesus
was inferior to the one known as Buddha. They might have been one and
the same being, in reality. The statement is that the "missions" or
efforts were of a different nature because of the different cycles and
peoples...We cannot judge of the nature of any of these great
incarnations, to the extent of saying that one is superior to the
other...Allied to our period, if we consider that the quality of the
cycle varies in importance, and, consequently, in the degree of the
being needed at any time, we find the conjunction of the cycles above
spoken of points to a most important period, and consequently, to
important "beings"--which may give us a clue to what the Messengers
HPB and WQJ really were. Other periods of less importance bring
incarnations of probationary chelas who are on their trial." 
RC -- FP p. 201-2



Innate - Inherent Ideas from "Planetary Spirits"


"Up to the period marked by the first earthly King called Ikshwaku,
the Ruler was a spiritual Being whom all men knew to be such, for his
power, glory, benevolence, and wisdom were evident. He lived an
immense number of years, and taught men not only Yoga but also arts
and sciences. The ideas implanted then, having been set in motion by
one who knew all the laws, remain as inherent ideas to this
day...(105) They are preserved by the uneducated masses, who, having
no scholastic theories to divert their minds, keep up what is left of
the succession of ideas."
GITA NOTES p. 104-5


"Alone the adepts, i.e., the embodied spirits--are forbidden by our
wise and intransgressible laws to completely subject to themselves
another and weaker will,--that of free born man. The latter mode of
proceeding is the favorite one resorted to by the "Brothers of the
Shadow," the Sorcerers, the Elementary Spooks, and, as an isolated
exception--by the highest Planetary (41) Spirits, those, who can no
longer err. But those appear on Earth but at the origin of every new
human kind; at the junction of, and close of the two ends of the
great cycle. And, they remain with man no longer than the time
required for the eternal truths they teach to impress themselves so
forcibly upon the plastic minds or the new race as to warrant them
from being lost or entirely forgotten in ages hereafter, by the
forthcoming generations. The mission of the planetary Spirits is but
to strike the KEY-NOTE OF TRUTH. Once he has directed the vibration
of the latter to run its course uninterruptedly along the catenation
of that race and to the end of the cycle--the denizen of the highest
inhabited sphere disappears from the surface of our planet--till the
following "resurrection of flesh." The vibrations of the Primitive
Truth are what your philosophers name "innate ideas."	M.L. 40-1


"...Truth is One, and cannot admit of diametrically opposite views;
and pure Spirits who see it as it is, with the veil of matter entirely
withdrawn from it cannot err. Now, if we allow of different aspects
or portions of the Whole Truth being visible to different agencies or
intelligences, each under various conditions, as for example various
portions of the one landscape develop themselves to various persons at
various distances and from various standpoints--if we admit the fact
of...individual Brothers for instance endeavoring to develop the Egos
of different individuals, without subjecting entirely their wills to
their own (as it is forbidden) but by availing themselves of their
physical, moral, and intellectual idiosyncrasies; if we add the
countless kosmical influences which distort and deflect all efforts to
achieve definite purposes; if we remember, moreover, the direct
hostility of the Brethren of the Shadow always on the watch to perplex
and haze the neophyte's brain, I think we shall have no difficulty in
understanding how even a definite spiritual advance may to a certain
extent lead different individuals to apparently different conclusions
and theories."	M.L. 49



Total Evolution : -- The Individual Choice for the 
Goal --	Spiritual Training


"The process of evolution up to reunion with the Divine is and
includes successive elevation from rank to rank of power and
usefulness. The most exalted beings still in the flesh are known as
Sages, Rishis, Brothers, Masters. Their great functions being the
preservation at all times, and when cyclic laws permit, the extension
of spiritual knowledge and influence.

As to the process of spiritual development, Theosophy teaches:

1.	That the essence of the process lies in the securing of
supremacy to the highest, the spiritual, element of man's nature.

2.	That this is attained along 4 lines, among others, --

A.	The entire eradication of selfishness in all forms,
and the cultivation of broad, generous sympathy in, and effort for the
good of others.

B.	The absolute cultivation of the inner, spiritual man
by meditation, by reaching to and communion with the Divine [within],
and by exercise of the kind described by Patanjali, i.e., incessant
striving to an ideal end.

C.	The control of fleshly appetites and desires, all
lower, material interests being deliberately subordinated to the
behests of the spirit.

D.	The careful performance of every duty belonging to
one's station in life, without desire for reward, leaving results for
Divine law.

3.	That while the above is incumbent on and practicable by all
religiously disposed men, a yet higher plane of spiritual attainment
is conditioned (26) upon a specific course of training, 
physical, intellectual and spiritual, by which the internal 
faculties are first aroused and then developed.

4.	That an extension of this process is reached in Arhatship,
Mahatmaship, or the states of Rishis, Sages and Dhyan Chohans, 
which are all exalted stages, attained by laborious self-discipline
and hardship protracted through possibly many incarnations, and with
many degrees of initiation and preferment, beyond which are yet other
stages ever approaching the Divine.


As to the rationale of spiritual development it asserts:


1.	That the process takes place entirely within the individual
himself, the motive, the effort, and the result proceeding from his
own inner nature, along the lines of self-evolution.

2.	That still more is gained by a career of duty, piety and
beneficence.

3.	That a still greater advance is attained by the attentive and
devoted use of the means to spiritual culture heretofore stated.

4.	That every race and individual of it reaches in evolution a
period known as "the moment of choice," when they decided for
themselves their future by a deliberate and conscious choice between
eternal life and death, and that this right of choice is the peculiar
appanage of the free soul. It cannot be exercised until the man has
realized the soul within him, and until that soul has attained some
measure of self-consciousness in the body. The moment of choice is
not a fixed period of time; it is made up of all moments. It cannot
come unless all previous lives have led up to it. For the race as a
whole it has not yet come. Any individual can hasten the advent of
this period for himself under the previously stated law of the
ripening of Karma. Should he then fail to choose right he is not
wholly condemned, for the economy of nature provides that he shall
again and again have the opportunity of choice when the moment arrives
for the whole race..."	WQJ -- AN EPITOME OF
THEOSOPHY, p. 25-27 


"Failures" of Humanity -- Further Opportunities


"After this period the race, having blossomed, tends towards its
dissolution. A few individuals of it will have outstripped its
progress and attained Adeptship or Mahatmaship. The main body, who
have chosen aright, but who have not attained salvation, pass into the
subjective condition, there to await the influx of the human life wave
into the next globe, which they are the first souls to people; the
deliberate choosers of evil, whose lives are passed in great spiritual
wickedness (for evil done for the sheer love of evil per se), sever
the connection with the Divine Spirit, or the Monad, which forever
abandons the human Ego. Such Egos pass into the misery of the "8th
sphere," as far as we understand, there to remain until the separation
between what they had thus cultivated and the personal Ishwara or
divine spark is complete...At the next Manvantara that Divine Spark
will probably begin again the long evolutionary journey, being cast
into the stream of life at the source and passing upward again through
all the lower forms.

So long as the connection with the Divine Monad is not severed, this
annihilation of personality cannot take place. Something of that
personality will always remain attached to the immortal Ego. Even
after such severance the human being may live on, a man among men--a
soulless being. This disappointment, so to call if, of the Divine
Spark by depriving it of its chosen vehicle constitutes the "sin
against the Holy Ghost," which its very nature forbade it to pardon,
because it cannot continue an association with principles which have
become degraded and vitiated in the absolute sense, so that they no
longer respond to cyclic or evolutionary impulses, but, weighed by
their own nature, sink to the lowest depths of matter. The connection
once broken, cannot in the nature of Being be resumed. But
innumerable opportunities offer themselves throughout the dissolving
process, which lasts thousands of years..."	WQJ -- EPITOME 27-28


Sacrifice of Spiritual Beings for Benefiting Matter


"...the surname Christos is based on, and the story of the Crucifixion
derived from, events that preceded it. Everywhere, in India as in
Egypt, in Chaldea as in Greece, all these legends were built upon one
and the same primitive type; the voluntary sacrifice of the
logoi--the rays of the one Logos, the direct manifested emanation from
the One ever-concealed Infinite and Unknown--whose rays incarnated in
mankind. They consented to fall into matter, and are, therefore,
called the "Fallen Ones."	HPB ART III 189



Regaining Spiritual Freedom


"One has to die in Chrestos, i.e., kill one's personality and its
passions, to blot out every idea of separateness from one's "Father,"
the Divine Spirit in man; to become one with the eternal and absolute
Life and Light (SAT) before one can reach the glorious state of
Christos, the regenerated man, the man in spiritual freedom."	HPB
ART III 190fn


Descent Into Hell or Hades


"In esoteric philosophy, this going down into the pit has the most
mysterious significance. The Spirit "Christos" or rather the "Logos"
(read LOGOI), is said to "go down into the pit," when it incarnates in
flesh, is born as a man. After having robbed the Elohim (or gods) of
their secret, the pro-creating "fire of life," the Angels of Light are
shown cast down into the pit or abyss of matter, called Hell, or the
bottomless pit, by the kind theologians. This, in Cosmogony and
Anthropology. During the Mysteries, however, it is the Chrestos,
neophyte (as man), etc., who had to descend into the crypts of
Initiation and trials; and finally, during the "Sleep of Siloam" or
the final trance condition, during the hours of which the new Initiate
has the last and final mysteries of being divulged to him. Hades,
Scheol, or Patala, are all one. The same takes place in the East now,
as took place 2,000 years ago in the West, during the MYSTERIES."
HPB ART III 192fn



First Steps in Manifestation and Evolution


"Matter or substance is septenary within our World, as it is so beyond
it. Moreover, each of its states or principles is graduated into
seven degrees of density."	S D I 289


"It is that LIGHT which condenses into the forms of the "Lords of
Being"--the first and highest of which are, collectively JIVATMA or
Pratyagatma (GLOS. 261 - ALAYA)...From these downwards--formed from
the ever consolidating waves of that light, which becomes on the
objective plane gross matter--proceed the numerous hierarchies of the
Creative Forces, some formless, others having their own distinctive
form."	SD II 33-4


"Having sprung into being under the quickening influence of the
uncreated beam, the reflection of the great Central Sun that radiates
on the shores of the river of Life, it is the inner principle in them
[the Beings of Hierarchies] which belong to the waters of immortality,
while its differentiated clothing is as perishable as man's body."
SD I 275-6


"The hosts of these Sons of Light and "Mind-born Sons" of the first
manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual
man."	SD I 106


"...an absolute consciousness, "Adi-Buddhi"; and the Buddhist
philosopher knows that there are Planetary Spirits, the "Dhyan
Chohans."... If the Dhyan Chohans and all the invisible Beings--the
Seven Centres and their direct Emanations, the minor centres of
Energy--are the direct reflex of the ONE LIGHT, yet men are far
removed from these, since the whole of the visible Kosmos consists of
"self-produced beings, the creatures of Karma." ... they teach that
only "two things are (objectively) eternal, namely Akasa and Nirvana;"
and that these are ONE in reality, and but a maya when divided."
SD I 635-6



Planetary Powers and Spirits


"...to the eye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear under
two aspects: the subjective--as influences--, and the objective--as
mystic FORMS, which under Karmic law, become a Presence, Spirit and
Matter being ONE, ... Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter
is Spirit--on the lowest point of its cyclic activity; and both --
are MAYA."	SD I 633


"The Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of the Stars in
general, and of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies of
men who are all born under one or other of their constellations; the
2nd and 3rd groups pertaining t other systems have the same functions,
and all rule various departments of Nature...guardian deities who
preside over the 8 points of the compass...Loka-Palas...the
Lipika...are the Spirits of the Universe, whereas the Builders are
only our own planetary deities. The former belong to the most occult
portion of Cosmogenesis...the Lipika are connected with Karma--being
its direct Recorders...the Lipika are concerned with Humanity's
hereafter."	SD I 128, 126


The Eternal Man


"...the true esoteric meaning is that most of them (the Agnishwatta
Pitris) were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the forthcoming crop
of Mankind. The human Ego is neither Atman nor Buddhi, but the higher
Manas; the intellectual fruition and the efflorescence of the
intellectual self-conscious Egotism--in the higher spiritual sense.
The ancient works refer to it as Karana Sarira on the plane of the
Sutratma, which is the golden thread on which, like beads, the various
personalities of this higher Ego are strung...these beings were
returning Nirvanees, from preceding Maha-Manvantaras--ages of
incalculable duration..."	SD II 79


"...from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being--the
world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose links are all
connected."	SD I 604



Evolution of the Immortal Man


"It is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms
the fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences...the ONE Universal Life,
independent of matter...and...the individual intelligences that
animate the various manifestations of this Principle...The ONE Life is
closely related to the one law which governs the World of
Being--KARMA." SD I 634



Final Initiation


"Every Buddha meets at his last initiation all the great adepts who
reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages...every class of adepts
has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them
together...The only possible and effectual way of entering into such
brotherhood...is by bringing oneself within the influence of the
Spiritual light which radiates from one's own Logos...such communion
is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and
sustenance from the same divine RAY, and that, as seven distinct rays
radiate from the 'Central Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Dhyan Chohans
are divisible into 7 classes, each of which is guided, controlled, and
overshadowed by one of the 7 forms or manifestations of the divine
wisdom."	
(S. Rao quoted - THEOSOPHIST, AUG. 1886) SD I 574


SEVEN-FOLD GROUP OF DHYAN CHOHANS - 
WATCHERS OVER EVOLUTION


"There are 7 chief groups of such Dhyan Chohans...the primeval SEVEN
Rays. Humanity, occultism teaches, is divided into 7 distinct groups
and their sub-divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical (fn) ...(FN)
Hence the 7 chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling 7 spirits,
under each of which is born one of the human groups which is guided
and influenced thereby. There are only 7 planets (specially connected
with this earth), and 12 houses...countless...each of which varieties
is born under one of the 7 planets and one of the said countless
planetary combinations."	SD I 573 & fn


"...'the MIND'...the collective body of Dhyan Chohans, we say--began
to work upon and communicated to it motion and order..."
SD I 595


"The hosts of these Sons of Light and "Mind-born Sons" of the first
manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual
man."	SD I 106


"...the 7 wise ones (rays of wisdom, Dhyanis) fashion 7 paths (or
lines as also Races in another sense)...they are primarily beams of
light falling on the paths leading to wisdom...the 7 Rays which fall
free from the macrocosmic centre, the 7 principles in the
metaphysical, the 7 Races in the physical sense."	SD II
191 fn


"It is then the "Seven Sons of Light"--called after their planets (by
the rabble) often identified with them--namely Saturn, Jupiter,
Mercury, Mars, Venus...the Sun and Moon, which are...our heavenly
Parents, or "Father," synthetically...the 4 exoteric planets, and the
3 others...were the heavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic
communication with the Earth its Guides, and Watchers--morally and
physically...their "Regents" or Rectors with our Monads and spiritual
faculties."	SD I 575


"The 7 Beings in the Sun are the 7 Holy Ones, Self-born from the
inherent power in the matrix of Mother substance. it is they who send
the 7 Principal Forces, called rays, which at the beginning of Pralaya
will center into 7 new Suns for the next Manvantara. The energy from
which they spring into conscious existence in every Sun, is what some
people call Vishnu (fn) which is the Breath of ABSOLUTENESS. (FN) In
the same manner as a man approaches a mirror placed upon a stand,
beholds in it his own image, so the energy or reflection of Vishnu
(the Sun) is never disjointed but remains in the Sun as in a mirror
that is there stationed."(Vishnu Purana)	SD I 290



INTELLIGENCE INNATE TO ALL FORMS


"The essential faculty possessed by all the cosmic and terrestrial
elements, of generating within themselves a regular and harmonious
series of results, a concatenation of causes and effects is an
irrefutable proof that they are either animated by an extra or intra
INTELLIGENCE, or conceal such within or behind the manifested
veil...Newton...recognized fully the limits that separate the action
of natural Forces from that of the INTELLIGENCES that set the
innumerable laws into order and action... To become complete and
comprehensible, a cosmological theory has to start with a primordial
Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, of an intellectual and
divine Nature. That substance must be the Soul and Spirit, the
Synthesis and 7th Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and to serve as
a spiritual Upadhi to this, there must be the 6th, its
vehicle--primordial physical matter...though its nature must for ever
escape our limited normal senses."	SD I 594



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