Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00200)

July 24 2002

Dear Meg:

SWASTIKA is very ancient --- Indian -- means the fire of truth
burning eternally in the 4 dimensions of the Universe.

Always in motion -- whirling -- living.

As the two crossed sticks whirl, the fire at the ends streams out
behind -- so the symbol is multi purposed.

Wisdom -- life -- motion -- fire -- universality -- law --
cycles -- The symbol has many meanings -- just about as
complete as one desires, depending on the subject chosen for
discussion.

But always it is a sign of the WISDOM OF THE AGES.

It is a sign of the WHITE LODGE -- of the ancient teachers of
Mankind. (Revolves clockwise)

Was used on all ancient monuments, all around the world -- shows
the community of wisdom as something universally known in
antiquity. -- Theosophy is universal wisdomism.

Abuse is the reverse-swastika -- a sign of selfishness and
black-magic. (Revolves Counterclockwise)

I think in ISIS UNVEILED you might have read all this already ?

Do you have access to the INDEX to The SECRET DOCTRINE it can be
accessed through BLAVATSKY.NET Look up SWASTIKA there in that
INDEX TO The SECRET DOCTRINE

----------

RACE is a word used with a very special meaning in Theosophy --
not the color of skin as implied in today’s ethnological usage.
Refer again to the INDEX. See SECRET DOCTRINE I 200 diagram.
Each “Globe” has 7 ROOT RACES -- a vast period of TIME in which
under reincarnation the Egos experience a particular type of
development. In turn each of the “principles” receives special
attention. See below

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

DIFFERENTIATION OF SPECIES



DIFFERENTIATION OF SPECIES -- MISSING LINKS







COMPLEXITY OF MAN

How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are
questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive
answer to.

This immortal thinker having, such vast powers and possibilities,
all his because of his intimate connection with every secret part
of Nature from which he has been built up, stands at the top of
an immense and silent evolution.

He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its
aim, how that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both
fail to give a reasonable reply.

Science does not pretend to be able to give the solution, saying
that the examination of things as they are is enough of a task.

Religion offers an explanation both illogical and unmeaning and
acceptable but to the bigot, as it requires us to consider the
whole of Nature as a mystery and to seek for the meaning and
purpose of life with all its sorrow in the pleasure of a God who
cannot be found out. The educated and enquiring mind knows that
dogmatic religion can only give an answer invented by man while
it pretends to be from God.

What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man
the immortal thinker here in evolution?
It is all for the experience and emancipation of the soul, for
the purpose of raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to
the stature, nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood.

The great aim is to reach Self-Consciousness; not through a race
or a tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the
perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of matter as
well as what we now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out.

The aim for present man is his initiation into complete
knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be
raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated
also. This is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a
magnificent prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every
part of nature the possibility of being one day the same; there
is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and
belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise
above all sin.

Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution
takes in but half of life; while the religious conception of it
is a mixture of nonsense and fear.

Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time
imagine that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but
this and has to govern this one very imperfectly. But the old
theosophical view makes the universe a vast, complete, and
perfect whole.

Now the moment we postulate a double evolution, physical and
spiritual, we have at the same time to admit that it can only be
carried on by reincarnation. This is, in fact, demonstrated by
science. It is shown that the matter of the earth and of all
things physical upon it was at one time either gaseous or molten;
that it cooled; that it altered; that from its alterations and
evolutions at last were produced all the great variety of things
and beings.

This, on the physical plane, is transformation or change from one
form to another. The total mass of matter is about the same as in
the beginning of this globe, with a very minute allowance for
some star dust. Hence it must have been changed over and over
again, and thus been physically reformed and re-embodied. Of
course, to be strictly accurate, we cannot use the word
reincarnation, because "incarnate" refers to flesh. Let us say
"embodied," and then we see that both for matter and for man
there has been a constant change of form and this is, broadly
speaking, "reincarnation."

As to the whole mass of matter, the doctrine is that it will all
be raised to man's estate when man has gone further on himself.
There is no residuum left after man's final salvation which in a
mysterious way is to be disposed of or done away with in some
remote dust-heap of nature. The true doctrine allows for nothing
like that, and at the same time is not afraid to give the true
disposition of what would seem to be a residuum. It is all worked
up into other states.

The philosophy declares there is no inorganic matter whatever but
that every atom is alive and has the germ of self-consciousness,
it must follow that one day it will all have been changed. Thus
what is now called human flesh is so much matter that one day was
wholly mineral, later on vegetable, and now refined into human
atoms.

At a point of time very far from now the present vegetable matter
will have been raised to the animal stage and what we now use as
our organic or fleshy matter will have changed by transformation
through evolution into self-conscious thinkers, and so on up the
whole scale until the time shall come when what is now known as
mineral matter will have passed on to the human stage and out
into that of thinker. Then at the coming on of another great
period of evolution the mineral matter of that time will be some
which is now passing through its lower transformations on other
planets and in other systems of worlds.

This is perhaps a "fanciful" scheme for the men of the present
day, who are so accustomed to being called bad, sinful, weak, and
utterly foolish from their birth that they fear to believe the
truth about themselves, but for the disciples of the ancient
theosophists it is not impossible or fanciful, but is logical and
vast. Therefore as to reincarnation and metempsychosis, we say
that they are first to be applied to the whole cosmos and not
alone to man. But as man is the most interesting object to
himself, we will consider in detail its application to him.

Between Science and Theosophy there is a wide gulf, for the
present unbridged, on the question of the origin of man and the
differentiation of species.

The ultimate origin or beginning of man is not to be discovered,
although we may know when and from where the men of this globe
came. Man never was not. If not on this globe, then on some
others, he ever was, and will ever be in existence somewhere in
the Cosmos.

Ever perfecting and reaching up to the image of the “Heavenly
Man,” he is always becoming.


EVOLUTION A MIXTURE OF ALL EXPERIENCES

But as the human mind cannot go back to any beginning, we shall
start with this globe.

Upon this earth and upon the whole chain of Globes of which it is
a part seven races of men appeared simultaneously, coming over to
it from other globes of an older chain. And in respect to this
earth -- the fourth of this chain -- these seven races came
simultaneously from another globe of this chain.

This appearance of seven races together happens in the first and
in part of the second round of the globes. In the second round
the seven masses of beings are amalgamated, and their destiny
after that is to slowly differentiate during the succeeding
rounds until at the seventh round the seven first great races
will be once more distinct, as perfect types of the human race as
this period of evolution will allow. At the present time the
seven races are mixed together, and representatives of all are in
the many so-called races of men as classified by our present
science.

The object of this amalgamation and subsequent differentiation is
to give to every race the benefit of the progress and power of
the whole derived from prior progress in other planets and
systems. For Nature never does her work in a hasty or undue
fashion, but, by the sure method of mixture, precipitation, and
separation, brings about the greatest perfection.

Hence man did not spring from a single pair. Neither did he come
from any tribe or family of monkey. It is hopeless to look to
either religion or science for a solution of the question. If we
take up one of the hypotheses of Science and admit for the moment
that man and monkey differentiated from one ancestor, we have
then to decide where the first ancestor came from.

The first postulate of the Lodge on this subject is that seven
races of men appeared simultaneously on the earth, and the first
negative assumption is that man did not spring from a single pair
or from the animal kingdom.

The varieties of character and capacity which subsequently appear
in man's history are the forthcoming of the variations which were
induced in the Egos in other and long anterior periods of
evolution upon other chains of globes. These variations were so
deeply impacted as to be equivalent to inherent characteristics.
For the races of this globe the prior period of evolution was
passed on the chain of globes of which our Moon is the visible
representative.


WHERE DID THE ANTHROPOIDS COME FROM?

The question of the anthropoid apes as related to man is settled
by the Masters of Wisdom, who say that instead of those being our
progenitors they were produced by man himself.

In one of the early periods of the globe the men of that time
begot from large females of the animal kingdom the anthropoids,
and in anthropoid bodies were caught a certain number of Egos
destined one day to be men. The remainder of the descendants of
the true anthropoid are the descendants of those illegitimate
children of men, and will die away gradually, their Egos entering
human bodies.

Those half-ape and half-man bodies could not be ensouled by
strictly animal Egos, and for that reason they are known to the
Secret Doctrine as the "Delayed Race," the only one not included
in the fiat of Nature that no more Egos from the lower kingdoms
will come into the human kingdom until the next Manvantara. But
to all kingdoms below man except the anthropoids, the door is now
closed for entry into the human stage, and the Egos in the
subordinate forms must all wait their turn in the succeeding
great Cycle. And as the delayed Egos of the Anthropoid family
will emerge into the man stage later on, they will thus be
rewarded for the long wait in that degraded race. All the other
monkeys are products in the ordinary manner of the evolutionary
processes.

The words of one of the Masters of Wisdom, giving the esoteric
anthropology from the secret volumes, are thus:

“The anatomical resemblance between Man and the higher Ape, so
frequently cited by the Darwinists as pointing to some former
ancestor common to both, presents an interesting problem the
proper solution of which is to be sought for in the esoteric
explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid stocks. We have given
it so far as was useful by stating that the bestiality of the
primeval mindless races resulted in the production of huge
man-like monsters -- the offspring of human and animal parents.

As time rolled on and the still semi-astral forms consolidated
into the physical, the descendants of these creatures were
modified by external conditions until the breed, dwindling in
size, culminated in the lower Apes of the Miocene period.

With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the
"Mindless" -- this time with full responsibility. The resultants
of their crime were the species now known as the Anthropoid. . .
. Let us remember the esoteric teaching which tells us of Man
having had in the Third Round a gigantic Ape-like form on the
astral plane. And similarly at the close of the Third Race in
this Round. Thus it accounts for the human features of the Apes,
especially of the later Anthropoids, -- apart from the fact that
these latter preserved by heredity a resemblance to their
Atlanto-Lemurian sires.”

The same teachers furthermore assert that the mammalian types
were produced in the fourth round, subsequent to the appearance
of the human types. For this reason there was no barrier against
fertility, because the root-types of those mammals were not far
enough removed to raise the natural barrier.

The unnatural union in the third race, when man had not yet had
the light of Manas given to him, was not a crime against Nature,
since, no mind being present save in the merest germ, no
responsibility could attach.

But in the fourth round, the light of Manas being present, the
renewal of the act by the new race was a crime, because it was
done with a full knowledge of the consequences and against the
warning of conscience. The karmic effect of this, including as it
does all races, has yet to be fully felt and understood -- at a
much later day than now.


EVOLUTION IN FORMS LOWER THAN THE HUMAN

As man (the Monad) came to this Globe from another Globe-chain,
though of course then a being of very great power before being
completely enmeshed in matter, so the lower kingdoms came
likewise (as Monads of lesser experience) in germ and type from
the same earlier Globe-chain, and carry on their evolution step
by step upward by the aid of man, who in all periods of
manifestation, is at the front of the wave of life.

The Egos (Monads) in these lower kingdoms could not finish their
evolution in the preceding Globe-chain before its dissolution,
and coming to this, they go forward age after age, gradually
approaching nearer the human stage. One day they too will become
men, and act as the advance guard and guide for other lower
kingdoms of this or other Globes.

And in the coming from the former planet (Moon-chain) there are
always brought with the first and highest class of beings some
forms of animal life, some fruits and other products, as models
or types for use here. It will not be profitable to go into this
here with particularity, for being too far ahead of the time it
would evoke only ridicule from some and stupidity from others.
But the general forms of the various kingdoms being so brought
over, we have next to consider how the differentiation of animal
and other lower species began and was carried on.


GREAT MINDS ASSIST MONADIC EVOLUTION

This is the point where intelligent aid and interference from a
mind or mass of minds is absolutely necessary.

Such aid and interference was and is the fact, for Nature unaided
cannot do the work right. But I do not mean that God or angel
interferes and aids. It is Man who does this. Not the man of the
day, weak and ignorant as he is, but Great Souls, high and holy
men of immense power, knowledge, and wisdom. Just such as every
man would now know he could become, if it were not that religion
on one hand and science on the other have painted such a picture
of our weakness, inherent evil and purely material origin that
nearly all men think they are puppets of God or cruel fate
without hope, or remain with a degrading and selfish aim in view
both here and after.

Various names have been given to these beings now removed from
our plane. They are the Dhyanis, the Creators, the Guides, the
Great Spirits, and so on by many titles. In theosophical
literature they are called the Dhyanis.

By methods known to themselves and to the Great Lodge they work
on the forms so brought over, and by adding here, taking away
there, and often altering, they gradually transform by such
alteration and addition the kingdoms of nature as well as the
gradually forming gross body of man.

This process is carried on chiefly in the purely astral period
preceding the gross physical stage, as the impulses thus given
will surely carry themselves forward through the succeeding
times. When the midway point of evolution is reached the species
emerge on to the present stage and not showing the connection to
the eye of man nor to our instruments.

The investigations of the day have traced certain species down to
a point where, as is confessed, it is not known to what root they
go back. Taking oxen on one side and horses on the other, we see
that both are hoofed, but one has a split hoof and the other but
one toe. These bring us back, when we reach the oldest ancestor
of each, to the midway point, and there science has to stop.

At this spot the wisdom of the Masters comes in to show that back
of this is the astral region of ancient evolution, where were the
root-types in which the Dhyanis began the evolution by alteration
and addition which resulted in the differentiation afterwards on
this gross plane into the various families, species, and genera.
[SECRET DOCTRINE, Vol. II, pp. 735-6]

A vast period of time, about 300,000,000 years, was passed by
earth and man and all the kingdoms of nature in an astral stage.
Then there was no gross matter such as we now know. This was in
the early rounds when Nature was proceeding slowly with the work
of perfecting the types on the astral plane, which is matter,
though very fine in its texture.

At the end of that stretch of years the process of hardening
began, the form of man being the first to become solid, and then
some of the astral prototypes of the preceding rounds were
involved in the solidification, though really belonging to a
former period when everything was astral. When those fossils are
discovered it is argued that they must be those of creatures
which co-existed with the gross physical body of man.

While that argument is proper enough under the other theories of
Science, it becomes only an assumption if the existence of the
astral period be admitted. But it may be said that neither the
bee nor the wheat could have had their original differentiation
in this chain of globes, but must have been produced and finished
in some other from which they were brought over into this. Why
this should be so I am willing to leave for the present to
conjecture. [SECRET DOCTRINE Vol. II, pp. 373]

To the whole theory it may be objected that Science has not been
able to find the missing links between the root-types of the
astral period and the present fossils or living species. Neither
class of missing link will be discovered by Science under her
present methods, for all of them exist in the astral plane and
therefore are invisible to the physical eye. They can only be
seen by the inner astral senses, which must first be trained to
do their work, and until Science admits the existence of the
astral and inner senses she will never try to develop them.
Always, then, Science will be without the instruments for
discovering the astral links left on the astral plane in the long
course of differentiation. The fossils spoken of above, which
were, so to say, solidified out of date, form an exception to the
impossibility of finding any missing links, but they are blind
alleys to Science because she admits none of the necessary facts.

The object of all this differentiation, amalgamation, and
separation is well stated by another of the Masters, thus:

“Nature consciously prefers that matter should be indestructible
in organic rather than inorganic forms, and works slowly but
incessantly towards the realization of this object -- the
evolution of conscious life out of inert material.”


==============================================


[Extracts from the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY -- W Q Judge

DTB



==============

Best wishes,

Dallas.

====================

-----Original Message-----
From: Phan Dia [
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 5:35 PM
To:
Subject: Re: SWASTIKA -- RACES as used in Theosophy

Hello everyone,

I've often wondered about the swastica, and the unfortunate
connotations attached to it. It is truly a BEAUTIFUL symbol, man
being at unity with the earth and the heavens, and that being
only ONE of its meanings.

I attended my first two years at a Catholic high school (I'm
doing my last two years at public school for too many reasons to
list), and I remember on one of our retreats this past year, we
went to a chapel that had swasticas in the tiles on the floor.
Everyone noticed. Some of the guys would snicker, make loud and
ignorant remarks, while most everyone else just stared and
whispered to each other. The scene was frustrating for two
reasons: one, that everyone automatically acquainted the symbol
with the Nazis and nothing else, and two, when one kid ASKED one
of the nuns at the convent why there were swasticas on the floor,
she couldn't answer. She stammered something about "it meaning
something else," but she sure couldn't tell the kid WHAT. It was
also one of those situations where if I opened my mouth, it was
an afterschool visit to Room 101 with Holy Name's Thought
Police... err.. priest=D

I'm glad to hear that I am NOT the only one upset with a symbol
being degraded like so. But what can you do? Do you push it under
the carpet and pretend it never happened, and tiptoe quietly by
whenever you see a swastica? That's unfortunate, because I
believe in the immortality of the soul, NOT Nazism. The Nazis
also turned the swastica on its side, right? Heheheh... and I
suppose it would be considered militant to subtly carry one to
strike up a conversation and correct the misinformed, say as a
patch on a bag or a piece of jewelry or something... "No, I
believe that every man has an immortal soul, as opposed to the
supremacy of the Aryan race; I believe in the divinity of all
things as opposed to the eradication of certain religious
sects... The swastica had profound meaning before theNazis warped
it..."

Hmmm. Any other thoughts? So, so many pagan things have gotten
the short end of the stick these days, and in so, so many ways...

And Mark (or anyone else interested!): not trying to stray too
much from the subject, I have to quickly add that if you're
interested in quantum physics and have read other books on the
subject (obviously, and I will scope out the ones you
recommended, thank you), I have two of my own to suggest: Chaos
and Harmony by Trinh Xuan Thaun, a book that gets into chaos and
the quantum world, and eventually explodes into an argument for
the necessity of a Platonic viewpoint; and the Tao of Physics by
Fritjof Capra, which compares mysticism to particle physics (I
can't help but think, oh, had the author ONLY read Blavatsky!).

CUT


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