Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00062)

KARMIC VISIONS Part I

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KARMIC VISIONS


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. .
. . . .
VI

How grand, how mysterious are the spring nights on the seashore
when the winds are chained and the elements lulled! A solemn
silence reigns in nature. Alone the silvery, scarcely audible
ripple of the wave, as it runs caressingly over the moist sand,
kissing shells and pebbles on its up and down journey, reaches
the ear like the regular soft breathing of a sleeping bosom. How
small, how insignificant and helpless feels man, during these
quiet hours, as he stands between the two gigantic magnitudes,
the star-hung dome above, and the slumbering earth below. Heaven
and earth are plunged in sleep, but their souls are awake, and
they confabulate, whispering one to the other mysteries
unspeakable. It is then that the occult side of Nature lifts her
dark veils for us, and reveals secrets we would vainly seek to
extort from her during the day. The firmament, so distant, so far
away from earth, now seems to approach and bend over her. The
sidereal meadows exchange embraces with their more humble sisters
of the earth--the daisy-decked valleys and the green slumbering
fields. The heavenly dome falls prostrate into the arms of the
great quiet sea; and the millions of stars that stud the former
peep into and bathe in every lakelet and pool. To the
grief-furrowed soul those twinkling orbs are the eyes of angels.
They look down with ineffable pity on the suffering of mankind.
It is not the night dew that falls on the sleeping flowers, but
sympathetic tears that drop from those orbs, at the sight of the
Great HUMAN SORROW. . . .
Yes; sweet and beautiful is a southern night. But--
When silently we watch the bed, by the taper's flickering light,
When all we love is fading fast--how terrible is night. . . .
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Part II is sent separately starting with Chapter VII





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