Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00666)

Dec 25th 2002


Salutations for the New Year


Dear friends:

As we enter the most important fortnight of the year, between the 25th
December -- the ancient day celebrated as the "Birthday of the Sun,"
and the true New Year -- January 4th -- when the movement of the sun
northward for the Northern hemisphere is first to be noticed, we might
dwell for a moment on who and what we are:


Best wishes,

Dallas

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Man's IMMORTALITY and the SUN



In hr article: ISIS UNVEILED AND THE VISHISHTADWAITA H P B makes
this most clear.

She says, in part:
"A sceptic in my early life, I had sought and obtained through the
Masters the full assurance of the existence of a principle (not
Personal God)--"a boundless and fathomless ocean" of which my "soul"
was a drop... I made no difference between my Seventh Principle
[ATMA -- the Higher Self] and the Universal Spirit, or Parabrahm; nor
did, or do I believe in an individual, segregated spirit in me, as a
something apart from the whole.
I maintain as an occultist, on the authority of the Secret Doctrine,
that though merged entirely into Parabrahm, man's spirit while not
individual per se, yet preserves its distinct individuality in
Paranirvana, owing to the accumulation in it of the aggregates, or
skandhas that have survived after each death, from the highest
faculties of the Manas.
The most spiritual--i.e., the highest and divinest aspirations of
every personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh Principle into
Devachan (Swarga) after the death of each personality along the line
of rebirths, and become part and parcel of the Monad.
The personality fades out, disappearing before the occurrence of the
evolution of the new personality (rebirth) out of Devachan: but the
individuality of the spirit-soul... is preserved to the end of the
great cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego enters Paranirvana, or is
merged in Parabrahm.
...the human spirit is then lost in the One Spirit, as the drop of
water thrown into the sea can no longer be traced out and recovered.
But de facto it is not so in the world of immaterial thought. This
latter stands in relation to the human dynamic thought, as, say, the
visual power through the strongest conceivable microscope would to the
sight of a half-blind man: and yet even this is a most insufficient
simile...
That such Parabrahmic and Paranirvanic "spirits," or units, have and
must preserve their divine (not human) individualities, is shown in
the fact that, however long the "night of Brahma" or even the
Universal Pralaya (not the local Pralaya affecting some one group of
worlds) yet, when it ends, the same individual Divine Monad resumes
its majestic path of evolution, though on a higher, hundredfold
perfected and more pure chain of earths than before, and brings with
it all the essence of compound spiritualities from its previous
countless rebirths.
Spiral evolution, it must be remembered, is dual, and the path of
spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical,
semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution...
H. P. BLAVATSKY Theosophist, January, 1886
(H P B Articles Vol. II, p. 264-5)
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PAGES FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.

SYMBOLS OF BEGINNING
AN Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable
to water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before
the writer's eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within
a dull black ground. On the following page, the same disk, but with a
central point. The first, the student knows to represent Kosmos in
Eternity, before the re-awakening of still slumbering Energy, the
emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the hitherto
immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of
differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II.,
"The Mundane Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the
Universe, the ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being
latent and active, periodically and by turns. The one circle is divine
Unity, from which all proceeds, whither all returns. Its
circumference -- a forcibly limited symbol, in view of the limitation
of the human mind -- indicates the abstract, ever incognisable
PRESENCE, and its plane, the Universal Soul, although the two are one.
Only the face of the Disk being white and the ground all around black,
shows clearly that its plane is the only knowledge, dim and hazy
though it still is, that is attainable by man. It is on this plane
that the Manvantaric manifestations begin; for it is in this SOUL that
slumbers, during the Pralaya, the Divine Thought,* wherein lies
concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and Theogony....

CREATIVE PERIOD is EVOLUTIONARY
The Buddhists maintained that there is no Creator, but an infinitude
of creative powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance,
the essence of which is inscrutable -- hence not a subject for
speculation for any true philosopher....
"The esoteric doctrine teaches, that the one infinite and unknown
Essence exists from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious
successions is either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology
of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the "Nights" of
Brahma. The latter is either "awake" or "asleep."
Upon inaugurating an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an
expansion of this Divine essence from without inwardly and from within
outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the
phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long
chain of cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like
manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the
Divine essence takes place, and the previous work of creation is
gradually and progressively undone.
The visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed;
and 'darkness' solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of
the 'deep.' To use a Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey
the idea still more clearly, an out-breathing of the 'unknown essence'
produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This
process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe
is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning and will have
no end."
As it now stands, it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, its
esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto
remained entirely unknown to the Western student.
The first illustration being a plain disc the second one in the
Archaic symbol shows , a disc with a point in it -- the first
differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal
nature, sexless and infinite "Aditi in THAT" (Rig Veda), the point in
the disc, or potential Space within abstract Space. In its third stage
the point is transformed into a diameter, thus It now symbolises a
divine immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute
Infinitude.
When the diameter line is crossed by a vertical one , it becomes the
mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third root-race; it is the
sign for the origin of human life to begin. When the circumference
disappears and leaves only the it is a sign that the fall of man into
matter is accomplished, and the FOURTH race begins. The Cross within a
circle symbolises pure Pantheism; when the Cross was left uninscribed,
it became phallic. It had the same and yet other meanings as a TAU
inscribed within a circle or as a "Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross,
so-called, or simply Svastica within a circle
By the third symbol -- the circle divided in two by the horizontal
line of the diameter -- the first manifestation of creative (still
passive, because feminine) Nature was meant. The first shadowy
perception of man connected with procreation is feminine, because man
knows his mother more than his father. Hence female deities were more
sacred than the male. Nature is therefore feminine, and, to a degree,
objective and tangible, and the spirit Principle which fructifies it
is concealed. By adding to the circle with the horizontal line in it,
a perpendicular line, the tau was formed -- -- -- the oldest form of
the letter. It was the glyph of the third root-race to the day of its
symbolical Fall -- i.e., when the separation of sexes by natural
evolution took place -- when the figure became , the circle, or
sexless life modified or separated -- a double glyph or symbol. With
the races of our Fifth Race it became in symbology the sacr', and in
Hebrew n'cabvah, of the first-formed races; then it changed into the
Egyptian (emblem of life), and still later into the sign of Venus,
Then comes the Svastica (Thor's hammer, or the "Hermetic Cross" now),
entirely separated from its Circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The
esoteric symbol of Kali Yuga is the five-pointed star reversed,
thus -- the sign of human sorcery, with its two points (horns) turned
heavenward, a position every Occultist will recognize as one of the
"left-hand," and used in ceremonial magic.

SPACE and the ONE LIFE
It is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without
beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations,
between which periods reigns the dark mystery of non-Being;
unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness; unrealizable, yet the one
self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the
reason."
Its one absolute attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless
Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the "Great Breath,"* which is
the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless,
ever-present SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be Divine. But
then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless within
the Universal Soul.
Only those who realize how far Intuition soars above the tardy
processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of
that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space.
Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of
varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc. -- all, in the ultimate,
resting on sensation, which is again Maya. Sensation, again,
necessarily postulates limitation.
The Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:
"What is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka." "What is
it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it that is ever
coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then, there are three
Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is, is one, that
which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also
one: and this is Space."
"Explain, oh Lanoo (disciple)." -- "The One is an unbroken Circle
(ring) with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the
One is the boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only
during the manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found
nowhere, perceived everywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical
and the Horizontal, the Father and the Mother, the summit and base of
the Father, the two extremities of the Mother, reaching in reality
nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the rings that are within
that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the 'Breath which
is eternal.' It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere,
and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere -- (i.e., maya,). It
expands and contracts (exhalation and inhalation). When it expands the
mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the mother draws back
and ingathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution,
Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root (the
plane of the circle) is cool; but during Evolution and Manwantara her
garment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the Father who devours the
progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and leaves the
single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who
conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom,
to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahma, or Manvantara). . .
. ."
Space is called in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal
Mother-Father." It is composed from its undifferentiated to its
differentiated surface of seven layers.
"What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe
or not; whether there be gods or none?" asks the esoteric Senzar
Catechism. And the answer made is -- SPACE.
It is not the One Unknown ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in
abscondito, that is rejected, but the God of human dogma and his
humanized "Word." In his infinite conceit and inherent pride and
vanity, man shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the
material he found in his own small brain-fabric, and forced it upon
mankind as a direct revelation from the one unrevealed SPACE
>From the beginning of man's inheritance, from the first appearance of
the architects of the globe he lives in, the unrevealed Deity was
recognized and considered under its only philosophical aspect --
universal motion, the thrill of the creative Breath in Nature. The
Occultists are, therefore, at one with the above tenet. They show the
impossibility of accepting on philosophical grounds the idea of the
absolute ALL creating or even evolving the

The Secret Doctrine establishes THREE FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS: --
(a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on
which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of
human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or
similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought ...There is
one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned,
being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause -- is the rootless root of "all
that was, is, or ever shall be." It is of course devoid of all
attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested,
finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat),
and is beyond all thought or speculation.
This "Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects.
On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare
subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude
from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute
Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness.
Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this
metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE -- BE-NESS -- symbolised by finite
intelligence as the theological Trinity.
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not
as independent realities, but as the two facets or
mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle
electrifying every atom into life.
Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: --
(b.) The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane;
periodically "the playground of numberless Universes incessantly
manifesting and disappearing," called "the manifesting stars," and the
"sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim" is like a wink of
the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and
disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and
reflux." (See Part II., "Days and Nights of Brahma.")
This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute
universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and
flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all
departments of nature. An alternation such as that of Day and Night,
Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly
universal and without exception, that it is easy to comprehend that in
it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe.

Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches: --
(c) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal
Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and
the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul -- a spark of the former --
through the Cycle of Incarnation (or "Necessity") in accordance with
Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term.
The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges
or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through
personal effort and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses
and reincarnations.
(Extracted from the PROEM of The SECRET DOCTRINE )

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Best wishes,

DTB