Theos-Talk Archives (May 2003 Message tt00001)

Friday, May 02, 2003


Re: CROSS IN SYMBOLOGY & ATMA - BUDDHI



Dear Peter you quoted something I wrote :

DTB	H P B explains in both I U and the S D that JAVAH (Jehovah)
is really JAH (male -- the vertical line of the "cross") and HEVA
(Eve -- female, the horizontal line of the "cross") These two
are ever-conjoined.

They correspond on this plane to ATMA-BUDDHI the eternal Monad on
the Superior Plane of SPIRIT.

The cross inscribed in a circle indicates the DIVINE is encased
in a vehicle of matter at this cycle of its evolution.

Can you provide a reference for this?

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

05/02/2003 2:25 AM


Dear Peter:

I may not have an exact reference that says this. But I derived
it from some statements such as those below.

May I first offer as a concept: This is what I understand
Theosophy to teach. Let me know if you feel I am "off track"
please, I use the tables relative to the 7 Principles in Man and
Universe that are available to us in S D II 596; S D I
157, 181, 200, 242-6; Key pp. 91-2, 135-6, 175-6, and
others

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

As a fundamental idea we are told that the CONSCIOUSNESS that we
employ is unitary (for us, as we have each our own). Its source
is of course UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS [LIFE] which is derived
directly from the ATMAN. It is in fact an aspect of it.

The Higher Self (of each human), which is One with ATMA, is also
One with all Rays of the ATMAN at the core of each Monad (human
or otherwise).

Behind all, as the eternal background, is the inscrutable
ABSOLUTENESS -- the continuum from, and in which, Universes roll
out and roll back. Ours, being a continuation of the process, we
are right in the middle of the unending process of "becoming."
[4th Round, 4th Globe, 5th Race, 5th Sub-Race from
S D I 200]

It animates successively (in the human): BUDDHI (wisdom) and
MANAS (the thinking principle).

These, on the Universal scale are respectively called, among
other designations, MULAPRAKRITI or MAHABUDDHI, and MAHAT or
UNIVERSAL MIND.

Thus the Monad in evolution (as we all are) is actually not a
duad (ATMA-BUDDHI) but a Triad (ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS). These are
the immortal spiritual Principles.

Manas offers a link of intelligence (of the powers of the Higher
Mind -- Buddhi-Manas) to that group of close-linked Monadic
intelligences that have developed together in cooperation,
through the lower kingdoms until they now provide a responsive
and finely developed "vehicle of matter" -- which is sensitive
enough to receive and mirror an aspect of BUDDHI-MANAS the Higher
Mind.

This "vehicle" is, in our "Personality" what we call "the higher
aspect of the Lower-Manas" -- or unselfish-desireless Kama-Manas)
Think of them as the "skandhas" aggregating because of affinity,
around the developing Monadic consciousness that is "our
'personal' selves," and which we are able to call, in the here
and now, our Lower Manasic self. It is the brain-consciousness
and in each incarnation it is limited. But, although limited, it
has the potentiality of contacting and linking itself to the
Highest source of its own consciousness -- its HIGHER SELF the
"Divine Tutor" within -- the ATMA (see S D II 167).

This mirror is, in each of us, that which has been called the
Lower Mind or Kama-Manas. But, note that along with that, there
is also "the ONE CONSCIOUSNESS which pierces up and down the 7
planes of being and serves to uphold the memory of the
experiences on each of those planes." (Gita Notes pp. 98-100)
The level of Kama-Manas is one such level. (see SD I 157-8,
181, II 167)

Therefore that which survives death is the immortal aspect of
ourselves. that grows constantly while the many changing
personalities come and go, fade or leave a favorable impress on
the eternal EGO.

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

Here is what H P B says on this question of immortality and
survival after death of the body::


"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. Like the Adwaitis, I made no difference
between my Seventh Principle 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. And see, for
proof, my remark about the "omnipotence of man's immortal
spirit"--which would be a logical absurdity upon any theory of
egoistic separation.

My mistake was that throughout the whole work I indifferently
employed the words Parabrahm and God to express the same idea: a
venial sin surely, when one knows that the English language is so
poor that even at this moment I am using the Sanskrit word to
express one idea and the English one for the other!

Whether it be orthodox Adwaita or not, 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 [dear, dear, what can be
made out of this English!] is preserved to the end of the great
cycle (Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego enters Paranirvana, or is
merged in Parabrahm. To our talpatic, or mole-like, comprehension
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--the difference is
"inexpressible in terms of foot-pounds." 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 B Articles III p. 264-6; "I U and the Visishtadwaita"


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

See below the last para which I have italicized -- DTB



CROSS AND FIRE

Article by H. P. Blavatsky

PERHAPS the most widespread and universal among the symbols in
the old astronomical systems, which have passed down the stream
of time to our century, and have left traces everywhere in the
Christian religion as elsewhere,--are the Cross and the Fire--the
latter, the emblem of the Sun. The ancient Aryans had them both
as the symbols of Agni.

Whenever the ancient Hindu devotee desired to worship Agni--says
E. Burnouf (Science des Religions, c. 10)--he arranged two pieces
of wood in the form of a cross, and, by a peculiar whirling and
friction obtained fire for his sacrifice. As a symbol, it is
called Swastica, and, as an instrument manufactured out of a
sacred tree and in possession of every Brahmin, it is known as
Arani.

The Scandinavians had the same sign and called it Thor's Hammer,
as bearing a mysterious magneto-electric relation to Thor, the
god of thunder, who, like Jupiter armed with his thunderbolts,
holds likewise in his hand this ensign of power, over not only
mortals but also the mischievous spirits of the elements, over
which he presides.

In Masonry it appears in the form of the grand master's mallet;
at Allahabad it may be seen on the Fort as the Jaina Cross, or
the Talisman of the Jaina Kings; and the gavel of the modern
judge is no more than this crux dissimulata--as de Rossi, the
archæologist calls it; for the gavel is the sign of power and
strength, as the hammer represented the might of Thor, who, in
the Norse legends splits a rock with it, and kills Medgar.

Dr. Schliemann found it in terra cotta disks, on the site, as he
believes, of ancient Troy, in the lowest strata of his
excavations; which indicated, according to Dr. Lundy, "an Aryan
civilization long anterior to the Greek--say from two to three
thousand years B.C."

Burnouf calls it the oldest form of the cross known, and affirms
that it is found personified in the ancient religion of the
Greeks under the figure of Prometheus "the fire-bearer,"
crucified on mount Caucasus, while the celestial bird--the Cyena
of the Vedic hymns,--daily devours his entrails. Boldetti,
(Osservazioni I., 15, p. 60) gives a copy from the painting in
the cemetery of St. Sebastian, representing a Christian convert
and grave-digger, named Diogenes, who wears on both his legs and
right arm the signs of the Swastica. The Mexicans and the
Peruvians had it, and it is found as the sacred Tau in the oldest
tombs of Egypt.

It is, to say the least, a strange coincidence, remarked even by
some Christian clergymen, that Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God, should
have the symbols, identical with the Hindu God Agni. While Agnus
Dei expiates and takes away the sins of the world, in one
religion, the God Agni, in the other, likewise expiates sins
against the gods, man, the manes, the soul, and repeated sins; as
shown in the six prayers accompanied by six oblations.
(Colebrooke--Essays, Vol. I, p. 190.)

If, then, we find these two--the Cross and the Fire--so closely
associated in the esoteric symbolism of nearly every nation, it
is because on the combined powers of the two rests the whole plan
of the universal laws. In astronomy, physics, chemistry, in the
whole range of natural philosophy, in short, they always come out
as the invisible cause and the visible result; and only
metaphysics and alchemy--or shall we say Metachemistry, since we
prefer coining a new word to shocking sceptical ears?--can fully
and conclusively solve the mysterious meaning. An instance or two
will suffice for those who are willing to think over hints.

The Central Point, or the great central sun of the Kosmos, as the
Kabalists call it, is the Deity. It is the point of intersection
between the two great conflicting powers--the centripetal and
centrifugal forces, which drive the planets into their elliptical
orbits, that make them trace a cross in their paths through the
Zodiac. These two terrible, though as yet hypothetical and
imaginary powers, preserve harmony and keep the Universe in
steady, unceasing motion; and the four bent points of the
Swastica typify the revolution of the Earth upon its axis.

Plato calls the Universe a "blessed god" which was made in a
circle and decussated in the form of the letter X. So much for
astronomy. In Masonry the Royal Arch degree retains the cross as
the triple Egyptian Tau. It is the mundane circle with the
astronomical cross upon it rapidly revolving; the perfect square
of the Pythagorean mathematics in the scale of numbers, as its
occult meaning is interpreted by Cornelius Agrippa.

Fire is heat,--the central point; the perpendicular ray
represents the male element or spirit; and the horizontal one the
female element--or matter. Spirit vivifies and fructifies the
matter, and everything proceeds from the central point, the focus
of Life, and Light, and Heat, represented by the terrestrial
fire. So much, again, for physics and chemistry, for the field of
analogies is boundless, and Universal Laws are immutable and
identical in their outward and inward applications. ....
[H P B Articles II p. 490; Mod. Panarion, p. 290;

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

Some of these statements seemed relevant to this -- DTB


From:
DIALOGUE ON THE MYSTERIES OF THE AFTER LIFE by H. P. Blavatsky
ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE INNER MAN AND ITS DIVISION
H P B Art II. p. 194; (Lucifer -- January 1889)


P. 195	In Occultism, every qualificative change in the state
of our consciousness gives to man a new aspect, and if it
prevails and becomes part of the living and acting EGO, it must
be (and is) given a special name, to distinguish the man in that
particular state from the man he is when he places himself in
another state.

P. 195	... man acts on this, or another plane of
consciousness, in strict accordance with his mental and spiritual
condition.

P. 195	...his reasoning soul or "spirit." SPIRIT ... (in the
sense of the ABSOLUTE, and therefore Indivisible ALL) or ATMA --
that which IS, in Eternity, and as the ALL
...cannot be absent from even the tiniest geometrical or
mathematical point of the universe of matter or substance...it is
that point in metaphysical Space which the human Monad and its
vehicle man, occupy for the period of every life. Now that point
is as imaginary as man himself, and in reality is an illusion, a
maya...Occultism calls it the seventh principle, the synthesis of
the six

P. 204 ...the consciousness of one life can disappear either
fully or partially; in the case of a thorough materialist, no
vestige of that personality which disbelieved remains in the
series of lives. No materialist, if a good man, however
unbelieving, can die forever in the fulness of his spiritual
individuality.

P. 197	...the fundamental laws of the spiritual world...are
immutable, no exception is possible. But there are rules for
those who see, and rules for those who prefer to remain blind.

P. 197	...believing firmly in our Esoteric Doctrine, which
refers to the Post-mortem period, or the interval between two
lives or births as merely a transitory state, I say:-- Whether
that interval between two acts of the illusionary drama of life
lasts one year or a million, that post-mortem state may, without
any breach of the fundamental law, prove to be just the same
state as that of a man who is in a dead swoon.

P. 198	...the spiritual law of continuity applies only to
things which are truly real.

P. 198	Iswara is the collective consciousness of the
manifested deity, Brahmâ, i.e., the collective consciousness of
the Host of Dhyan Chohans; and Pragna is their individual wisdom.

P. 199	Karma acts incessantly; we reap in our after-life only
the fruit of that which we have ourselves sown, or rather
created, in our terrestrial existence.

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


I find in I U mention and explanation of the universal law of
correspondences I U I 306-7

On p. 309, H P B hints Man is a synthesis of the Universe.

Primordial Knowledge and Teachings are mentioned, S D II 215,
272-3.

If there is any attempt to separate ATMA from BUDDHI, or SPIRIT
from MATTER, the Law compels a reunion. In our word and on this
plane at this time the separation of the sexes illustrates this
S D II 215 and 216

Same for "Good and Evil" [ I U II 480-1 ]. They cannot be
separated, but always coexist. Our task is to Master this law
and apply it all the time.

Important statements on interpreting Symbols S D I 443-5; II
81, 335, 469

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

Please let me know if there is any disagreement,

Dal





-----Original Message-----
From: peter.m [
Sent:	Thursday, May 01, 2003 11:07 AM
To:	study@blavatsky.net
Subject:	[bn-study] RE: H P B == MESSENGER or FRAUD ? FIND
OUT.



DTB	H P B explains in both I U and the S D that JAVAH (Jehovah)
is really JAH (male -- the vertical line of the "cross") and HEVA

(Eve -- female, the horizontal line of the "cross") These two
are ever-conjoined. They correspond on this plane to ATMA-BUDDHI
the eternal Monad on the Superior Plane of SPIRIT. The cross
inscribed in a circle indicates the DIVINE is encased in a
vehicle of matter at this cycle of its evolution.
-------------------

Hi Dal,

Do you have a reference for "They correspond on this plane to
ATMA-BUDDHI"?

Thanks,
Peter