Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00267)

Echoes -- EXTRACTS OF IMPORTANCE 2nd half


ECHOES 2nd half summary

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ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT - Judge XI - XXI pp. 32 -- 64

The following statements seem to be important


ADEPTS, MAHATMAS AND NIRMANAKAYAS


P. 32	Adepts, Mahatmas and Nirmanakayas...The development,
conditions, powers, and function of these beings carry with them
the whole scheme of evolution; for, as said by the mystics, the
mahatma is the efflorescence of an age..

P. 33	They do not, will not, and must not interfere with Karma;
that is, however apparently deserving of help an individual may
be, they will not extend it in the manner desired if his Karma
does not permit it

To compel recognition of true doctrine is not the way of these
sages, for compulsion is hypnotism...they do not advance with
present material aid for the poor in their hands.
...by using their natural powers, they every day influence the
world... in every land, so that what does come about in our lives
is better than it would have been had they not had part therein.


NIRMANAKAYAS


P. 35	The Nirmanakayas...constantly engage in [the work of]...the
betterment of the soul of man... They are owners of Nirvana who
refuse to accept it in order that they may help the suffering
orphan, Humanity... "Step out from sunlight into shade, to make
more room for others." ...Some of them have under their care
certain men destined to be great factors in the future. These
they guide and guard until the appointed time. And such proteges
but seldom know that such influence is about them...[they] work
behind the veil and prepare the material for a definite end...one
Nirmanakaya may have many different men -- or women - whom he
directs. As Patanjali puts it, "In all these bodies one mind is
the moving cause."


"SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM"


P. 35	As a change in the thought of a people who have been
tending to gross atheism is one always desired by the Sages... it
may be supposed that the wave of spiritualistic phenomena
resulting now quite clearly in a tendency back to a universal
acknowledgment of the soul, has been aided by the Nirmanakayas.

They are in it and of it; they push on the progress of a psychic
deluge over great masses of people. The result is seen in the
literature, the religion and the drama of today. Slowly but
surely the tide creeps up and covers the once dry shore of
Materialism, for the Master hand is guided by omniscient
intelligence propelled by a gigantic force, and - works behind
the scene.
The difference is that which exists between reality and illusion,
between mere ritualism and the signs printed by nature upon all
things and beings passing forever up the road to higher states of
existence.


ADEPTS IN THE WORLD


P. 36	But the Sages...and their disciples, carry with them the
indelible mark and speak the well-known words that show they are
beings developed under laws...

There are many Adepts living in the world, all of whom know each
other. They have means of communication...by using which they can
transmit to and receive from each other messages at any moment
and from immense distances...There is a Society of Adepts...which
has no place of meeting, which exacts no dues, which has no
constitution or by-laws other than the eternal laws of nature;
there are no police or spies attached to it and no complaints are
made or received in it...any offender is punished by the
operation of law entirely beyond his control - his mastery over
the law being lost upon his infringing it.


ADEPTS AND THEIR PUPILS


P. 36	Under the protection, assistance and guidance of this
Society of Adepts are the disciples of each one of its members.
These disciples are divided into different degrees, corresponding
to the various stages of development; the least developed
disciples are assisted by those who are in advance of them, and
the latter in a similar manner by others, until the grade of
disciple is reached where direct intercourse with the Adepts is
possible. At the same time, each Adept keeps a supervisory eye
upon all his disciples.

Through the agency of the disciples of Adepts many effects are
brought about in human thought and affairs, for from the higher
grades are often sent those who, without disclosing their
connection with mysticism, influence individuals who are known to
be main factors in events about to occur.

P. 37 ...the man who has gone through probation and teaching
under the Adepts carries upon his person the ineffaceable
marks...[described] as being quite prominent and wholly beyond
the control of the bearer...since it grows with the being's
development.

...as these signatures cannot be imitated or forged, the whole
inner fraternity has no need for concealment of signs. No one can
commit a fraud upon or extract from them the secrets of higher
degrees by having obtained signs and pass-words out of a book or
in return for the payment of fees, and none can procure the
conferring of any advancement until the whole nature of the man
exactly corresponds to the desired point of development.

P. 38	Nothing is forced or depends upon favor. Everything is
arranged in accordance with the best interests of a nation,
having in view the cyclic influences at any time prevailing, and
never before the proper time.

The training of the disciple by the teachers of the school to
which the Theosophical Adepts belong is peculiar to itself...it
is a specialization of the pilgrimage to a sacred place...and the
enshrined object of the journey is the soul itself, for with them
the existence of soul is one of the first principles.


LIFE-PILGRIMAGE OF MANKIND


P. 38	... the life of man is held to be a pilgrimage, not only
from the cradle to the grave, but also through that vast period
of time, embracing millions upon millions of years, stretching
from the beginning to the end of a Manvantara...as he is held to
be a spiritual being, the continuity of his existence is
unbroken.

Starting from the great All, radiating like a spark from the
central fire, he gathers experience in all ages, under all
rulers, civilizations and customs, ever engaged in a pilgrimage
to the shrine from which he came. He is now the ruler and now the
slave; today at the pinnacle of wealth and power, tomorrow at the
bottom of the ladder, perhaps in abject misery, but ever the same
being.

P. 39 One great reason for this...is that the places of
pilgrimage are centers of spiritual force from which radiate
elevating influences...at most of the famous places of pilgrimage
there is an Adept of the same order to which the Theosophical
Adepts are said to belong, who is ready always to give some mead
of spiritual insight and assistance to those of pure heart who
may go there. He, of course, does not reveal himself to the
knowledge of the people, because it is quite unnecessary

The Adepts founded these places in order to keep alive in the
minds of the people the soul idea which modern Science and
education would soon turn into agnosticism, were they to prevail
unchecked.


TRAINING OF DISCIPLES


P. 39	...the disciple of the Adept knows that the place of
pilgrimage symbolizes his own nature ...He is supposed to
concentrate into a few lives the experience and practice which it
takes ordinary men countless incarnations to acquire. His first
steps, as well as his last, are on difficult, often dangerous
places; the road, indeed, "winds up hill all the way," and upon
entering it he leaves behind the hope for reward so common in all
undertakings.

Nothing is gained by favor, but all depends upon his actual
merit. As the end to be reached is self-dependence with perfect
calmness and clearness, he is from the beginning made to stand
alone, and this is for most of us a difficult thing which
frequently brings on a kind of despair.

P. 40	...instead of being constantly in the company of a lodge of
fellow-apprentices, as is the case in the usual worldly secret
society, he is forced to see that, as he entered the world alone,
he must learn to live there in the same way, leaving it as he
came, solely in his own company. But this produces no
selfishness, because, being accomplished by constant meditation
upon the unseen, the knowledge is acquired that the loneliness
felt is only in respect to the lower, personal, worldly self.

Another rule this disciple must follow is that no boasting may
be indulged in on any occasion, and this gives us the formula
that, given a man who speaks of his powers as an Adept or boasts
of his progress on the spiritual planes, we can be always sure he
is neither Adept nor disciple.

...hiding themselves under an exterior which does not attract
attention, there are many of the real disciples in the world.
They are studying themselves and other human hearts. They have no
diplomas, but there resides in them a consciousness of constant
help and a clear knowledge of the true Lodge which meets in real
secrecy and is never found mentioned in any directory.

Their whole life is a persistent pursuit of the fast-moving soul
which, although appearing to stand still, can distance the
lightning; and their death is only another step forward to
greater knowledge through better physical bodies in new lives.


PERIODS OF EVOLUTION -- CYCLES


P. 41	The student of Theosophy... knows that the periods of
evolution are...called Manvantaras because they are between two
Manus, or, two men.

These periods may be called waves whose succession has no
cessation. Each grand period, including within it all the minor
evolutions...[and] more immediately concerning us, comprise in
solar years 4,320,000. During these solar revolutions the human
races sweep round and round this planet...and in each of those,
we who now read, write and think of them, were ourselves the very
Egos whose past we are trying to trace.

P. 41	...before man developed any physical body he clothed
himself with an astral form; and this is why H. P. Blavatsky
writes in her Secret Doctrine: "it teaches the birth of the
astral before the physical body, the former being the model for
the latter."

P. 42-3 The question of exact period may well be left...this
is only to point to the law; and to the explanation for the
non-appearance of man's remains in very early geologic strata.
But the Theosophic Adepts insist that there are still in the
earth bony remains of man, which carry his first appearance in a
dense body many millions of years farther back than have yet been
admitted, and these remains will be discovered...[see Theosophy
Mag., Vols 11 to 14, by Dr. Hubbard]


KARMA -- A UNIVERSAL LAW


P. 43	The...doctrine of reward and punishment of the human Ego is
very different... since [it ] fixes the place of punishment and
compensation upon this earth of ours... It obeys the words of
Jesus,... "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto
you again"

P. 44	...the doctrine is...Karma...it "is the good and bad deeds
of sentient beings, by the infallible influence or efficacy of
which, those beings are met with due rewards or punishment,
according as they deserve..."


KARMA AND REINCARNATION


P. 44	When a being dies, he emits...a mass of force or energy,
which goes to make up the new personality when he shall be
reincarnated. In this energy is found the summation of the life
just given up, and by means of it the Ego is forced to assume
that sort of body among those appropriate circumstances which
together are the means for carrying out the decrees of
Karma...for it is on the earth, in earth-lives experienced in
human bodies, that we are punished for bad deeds previously done,
and meet with happiness and pleasure as rewards for old merit.

When one sees, a good man suffering much in his life...For those
who believe in Karma it is quite just, because this man in a
previous life must have done such acts as deserve punishment
now...similarly, the wicked man who is free from suffering, happy
and prosperous, is so because in a previous existence he had been
badly treated by his fellows or had experienced much suffering.
And the perfect justice of Karma is well illustrated in his case
because, although now favored by fortune, he, being wicked, is
generating causes which, when...reborn, will operate then to
punish him..


EARTH REINCARNATES As A WHOLE


P. 45	...the moon is held...to be the planet on which we lived
before reaching the earth and ...when our..."satellite" came to
die, all the energy contained in it was thrown out into space,
where in a single vortex it remained until the time came for that
energy to be again supplied with a body - this earth - so the
same law prevails with men.

Men being, as to their material envelope, derived from the moon,
must follow the law of their origin...a mass of energy devoid of
conscience and crowded with desires [and passions] of the person
from whom it emanated; and its special province is to await the
return of the individuality (Mind) and form for that a new body
in which it shall suffer or enjoy.


MAN CREATES HIS OWN FUTURE


P. 46.	Each man is therefore his own creator under the great
Cosmic laws that control all creations. A better term is
"evolution," for we, from life to life, are engaged in evolving
out of the material provided in this Manvantara new bodies at
every turn of the wheel of rebirth.

P. 46	The instruments we use in this work are desire and will.
Desire causes the will to fix itself on objective life; in that
plane it produces force, and out of that comes matter in its
objective form.

P. 46	...many people say...Karma is difficult to understand...But
a whole mass of people accept and seem to understand it. The
reason...lies probably in Reincarnation, which may be said to be
the twin doctrine to Karma. Indeed, the one cannot be properly
considered without keeping the other in view, for Karma - whether
as punishment or reward - could have no actual or just operation
upon the Ego unless the means for its operation were furnished by
Reincarnation.

P. 46-7 Our deserts are meted out to us while we are
associating in life with each others, and not while we are alone,
nor in separateness. [It brings] us into life again and again,
bringing with us uncounted times the various Egos whom we have
known in prior births. This is in order that the Karma - or
causes - generated in company with those Egos may be worked out,
for to take us off separately into a [hell or heaven]...would be
as impossible as unjust.

P. 47	...no...murderer...can escape. He, together with his
victim, must return to this earth, each to aid the other in
adjusting the disturbed harmony, during which process each makes
due compensation. With this doctrine we restore justice to her
seat in the governance of men, for without it the legal killing
of the murderer ...is only a half remedy, since no provision is
made by the State for...the [victim and his] dependants he may
have left behind, and...nothing is done for those who in the
family of the murderer survive him.


UNIVERSAL KARMA


P. 47	...the Theosophical sages of all ages...view all worlds as
being bound together...by Karma...Hence it acts on all
planes...they say this world, as it is now conditioned, is the
actual result of what it has come to be...That the world evolves
just as man does. It is born, it grows old, it dies, and is
reincarnated. This goes on many times, and during those
incarnations it suffers and enjoys in its own way for its
previous evolutions. For it the reward is a greater advance along
the line of evolution, and the punishment is a degraded state.

...these states have man for their object and cause, for he is
the crown of all evolution. And...from the consideration of
cosmic spaces and phenomena, the Theosophist is taught to apply
the laws of Karma and Reincarnation to every atom in the body in
especial, and apart from the total Karma. Since we are made up of
a mass of lives, our thoughts and acts affect those atoms or
lives and impress them with a Karma of their own.


THREE DIVISIONS OF KARMA


P. 48	The principal divisions of Karma are three.

1. One sort is that now operating in the present life and body,
bringing about all the circumstances and changes of life...

2. Another class is that which is held over and not now in
operation, because the man does not furnish the appropriate means
for bringing it into action....

3. The last chief class is that Karma which we are making now,
and which will be felt by us in future births. Its appropriate
symbol is the arrow shot forward in the air by the archer.


SPIRIT UNAFFECTED BY KARMA


P. 49	The Spirit is not affected by Karma at any time or under
any circumstances...The Spirit in man... is immutable, eternal
and indivisible - the fundamental basis of all.

...the body and all objects are impermanent and thus delude the
soul whenever they are mistaken for reality. They are only real
on and for this plane, and during the time when the consciousness
takes them up here for cognition. They are therefore relatively
real, and not so in an absolute sense.


DREAMS AND CONSCIOUSNESS


P. 49 In the dream state we lose all knowledge of the objects
which, while awake, we thought real and proceed to suffer and
enjoy in that new state. In this we find the consciousness
applying itself to objects partaking...of the nature of the
experiences of the waking condition, but at the same time
producing the sensations of pleasure and pain while they last.
For the consciousness of the dreamer the reality of objects known
during the waking state is destroyed.

P. 49	...material existence is a necessary evil and the one in
which alone emancipation or salvation can be obtained, it is of
the greatest importance and hence Karma which governs it and
through whose decrees emancipation may be reached must be well
understood and then be accepted and obeyed.

Karma will operate to produce a deformed or deficient body, to
give in a good body a bad disposition or vice versa; it will
cause diseases, hurts or annoyances, or bring about pleasures and
favorable situations for the material frame. So we sometimes find
with a deformed or disagreeable body a most enlightened and noble
mind. In this case the physical Karma is bad and the mental good.

P. 50	At the same time that an unfavorable Karmic cause is
showing in the physical structure, another and better sort is
working out in the mind and disposition or has eventuated in
conferring a mind well balanced, calm, cheerful, deep, and
brilliant. Hence we discover a purely physical as compared with
an entirely mental karma. Purely physical would be that
resulting, say, from a removal from the ground of fruit peel
which might otherwise cause some unknown person to fall and be
hurt. Purely mental might be due to a life spent in calm,
philosophical thought and the like.

Among mental afflictions esteemed as worse than any bodily hurt
or loss is that Karma from a preceding life which results in
obscurity [so] that there is a loss of all power to conceive of
the reality of Spirit or the existence of soul -- that is,
materialism.


THE PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN


P.50	The...psychical nature [is next]...in America we have
examples in mediums, clairvoyants, clairaudients, mind-readers,
hysteriacs, and all sorts of abnormal sensitives. There could be
no clairvoyant...if the person so afflicted... had not devoted
much of previous lives to a one-sided development of the
psychical nature, resulting now, in powers which make the
possessor an abnormality....


BALANCING AND NULLIFICATION OF KARMA

P. 51	...the nullification of karma is an application in this
department of the well-known law in physics which causes an
equilibrium when two equal forces oppose each other. A man may
have in his Karmic account a very unpleasant cause and at the
same time a cause of opposite character. If these come together
for expression at the same time they may so counteract each other
as that neither will be apparent and the equilibrium is the
equivalent of both..."Charity covereth a multitude of sins,"
refers to the palliative effect of charitable deeds as opposed to
deeds of wickedness

P. 51	In the Bhagavad-Gita... it is said: "He who, unattached to
the fruits of his actions, performs such actions as must be done,
is both renouncer and devotee...he who, restraining his senses by
his heart, and being free from interest in acting, undertakes
active devotion through the organs of action, is praiseworthy."

P. 51 - 2 The Hindus and Buddhists thoroughly believe in Karma,
convinced that no one but themselves punishes or rewards in this
or any life, yet we do not find them cold or unsympathetic...the
belief in Karma and Reincarnation has made the Hindu more gentle
in his treatment of men and animals than are the Europeans, and
more spiritual in his daily life.

P. 52	...the doctrine of Kismet...[is not] fatalism, it is law...
[So too] is Karma. [It]...[applies] to [more than] one life
only...the doctrine [has a] true majestic, endless sweep,
fatalism is the verdict.


WE MAKE OUR OWN FUTURE KARMA


P. 52	...each man is...the fashioner of the fate for his next
fleeting earth personality...in his own hand is the decree. He
set in motion the causes which will inevitably have certain
results. Just as easily he could have made different causes and
thus brought about different results.

P. 53	...sentiment and our own wishes are not the guiding laws of
nature

P. 53	...the doctrine [of Karma] is found to be as full of
opportunity for the exercise of what is dear to the heart as any
other theory of life.

P. 53	The same law that throws us into life to suffer or
enjoy...decrees that the friends and the relatives who are like
unto each other must incarnate together, until by reason of
differentiation of character they cannot under any law of
attraction remain in company. Not unless and until they become
different do they separate from each other.

P. 53	"Those whom you help will help you in other lives," is the
declaration. In ages past perhaps we knew those who long since
have passed up to greater heights. The very moment...we come
near to where they are pursuing their pilgrimage, they at once
extend assistance, whether that be on the material or moral
planes. And it makes no difference whether one or the other is
aware of who is assisting or who is being assisted. Inflexible
law guides the current and brings about the result. Thus the
members of the whole human family reciprocally act on one
another, forced into it by a law which is as kind as it is great,
which turns the contempt we bore in the past into present honor
and opportunity to help our fellows.

P. 53	There is no favoritism possible in nature; no man has any
privilege or gift which he has not deserved, either as a reward
or a compensation.

P. 54	Karma never errs and will surely repay. And it not only
rewards, but to it solely belong those compensations which we,
with revenge, attempt to mete out. "Vengeance is mine; I will
repay," [teaches the Law... for so surely as one hurts another so
is the certainty of Karma striking the offender -- but let the
injured one beware that he does not desire the other punished,
for by Karma will he be punished also. So from all this web of
life and ceaselessly revolving wheel, Karma furnishes the escape
and the means of escape, and by reincarnation we are given the
time for escape.


AFTER DEATH STATES


P. 54	...the Egyptian Book of the Dead...describes the place
where, after death, disembodied souls remain in different degrees
of perfection...Thus some enjoy the perfection of spiritual
bliss, while others attain only to minor degrees in that place or
state where divine justice is meted out to the soul.

P. 54	Devachan is the land of reward; the domain of spiritual
effects. The word spiritual here refers to disembodiment; it must
only be used as relative to our material existence.

P. 54	In the Secret Doctrine, H. P. B. says: "Death itself is
unable to deliver man from it [Karma], since death is simply the
door through which he passes to another life on earth, after a
little rest on its threshold...

P. 54 Devachan, then, is the threshold of life...The
Bhagavad-Gita says: "After enjoying felicity for innumerable
years in the regions of Indra, he is born again upon this earth."

P. 55	The post-mortem division of our sevenfold constitution...is
exact. It exhibits the basis of life, death and reincarnation. It
shows the composite being, man, in analogy with that other
composite being, nature. Both are a unity in diversity. Man,
suspended in nature, like her, divides and reunites.

P. 55	Both [man and Nature] are a unity in diversity.


DEVACHAN


P. 55	Devachan, being a state of prolonged subjective happiness
after the death of the body, is...a heaven made scientifically
possible. Heaven itself must accord with the divine laws
projected into nature. As sleep is a release from the body,
during which we have dreams, so death is a complete separation
and release, after which in Devachan we dream until, on being
again incarnated in a new body on earth, we come once more into
what we call waking existence.

P. 55 Even the human soul would weary of the ceaseless round of
rebirths, if some place or state were not provided in which rest
could be obtained; in which germinating aspirations, restricted
by earth-life, could have their full development. No energy can
be annihilated, least of all a psychic energy; these must
somewhere find an outlet. It is found in Devachan; this
realization is the rest of the soul. Its deepest desires, its
highest needs are there enjoyed. There every hope blooms out in
full and glorious flower.

P. 55-6	The Hindu...postulates many places or conditions
adapted to the energic and qualitative differences between souls.
Kama-loka and other states are where concrete desires, restricted
by life in the body, have full expression, while in Tribûvana
[heaven] the abstract and benevolent thinkers absorb the joys of
lofty thought.

P. 56	Devachanic life is development of aspiration, passing
through the various stages of gestation, birth, cumulative
growth, downward momentum, and departure to another condition,
all rooted in joy.

P. 56	Souls differ as men do. In Devachan each one receives that
degree of bliss which it can assimilate; its own development
determines its reward...the Hindu gives infinite variety of
occupation and existence suited to grave and gay, the soul of
genius or of poetry. No one sits in undesired seats...The laws of
cause and effect forbid that Devachan should be monotonous.
Results are proportionate to antecedent energies.

P. 56	The soul oscillates between Devachan and earth-life,
finding in each conditions suited to its continuous development,
until, through effort, it reaches a perfection in which it ceases
to be the subject of the laws of action and reaction, becoming
instead their conscious co-worker.

P. 56	Devachan is a dream, but only in the sense in which
objective life can be called such. Both last until Karma is
satisfied in one direction, and begins to work in the other. The
Devachanee has no idea of space or time except as he makes for
himself. He creates his own world. He is with all he ever loved,
not in bodily companionship, but in one to him real, close and
blissful.


DEATH EVENTS


P. 56-7	When a man dies, the brain dies last. Life is still
busy there after death has been announced. The soul marshals up
all past events, grasps the sum total, the average tendency
stands out, the ruling hope is seen. Their final aroma forms the
keynote of Devachanic existence.

P. 57	The lukewarm man goes neither to heaven nor hell. Nature
spews him out of her mouth. Positive conditions, objective or
subjective, are only reached through positive impulsion.
Devachanic distribution is governed by the ruling motive of the
soul. The hater may, by reaction, become the lover, but the
indifferent have no propulsion, no growth.


SEVEN-FOLD DIVISION OF PRINCIPLES


P.57 [The 7-fold] division of man's constitution...alone can
[give] an understanding of his state before and after death...St.
Paul's...spirit, soul, and body include the whole seven
divisions...

P. 57	An analysis of body discloses more than molecular
structure, for it shows a force or life or power that keeps it
together and active throughout its natural period...call it
Prana, which seems more appropriate, because the human aspect of
the life force is dependent upon Prana, or breath.

P. 58	The Spirit of St. Paul may be taken...to be the Sanskrit
ATMA.

P. 58	Spirit [ATMA] is universal, indivisible, and common to
all.

P. 58	...there are not many spirits...but solely One Spirit which
shines upon all men alike

P. 58	In man the Spirit has a more complete instrument or
assemblage of tools with which to work. This spiritual identity
is the basis of the philosophy; upon it the whole structure
rests; to individualize spirit, assigning to each human being his
own spirit, particular to him and separate from the spirit of any
other man, is to throw to the ground the whole Theosophic
philosophy, will nullify its ethics and defeat its object.

P. 58	Atma -- spirit -- including the whole, being its basis and
support, we find the ...theory of sheaths or covers of the soul
or inner man. These sheaths are necessary the moment evolution
begins and visible objects appear, so that the aim of the soul
may be attained in conjunction with nature.

P. 58	The six vehicles...used by the spirit and by means of which
the Ego gains experience are:

Body, as a gross vehicle.
Vitality, or Prana.
Astral Body, or Linga Sarira.
Astral Soul, or Kama Rupa.
Human Soul, or Manas.
Spiritual Soul, or Buddhi.

P. 58	The Linga Sarira is needed as a more subtle body than the
corporeal frame, because the latter is...only stupid, inert
matter.

P. 58-9	Kama Rupa is the...collection of desires and passions;

P. 59	Manas may be ... called the mind

P. 59	Buddhi is the highest intellection beyond brain or mind. It
is that which discriminates.

P. 59	At the death of the body,

== Prana flies back to the reservoir of force;

== the astral body dissipates after a longer period and often
returns with Kama Rupa when aided by certain other forces to
seance-rooms, where it masquerades as the deceased, a continual
lie and ever-present snare.

== The human and the spiritual soul go into the state...[of]
Devachan, where the stay is prolonged or short according to the
energies appropriate to that state generated during earth-life.

== When these begin to exhaust themselves, the Ego is gradually
drawn back to earth-life, where through human generation it takes
up a new body, with another astral body, vitality, and animal
soul.

P. 59	This is the "wheel of rebirth," from which no man can
escape unless he conforms to true ethics and acquires true
knowledge and consciousness while living in a body.

P. 59	It was to stop this ceaselessly revolving wheel that Buddha
declared his perfect law...

P. 59	... it is the aim of the true Theosophist to turn
[Buddha's] great and brilliant "Wheel of the Law" for the healing
of the nations.



ASTRAL LIGHT


P. 60	Among the Hindus it is known as Akasa, which can also be
translated as æther.

Through a knowledge of its properties...all the wonderful
phenomena...are accomplished.

...clairvoyance, clairaudience, mediumship, and seership as
known to the Western world are possible only through its means.

It is the register of our deeds and thoughts, the great picture
gallery of the earth, where the seer can...gaze upon any event
that has ever happened, as well as those to come.

...in it as in a sea, are beings of various orders and also the
astral remains of deceased men and women...mystics called these
beings Sylphs, Salamanders, Gnomes, Undines, Elementals;
Gandharvas or celestial musicians, Yakshas, Rakshasas, etc...

The "spooks" of the dead...float in this Akasic substance
...Bhutas, Pisacha, [are] the cast-off soul-body nearest earth,
devoid of conscience and only powerful for evil.

P. 60-1	But the term "astral light," [is] not new...

Porphyry referred to the "celestial or soul-body," -- immortal,
luminous, and "star-like";

Paracelsus called it the "sidereal light"; later it grew to be
known as astral.

It...[is] the anima mundi or soul of the world. Modern scientific
investigators approach it when they speak of "luminiferous ether"
and "radiant matter."

P. 61	Camille Flammarion, speaks of the astral light in his novel
Uranie and says: "The light emanating from all these suns that
people immensity, the light reflected through space by all these
worlds lighted by these suns, photographs throughout the
boundless heaven the centuries, the days, the moments as they
pass... From this it results that the histories of all the worlds
are travelling through space without dispersing altogether, and
that all the events of the past are present and live evermore in
the bosom of the infinite."

P. 61	the astral light is difficult to define...It is not the
light as we know it, and neither is it darkness. Perhaps it was
said to be a light because when clairvoyants saw by means of it,
the distant objects seemed to be illuminated...distant sounds can
be heard in it, heavy bodies levitated by it, odors carried
thousands of miles through it, thoughts read in it, and all the
various phenomena by mediums brought about under its
action,...[the] use of the term "light" is erroneous.

P. 61	A definition to be accurate must include all the functions
and powers of this light, but as those are not fully known...we
must be content with a partial analysis.

P. 61	It is a substance easily imagined as imponderable ether,
which, emanating from the stars, envelopes the earth and
permeates every atom of the globe and each molecule upon it.

P. 61	Obeying the laws of attraction and repulsion, it vibrates
to and fro, making itself now positive and now negative. This
gives it a circular motion which is symbolized by the serpent.

P. 61	It is the great final agent, or prime mover, cosmically
speaking, which not only makes the plant grow but also keeps up
the diastole and systole of the human heart.

P. 61	...like the action of the sensitive photographic plate...It
takes, the pictures of every moment and holds them in its
grasp...the Egyptians knew it as the Recorder; it is the
Recording Angel...and ...Yama, the [Hindu] judge of the dead...
for it is by the pictures we impress therein that we are judged
by Karma.

P. 62	As an enormous screen or reflector, the astral light hangs
over the earth and becomes a powerful universal hypnotizer of
human beings. The pictures of all acts good and bad done by our
ancestors as by ourselves, being ever present to our inner
selves, we constantly are impressed by them by way of suggestion
and go then and do likewise.

P. 62	...the great French priest-mystic, Eliphas Levi, says: "we
are often astonished...at being assailed by evil thoughts and
suggestions that we would not have imagined possible, and we are
not aware that we owe them solely to the presence of some morbid
neighbor; this fact is of great importance, since it relates to
the manifestation of conscience - one of the most terrible and
incontestable secrets of the magic art...So diseased souls have a
bad breath, and vitiate the moral atmosphere; that is to say,
they mingle impure reflections with the astral light which
penetrates them, and thus establish deleterious currents."

P. 62-3 There is also a useful function of this light. As it
preserves the pictures of all past events and things, and as
there is nothing new under the sun, the appliances, the ideas,
the philosophy, the arts and sciences of long buried
civilizations are continually being projected in pictures out of
the astral into the brains of living men...It is well to admit
that thought may be transferred without speech directly from one
brain to another...[through] the astral light. The moment the
thought takes shape in the brain it is pictured in this light,
and from there is taken out again by any other brain sensitive
enough to receive it.

P. 63	Knowing the...properties of the astral plane and the actual
fate of the sheaths of the soul the Theosophical Adepts of all
times gave no credit to pretended returning of the dead.

P. 63	Eliphas Levi...said: "The astral light combining with
ethereal fluids forms the astral phantom of which Paracelsus
speaks. This astral body being freed at death, attracts to itself
and preserves for a long time, by the sympathy of likeness, the
reflection of the past life; if a powerfully sympathetic will
draws it into the proper current it manifests itself in the form
of an apparition." ...with a sensitive, abnormally constituted
person present -- a medium, and all of that class are nervously
unbalanced -- the strong will is not needed, for the astral light
and the living medium's astral body recall these soulless
phantoms, and out of the same reservoir take their speech, their
tones, their idiosyncrasies of character, which the deluded
devotees of this debasing practice are cheated into imagining as
the returned self of dead friend or relative.

P. 63	...as concerns our world it may be said that astral light
is everywhere, interpenetrating all things; to have a
photographic power by which it grasps pictures of thoughts,
deeds, events, tones, sounds, colors, and all things; reflective
in the sense that it reflects itself into the minds of men;
repellent from its positive side and attractive from the
negative; capable of assuming extreme density when drawn in
around the body by powerful will or by abnormal bodily states, so
that no physical force can penetrate it.


SCHIZOPHRENIA and Multiple Personalities

P. 64	The astral light is a powerful factor...in the phenomenon
of hypnotism. Its action will explain ...especially that class in
which two or more distinct personalities seem to be assumed by
the subject, who can remember in each only those things and
peculiarities of expression which belong to that particular
stratum of their experience. These strange things are due to the
currents in the astral light. In each current will be found a
definite series of reflections, and they are taken up by the
inner man, who reports them through speech and action on this
plane as if they were his own.

P. 64	This light can therefore be impressed with evil or good
pictures, and these are reflected into the subconscious mind of
every human being. If you fill the astral light with bad
pictures, just such as the present century is adept at creating,
it will be our devil and destroyer,

P. 64	...IF BY THE EXAMPLE OF EVEN A FEW GOOD MEN AND WOMEN A NEW
AND PURER SORT OF EVENTS ARE LIMNED UPON THIS ETERNAL CANVAS, IT
WILL BECOME OUR DIVINE UPLIFTER.

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Echoes P. 59 SYMBOL OF THE SERPENT

Moving in a wavy line, he figures the vast revolution of the
Sun through eternal space carrying the rapidly whirling Earth in
her lesser orbit;

periodically casting his skin, he presents a visible illustration
of renewal of life or reincarnation;
coiling to strike, he shows the working of the law of
Karma-Nemesis which, with a basis in our actions, deals an
unerring blow...

with tail in mouth, forming a circle, he represents eternity, the
circle of necessity, all-devouring Time.




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