Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00151)

AVATARS, PLANETARY SPIRITS, KEYNOTE



Mahatma

"A visitor from one of the other planets of the solar system who might learn the term Mahatma after arriving here would certainly suppose that the etymology of the word undoubtedly inspired the believers in Mahatmas with thedevotion, fearlessness, hope, and energy which such an ideal should arousein those who have the welfare of the human race at heart...The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word Mahatma. Maha is "great," Atma is "soul," and both compounded into one mean those great souls who have triumphed before us not because they are made of different stuff and are of some strange family, but just because they are of the human race.

Reincarnation, karma, the sevenfold division, retribution, reward, struggle, failure, success, illumination, power, and a vast embracing love for man, all these lie in that single word.

The soul emerges from the unknown, begins to work in and with matter, is reborn again and again, makes karma, develops the 6 vehicles for itself, meets retribution for sin and punishment for mistake, grows strong by suffering, succeeds in bursting through the gloom, is enlightened by true illumination, grasps power, retains charity, expands with love for orphaned humanity, and thenceforth helps all others who remain in darkness until all may be raised up to the place with the "Father in Heaven" who is the Higher Self."WQJ -- ART. II, p. 39-40



Spiritual Star of the Soul


"...every class of adept has its own bond of spiritual communion...by bringing oneself within the influence of the Spiritual light which radiatesfrom one's own Logos. ... such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the same divine RAY, and that, as seven distinct rays radiate from the 'Central Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Dhyan Chohans are divisible into seven classes, each of which isguided, controlled, and overshadowed by one of the seven forms or manifestations of the divine Wisdom."
S Row quoted by HPB, SD I 574.



"...each person has a distinct mathematical value expressed by one number. This is a compound or resultant of numberless smaller ones."	WQJ ARTICLES, Vol. 1, p. 423



"... Whenever you are able to attune your consciousness to any of the seven chords of 'Universal Consciousness,' those chords that run along the sounding-board of Kosmos, vibrating from one Eternity to another; when youhave studied thoroughly 'the music of the Spheres," then only will you become quite free to share your knowledge with those with whom it is safe to do so. ... Do not give out the great Truths that are the inheritance of thefuture Races, to our present generation. Do not attempt to unveil the secret of being and non-being to those unable to see the hidden meaning of Apollo's HEPTACHORD--the lyre of the radiant god, in each of the seven stringsof which dwelleth the Spirit, Soul and Astral body of the Kosmos, whose shell only has now fallen into the hands of Modern Science..."
S D I 167




One Source: 7 Aspects - Primary Rays


"The divine, purely Adi-Buddhic monad manifests as the universal Buddhi (the Mahabuddhi or Mahat ...) the spiritual omniscient and omnipotent root of divine intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos. This descends "like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immovable...ever the same to the end" of the cycle of existence, and becomes universal life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane (the logoi of Life); then the Dhyani-Buddhas of contemplation; the concrete forms of their formless Fathers -- the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves, ... "Thou art 'THAT' -- Brahm." It is from these Dhyani-Buddhas that emanate their chhayas (Shadows) the Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The "Seven Sons of Light" are also called "Stars."

"The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult teaching, 
will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its incarnations in one Manvantara. But this is not his astrological star. The latter is concerned and connected with the personality, the former with the INDIVIDUALITY. The "Angel" of that Star, or the Dhyani-Buddha will be either the guiding or simply the presiding "Angel," so to say, in every new rebirth ofthe monad, which is part of its own essence. though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact. The adepts have each their Dhyani-Buddha, their elder "twin Soul," and they know it, calling it "Father-Soul,"and "Father-Fire." ... The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested WORD, is called by the Hindus, Iswara...the highest consciousness in nature.. There are seven chief groups of such Dhyan Chohans, which groups will be found and recognized in every religion, for they are the primeval SEVEN Rays. Humanity...is divided into seven distinct groups and their sub-divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical * [ Fn.:-- Hence the 7 chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling 7 spirits, under each of which is born one of the human groups which is guided and influenced thereby. There are only 7 planets (specially connected with earth), and 12 houses, but the possible combinations of their aspects are countless. ... as infinite as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical capacities in the numberless varieties of the genus homo, each of which...is born under on of the 7 planets and one of the said countless planetary combinations. See Theosophist for August l886]"	S. D. VOL. I, P. 572-3



“…the highest Planetary Spirits, those, who can no longer err. But these appear on Earth but at the origin of every new human kind; at the junction of, and close of the two ends of the great cycle. And, they remain with man no longer than the time required for the eternal truths they teach to impress themselves so forcibly upon the plastic minds of the new races as to warrant them from being lost or entirely forgotten in ages hereafter, by the forthcoming generations. The mission of the planetary Spirit is but to strike the KEY NOTE OF TRUTH. Once he has directed the vibration of the latter to run its course uninterruptedly along the catenation of that race and to the end of the cycle -- the denizen of the highest inhabited sphere disappears from the surface of our planet -- till the following "resurrection offlesh." The vibrations of the Primitive Truth are what your philosophers name "innate ideas."   
MAHATMA LETTERS 41-2


”I will first say that there can be no Planetary Spirit that was not oncematerial or what you call human. When our great Buddha -- the patron of all the adepts, the reformer and the codifier of the occult system, reached first Nirvana on earth, he became a Planetary Spirit; i.e. -- his spirit could at one and the same time rove the interstellar spaces in full consciousness, and continue at will on Earth in his original and individual body. Forthe divine Self had so completely disfranchised itself from matter that itcould create at will an inner substitute for itself, and leaving it in thehuman form for days, weeks, sometimes years, affect in no wise by the change either the vital principle or the physical mind of its body. By the way,that is the highest form of adeptship man can hope for on our planet. But it is as rare as the Buddhas themselves, the last Khobilgan who reached it being Sang-Ko-Pa of Kokonor (XIV Century), the reformer of esoteric as wellas of vulgar Lamaism. Many are those who "break through the egg-shell," few who, once out are able to exercise their Nirira namastaka fully, when completely out of the body. Conscious life in Spirit is as difficult for some natures as swimming, is for some bodies. Though the human frame is lighter in its bulk than water, and that every person is born with the faculty, so few develop in themselves the art of treading water that death by drowning is the most frequent of accidents. The planetary Spirit of that kind (the Buddha like) can pass at will into other bodies -- of more or less etherialised matter, inhabiting other regions of the Universe. There are many other grades and orders, but there is no separate and eternally constituted orderof Planetary Spirits.” MAHATMA LETTERS 43-44



“The cycle of intelligent existences commences at the highest worlds or planets -- the term "highest" 
meaning here the most spiritually perfect. Evoluting from cosmic matter -- which is akasa, the primeval not the secondary plastic medium, or Ether of Science instinctively suspected, unproven as the rest -- man first evolutesfrom this matter in its most sublimated state, appearing at the threshold of Eternity as a perfectly Etherial -- not Spiritual Entity, say -- a Planetary Spirit. He is but one remove from the universal and Spiritual World Essence -- the Anima Mundi of the Greeks, or that which humanity in its spiritual decadence has degraded into a mythical personal God. Hence, at that stage, the Spirit -- man is at best an active Power, an immutable, therefore an unthinking Principle (the term "immutable" being again used here but to denote that state for the time being, the immutability applying here but tothe inner principle which will vanish and disappear as soon as the speck of the material in him will start on its cyclic work of Evolution and transformation). In his subsequent descent, and in proportion of the increase of matter he will assert more and more his activity. Now, the congeries of thestar-worlds (including our own planet) inhabited by intelligent beings maybe likened to an orb or rather an epicycloid formed of rings like a chain -- worlds inter-linked together, the totality representing an imaginary endless ring, or circle. The progress of man throughout the whole -- from its starting to its closing points meeting on the highest point of its circumference -- is what we call the Maha Yug or Great Cycle, the Kuklos, whose head is lost in a crown of absolute Spirit, and its lowest point of circumference in absolute matter -- to viz. the point of cessation of action of the active principle. If using a more familiar term we call the Great Cycle the Macrokosm and its component parts or the inter-linked star worlds Microkosms, the occultists' meaning in representing each of the latter as perfect copies of the former will become evident. The Great is the Prototype of the smaller cycles: and as such, each star world has in its turn its own cycle of Evolution which starts with a purer and ends with a grosser or more material nature. As they descend, each world presents itself naturally more and more shadowy, becoming at the "antipodes" absolute matter. Propelled by theirresistible cyclic impulse the Planetary Spirit has to descend before he can reascend. On his way he has to pass through the whole ladder of Evolution, missing no rung, to halt at every star world as he would at a station; and, besides the unavoidable cycle of that particular and every respective star world to perform in it his own "life-cycle" to, viz.: returning and reincarnating as many times as he fails to complete his round of life in it, as he dies on it before reaching the age of reason as correctly stated in Isis. Thus far Mrs. Kingsford's idea that the human Ego is being reincarnated in several successive human bodies is the true one. As to its being reborn in animal forms after human incarnation it is the result of her loose wayof expressing things and ideas. Another WOMAN -- all over again. Why, she confounds "Soul and Spirit," refuses to discriminate between the animal andthe spiritual Egos the Jivatma (or Linga-Sharir) and the Kama-Rupa (or Atma-Rupa), two as different things as body and mind, and -- mind and thought are! That is what happens. After circling, so to say, along the arc of the cycle, circling along and within it (the daily and yearly rotation of the Earth is as good an illustration as any) when the Spirit-man reaches our planet, which is one of the lowest, having lost at every station some of the etherial and acquired an increase of material nature, both spirit and matterhave become pretty much equilibrized in him. But then, he has the Earth's cycle to perform; and, as in the process of involution and evolution downward, matter is ever striving to stifle spirit, when arrived to the lowest point of his pilgrimage, the once pure Planetary Spirit will be found dwindled to -- what Science agrees to call a primitive or Primordial man -- amidsta nature as primordial -- speaking geologically, for physical nature keepspace with the physiological as well as the spiritual man, in her cyclic career. At that point the great Law begins its work of selection. Matter found entirely divorced from spirit is thrown over into the still lower worlds -- into the sixth "GATE" or "way of rebirth" of the vegetable and mineral worlds, and of the primitive animal forms. From thence, matter ground over in the workshop of nature proceeds soulless back to its Mother Fount; while the Egos purified of their dross are enabled to resume their progress once more onward. It is here, then, that the laggard Egos perish by the millions. It is the solemn moment of the "survival of the fittest," the annihilation of those unfit. It is but matter (or material man) which is compelled by its own weight to descend to the very bottom of the "circle of necessity" to there assume animal form; as to the winner of that race throughout the worlds -- the Spiritual Ego, he will ascend from star to star, from one worldto another, circling onward to rebecome the once pure planetary Spirit, then higher still, to finally reach its first starting point, and from thence-- to merge into MYSTERY. No adept has ever penetrated beyond the veil of primitive Kosmic matter. The highest, the most perfect vision is limited tothe universe of Form and Matter. “	MAHATMA LETTERS 45 - 47



“never lose sight of the hint given you in my letter upon the Planetaries. (1) At the beginning of each Round, when humanity reappears under quite different conditions than those afforded for the birth of each new race and its sub-races, a "Planetary" has to mix with these primitive men, and to refresh their memories, and reveal to them the truths they knew during the preceding Round. Hence the confused traditions about Jehovahs, Ormazds, Osirises, Brahms, and the tutti quanti. But that happens only for the benefit ofthe first Race. It is the duty of the latter to choose the fit recipients among its sons, who are "set apart" to use a Biblical phrase -- as the vessels to contain the whole stock of knowledge, to be divided among the futureraces and generations until the close of that Round. Why should I say moresince you must understand my whole meaning; and that I dare not reveal it in full. Every race had its adepts; and with every new race, we are allowedto give them out as much of our knowledge as the men of that race deserve it. The last seventh Race will have its Buddha as every one of its predecessors had; but, its adepts will be far higher than any of the present race, for among them will abide the future Planetary, the Dhyan Chohan whose dutyit will be to instruct or "refresh the memory" of the first race of the fifth Round men after this planet's future obscuration. 

En Passant, to show to you that not only were not the "races" invented by us, but that they are a cardinal dogma with the Lama Buddhists and with all who study our esoteric doctrine, I send you an explanation on a page or twoin Rhys Davids "Buddhism," -- otherwise incomprehensible, meaningless and absurd. It is written with the special permission of the Chohan (my Master)and -- for your benefit. No Orientalist has ever suspected the truths contained in it, and -- you are the first Western man (outside Tibet) to whom it is now explained. “ MAHATMA LETTERS 157-8



“…the "devas" -- the servants of the Dhyan-Chohans. It is the latter who are the "Planetary" and of course it is illogical to say that Adepts are greater than they, since we all strive to become Dhyan-Chohans in the end. Still there have been adepts "greater" than the lower degrees of the Planetary.”
MAHATMA LETTERS , 321


“Alas! by no means are we all "gods"; especially when you remember that since the palmy days of the "impressions" and "precipitations" --“K.H.” has been born into a new and higher light, and even that one, in no wise the most dazzling to be acquired on this earth Verily the Light of Omniscience and infallible Prevision on this earth--that shines only for the highest CHOHAN alone is yet far away from me !”	MAHATMA LETTERS 424-5


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These are a few of the important extracts from Theosophical literature.

Perhaps they will give you an idea of the scope of the subject of human perfection.

Best washes,

Dallas