Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00018)

Thursday, March 04, 2004

 

 

Re: SATAN

 

 

Dear Friends:

 

Apparently the allegory of Satan relates to the incarnation of the
Divine Ego into the man of flesh, (in the 3rd Race) which provides IT
since then, with a vehicle that is responsive to it on this plane of
matter.  

 

Theology has degraded this grand gift and concept into a “fall.” It
then created from selfishness a perversion: Satan / Lucifer the Son of
the Light of Day was made into a devil – a foe of DIVINITY. Some of
the references given below clarify this. (As an example of this
sacrifice, read what is written in the SECRET DOCTRINE I pp. 207-210.)

 

The purpose of such an incarnation is to spiritualize the material
elements found on this plane of ours, physically, astrally, psychically,
emotionally, mentally and finally intuitionally. The process of
reincarnation and the action of Karma that depends on our free-willed
choices does this and guides the process. 

 

The doctrine seems as expressed in terms from ancient records difficult
to follow, yet if we take a view that the universal ocean of CONSCIOUS
MONADS is eternally evolving towards self-consciousness, we can see why
it is that the Divine MEN as Spiritual breaths, find it their duty to
return to us and to help us to evolve our own kind of independence. It
is a vast school. We are the pupils. Them lesson is brotherhood at all
levels, and therefore in our case it is compassion and a ready
assistance to all those “monads-of-lesser-experience” who know less than
we do.

 

 

In the SECRET DOCTRINE we have several comments by HPB

 

 

“The archaic commentaries explain, as the reader must remember, that, of
the Host of Dhyanis, whose turn it was to incarnate as the Egos of the
immortal, but, on this plane, senseless monads — that some "obeyed" (the
law of evolution) immediately when the men of the Third Race became
physiologically and physically ready, i.e., when they had separated into
sexes. 

 

These were those early conscious Beings who, now adding conscious
knowledge and will to their inherent Divine purity, created by
Kriyasakti the semi-Divine man, who became the seed on earth for future
adepts. 

 

Those, on the other hand, who, jealous of their intellectual freedom
(unfettered as it then was by the bonds of matter), said: — "We can
choose . . . we have wisdom" (See verse 24), and incarnated far later —
these had their first Karmic punishment prepared for them.

 

They got bodies (physiologically) inferior to their astral models,
because their chhayas had belonged to progenitors of an inferior degree
in the seven classes. 

 

As to those "Sons of Wisdom" who had "deferred" their incarnation till
the Fourth Race, which was already tainted (physiologically) with sin
and impurity, they produced a terrible cause, the Karmic result of which
weighs on them to this day. It was produced in themselves, and they
became the carriers of that seed of iniquity for aeons to come, because
the bodies they had to inform had become defiled through their own
procrastination. (See verses 32, 36.) 

 

This was the "Fall of the angels," because of their rebellion against
Karmic Law. 

 

The "fall of man" was no fall, for he was irresponsible. But
"Creation" having been invented on the dualistic system as the
"prerogative of God alone," the legitimate attribute patented by
theology in the name of an infinite deity of their own making, this
power had to be regarded as "Satanic," and as an usurpation of divine
rights.

 

Thus, the foregoing, in the light of such narrow views, must naturally
be considered as a terrible slander on man, "created in the image of
God," a still more dreadful blasphemy in the face of the dead-letter
dogma. "Your doctrine," the Occultists were already told, "makes of man,
created out of dust in the likeness of his God, a vehicle of the Devil,
from the first." "Why did you make of your god a devil — both, moreover,
created in your own image?" is our reply. The esoteric interpretation of
the Bible, however, sufficiently refutes this slanderous invention of
theology; the Secret Doctrine must some day become the just Karma of the
Churches — more anti-Christian than the representative assemblies of the
most confirmed Materialists and Atheists. 

 

The old doctrine about the true meaning of the "Fallen Angels," in its
anthropological and evolutionary sense, is contained in the Kabala, “
S D II 228

 

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

 

 

“…who is WISDOM, but who, as the opponent of ignorance, is Satan or
Lucifer at the same time. This remark refers to divine Wisdom falling
like lightning on, and quickening the intellects of those who fight the
devils of ignorance and superstition. 

 

Up to the time when Wisdom, in the shape of the incarnating Spirits of
MAHAT, descended from on high to animate and call the Third Race to real
conscious life, humanity — if it can be so called in its animal,
senseless state —was of course doomed to — moral as well as to physical
death. 

 

The Angels fallen into generation are referred to metaphorically as
Serpents and Dragons of Wisdom. 

 

On the other hand, regarded in the light of the LOGOS, the Christian
Saviour, like Krishna, whether as man or logos, may be said to have
saved those who believed in the secret teachings from "eternal death,"
to have conquered the Kingdom of Darkness, or Hell, as every Initiate
does. 

 

This in the human, terrestrial form of the Initiates, and also because
the logos is Christos, that principle of our inner nature which develops
in us into the Spiritual Ego — the Higher-Self — being formed of the
indissoluble union of Buddhi (the sixth) and the spiritual efflorescence
of Manas, the fifth principle.* "The Logos is passive Wisdom in Heaven
and Conscious, Self-Active Wisdom on Earth," we are taught. It is the
Marriage of "Heavenly man" with the "Virgin of the World" —Nature,
S D II PP 230-1

 

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

 

 

In an article THE FALL OF IDEALS, HPB writes: [HPB Articles Vol. II]

 

 

P. 144 Bereft of his theological and dogmatic attributes Satan is
simply an adversary…not necessarily an "arch fiend" or a "persecutor of
men," but possibly also a foe of evil. 

 

P. 144 He may thus become a Saviour of the oppressed, a champion of
the weak and poor, crushed by the minor devils (men), the demons of
avarice, selfishness and hypocrisy. Michelet calls him the "great
Disinherited" 

 

P. 144 But Victor Hugo was the first to intuitively grasp the occult
truth. Satan, in his poem of that time, is a truly grandiose Entity,
with enough human in him to bring it within the grasp of average
intellects…Hugo's Lucifer fights a fearful battle with his own terrible
passions and again becomes an Archangel of Light, after the awfulest
agonies ever conceived by mortal mind and recorded by human pen. 

 

P. 145 …that undying spark of love which forms--nay, must form the
essence of the "First-Born" out of the homogeneous essence of eternal
Harmony and Light, and is the element of forgiving reconciliation, even
in its (according to our philosophy) last terrestrial
offspring--Humanity. 

 

P. 145 Discord is the concomitant of differentiation, and Satan
being an evolution, must in that sense, be an adversary, a contrast,
being a type of Chaotic matter. 

 

P. 145-6 The loving essence cannot be extinguished but only perverted.
With this saving redemptive power, embodied in Satan…he becomes a
thinkable Entity, -- the Asuras of the Puranic myths, the first breaths
of Brahma, who, after fighting the gods and defeating them, are finally
themselves defeated and then hurled on to the earth where they incarnate
in Humanity. Thus Satanic Humanity becomes comprehensible. After moving
around his cycle of obstacles he may, with accumulated experiences,
after all the throes of Humanity, emerge again into the light -- as
Eastern philosophy teaches…that of the Aryan races which makes all minor
powers, good or evil, born at the beginning and dying at the close of
each "Divine Age." [Kalpa]…the eternal idea of Cosmic equilibrium so
nobly emphasized in the Aryan mythology. 

 

P. 146 What is the chief torment of this great Cosmic Anarchist? It
is the moral agony caused by such a duality of nature--the tearing
asunder of the Spirit of Evil and Opposition from the undying element of
primeval love in the Archangel. That spark of divine love for Light and
Harmony, that no HATE can wholly smother, causes him a torture far more
unbearable than his Fall and exile for protest and Rebellion. This
bright, heavenly spark, shining from Satan in the black darkness of his
kingdom of moral night, makes him visible to the intuitive reader. 

 

P. 146 …the Angel LIBERTY…the child jointly of God and the Fallen
Archangel, the progeny of Good and Evil, of Light and Darkness, and God
acknowledges this common and "sublime paternity" that unites them. It is
Satan's daughter who saves him. At the acme of despair at feeling
himself hated by LIGHT, Satan hears the divine words "No; I hate thee
not." Saith the Voice, "An angel is between us, and her deeds go to thy
credit. Man, bound by thee, by her is now delivered." 

 

O Satan, you may say:  

Now, I shall live!

Come. The Angel LIBERTY is thy daughter and mine -- 

This sublime parenthood unites us…

 

P. 147 This white lotus of thought springs now, as in former ages,
from the rottenness of the world of matter, generating Protest and
LIBERTY. It is springing in our very midst…from the mire of modern
civilization, fecund bed of contrasting virtues. 

 

P. 147 In this foul soil sprouted the germs which ultimately
developed into All-denying protestors, Atheists, Nihilists, and
Anarchists, men of the Terror. Bad, violent, criminal some of them may
be, yet no one of them could stand as the copy of Satan; but taking this
heart-broken, hopeless, embittered portion of humanity in their
collectivity, they are just Satan himself; for he is the ideal synthesis
of all discordant forces and each separate human vice or passion is but
an atom of his totality. 

 

P. 147 In the very depths of the heart of this HUMAN Satanic totality
burns the divine spark, all negations notwithstanding. It is called LOVE
FOR HUMANITY, an ardent aspiration for a universal reign of
Justice--hence a latent desire for light, harmony and goodness. [see
“The Gates of Gold,” p. 49]

 

P. 127 Before Satan, the incarnate PROTEST, repents and reunites
with his fellow men in one common Brotherhood, all cause for protest
must have disappeared from earth. And that can come to pass only when
Greed, Bias, and Prejudice shall have disappeared before the elements of
Altruism and Justice to all. 

 

P. 147 Freedom, or Liberty, is but a vain word just now all over the
civilized globe; freedom is but a cunning synonym for oppression of the
people in the name of the people, and it exists for castes, never for
units. To bring about the reign of Freedom as contemplated by Hugo's
Satan, the "Angel Liberty" has to be born simultaneously and by common
love and consent of the "higher" wealthy caste, and the "lower"
classes--the poor; in other words, to become the progeny of "God" and
"Satan," thereby reconciling the two. 

 

But this is a Utopia--for the present. It cannot take place before the
castes of the modern Levites and their theology--the Dead-sea fruit of
Spirituality--shall have disappeared; and the priests of the Future have
declared before the whole World in the words of their "God"-- 

 

I erase the 
darkness of night, nought remains,
Satan is dead, live again O
CELESTIAL LUCIFER!
 
 
THE FALL OF IDEALS, HPB Articles Vol. II, pp. 144-147
 

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

 

 

HPB in the THEOSOPHIST [Theosophist, October, 1881 ] wrote a comment
on some words of Eliphas Levi:

 

 

Eliphas Levi wrote:

 

"Satan is the last word of the creation. He is the end infinitely
emancipated. He willed to be like God of which he is the opposite. God
is the hypothesis necessary to reason, Satan the hypothesis necessary to
unreason asserting itself as free-will.

 

To be immortal in good, one must identify oneself with God; to be
immortal in evil, with Satan. These are the two poles of the world of
souls; between these two poles vegetate and die without remembrance the
useless portion of mankind."

 

Editor's Note [HPB].--

 

This may seem incomprehensible to the average reader, for it is one of
the most abstruse of the tenets of Occult doctrine. Nature is dual:
there is a physical and material side, as there is a spiritual and moral
side to it; and, there is both good and evil in it, the latter the
necessary shadow to its light. 

 

To force oneself upon the current of immortality, or rather to secure
for oneself an endless series of rebirths as conscious
individualities--says the Book of 

Kiu-te, Vol. XXXI, one must become a co-worker with nature, either for
good or for bad, in her work of creation and reproduction, or in that of
destruction. 

 

It is but the useless drones, which she gets rid of, violently ejecting
and making them perish by the millions as self-conscious entities. Thus,
while the good and the pure strive to reach Nipang (nirvana or that
state of absolute existence and absolute consciousness--which, in the
world of finite perceptions, is non-existence and
non-consciousness)--the wicked will seek, on the contrary, a series of
lives as conscious, definite existences or beings, preferring to be ever
suffering under the law of retributive justice rather than give up their
lives as portions of the integral, universal whole. 

 

Being well aware that they can never hope to reach the final rest in
pure spirit, or nirvana, they cling to life in any form, rather than
give up that "desire for life," or Tanha which causes a new aggregation
of Skandhas or individuality to be reborn. 

 

Nature is as good a mother to the cruel bird of prey as she is to the
harmless dove. Mother nature will punish her child, but since he has
become her co-worker for destruction she cannot eject him. There are
thoroughly wicked and depraved men, yet as highly intellectual and
acutely spiritual for evil, as those who are spiritual for good. 

 

The Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction or
annihilation for ages to come. 

 

That is what Éliphas Lévi means by becoming "immortal in evil," through
identification with Satan. "I would thou wert cold or hot," says the
vision of the Revelation to St. John (III. 15-16). 

 

"So then because thou art, lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will
spue thee out of my mouth." The Revelation is an absolutely Kabalistic
book. Heat and cold are the two "poles," i.e., good and evil, spirit and
matter. 

 

Nature spues the "lukewarm" or "the useless portion of mankind" out of
her mouth, i.e., annihilates them. This conception that a considerable
portion of mankind may after all not have immortal souls, will not be
new even to European readers. Coleridge himself likened the case to that
of an oak tree bearing, indeed, millions of acorns, but acorns of which
under normal conditions not one in a thousand ever developed into a
tree, and suggested that as the majority of the acorns failed to develop
into a new living tree, so possibly the majority of men fail to develop
into a new living entity after this earthly death.

 

 

 

II

 

SATAN

 

Satan is merely a type, not a real personage.

 

It is the type opposed to the Divine type, the necessary foil to this in
our imagination. It is the factitious shadow which renders visible to us
the infinite light of the Divine.

 

If Satan was a real personage then would there be two Gods, and the
creed of the Manicheans would be a truth.

 

Satan is the imaginary conception of the absolute in evil; a conception
necessary to the complete affirmation of the liberty of the human will,
which, by the help of this imaginary absolute seems able to equilibrate
the entire power even of God. It is the boldest, and perhaps, the
sublimest of the dreams of human pride.

 

"You shall be as Gods knowing good and evil," saith the allegorical
serpent in the Bible. Truly to make evil a science is to create a God of
evil, and if any spirit can eternally resist God, there is no longer one
God but two Gods.

 

To resist the Infinite, infinite force is necessary, and two infinite
forces opposed to each other must neutralize each other.9 If resistance
on the part of Satan is possible the power of God no longer exists, God
and the Devil destroy each other, and man remains alone; he remains
alone with the phantom of his Gods, the hybrid sphynx, the winged bull,
which poises in its human hand a sword of which the wavering lightnings
drive the human imagination from one error to the other, and from the
despotism of the light, to the despotism of the darkness.

 

The history of mundane misery is but the romance of the war of the Gods,
a war still unfinished, while the Christian world still adores a God in
the Devil, and a Devil in God.

 

The antagonism of powers is anarchy in Dogma. Thus to the church which
affirms that the Devil exists the world replies with a terrifying logic:
then God does not exist; and it is vain to seek escape from this
argument to invent the supremacy of a God who would permit a Devil to
bring about the damnation of men; such a permission would be a
monstrosity, and would amount to complicity, and the god that could be
an accomplice of the devil, cannot be God.

 

The Devil of Dogmas is a personification of Atheism. The Devil of
Philosophy is the exaggerated ideal of human free-will. The real or
physical Devil is the magnetism of evil.

 

Raising the Devil is but realizing for an instant this imaginary
personality. This involves the exaggeration in one's self beyond bounds
of the perversity of madness by the most criminal and senseless acts.

 

The result of this operation is the death of the soul through madness,
and often the death of the body even, lightning-struck, as it were, by a
cerebral congestion.

The Devil ever importunes, but nothing ever gives in return.

 

St. John calls it "the Beast" (la Bête) because its essence is human
folly (la Bêtise humaine).

 

__________ 

 

Éliphas Lévi's (Bonœ Memoriœ) creed, and that of his disciples.

 

We believe in a God-Principle, the essence of all existence, of all good
and of all justice, inseparable from nature which is its law and which
reveals itself through intelligence and love.

 

We believe in Humanity, daughter of God, of which all the members are
indissolubly connected one with the other so that all must co-operate in
the salvation of each, and each in the salvation of all.

 

We believe that to serve the Divine essence it is necessary to serve
Humanity.

We believe in the reparation of evil, and in the triumph of good in the
life eternal.

 

 

9 And evil being infinite and eternal. for it is coêval with matter, the
logical deduction would be that there is neither God nor Devil--as
personal Entities, only One Uncreated, Infinite, Immutable and Absolute
Principle or Law: EVIL or DEVIL--the deeper it falls into matter, GOOD
or GOD as soon as it is purified from the latter and re-becomes again
pure unalloyed Spirit or the ABSOLUTE in its everlasting, immutable
Subjectivity.-- ED. THEOS.

 

 

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

 

I hope this might be of some help

 

Best wishes

 

 

Dallas

 

 

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

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Gopi Chari 
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 5:19 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Bible Studies

 

I am so excited with all of your attention to my question.

Obviously, there are 'to the letter (exoteric)', and esoteric (SD)

interpretations. 

 

Thanks for the dates of loosing the Ten tribes in the 8th century B.C
and

that the tribes are really inner teachings of Zodiac etc make sense.

 

'Hope that this proves of help' - Dear Dallas, you must be kidding. It

might take the rest of my life to study the references.

 

Some say that the word Yahudi (Jew) comes from Yadava the clan tending
to

cows of Krishna stories. Yadavas fought against Pandavas (and Arjuna)
and

later on fought against each other at the end of Krishna's life (3102

B.C). Then a part of Yadavas left India, thus the start of Jewish

heritage.

 

Also, the Muni (Sage) that led Yadavas astray was one Charukesha (the

leader of Black Magic). He was against the teachings of Krishna, White

Magic.

 

By the way some say that Charukesha is the leader of Kaliyuga's Black

Magic. He brought what seems to be convincing logic that would translate

into modern 'everything is OK' and 'you must try everything'. His

teachings may also suggest Satan's temptations.

 

Any comments?

 

Gopi

 

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]