Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00364)

March 11 204

 

 

RE: Meditation?

 

Dear Fali:

 

I see you choose “Easter” as a focus.   

 

What is Easer? What does it record in terms of a “focus?”

 

 

To “mediate” means what?

 

If this is left undefined then chaos of concepts results –No?

 

Do you mean to aspire? To seek noble means? To elevate the moral tone
of one’s seeking? To find ways of assisting others?

 

In all cases one needs knowledge – NO ?

 

Now where can sure knowledge (or changeless wisdom) be obtained?

 

Why is such knowledge desired? Is this is a basis for meditation?

 

I wonder and try to get these things straight in my own thinking.

 

I give below some references that might-prove interesting to you (see
particularly ISIS UNVEILED II p. 404)

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

Dallas

 

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

ISIS UNVEILED II 402 - 404

“The "wisdom" of the archaic ages or the "secret doctrine" embodied in
the Oriental Kabala, of which, as we have said, the Rabbinical is but an
abridgment, did not die out with the Philalethians of the last Eclectic
school. The Gnosis lingers still on earth, and its votaries are many,
albeit unknown. Such secret 


403 ADEPTS IN PARIS AND ELSEWHERE. 


brotherhoods have been mentioned before Mackenzie's time, by more than
one great author. If they have been regarded as mere fictions of the
novelist, that fact has only helped the "brother-adepts" to keep their
incognito the more easily. We have personally known several of them who,
to their great merriment had had the story of their lodges, the
communities in which they lived, and the wondrous powers which they had
exercised for many long years, laughed at and denied by unsuspecting
skeptics to their very faces. Some of these brothers belong to the small
groups of "travellers." Until the close of the happy Louis-Philippian
reign, they were pompously termed by the Parisian garcon and trader the
nobles ιtrangers, and as innocently believed to be "Boyards," Valachian
"Gospodars," Indian "Nabobs," and Hungarian "Margraves," who had
gathered at the capital of the civilized world to admire its monuments
and partake of its dissipations. There are, however, some insane enough
to connect the presence of certain of these mysterious guests in Paris
with the great political events that subsequently took place. Such
recall at least as very remarkable coincidences, the breaking out of the
Revolution of '93, and the earlier explosion of the South Sea Bubble,
soon after the appearance of "noble foreigners," who had convulsed all
Paris for more or less longer periods, by either their mystical
doctrines or "supernatural gifts." The St. Germains and Cagliostros of
this century, having learned bitter lessons from the vilifications and
persecutions of the past, pursue different tactics now-a-days. 

But there are numbers of these mystic brotherhoods which have naught to
do with "civilized" countries; and it is in their unknown communities
that are concealed the skeletons of the past. These "adepts" could, if
they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry, and exhibit verifiable
documents that would explain many a mysterious page in both sacred and
profane history. Had the keys to the hieratic writings and the secret of
Egyptian and Hindu symbolism been known to the Christian Fathers, they
would not have allowed a single monument of old to stand unmutilated.
And yet, if we are well informed — and we think we are — there was not
one such in all Egypt, but the secret records of its hieroglyphics were
carefully registered by the sacerdotal caste. These records still exist,
though "not extant" for the general public, though perhaps the monuments
may have passed away for ever out of human sight. 

Of forty-seven tombs of the kings, near Gornore, recorded by the
Egyptian priests on their sacred registers, only seventeen were known to
the public, according to Diodorus Siculus, who visited the place about
sixty years B.C. Notwithstanding this historical evidence, we assert
that the whole number exist to this day, and the royal tomb discovered
by



404 ISIS UNVEILED.


Belzoni among the sandstone mountains of Biban-el-Melook (Melech?) is
but a feeble specimen of the rest. We will add, furthermore, that the
Arab-Christians, the monks, scattered around in their poor, desolate
convents on the borderland of the great Lybian Desert, know of the
existence of such unbetrayed relics. But they are Copts, sole remnants
of the true Egyptian race, and the Copt predominating over the Christian
monk in their natures, they keep silent; for what reason it is not for
us to tell. There are some who believe that their monkish attire is but
a blind, and that they have chosen these desolate homes among arid
deserts and surrounded by Mahometan tribes, for some ulterior purposes
of their own. Be it as it may, they are held in great esteem by the
Greek monks of Palestine; and there is a rumor current among the
Christian pilgrims of Jerusalem, WHO THRONG THE HOLY SEPULCHRE AT EVERY
EASTER, that the holy fire from heaven will never descend so
miraculously as when these monks of the desert are present to draw it
down by their prayers. * 

"The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by
force." Many are the candidates at the doors of those who are supposed
to know the path that leads to the secret brotherhoods. The great
majority are refused admittance, and these turn away interpreting the
refusal as an evidence of the non-existence of any such secret society.
Of the minority accepted, more than two-thirds fail upon trial. The
seventh rule of the ancient Rosicrucian brotherhoods, which is universal
among all true secret societies: "the Rosy-Crux becomes and is not
made," is more than the generality of men can bear to have applied to
them. But let no one suppose that of the candidates who fail, any will
divulge to the world even the trifle they may have learned, as some
Masons do. None know better than themselves how unlikely it is that a
neophyte should ever talk of what was imparted to him. Thus these
societies will go on and hear themselves denied without uttering a word
until the day shall come for them to throw off their reserve and show
how completely they are masters of the situation. 

————————————————————————————————————

* The Greek monks have this "miracle" performed for the "faithful" every
year on Easter night. Thousands of pilgrims are there waiting with their
tapers to light them at this sacred fire, which at the precise hour and
when needed, descends from the chapel-vault and hovers about the
sepulchre in tongues of fire until every one of the thousand pilgrims
has lighted his wax taper at it.

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2

 

ISIS UNVEILED II 30 - 33

“The Roman Catholic Church has two far mightier enemies than the
"heretics" and the "infidels"; and these are — Comparative Mythology and
Philology. When such eminent divines as the Rev. James Freeman Clarke go
so much out of their way to prove to their readers that "Critical
Theology from the time of Origen and Jerome . . . and the Controversial
Theology during fifteen centuries, has not consisted in accepting on
authority the opinions of other people," but has shown, on the contrary,
much "acute and comprehensive reasoning," we can but regret that so much
scholarship should have been wasted in attempting to prove that which a
fair survey of the history of theology upsets at every step. In these
"controversies" and critical treatment of the doctrines of the Church
one can certainly find any amount of "acute reasoning," but far more of
a still acuter sophistry. 

Recently the mass of cumulative evidence has been re-inforced to an
extent which leaves little, if any, room for further controversy. A
conclusive opinion is furnished by too many scholars to doubt the fact
that India was the Alma-Mater, not only of the civilization, arts, and
sciences, but also of all the great religions of antiquity; Judaism, and
hence Christianity, included. Herder places the cradle of humanity in
India, and shows Moses as a clever and relatively modern compiler of the
ancient Brahmanical traditions: "The river which encircles the country
(India) is the sacred Ganges, which all Asia considers as the
paradisaical river. There, also, is the biblical Gihon, which is none
else but the Indus. The Arabs call it so unto this day, and the names of
the countries watered by it are yet existing among the Hindus."
Jacolliot claims to have translated every ancient palm-leaf manuscript
which he had the fortune of being allowed by the Brahmans of the pagodas
to see. In one of his 

————————————————————————————————————

* E. Pococke gives the variations of the name Buddha as: Bud'ha, Buddha,
Booddha, Butta, Pout, Pote, Pto, Pte, Phte, Phtha, Phut, etc., etc. See
"India in Greece," Note, Appendix, 397. 

† The tiara of the Pope is also a perfect copy of that of the Dalai-Lama
of Thibet. 

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


31 ORIGIN OF THE PAPAL TIARA AND KEYS.



translations, we found passages which reveal to us the undoubted origin
of the keys of St. Peter, and account for the subsequent adoption of the
symbol by their Holinesses, the Popes of Rome. 


He shows us, on the testimony of the Agrouchada Parikshai, which he
freely translates as "the Book of Spirits" (Pitris), that centuries
before our era the initiates of the temple chose a Superior Council,
presided over by the Brahm-atma or supreme chief of all these Initiates.
That this pontificate, which could be exercised only by a Brahman who
had reached the age of eighty years; * that the Brahm-atma was sole
guardian of the mystic formula, rιsumι of every science, contained in
the three mysterious letters, 

A

U M

which signify creation, conservation, and transformation. He alone could
expound its meaning in the presence of the initiates of the third and
supreme degree. Whomsoever among these initiates revealed to a profane a
single one of the truths, even the smallest of the secrets entrusted to
his care, was put to death. He who received the confidence had to share
his fate. 


"Finally, to crown this able system," says Jacolliot, "there existed
a word still more superior to the mysterious monosyllable — A U M, and
which rendered him who came into the possession of its key nearly the
equal of Brahma himself. The Brahm-βtma alone possessed this key, and
transmitted it in a sealed casket to his successor. 


"This unknown word, of which no human power could, even to-day, when
the Brahmanical authority has been crushed under the Mongolian and
European invasions, to-day, when each pagoda has its Brahm-atma † force
the disclosure, was engraved in a golden triangle and preserved in a
sanctuary of the temple of Asgartha, whose Brahm-βtma alone held the
keys. He also bore upon his tiara two crossed keys supported by two
kneeling Brahmans, symbol of the precious deposit of which he had the
keeping. . . This word and this triangle were engraved upon the tablet
of the ring that this religious chief wore as one of the signs of his
dignity; it was also framed in a golden sun on the altar, where every
morning the Supreme Pontiff offered the sacrifice of the sarvameda, or
sacrifice to all the forces of nature." ‡ 
————————————————————————————————————
* It is the traditional policy of the College of Cardinals to elect,
whenever practicable, the new Pope among the oldest valetudinarians. The
hierophant of the Eleusinia was likewise always an old man, and
unmarried. 

† This is not correct. ‡ "Le
Spiritisme dans le Monde," p. 28. 

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


32 ISIS UNVEILED.


Is this clear enough? And will the Catholics still maintain that it was
the Brahmans of 4,000 years ago who copied the ritual, symbols, and
dress of the Roman Pontiffs? We would not feel in the least surprised. 

Without going very far back into antiquity for comparisons, if we only
stop at the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, and contrast the
so-called "heathenism" of the third Neo-platonic Eclectic School with
the growing Christianity, the result may not be favorable to the latter.
Even at that early period, when the new religion had hardly outlined its
contradictory dogmas; when the champions of the bloodthirsty Cyril knew
not themselves whether Mary was to become "the Mother of God," or rank
as a "demon" in company with Isis; when the memory of the meek and lowly
Jesus still lingered lovingly in every Christian heart, and his words of
mercy and charity vibrated still in the air, even then the Christians
were outdoing the Pagans in every kind of ferocity and religious
intolerance. 

And if we look still farther back, and seek for examples of true
Christism, in ages when Buddhism had hardly superseded Brahmanism in
India, and the name of Jesus was only to be pronounced three centuries
later, what do we find? Which of the holy pillars of the Church has ever
elevated himself to the level of religious tolerance and noble
simplicity of character of some heathen? Compare, for instance, the
Hindu Asoka, who lived 300 B.C., and the Carthaginian St. Augustine, who
flourished three centuries after Christ. According to Max Mόller, this
is what is found engraved on the rocks of Girnar, Dhauli, and
Kapurdigiri: 

"Piyadasi, the king beloved of the gods, desires that the ascetics of
all creeds might reside in all places. All these ascetics profess alike
the command which people should exercise over themselves, and the purity
of the soul. But people have different opinions and different
inclinations." 

I U II pp. 30 -33

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

 

 

3

 

I U II pp. 98 - 101

“The Mysteries are as old as the world, and one well versed in the
esoteric mythologies of various nations can trace them back to the days
of the ante-Vedic period in India. A condition of the strictest virtue
and purity is required from the Vatou, or candidate in India before he
can become an initiate, whether he aims to be a simple fakir, a Purohita
(public priest) or a Sannyβsi, a saint of the second degree of
initiation, the most holy as the most revered of them all. After having
conquered, in the terrible trials preliminary to admittance to the inner
temple in the subterranean crypts of his pagoda, the sannyasi passes the
rest of his life in the temple, practicing the eighty-four rules and ten
virtues prescribed to the Yogis. 

"No one who has not practiced, during his whole life, the ten virtues
which the divine Manu makes incumbent as a duty, can be initiated into
the Mysteries of the council," say the Hindu books of initiation. 

These virtues are: "Resignation; the act of rendering good for evil;
temperance; probity; purity; chastity; repression of the physical
senses; the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; that of the Superior soul
(spirit); worship of truth; abstinence from anger." These virtues must
alone direct the life of a true Yogi. "No unworthy adept ought to defile
the ranks of the holy initiates by his presence for twenty-four hours."
The adept becomes guilty after having once broken any one of these vows.
Surely the exercise of such virtues is inconsistent with the idea one
has of devil-worship and lasciviousness of purpose! 

And now we will try to give a clear insight into one of the chief ob- 

————————————————————————————————————
* See Taylor's "Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries"; Porphyry and others. 

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99 THE WHISPERED SECRETS OF INITIATION. 



jects of this work. What we desire to prove is, that underlying every
ancient popular religion was the same ancient wisdom-doctrine, one and
identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of every country,
who alone were aware of its existence and importance. To ascertain its
origin, and the precise age in which it was matured, is now beyond human
possibility. A single glance, however, is enough to assure one that it
could not have attained the marvellous perfection in which we find it
pictured to us in the relics of the various esoteric systems, except
after a succession of ages. A philosophy so profound, a moral code so
ennobling, and practical results so conclusive and so uniformly
demonstrable is not the growth of a generation, or even a single epoch.
Fact must have been piled upon fact, deduction upon deduction, science
have begotten science, and myriads of the brightest human intellects
have reflected upon the laws of nature, before this ancient doctrine had
taken concrete shape. The proofs of this identity of fundamental
doctrine in the old religions are found in the prevalence of a system of
initiation; in the secret sacerdotal castes who had the guardianship of
mystical words of power, and a public display of a phenomenal control
over natural forces, indicating association with preterhuman beings.
Every approach to the Mysteries of all these nations was guarded with
the same jealous care, and in all, the penalty of death was inflicted
upon initiates of any degree who divulged the secrets entrusted to them.
We have seen that such was the case in the Eleusinian and Bacchic
Mysteries, among the Chaldean Magi, and the Egyptian hierophants; while
with the Hindus, from whom they were all derived, the same rule has
prevailed from time immemorial. We are left in no doubt upon this point;
for the Agrushada Parikshai says explicitly, "Every initiate, to
whatever degree he may belong, who reveals the great sacred formula,
must be put to death." 

Naturally enough, this same extreme penalty was prescribed in all the
multifarious sects and brotherhoods which at different periods have
sprung from the ancient stock. We find it with the early Essenes,
Gnostics, theurgic Neo-platonists, and mediaeval philosophers; and in
our day, even the Masons perpetuate the memory of the old obligations in
the penalties of throat-cutting, dismemberment, and disemboweling, with
which the candidate is threatened. As the Masonic "master's word" is
communicated only at "low breath," so the selfsame precaution is
prescribed in the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Jewish Mercaba. When
initiated, the neophyte was led by an ancient to a secluded spot, and
there the latter whispered in his ear the great secret. * The Mason
swears, under the most frightful penalties, that he will not communicate
the secrets of 

————————————————————————————————————
* Franck: "Die Kabbala." 

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


100 ISIS UNVEILED.



any degree "to a brother of an inferior degree"; and the Agrushada
Parikshai says: "Any initiate of the third degree who reveals before the
prescribed time, to the initiates of the second degree, the superior
truths, must be put to death." Again, the Masonic apprentice consents to
have his "tongue torn out by the roots" if he divulge anything to a
profane; and in the Hindu books of initiation, the same Agrushada
Parikshai, we find that any initiate of the first degree (the lowest)
who betrays the secrets of his initiation, to members of other castes,
for whom the science should be a closed book, must have "his tongue cut
out," and suffer other mutilations. 

As we proceed, we will point out the evidences of this identity of vows,
formulas, rites, and doctrines, between the ancient faiths. We will also
show that not only their memory is still preserved in India, but also
that the Secret Association is still alive and as active as ever. That,
after reading what we have to say, it may be inferred that the chief
pontiff and hierophants, the Brahmβtma, is still accessible to those
"who know," though perhaps recognized by another name; and that the
ramifications of his influence extend throughout the world. But we will
now return again to the early Christian period. 

As though he were not aware that there was any esoteric significance to
the exoteric symbols, and that the Mysteries themselves were composed of
two parts, the lesser at Agrζ, and the higher ones at Eleusinia, Clemens
Alexandrinus, with a rancorous bigotry that one might expect from a
renegade Neo-platonist, but is astonished to find in this generally
honest and learned Father, stigmatized the Mysteries as indecent and
diabolical. Whatever were the rites enacted among the neophytes before
they passed to a higher form of instruction; however misunderstood were
the trials of Katharsis or purification, during which they were
submitted to every kind of probation; and however much the immaterial or
physical aspect might have led to calumny, it is but wicked prejudice
which can compel a person to say that under this external meaning there
was not a far deeper and spiritual significance. 

It is positively absurd to judge the ancients from our own standpoint of
propriety and virtue. And most assuredly it is not for the Church —
which now stands accused by all the modern symbologists of having
adopted precisely these same emblems in their coarsest aspect, and feels
herself powerless to refute the accusations — to throw the stone at
those who were her models. When men like Pythagoras, Plato, and
Iamblichus, renowned for their severe morality, took part in the
Mysteries, and spoke of them with veneration, it ill behooves our modern
critics to judge them so rashly upon their merely external aspects.
Iamblichus explains the worst; and his explanation, for an unprejudiced
mind, ought to be 

 


101 THE MYSTERIES ENNOBLING IN TENDENCY. 



perfectly plausible. "Exhibitions of this kind," he says, "in the
Mysteries were designed to free us from licentious passions, by
gratifying the sight, and at the same time vanquishing all evil thought,
through the awful sanctity with which these rites were accompanied." *
"The wisest and best men in the Pagan world," adds Dr. Warburton, "are
unanimous in this, that the Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed
the noblest ends by the worthiest means." † 

In these celebrated rites, although persons of both sexes and all
classes were allowed to take a part, and a participation in them was
even obligatory, very few indeed attained the higher and final
initiation. The gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus in the
fourth book of his Theology of Plato. "The perfective rite teleth ,
precedes in order the initiation — Muesis — and the initiation,
Epopteia, or the final apocalypse (revelation)." Theon of Smyrna, in
Mathematica, also divides the mystic rites into five parts: "the first
of which is the previous purification; for neither are the Mysteries
communicated to all who are willing to receive them; . . . there are
certain persons who are prevented by the voice of the crier ( Kerux ) .
. . since it is necessary that such as are not expelled from the
Mysteries should first be refined by certain purifications which the
reception of the sacred rites succeeds. The third part is denominated
epopteia or reception. And the fourth, which is the end and design of
the revelation, is the binding of the head and fixing of the crowns ‡ .
. . whether after this he (the initiated person) becomes . . . an
hierophant or sustains some other part of the sacerdotal office. But the
fifth, which is produced from all these, is friendship and interior
communion with God." And this was the last and most awful of all the
Mysteries. 

I U II pp. 98 - 101

 

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

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Fali
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 11:06 AM
To: 
Subject: Fw: Easter 

 

There is increasing recognition that meditators not only benefit

themselves, but collectively 'upgrade' the human species at the

crucial mental level. 

 

At this critical juncture, it behooves all meditators to be regular in

their practice irrespective of the constraints of time, so that this

precious resource is utilized to further the evolution of human

consciousness. 

 

Fali

 

 

 



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