Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00211)

Dear Jerry:

Have you compared your view with what HPB writes in the SECRET DOCTRINE 

S D Vol. II 167, 228, 254-5, 58, 81, 275, Vol I 638-9, 

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

5 D II 167-8

"We now come to an important point with regard to the double evolution of
the human race. The Sons of Wisdom, or the spiritual Dhyanis, had become
"intellectual" through their contact with matter, because they had already
reached, during previous cycles of incarnation, that degree of intellect
which enabled them to become independent and self-conscious entities, on
this plane of matter. They were reborn only by reason of Karmic effects. 

They entered those who were "ready," and became the Arhats, or sages,
alluded to above. This needs explanation. 

It does not mean that Monads entered forms in which other Monads already
were. They were "Essences," "Intelligences," and conscious spirits; entities
seeking to become still more conscious by uniting with more developed
matter. Their essence was too pure to be distinct from the universal
essence; but their "Egos," or Manas (since they are called Manasaputra, born
of "Mahat," or Brahma) had to pass through earthly human experiences to
become all-wise, and be able to start on the returning ascending cycle. 

The Monads are not discrete principles, limited or conditioned, but rays
from that one universal absolute Principle. The entrance into a dark room
through the same aperture of one ray of sunlight following another will not
constitute two rays, but one ray intensified. It is not in the course of
natural law that man should become a perfect septenary being, before the
seventh race in the seventh Round. Yet he has all these principles latent in
him from his birth. Nor is it part of the evolutionary law that the Fifth
principle (Manas), should receive its complete development before the Fifth
Round. 

All such prematurely developed intellects (on the spiritual plane) in our
Race are abnormal; they are those whom we call the "Fifth-Rounders." Even in
the coming seventh Race, at the close of this Fourth Round, while our four
lower principles will be fully developed, that of Manas will be only
proportionately so. This limitation, however, refers solely to the spiritual
development. The intellectual, on the physical plane, was reached during the
Fourth Root-Race. Thus, those who were "half ready," who received "but a
spark," constitute the average humanity which has to acquire its
intellectuality during the present Manvantaric evolution, after which they
will be ready in the next for the full reception of the "Sons of Wisdom." 

While those which "were not ready" at all, the latest Monads, which had
hardly evolved from their last transitional and lower animal forms at the
close of the Third Round, remained the "narrow-brained" of the Stanza. This
explains the otherwise unaccountable degrees of intellectuality among the
various races of men — the savage Bushman and the European — even now. Those
tribes of savages, whose reasoning powers are very little above the level of
the animals, are not the unjustly disinherited, or the unfavoured, as some
may think — nothing of the kind. They are simply those latest arrivals among
the human Monads, which were not ready: which have to evolve during the
present Round, as on the three remaining globes (hence on four different
planes of being) so as to arrive at the level of the average class when they
reach the Fifth Round. One remark may prove useful, as food for thought to
the student in this connection. 

The MONADS of the lowest specimens of humanity (the "narrow-brained" *
savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work
out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence
had. The former are spinning out Karma only now; the latter are burdened
with past, present, and future Karma. In this respect the poor savage is
more fortunate than the greatest genius of civilised countries." S D
II 167-8


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

SD II 484-6  

"The philosophy of that law in Nature, which implants in man as well as in
every beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and
self-guidance, pertains to psychology...	

Perhaps the best synthesis of this feeling is found in three lines of
Milton's Paradise Lost. Says the "Fallen One":--

"Here we may reign secure; and in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell !
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven ..."

Better be man, the crown of terrestrial production and king over its opus
operatum, than be lost among the will-less spiritual Hosts in Heaven...the
dogma of the first Fall rested on a few verses in Revelation...about the
seven-headed dragon with his 10 horns and 7 crowns, whose tail (485) "drew
the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth," and
whose place, with that of his angels, "was found no more in heaven." ...
The "Dragon" is simply the symbol of the cycle and of the "Sons of
Manvantaric Eternity," who had descended on earth during a certain epoch of
its formative period...The "third part of the stars of heaven" cast down to
earth--refers to the divine Monads, (the Spirits of the Stars in Astrology)
that circumambulate our globe; i.e., the human Egos destined to perform the
whole cycle of incarnations...In all ancient cosmogonies light comes from
darkness. In Egypt...Pymander, the "Thought divine," issues as light from
Darkness." SD II 484-6  

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

SD II 228

"...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 3rd 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,"...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 7 classes. As to those "Sons of Wisdom" who had
"deferred" their incarnation till the 4th 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...the bodies they had to
inform had become defiled through their own procrastination...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..."	SD II 228

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

S D II 254-5

"The same order, plus the description of animals unknown to modern science,
is found in the commentaries on the Puranas in general, and in the Book of
Dzyan — especially. The only difference, a grave one, no doubt, — as
implying a spiritual and divine nature of man independent of his physical
body in this illusionary world, in which the false personality and its
cerebral basis alone is known to orthodox psychology — is as follows. 

Having been in all the so-called "Seven creations," allegorizing the seven
evolutionary changes, or the sub-races, we may call them, of the First
Root-race of Mankind — MAN was on earth in this Round from the beginning.
Having passed through all the kingdoms of nature in the previous three
Rounds,* his physical frame — one adapted to the thermal conditions of those
early periods — was ready to receive the divine Pilgrim at the first dawnof
human life, i.e., 18,000,000 years ago. It is only at the 
 
--------------------------------------------FOOTNOTE

* "Follow the law of analogy" — the Masters teach. Atma-Buddhi is dual and
Manas is triple; inasmuch as the former has two aspects, and the latter
three, i.e., as a principle per se, which gravitates, in its higher aspect,
to Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama, the seat of
terrestrial and animal desires and passions. Now compare the evolution of
the Races, the First and the Second of which are of the nature of
Atma-Buddhi, their passive Spiritual progeny, and the Third Root-Race shows
three distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically; the
earliest, sinless; the middle portions awakening to intelligence; and the
third and last decidedly animal: i.e., Manas succumbs to the temptations of
Kama. 
---------------------------------------------

mid-point of the 3rd Root Race that man was endowed with Manas. 

Once united, the two and then the three made one; for though the lower
animals, from the amoeba to man, received their monads, in which all the
higher qualities are potential, all have to remain dormant till each reaches
its human form, before which stage manas (mind) has no development in them.
In the animals every principle is paralysed, and in a foetus-like state,
save the second (vital) and the third (the astral), and the rudiments of the
fourth (Kama, which is desire, instinct) whose intensity and development
varies and changes with the species. 

To the materialist wedded to the Darwinian theory, this will read like a
fairy-tale, a mystification; to the believer in the inner, spiritual man,
the statement will have nothing unnatural in it. " S D II 254-5

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

S D II 79 - 82

"The human Ego is neither Atman nor Buddhi, but the higher Manas: the
intellectual fruition and the efflorescence of the intellectual
self-conscious Egotism — in the higher spiritual sense. The ancient works
refer to it as Karana Sarira on the plane of Sutratma, which is the golden
thread on which, like beads, the various personalities of this higher Ego
are strung. If the reader were told, as in the semi-esoteric allegories,
that these Beings were returning Nirvanees, from preceding Maha-Manvantaras
— ages of incalculable 
duration which have rolled away in the Eternity, a still more incalculable
time ago — he would hardly understand the text correctly; while some
Vedantins might say: "This is not so; the Nirvanee can never return"; which
is true during the Manvantara he belongs to, and erroneous where Eternity is
concerned. For it is said in the Sacred Slokas: 

"The thread of radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in Nirvana,
re-emerges from it in its integrity on the day when the Great Law calls all
things back into action. . . ." 

Hence, as the higher "Pitris or Dhyanis" had no hand in his physical
creation, we find primeval man, issued from the bodies of his spiritually
fireless progenitors, described as aëriform, devoid of compactness, and
MINDLESS. 

He had no middle principle to serve him as a medium between the highest and
the lowest, the spiritual man and the physical brain, for he lacked Manas.
The Monads which incarnated in those empty SHELLS, remained as unconscious
as when separated from their previous incomplete forms and vehicles. There
is no potentiality for creation, or self-Consciousness, in a pure Spirit on
this our plane, unless its too homogeneous, perfect, because divine, nature
is, so to say, mixed with, and strengthened by, an essence already
differentiated. It is only the lower line of the Triangle — representing the
first triad that emanates from the Universal MONAD — that can furnish this
needed consciousness on the plane of differentiated Nature. 

But how could these pure Emanations, which, on this principle, must have
originally been themselves unconscious (in our sense), be of any use in
supplying the required principle, as they could hardly have possessed it
themselves? The answer is difficult to comprehend, unless one is well
acquainted with the philosophical metaphysics of a beginningless and endless
series of Cosmic Re-births; and becomes well impressed and familiarised with
that immutable law of Nature which is ETERNAL MOTION, cyclic and spiral,
therefore progressive even in its seeming retrogression. 

The one divine Principle, the nameless THAT of the Vedas, is the universal
Total, which, neither in its spiritual aspects and emanations, nor in its
physical atoms, can ever be at "absolute rest" except during the "Nights" of
Brahma. Hence, also, the "first-born" are those who are first set in motion
at the beginning of a Manvantara, and thus the first to fall into the lower
spheres of materiality. They who are called in Theology "the Thrones," and
are the "Seat of God," must be the first incarnated men on Earth; and it
becomes comprehensible, if we think of the endless series of past
Manvantaras, to find that the last had to come first, and the first last. We
find, in short, that the higher Angels had broken, countless aeons before,
through the "Seven Circles," and thus robbed them of the Sacred fire; which
means in plain words, that they had assimilated during their past
incarnations, in lower as well as in higher worlds, all the wisdom therefrom
— the reflection of MAHAT in its various degrees of intensity. No Entity,
whether angelic or human, can reach the state of Nirvana, or of absolute
purity, except through aeons of suffering and the knowledge of EVIL as well
as of good, as otherwise the latter remains incomprehensible. 

Between man and the animal — whose Monads (or Jivas) are fundamentally
identical — there is the impassable abyss of Mentality and
Self-consciousness. 

What is human mind in its higher aspect, whence comes it, if it is not a
portion of the essence — and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the very
essence — of a higher Being: one from a higher and divine plane? Can man — a
god in the animal form — be the product of Material Nature by evolution
alone, even as is the animal, which differs from man in external shape, but
by no means in the materials of its physical fabric, and is informed by the
same, though undeveloped, Monad — seeing that the intellectual
potentialities of the two differ as the Sun does from the Glow-worm? And
what is it that creates such difference, unless man is an animal plus a
living god within his physical shell? 

...The mystery attached to the highly spiritual ancestors of the divine man
within the earthly man is very great. His dual creation is hinted at in the
Puranas, though its esoteric meaning can be approached only by collating
together the many varying accounts, and reading them in their symbolical and
allegorical character."	S D II 79-82

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

S D II 274-5

The "Fallen Angels," so-called, are Humanity itself. The Demon of Pride,
Lust, Rebellion, and Hatred, has never had any being before the appearance
of physical conscious man. 

It is man who has begotten, nurtured, and allowed the fiend to develop in
his heart; he, again, who has contaminated the indwelling god in himself, by
linking the pure spirit with the impure demon of matter. And, if the
Kabalistic saying, "Demon est Deus inversus" finds its metaphysical and
theoretical corroboration in dual manifested nature, its practical
application is found in Mankind alone. 

Thus it has now become self-evident that postulating as we do (a) the
appearance of man before that of other mammalia, and even before the ages of
the huge reptiles; (b) periodical deluges and glacial periods owing to the
karmic disturbance of the axis; and chiefly (c) the birth of man from a
Superior Being, or what materialism would call a supernatural Being, though
it is only super-human — it is evident that our teachings have very few
chances of an impartial hearing. 

Add to it the claim that a portion of the Mankind in the Third Race — all
those Monads of men who had reached the highest point of Merit and Karma in
the preceding Manvantara — owed their psychic and rational natures to divine
Beings hypostasizing into their fifth principles, and the Secret Doctrine
must lose caste in the eyes of not only Materialism but even of dogmatic
Christianity. For, no sooner will the latter have learned that those angels
are identical with their "Fallen" Spirits, than the esoteric tenet will be
proclaimed most terribly heretical and pernicious. The divine man dwelt in
the animal, and, therefore, when the physiological separation took place in
the natural course of evolution — when also "all the animal creation was
untied," and males were attracted to females — that race fell: not because
they had eaten of the fruit of Knowledge and knew good from evil, but
because they knew no better. Propelled by the sexless creative instinct, the
early sub-races had evolved an intermediate race in which, as hinted in the
Stanzas, the higher Dhyan-Chohans had incarnated. † "When we have
ascertained the extent of the Universe and learnt to know all that there is
in it, we will multiply our race," answer the Sons of Will and Yoga to their
brethren of the same race, who invite them to do as they do. This means that
the great Adepts and Initiated ascetics will "multiply," i.e., once more
produce Mind-born immaculate Sons — in the Seventh Root-Race. "
S D II 274-5

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

s d I 638-9

"In ancient Symbolism it was always the SUN (though the Spiritual, not the
visible, Sun was meant), that was supposed to send forth the chief Saviours
and Avatars. Hence the connecting link between the Buddhas, the Avatars, and
so many other incarnations of the highest SEVEN. The closer the approach to
one's Prototype, "in Heaven," the better for the mortal whose personality
was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh principle), as its
terrestrial abode. For, with every effort of will toward purification and
unity 
 
* "The Cycles of Matter," a name given by Professor Winchell to an Essay of
his written in 1860. 
639
THE NETWORK OF DESTINY.
with that "Self-god," one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual entity
of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the first,
until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into the one and highest beam
of the Parent-SUN. 

Thus, "the events of humanity do run coordinately with the number forms,"
since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the same
source—the central and its shadow, the visible SUN. For the equinoxes and
solstices, the periods and various phases of the Solar course,
astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols of
the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to
uninitiated mortals. And this explains the extraordinary numerical
coincidences with geometrical relations, as shown by several authors. 

Yes; "our destiny is written in the stars!" Only, the closer the union
between the mortal reflection MAN and his celestial PROTOTYPE, the less
dangerous the external conditions and subsequent reincarnations—which
neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of
all is it Fatalism. The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder
power, and man is a free agent during his stay on earth. 

He cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that
lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal of misery—if such is
decreed to him, either in the snowy white robes of the Martyr, or in the
soiled garments of a volunteer in the iniquitous course; for, there are
external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will
upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two. 

Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to
death, every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider
does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of
the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral, or
inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity
called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must
prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and
implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully
following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is
seemingly enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself
completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes
him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away
like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions, and this is—KARMA.
" S D I 638-9


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

S D I 225

"The first Dhyanis, commissioned to "create" man in their image, could only
throw off their shadows, like a delicate model for the Nature Spirits of
matter to work upon. (See Book II.) Man is, beyond any doubt, formed
physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his creators and fashioners
were many. Nor can it be said that the "Lord God breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life," unless that God is identified with the "ONE LIFE,"
Omnipresent though invisible, and unless the same operation is attributed to
"God" on behalf of every living Soul—or Nephesch, which is the vital Soul,
not the divine Spirit or Ruach, which ensures to man alone a divine degree
of immortality, that no animal, as such, could ever attain in this cycle of
incarnation. It is the inadequate distinctions made by the Jews, and now by
our Western metaphysicians, who, not knowing of, and being unable to
understand, hence to accept, more than a triune man—Spirit, Soul, Body—thus
confuse the "breath of life" with immortal Spirit. S D I 225
 
-----------------------------------------------------

S D I 247-8

". For the Monad or Jiva per se cannot be even called spirit: it is a ray, a
breath of the ABSOLUTE, or the Absoluteness rather, and the Absolute
Homogeneity, having no relations with the conditioned and relative
finiteness, is unconscious on our plane. 

Therefore, besides the material which will be needed for its future human
form, the monad requires 

(a) a spiritual model, or prototype, for that material to shape itself into;
and 

(b) an intelligent consciousness to guide its evolution and progress,
neither of which is possessed by the homogeneous monad, or by senseless
though living matter. 

The Adam of dust requires the Soul of Life to be breathed into him: the two
middle principles, which are the sentient life of the irrational animal and
the Human Soul, for the former is irrational without the latter. It is only
when, from a potential androgyne, man has become separated into male and
female, that he will be endowed with this conscious, rational, individual
Soul, (Manas) "the principle, or the intelligence, of the Elohim," to
receive which, he has to eat of the fruit of Knowledge from the Tree of Good
and Evil. 

How is he to obtain all this? The Occult doctrine teaches that while the
monad is cycling on downward into matter, these very Elohim—or Pitris, the
lower Dhyan-Chohans—are evolving pari passu with it on a higher and more
spiritual plane, descending also relatively into matter on their own plane
of consciousness, when, after having reached a certain point, they will meet
the incarnating senseless monad, encased in the lowest matter, and blending
the two potencies, Spirit and Matter, the union will produce that
terrestrial symbol of the "Heavenly Man" in space—PERFECT MAN. 

In the Sankhya philosophy, Purusha (spirit) is spoken of as something
impotent unless he mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti (matter), which, left
alone, is—senseless. But in the secret philosophy they are viewed as
graduated. Though one and the same thing in their origin, Spirit and Matter,
when once they are on the plane of differentiation, begin each of them their
evolutionary progress in contrary directions—Spirit falling gradually into
matter, and the latter ascending to its original condition, that of a pure
spiritual substance. Both are inseparable, yet ever separated. In polarity,
on the physical plane, two like poles will always repel each other, while
the negative and the positive are mutually attracted, so do Spirit and
Matter stand to each other—the two poles of the same homogeneous substance,
the root-principle of the universe. 

Therefore, when the hour strikes for Purusha to mount on Prakriti's
shoulders for the formation of the Perfect Man—rudimentary man of the first
2 1/2 Races being only the first, gradually evolving into the most perfect
of mammals—the Celestial "Ancestors" (Entities from preceding worlds, called
in India the Sishta) step in on this our plane, as the Pitris had stepped in
before them for the formation of the physical or animal-man, and incarnate
in the latter. Thus the two processes—for the two creations: the animal and
the divine man—differ greatly. The Pitris shoot out from their ethereal
bodies, still more ethereal and shadowy similitudes of themselves, or what
we should now call "doubles," or "astral forms," in their own likeness. This
furnishes the Monad with its first dwelling, and blind matter with a model
around and upon which to build henceforth. But Man is still incomplete. From
Swayambhuva Manu (in Manu, Book I.), from whom descended the seven primitive
Manus or Prajapati, each of whom gave birth to a primitive race of men, down
to the Codex Nazareus, in which Karabtanos or Fetahil (blind concupiscent
matter) begets on his Mother, "Spiritus," seven figures, each of which
stands as the progenitor of one of the primeval seven races—this doctrine
has left its impress on every Archaic Scripture. 

"Who forms Manu (the Man) and who forms his body? The LIFE and the LIVES.
Sin † and the MOON." Here Manu stands for the spiritual, heavenly man, the
real and non-dying EGO in us, which is the direct emanation of the "One
Life" or the Absolute Deity. As to our outward physical bodies, the house of
the tabernacle of the Soul, the Doctrine teaches a strange lesson; so
strange that unless thoroughly explained and as rightly comprehended, it is
only the exact Science of the future that is destined to vindicate the
theory fully. 
S D I 247-8

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

I hope this might help -- there are gaps of course because of the selection
I make.


Dallas

I attach some further notes on will. (separately)

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald S
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 5:27 PM
To: 
Subject: Motion Through Space and the True Will


According to Blavatsky, the Esoteric Tradition defines the ultimate or
original duality as Motion and Space. Normally we would think in terms of
time and space, or self and not-self, purusha and prakriti, and so on. But
Blavatsky is approaching the whole creation and conditional reality
business from the perspective of the Doctrine of Monads. From the
perspective of a single monad (small m), a monad can be defined as Motion
through Space, because it is the I that moves through its own Not-I while
sharing parts of its Not-I (ie Space) with other monads. So using my
I-Not-I Monad Model, Space is the shared Not-I's while the I and its
movement through its Not-I is Motion. Now, this Motion through Space (ie.,
the I's movement or path or orbit through the shared Not-I's of infinite
monads) is what I have been calling our True Will.

If you are still with me, let me say a few words about this True Will where
the word "true" does not mean either free or forced. The sun shines light
in all directions. It is constrained by its karma to do so and can do
nothing else. On the other hand, shining light is its True Will and it does
so freely and deliberately. So the concepts of freedom and constraint do
not apply to True Will..

As human beings, we have what we call will as a part of the human psysche.
This is the human will or ego will as opposed to our True Will. Now,

1. When our ego-will conflicts, or is not in harmony with, our True Will,
we generate what is called bad karma which accumulates over time as our
karmic burden.

2. When our ego-will is in harmony with our True Will, we generate what is
called good karma which accumulates over time as merit.

As Theosophists, or anyone on a Path for that matter, we need to discover
our Tue Will, our ligitimate Motion through Space. And then we need to
follow it. Our daily movements and actions should be in harmony with our
True Will which is our Motion through Space. Each and every monad has it
own individual unique Motion through Space. Each monad has an inherent
right to follow its own True Will. Conflict and thus bad karma comes about
whenever our actions are not in harmony with our own Free Will because such
conflicts mean that we are interferring with the rights of others to follow
their True Wills. We have no right to interfer in the True Will of other
monads. Nor do they have any right to interfer in ours, unless we let them.

This is a difficult concept to put into words, and I can only hope that I
am getting something across here. 

Jerry S.