Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00439)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "krishtar" <krishtar_a@b...> wrote:
> I have read the word "overshadow" in a great majority of texts on 
the process Alice Bailey used to claim her communication with her 
masters.
> What is the meaning of this word? Does it mean ' dominate' ?
> I have always thought that "overshadow" meant chanelling or even 
mediumnizing...

It's quite the reverse. The word is probably wrongly selected, as too 
many in the theosophical literature, but it means rather "reflect", 
i.e. have on oneself more or less weak reflection of the some bright 
light. It is not a full direct comminication, as in a case of a medium 
(or in a case of an avatara), but rather partial influence.

I think it was Subba Row who has introduced this word into the 
theosophical literature.

"Again when I speak of the light of the Logos permeating this cosmos 
and vibrating in various incarnations, it does not necessarily follow 
that a being who has gone to the Logos is incarnated again.
He has then a well defined spiritual individuality of his own, and 
though the Logos is Iswara, and its light is the Chaitanyam of the 
universe, and though the Logos from time to time assimilates with its
own spiritual nature the purified souls of various Mahatmas, and also 
overshadows certain individuals, still the Logos itself never suffers 
and has nothing like Punarjanmam in the proper sense of the word; and 
a man who is absorbed into it becomes an immortal, spiritual being, a 
real Iswara in the cosmos, never to be reborn, and never again to be 
subject to the pains and pleasures of human life." (Philosophy of 
Bhagavad Gita)

The "Ishvara" which he uses for Logos here, is the "Lord" or "God" of 
the western theosopists.