Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00570)

Mar 25, 2005

Friends:

Yesterday I posted:

Re: ASTRAL and AKASHIC RECORDS
A Spiritual Progress Register

In the past days some inquiries have focussed on the karmic record of choice
that exists in the astral light and the Akasa as a permanent record.

The following tale will illustrate this in a very persuasive way.

THE TELL-TALE PICTURE GALLERY
A Tale by W. Q. Judge

An inquiry has come asking about the "WANDERING EYE"

Here is that story:

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THE WANDERING EYE

By Bryan Kinnavan (W. Q. Judge)



This is not a tale in which I fable a mythical and impossible monster such
as the Head of Rahu, which the common people of India believe swallows the
moon at every eclipse. Rahu is but a tale that for the vulgar embodies the
fact that the shadow of the earth eats up the white disk, but I tell you of
a veritable human eye; a wanderer, a seeker, a pleader; an eye that
searched you out and held you, like the bird fascinated by the serpent,
while it sought within your nature for what it never found. Such an eye as
this is sometimes spoken of now by various people, but they see it on the
psychic plane, in the astral light, and it is not to be seen or felt in the
light of day moving about like other objects.

This wandering eye I write of was always on the strange but sacred Island
where so many things took place long ages ago. Ah! yes, it is still the
sacred Island, now obscured and its power overthrown--some think forever.
But its real power will be spiritual and though the minds of men today know
not the spirit, caring only for temporal glory, the old virtue of the Island
will once again return. What weird and ghostly shapes still flit around her
shores; what strange, low, level whisperings sweep across her mountains;
how at the evening's edge just parted from the day, her fairies suddenly
remembering their human rulers-- 
now sunk to men who partly fear them--gather for a moment about the spots
where mystery is buried, and then sighing speed away. It was here the
wandering eye was first seen..

By day if had simply a grey color, piercing, steady, and always bent on
finding out some certain thing, from which it could not be diverted; at
night it glowed with a light of its own, and could be seen moving over the
Island, now quickly, now slowly, as it settled to look for that which it did
not find.

The people had a fear of this eye, although they were then accustomed to
all sorts of magical occurrences now unknown to most Western men. At first
those who felt themselves annoyed by it tried to destroy or catch it, but
never succeeded, because the moment they made the attempt the eye would
disappear. It never manifested resentment, but seemed filled with a
definite purpose and bent toward a well-settled end. Even those who had
essayed to do away with it were surprised to find no threatening in its
depths when, in the darkness of the night, it floated up by their bedsides
and looked them over again.

If any one else save myself know of the occasion when this marvelous
wanderer first started, to whom it had belonged, I never heard. I was bound
to secrecy and could not reveal it.

In the same old temple and tower to which I have previously referred, there
was an old man who had always been on terms of great intimacy with me. He
was a disputer and a doubter, yet terribly in earnest and anxious to know
the truths of nature, but he continually raised the question: "If I could
only know the truth; that is all I wish to know."

Then, whenever I suggested solutions received from my teachers, he would
wander away to the eternal doubts. The story was whispered about the temple
that he had entered life in that state of mind, and was known to the
superior as one who, in a preceding life, had raised doubts and
impossibilities merely for the sake of hearing solutions without desire to
prove anything, and had vowed, after many years of such profitless
discussion, to seek for truth alone. But the Karma accumulated by the
lifelong habit had not been exhausted, and in the incarnation when I met
him, although sincere and earnest, he was hampered by the pernicious habit
of the previous life. Hence the solutions he sought were always near but
ever missed.  

But towards the close of the life of which I am speaking he obtained a
certainty that by peculiar practices he could concentrate in his eye not
only the sight but also all the other forces, and wilfully set about the
task against my strong protest. Gradually his eye assumed a most
extraordinary and piercing expression which was heightened whenever he
indulged in discussion. He was hugging the one certainty to his breast and
still suffering from the old Karma of doubt. So he fell sick, and being old
came near to death. One night I visited him at his request, and on reaching
his side I found him approaching dissolution. We were alone . He spoke
freely but very sadly, for, as death drew near, he saw more clearly, and as
the hours fled by his eyes grew more extraordinarily piercing than ever,
with a pleading, questioning expression.

"Ah," he said, "I have erred again; but it is just Karma. I have succeeded
in but one thing, and that will ever delay me."

"What is that ?" I asked.

The expression of his eyes seemed to embrace futurity as he told me that his
peculiar practice would compel him for a long period to remain chained to
his strongest eye--the right one--until the force of the energy expended in
learning that one feat was fully exhausted. I saw death slowly creeping
over his features, and when I had thought him dead he suddenly gained
strength to make me promise not to reveal the secret--and expired.

As he passed away, it was growing dark. After his body had become cold,
there in the darkness I saw a human eye glowing and gazing at me. It was
his, for I recognized the expression. All his peculiarities and modes of
thought seemed fastened into it, sweeping out over you from it. Then it
turned from me, soon disappearing. His body was buried; none save myself
and our superiors knew of these things. But for many years afterwards the
wandering eye was seen in every part of the Island, ever seeking, ever
asking, and never waiting for the answer.,


Bryan Kinnevan
(W. Q. Judge)	PATH, May, 1889

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THE PERSIAN STUDENT'S DOCTRINE


 
BEFORE the flashing diamond in the mysterious mountain behind the Temple
began to lose its brilliance, many foreigners had visited the Island. Among
them were students who came from Persia. Coming that great distance they
sought more knowledge, as in their own land the truth was already beginning
to be forgotten. It was hidden under a thick crust of fanciful
interpretations of the sayings of their sages which were fast turning into
superstitious notions. And these young men thought that in the Island, the
fame of which had spread over land and sea, they would find learning and
wisdom and the way to power. But yet while in such a frame of mind, they
regarded some things as settled even for sages. 

What they said did not have much influence on me until they began to quote
some of the old writings from the prophets of their country, attempting to
prove that men, though god-like and immortal, transmigrated sometimes
backwards into beasts and birds and insects. As some old Buddhist monks had
years before given out the same idea with hints of mystery underneath, the
sayings of these visitors began to trouble me. They quoted these verses from
the prophet the Great Abad:

Those who, in the season of prosperity, experience pain and grief, suffer
them on account of their words or deeds in a former body, for which the Most
Just now punisheth them.

Whosoever is an evil doer, on him He first inflicteth pain under the human
form; for sickness, the sufferings of children while in their mothers womb,
and after they are out of it, and suicide, and being hurt by ravenous
animals, and death, and being subjected to want from birth till death, are
all retributions for past actions; and in like manner as to goodness.

The lion, the tiger, the leopard, the panther, . . . with all ravenous
animals, whether birds or quadrupeds or creeping things, have once possessed
authority: and every one whom they kill hath been their aider or abetter,
who did evil by supporting, or assisting, or by the orders of, that exalted
class; and having given pain to harmless animals are now punished by their
own masters.

The horse submits to be ridden on, and the ox, the camel, the mule, and the
ass bear burdens. And these in a former life were men who imposed burdens on
others unjustly.

Such persons as are foolish and evil doers, being enclosed in the body of
vegetables, meet with the reward of their stupidity and misdeeds. And such
as possess illaudable knowledge and do evil are enclosed in the body of
minerals until their sins be purified; after which they are delivered from
this suffering, and are once more united to a human body; and according as
they act in it they again meet with retribution.

These young men made such good arguments of these texts, and dwelt so
strongly upon the great attainments of Abad, who was beyond doubt a prophet
of insight, that doubts arose in my mind. While the verses did not deny the
old doctrine of man's reincarnation, they added a new view to the matter
that had never suggested itself to me before. 

The students pointed out that there was a very wise and consistent doctrine
in those verses wherein it was declared that murderers, tyrants, and such
men would be condemned to inhabit the bodies of such murderous beasts as
lions and tigers. They made out a strong case on the other verses also,
showing that those weak but vicious men who had aided and abetted the
stronger and more violent murderers should be condemned to precipitation out
of the human cycle into the bodies of defenseless animals, in company with
ferocious beasts, by the strength and ferocity of which they would at last
be destroyed themselves. 

And thus, said these visitors, they proceed in each other's company, lower
and lower in the scale of organized life, reaching at last those kingdoms of
nature like the mineral, where differentiation in the direction of man is
not yet visible. And from there the condemned beings would be ground out
into the great mass and slime at the very bottom of nature's ladder.

Not wishing to admit or accept these doctrines from strangers, I engaged in
many arguments with them on the matter, until at last they left the Island
to continue their pilgrimage.

So one day, being troubled in mind about these sayings of Abad, which,
indeed, I heard from the students were accepted in many countries and given
by several other prophets, I sought out the old man who so often before had
solved problems for me. He was a man of sorrow, for although possessor of
power and able to open up the inner planes of nature, able to give to a
questioner the inner sight for a time so that one could see for himself the
real truth of material things, something ever went with him that spoke of a
sorrow he could not tell about. Perhaps he was suffering for a fault the
magnitude of which no one knew but himself; perhaps the final truths eluded
him; or maybe he had a material belief at bottom. But he was always kind,
and ever ready to give me the help I needed provided I had tried myself in
every way and failed to obtain it.

"Brother," I said, "do we go into animals when we die?"

"Who said that we do?" was his answer.

"It is declared by the old prophet Abad of the Worshippers of Fire that we
thus fall down from our high estate gained with pain and difficulty."

"Do you believe it; have you reasoned it out or accepted the doctrine?"

"No," I said, "I have not accepted it. Much as I may reason on it, there are
defects in my replies, for there seems to be consistency in the doctrine
that the ferocious may go into the ferocious and vicious into the wild
animals; the one destroying the other and man, the hunter, killing the
ferocious. Can you solve it?"

Turning on me the deep and searching gaze he used for those who asked when
he would determine if curiosity alone moved them, he said, "I will show you
the facts and the corrupted doctrine together, on the night of the next full
moon."

Patiently I waited for the moon to grow, wondering, supposing that the moon
must be connected with the question, because we were said to have come by
the way of the moon like a flock of birds who migrated north or south
according to their nature. 

At last the day came and I went to the old man. He was ready. Turning from
the room he took me to a small cave near the foot of the Diamond Mountain.
The light of the diamond seemed to illuminate the sky as we paused at the
entrance. We went in by the short passage in front, and here, where I had
never been before, soft footfalls of invisible beings seemed to echo as if
they were retreating before us, and half-heard whispers floated by us out
into the night. But I had no fear. Those footfalls, though strange, had no
malice, and such faint and melodious whispering aroused no alarm. He went to
the side of the cave so that we looked at the other side. The passage had a
sharp turn near the inner entrance, and no light fell around us. Thus we
waited in silence for some time.

"Look quietly toward the opposite wall," said the old man, "and waver not in
thought."

Fixing an unstrained gaze in the direction of the other side, it soon seemed
to quiver, then an even vibration began across it until it looked like a
tumbling mass of clouds. This soon settled into a grey flat surface like a
painter's canvas, that was still as the clear sky and seemingly transparent.
It gave us light and made no reflection.

"Think of your question, of your doubts, and of the young students who have
raised them; think not of Abad, for he is but a name," whispered my guide.

Then, as I revolved the question, a cloud arose on the surface before me; it
moved, it grew into shapes that were dim at first. They soon became those of
human beings. They were the living pictures of my student friends. They were
conversing, and I too was there but less plain than they. 

But instead of atmosphere being around them they were surrounded with ether,
and streams of ether full of what I took to be corporeal atoms in a state of
change continually rushed from one to the other. After I had accustomed my
sight to this, the old man directed me to look at one of the students in
particular. From him the stream of ether loaded with atoms, very dark in
places and red in others, did not always run to his fellows, but seemed to
be absorbed elsewhere. Then when I had fixed this in my mind all the other
students faded from the space, their place taken by some ferocious beasts
that prowled around the remaining student, though still appearing to be a
long distance from him. And then I saw that the stream of atoms from him was
absorbed by those dreadful beasts, at the same time that a mask fell off, as
it were, from his face, showing me his real ferocious, murderous mind.

"He killed a man on the way, in secret. He is a murderer at heart," said my
guide. "This is the truth that Abad meant to tell. 

Those atoms fly from all of us at every instant. They seek their appropriate
center; that which is similar to the character of him who evolves them. We
absorb from our fellows whatever is like unto us. It is thus that man
reincarnates in the lower kingdoms. He is the lord of nature, the key, the
focus, the highest concentrator of nature's laboratory. And the atoms he
condemns to fall thus to beasts will return to him in some future life for
his detriment or his sorrow. But he, as immortal man, cannot fall. That
which falls is the lower, the personal, the atomic. He is the brother and
teacher of all below him. See that you do not hinder and delay all nature by
your failure in virtue."

Then the ugly picture faded out and a holy man, named in the air in gold
"Abad," took his place.

>From him the stream of atoms, full of his virtue, his hopes, aspirations,
and the impression of his knowledge and power, flowed out to other Sages, to
disciples, to the good in every land. They even fell upon the unjust and the
ferocious, and then thoughts of virtue, of peace, of harmony grew up where
those streams flowed. The picture faded, the cloudy screen vibrated and
rolled away. We were again in the lonely cave. Faint footfalls echoed round
the walls, and soft whispers as of peace and hope trembled through the air.

BRYAN KINNAVAN	Path, October, 1892 
 

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Best wishes,

Dallas























Dallas