Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00140)

May 4, 2005

Re; NIRMANAKAYAS

Dear M and Friends:

Here are some nots that might help:





NIRMANAKAYA (Sk.) Occultism…says: that Nirmanakaya, although meaning
literally a transformed “body;” is a state. The form is that of an adept or
yogi who enters, or chooses that post mortem condition in preference to the
Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic state. He does this because the latter kaya
separates him for ever from the world of form, conferring upon him a state
of selfish bliss, in which no other living being can participate, the adept
being thus precluded from the possibility of helping humanity, or even
devas.

As a Nirmanakaya, however, the man leaves behind him only his physical body,
and retains every other “principle” save the Kamic--for he has crushed this
our for ever from his nature, during life, and it can never resurrect in his
post mortem state.  

Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss, he chooses a life of
self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the life-cycle, in order
to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible yet most effective manner.
(See The Voice of the Silence, third treatise…pp. 69fn, 74, 77 & footnote.)

Thus a Nirmanakaya is…verily one, who whether a Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan,an
adept of a yogi during life, has since become a member of that invisible
Host which ever protects and watches over Humanity within Karmic limits.
Mistaken often for a “spirit,” a Deva, God himself, etc…, a Nirmanakaya is
ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian angel, to him who
becomes worthy of his help….no one will be bold enough to say that this idea
of helping suffering mankind at the price of one’s own almost interminable
self-sacrifice, is not one of the grandest and noblest that was ever evolved
from human brain.”	THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY p. 231 -- HPB


"Nirmanakaya...is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his
physical he would appear in his astral body--having in addition all the
knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he
proceeds on the Path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he
remains on Earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into
Nirvana, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself,
invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it...Thus, to be
enabled to help humanity, an Arhat who has won the right to Nirvana,
"renounces the Dharmakaya body" in mystic parlance; keeps, of the
Sambhogakaya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his
Nirmanakaya body. The Esoteric School teaches that Gautama Buddha, with
several of his Arhats, is such a Nirmanakaya higher than whom, on account of
the great renunciation and sacrifice for mankind, there is none known."
VOICE 77-8



NIRMANAKAYA – 
INVISIBLE, SPIRITS OF LIVING SAGES


"...those EGOS of great Adepts who have passed away, and are also known as
Nirmanakayas;...for whom--since they are beyond illusion--there is no
Devachan, and who, having either voluntarily renounced it for the good of
mankind, or not yet reached Nirvana, remain invisible on earth...they are
re-born over and over again...Who they are, "on earth"--every student of
Occult science knows..."	SD II 615



EVOLUTION OF THE IMMORTAL MAN


"It is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms the
fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences...the ONE Universal Life,
independent of matter...and...the individual intelligences that animate the
various manifestations of this Principle...The ONE Life is closely related
to the one law which governs the World of Being--KARMA." SD I 634



THE ETERNAL MAN


"...the true esoteric meaning is that most of them (the Agnishwatta Pitris)
were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the forthcoming crop of Mankind.
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 the Sutratma, which is the
golden thread on which, like beads, the various personalities of this higher
Ego are strung...these beings were returning Nirvanees, from preceding
Maha-Manvantaras--ages of incalculable duration..."	
SD II 79


"...from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being--the world
of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose links are all connected."
SD I 604



SAVIOURS OF NATIONS AND OF MEN -- 
TEACHERS OF TRUTH -- ALIVE NOW


"[The ADEPT]...serves humanity and identifies himself with the whole world;
he is ready to make vicarious sacrifice for it at any moment--by living not
by dying for it. Why should he not die for it? Because he is part of the
whole, and one of the most valuable parts of it. Because he lives under
laws of order which he does not desire to break. His life is not his own,
but that of the forces which work behind him. He is the flower of humanity,
the bloom which contains the divine seed. He is, in his own person, a
treasure of the universal nature. which is guarded and made safe in order
that the fruition shall be perfected. It is only at definite periods of the
world's history that he is allowed to go among the herd of men as their
redeemer."	LIGHT ON THE PATH p. 72-3 	 
[ see also S D I 207 - 210 ]


"At times they come to nations as great teachers and "saviours," who only
repromulgate the old truths and systems of ethics. This therefore holds
that humanity is capable of infinite perfection both in time and quality,
the saviours and adepts being held up as examples of that possibility.

>From this living and presently acting body of perfected men H.P.Blavatsky
declared she received the impulse to once more bring forward the old ideas,
and from them also received several keys to ancient and modern doctrines.
Added...to the testimony through all time found in the records of all
nations we have this modern explicit assertion that the ancient learned and
humanitarian body of adepts still exists on this earth and takes an interest
in the development of the race." WQJ ARTICLES I pp. 1-2



NIRMANAKAYAS WORK --  
THEIR RELATIONS WITH US


"Nirmanakayas. They are men who have become perfected--who could if they
chose reach up to and hold the very highest state of bliss, but who refuse
that bliss because it would mean forever to forsake all chance of helping
their fellow-men. They can, when the nature of the person is true and
aspiring strongly, communicate, if it is necessary to help him. But there
is no mistake in these communications. They are personal, meant for that
one as direct help. It is the within which induces any outside help that we
receive. It is a recognition of the spiritual nature of ourselves and all
beings which makes the true condition. It is from the spiritual that the
strength comes. And it is for the perfection of humanity that all the
Divine Incarnations have labored."	RC -- FP p. 258



WE ARE NEVER 'LEFT ALONE," OR "ABANDONED" 
BY THE ADEPTS, OR “ELDER BROTHERS”


"Never have we been left alone. Always there are beings greater in
evolution than we, who return to this field of physical existence to help
us, to wake us up to a perception of our natures. Such has been the mission
of all Divine Incarnations down the ages. Those beings have come and lived
among us, have become "in all things like unto us," as was said of Jesus, in
order that the human words They spoke should be words we would understand.
They meet us on the basis of our ideas and try to clarify them and set them
in a true course. They can do nothing to stop what (338) we have done and
what we want to do; They can not interfere; but They can help us to see
the right direction, if we are so willed...Always They try to help us, even
when we are proceeding along wrong lines and bringing upon ourselves the
suffering such wrong lines entail--even then They try to direct the results
into a better channel..."	RC -- FP p. 337-8



"PERFECTED SOULS" -- STAND AS EXAMPLES TO US

"No one can know anything for another. Each one has to know for himself.
Each one has to do his own learning. The object of Theosophy is to teach
man what he is, to show man what he is, and to present to him the necessity
of his knowing for himself. No vicarious atonement, no vicarious
transmission of knowledge, is possible. But the direction in which
knowledge lies can be pointed out; the steps which will lead us in that
direction may be shown, as can be done only by those who have passed that
way before...It is the doctrine of Krishna, of Buddha, of Jesus, no less
than the doctrine of H.P.B... The very fact of suffering is a blessing.
Karma and Reincarnation show us that suffering is brought about by wrong
thought and action; through our sufferings we may be brought to a
realization that a wrong course has been pursued. We learn through our
sufferings.

Life is one grand school of Being, and we have come to that stage where it
is right for us to learn to understand the purpose of existence; to grasp
our whole nature firmly; to use every means in our power in every
direction...to bring the whole of our nature into accord, so that our lower
instrument may be "in line" and thus more and more fully reflect our divine
natures."	RC -- FP p. 263



FINAL CHOICE OF NIRVANA OR RENUNCIATION 
					

"... we know that at a certain period of progress, far above this sublunary
world, the adept reaches a point when he may, if he so chooses, formulate a
wish that he might be one of the Devas, one of the bright host of beings of
whose pleasure and glory and power we can have no idea. The mere
formulation of the wish is enough. At that moment he becomes one of the
Devas. He then for a period of time which in its extent is incalculable,
enjoys that condition--then what? Then he has to begin again low down on
the scale, in a mode and for a purpose which it would be useless to detail
here, because it could not be understood..."
WQJ ARTICLES I pp 8-9



FINAL INITIATION

"Every Buddha meets at his last initiation all the great adepts who reached
Buddhahood during the preceding ages...every class of adepts has its own
bond of spiritual communion which knits them together...The only possible
and effectual way of entering into such brotherhood...is by bringing oneself
within the influence of the Spiritual light which radiates from one's own
Logos...such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive
their life and sustenance from the same divine RAY, and that, as seven
distinct rays radiate from the 'Central Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Dhyan
Chohans are divisible into 7 classes, each of which is guided, controlled,
and overshadowed by one of the 7 forms or manifestations of the divine
wisdom."	(S. Rao quoted - THEOSOPHIST, AUG. 1886) SD I 574


SEVEN-FOLD GROUP OF DHYAN CHOHANS - 
WATCHERS OVER EVOLUTION

"There are 7 chief groups of such Dhyan Chohans...the primeval SEVEN Rays.
Humanity, occultism teaches, is divided into 7 distinct groups and their
sub-divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical (fn) ...(FN) Hence the 7
chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling 7 spirits, under each of which
is born one of the human groups which is guided and influenced thereby.
There are only 7 planets (specially connected with this earth), and 12
houses...countless...each of which varieties is born under one of the 7
planets and one of the said countless planetary combinations."	SD I
573 & fn


"...'the MIND'...the collective body of Dhyan Chohans, we say--began to work
upon and communicated to it motion and order..."	SD I 595


"The hosts of these Sons of Light and "Mind-born Sons" of the first
manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual man."	SD
I 106
	

"...the 7 wise ones (rays of wisdom, Dhyanis) fashion 7 paths (or lines as
also Races in another sense)...they are primarily beams of light falling on
the paths leading to wisdom...the 7 Rays which fall free from the
macrocosmic centre, the 7 principles in the metaphysical, the 7 Races in the
physical sense."	SD II 191 fn


OTHER TITLES


ARAHAT (Sk.)	Also...Arhat, Arhan, Rahat, etc., "the worthy one," lit.
"deserving divine honors"...first given to the Jain and subsequently to the
Buddhist holy men initiated into the esoteric mysteries. The Arhat is one
who has entered the best and highest path, and is thus emancipated from
re-berth." GLOS. 28


AVATARA (Sk.)	Divine incarnation. The descent of a god or some exalted
Being, who has progressed beyond the necessity of Rebirths, into the body of
a simple mortal. Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu...There are two kinds of
avatars: those born from woman, and the parentless, the anupadaka." GLOS
44


ANUPADAKA (Sk.)	"parentless," "self-existing"...A term applied to
certain self-created gods, and the Dhyani Buddhas."	GLOS 25

"The term Anupadaka, "parentless," or without progenitors, is a mystical
designation...[of] celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas,
are generally meant. But as these correspond mystically to the human
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, known as the "Manushi (or, human) Buddhas," the
latter are also designated "Anupadaka," once that their whole personality is
merged in their compound 6th and 7th principles--or Atma-Buddhi, and that
they have become the "diamond-souled" (Vajra-sattvas), the full
Mahatmas...The mystery in the hierarchy of the Anupadaka is great, its apex
being the universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower rung the Manushi-Buddha; and
even every Soul-endowed man is an Anupadaka is a latent state."	SD I
52 [GLOS 25]


BODHISATTVA - NIRMANAKAYA (Sk.) "Remember, thou that fightest for man's
liberation,* each failure is success and each sincere attempt wins its
reward in time." * This is an allusion to a well-known belief in the
East...that every additional Buddha or Saint is a new soldier in the army of
those who work for the liberation, or salvation of mankind. In Northern
Buddhist countries, where the doctrine of the Nirmanakayas--those
Bodhisattvas who renounce well-earned Nirvana or the Dharmakaya vesture
(both of which shut them out forever from the world of men) in order to
invisibly assist mankind and lead it finally to Paranirvana--is taught,
every new Bodhisattva, or initiated great Adept, is called the "liberator of
mankind."	VOICE OF THE SILENCE, p. 69


"A Bodhisattva is, in the hierarchy, less than a "perfect Buddha." In the
exoteric parlance these two are very much confused. Yet the innate and
right popular perception, owing to that self-sacrifice has placed a
Bodhisattva higher in its reverence than a Buddha.

This same popular reverence calls "Buddhas of Compassion" those Bodhisattvas
who, having reached the rank of an Arhat (i.e., have completed the fourth or
seventh Path), refuse to pass into the Nirvanic state or "don the Dharmakaya
robe and cross to the other shore," as it would then become beyond their
power to assist men even so little as Karma permits. They prefer to remain
invisibly (in Spirit, so to speak) in the world, and contribute towards
man's salvation by influencing them to follow the Good Law, i.e., lead them
on the Path of Righteousness..."	VOICE OF THE SILENCE, p. 77


BUDDHA (Sk.)	"The Enlightened." The highest degree of knowledge. To
become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and
personality; to acquire a complete perception of the REAL SELF and learn
not to separate it from all other selves; to learn (65) by experience the
utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible Kosmos foremost of all; to
reach a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and live
while yet on Earth in the immortal and the everlasting alone, in a supreme
state of holiness."	GLOS 64-5


BUDDHA SIDDARTHA (Sk.)	The name given to Gautama, the Prince of
Kapilavastu, at his birth...he would not have been a mortal man, had he not
passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his
last...through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and
inanimate atom and insect, up to the highest--man, ...the hidden symbolism
in the sequence of these re-births (jataka) contains simply [that] every
human being who has ever existed has passed through the same evolution...as
soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every
personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity...the 4th
of the Sapta (7) Buddhas and Sapta Tathagatas...Esoteric teachings claim
that he renounced Nirvana and gave up the Dharmakaya vesture to remain a
"Buddha of compassion" within the reach of the miseries of this world. And
the religious philosophy he left to it has produced for over 2,000 years
generations of good and unselfish men. His is the only absolutely bloodless
religion among all existing religions...[if the] simple, humane and
philosophical code of daily life left to us by the greatest Man-Reformer
ever known, should ever come to be adopted by mankind at large, then indeed
an era of bliss and peace would dawn on Humanity."	GLOS 65-67


"KUMARAS" -- THE CUSTODIANS OF THE MYSTERIES -- 
THE UNDYING RACE


"Alone a handful of primitive men -- in whom the spark of divine Wisdom
burnt bright, and only strengthened in its intensity as it got dimmer and
dimmer with every age in those who turned it to bad purposes--remained the
elect custodians of the Mysteries revealed to mankind by the divine
Teachers. There were those among them, who remained in their Kumaric
condition from the beginning; and tradition whispers, what the secret
teachings affirm, namely, that these Elect were the germs of a Hierarchy
which never died since that period:--

"The inner man of the first * * * only changes his body from time to time;
he is ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning Devachan and
remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind ..." "Out of the
seven virgin-men (Kumara) four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the
world and the instruction of (282) the ignorant, to remain till the end of
the present Manvantara. Though unseen, they are ever present. When people
say of one of them, "He is dead;" behold, he is alive and under another
form. These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying
knowledge (Gnyana). Thou shalt never speak, O Lanoo, of these great ones
(Maha...) before a multitude, mentioning them by their names. The wise
alone will understand." (Catechism of the Inner Schools.)	SD II 281-2


"...the early sub-races had evolved an intermediate race in which...the
higher Dhyan Chohans had incarnated. ( fn.) This is the "undying race" as
it is called in Esotericism, and exoterically the fruitless generation of
the first progeny of Daksha, who curses Narada, the divine Rishi ... by
saying "Be born in the womb; there shall not be a resting place for thee in
all these regions;" after this Narada, the representative of that race of
fruitless ascetics, is said, as soon as he dies in one body, to be reborn in
another."	SD II 275 - fn


"Happily for the human race the "Elect Race" had already become the vehicle
of incarnation for the (intellectually and spiritually) highest Dhyanis
before Humanity had become quite material. When the last sub-races...of the
3rd Race had perished with the great Lemurian Continent, "the seeds of the
Trinity of Wisdom" had already acquired the secret of immortality on Earth,
that gift which allows the same great personality to step ad libitum from
one worn-out body into another."	SD II 276


MAHATMA	(Sk.)	Lit., "great soul." An adept of the highest order. Exalted
beings who, having attained to the mastery over their lower principles are
thus living unimpeded by the "man of flesh," and are in possession of
knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in their
spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and Arhats."	GLOS 201


"A visitor from one of the other planets of the solar system who might learn
the term Mahatma after arriving here would certainly suppose that the
etymology of the word undoubtedly inspired the believers in Mahatmas with
the devotion, fearlessness, hope, and energy which such an ideal should
arouse in those who have the welfare of the human race at heart...The whole
sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word
Mahatma.. Maha is "great," Atma is "soul," and both compounded into one
mean those great souls who have triumphed before us not because they are
made of different stuff and are of some strange family, but just because
they are of the human race.

Reincarnation, karma, the sevenfold division, retribution, reward, struggle,
failure, success, illumination, power, and a vast embracing love for man,
all these lie in that single word.

The soul emerges from the unknown, begins to work in and with matter, is
reborn again and again, makes karma, develops the 6 vehicles for itself,
meets retribution for sin and punishment for mistake, grows strong by
suffering, succeeds in bursting through the gloom, is enlightened by true
illumination, grasps power, retains charity, expands with love for orphaned
humanity, and thenceforth helps all others who remain in darkness until all
may be raised up to the place with the "Father in Heaven" who is the Higher
Self."	WQJ -- ART. II, p. 39-40


"The real Mahatma is then not his physical body but that higher Manas which
is inseparably linked to the Atma and its vehicle (6th principle) -- a union
effected by him in a comparatively very short period by passing through the
self-evolution laid down by the Occult Philosophy." HPB ART I 293


SOURCE OF THE SPIRIT IN MAN


"...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


"...the "Ah-hi" pass through all the planes, beginning to manifest on the
third. Like all other Hierarchies, on the highest plane they are arupa,
i.e., formless, bodiless, without any substance, mere breaths. On the
second plane, they first approach to Rupa, or form. On the third, they
become Manasa-putras, those who become incarnated in man. With every plane
they reach they are called by different names--there is a continual
differentiation of their original homogeneous substance; we call it
substance, although in reality it is no substance of which we can conceive.
Later they become Rupa--ethereal forms."
TRANSACTIONS p. 23-4

"...human consciousness" is but a Ray of the Divine. Our Manas, or Ego,
proceeds from, and is the Son (figuratively) of Mahat. Vaivaswata Manu (the
Manu of our fifth race and Humanity in general) is the chief personified
representative of the thinking Humanity of the fifth Root-race; and
therefore he is represented as the eldest Son of the Sun and an Agnishwatta
Ancestor...Thought in its action on human brains is endless. Thus Manu is,
and contains the potentiality of all the thinking forms which will be
developed on earth from this particular source. In the esoteric teaching he
is the beginning of this earth , and from him and his daughter Ila humanity
is born; he is a unity which contains all the pluralities and their
modifications. Every manvantara has its own Manu, and from this Manu the
various Manus or rather all the Manasa of the Kalpas will proceed...he may
be compared to the white light which contains all the other rays, giving
birth to them by passing through the prism of differentiation and
evolution."	TRAN. 99

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

-------Original Message-------
 
From: Gopi Chari

 
Dear Dallas,
 
>From what I read in Patanjali Sutras, NirmanaKaya is not a body after
death. It is the body one develops during the transition from Heart
Chakra to higher Chakras realizing higher truths. Only after the
NirmanaKaya develops the Ajna chakra will unfold. Then only the Higher
Realms are available.
 
Gopi
========================

 + MAH +
   I would like to learn more about this.
Thank you,
+  Maureen