Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00611)

Hello Dallas
So pleased someone "out there" has made the same connection on this subject.Will get to your postings later in the day, when I can read what you said in depth.
Regards
Cass

"W.Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval14@earthlink.net> wrote:
May 23 2005 

Re: Bloodlines


Dear Cass:

This seems as related to Karma to be dealt with by HPB in the SECRET
DOCTRINE 



"Now that which the students of Occultism ought to know is that THE "THIRD
EYE" IS INDISSOLUBLY CONNECTED WITH KARMA. The tenet is so mysterious that
very few have heard of it. 

The "eye of Siva" did not become entirely atrophied before the close of the
Fourth Race. When spirituality and all the divine powers and attributes of
the deva-man of the Third had been made the hand-maidens of the
newly-awakened physiological and psychic passions of the physical man,
instead of the reverse, the eye lost its powers. 

But such was the law of Evolution, and it was, in strict accuracy, no FALL.
The sin was not in using those newly-developed powers, but in misusing them;
in making of the tabernacle, designed to contain a god, the fane of every
spiritual iniquity. And if we say "sin" it is merely that everyone should
understand our meaning; as the term Karma * would be the right one to use
in this case; while the reader who would feel perplexed at the use of the
term "spiritual" instead of "physical" iniquity, is reminded of the fact
that there can be no physical iniquity. 

The body is simply the irresponsible organ, the tool of the psychic, if not
of the "Spiritual man." While in the case of the Atlanteans, it was
precisely the Spiritual being which sinned, the Spirit element being still
the "Master" principle in man, in those days. Thus it is in those days that
the heaviest Karma of the Fifth Race was generated by our Monads. 

As this sentence may again be found puzzling, it is better that it should be
explained for the benefit of those who are ignorant of the theosophical
teachings. 

Questions with regard to Karma and re-births are constantly offered, and a
great confusion seems to exist upon this subject. Those who are born and
bred in the Christian faith, and have been trained in the idea 

----------------------------Footnote ---------------------------------

* Karma is a word of many meanings, and has a special term for almost every
one of its aspects. It means, as a synonym of sin, the performance of some
action for the attainment of an object of worldly, hence selfish, desire,
which cannot fail to be hurtful to somebody else. Karman is action, the
Cause; and Karma again is "the law of ethical causation"; the effect of an
act produced egotistically, when the great law of harmony depends on
altruism. 
--------------------------------------------------------

that a new soul is created by God for every newly-born infant, are among the
most perplexed. They ask whether in such case the number of incarnating
Monads on earth is limited; to which they are answered in the affirmative.
For, however countless, in our conceptions, the number of the incarnating
monads — even if we take into account the fact that ever since the Second
Race, when their respective seven groups were furnished with bodies, several
births and deaths may be allowed for every second of time in the aeons
already passed — still, there must be a limit. 

It was stated that Karma-Nemesis, whose bond-maid is Nature, adjusted
everything in the most harmonious manner; and that, therefore, the fresh
pouring-in, or arrival of new Monads, had ceased as soon as Humanity had
reached its full physical development. No fresh Monads have incarnated since
the middle-point of the Atlanteans. Hence, remembering that, save in the
case of young children, and of individuals whose lives were violently cut
off by some accident, no Spiritual Entity can re-incarnate before a period
of many centuries has elapsed, such gaps alone must show that the number of
Monads is necessarily finite and limited. Moreover, a reasonable time must
be given to other animals for their evolutionary progress. 

Hence the assertion that many of us are now working off the effects of the
evil Karmic causes produced by us in Atlantean bodies. The Law of KARMA is
inextricably interwoven with that of Re-incarnation. 

It is only the knowledge of the constant re-births of one and the same
individuality throughout the life-cycle; the assurance that the same MONADS
— among whom are many Dhyan-Chohans, or the "Gods" themselves — have topass
through the "Circle of Necessity," rewarded or punished by such rebirth for
the suffering endured or crimes committed in the former life; that those
very Monads, which entered the empty, senseless shells, or astral figures of
the First Race emanated by the Pitris, are the same who are now amongst us —
nay, ourselves, perchance; it is only this doctrine, we say, that can
explain to us the mysterious problem of Good and Evil, and reconcile man to
the terrible and apparent injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can
quiet our revolted sense of justice. For, when one unacquainted with the
noble doctrine looks around him, and observes the inequalities of birth and
fortune, of intellect and capacities; when one sees honour paid fools and
profligates, on whom fortune has heaped her favours by mere privilege of
birth, and their nearest neighbour, with all his intellect and noble virtues
—far more deserving in every way —perishing of want and for lack of
sympathy; when one sees all this and has to turn away, helpless to relieve
the undeserved suffering, one's ears ringing and heart aching with the cries
of pain around him — that blessed knowledge of Karma alone prevents him from
cursing life and men, as well as their supposed Creator. * " S D II
302-4


The nature of the bad Karma is hinted at later:


"Meanwhile, one task is left incomplete: that of disposing of that most
pernicious of all the theological dogmas — the CURSE under which mankind is
alleged to have suffered ever since the supposed disobedience of Adam and
Eve in the bower of Eden. 

Creative powers in man were the gift of divine wisdom, not the result of
sin. This is clearly instanced in the paradoxical behaviour of Jehovah, who
first curses Adam and Eve (or Humanity) for the supposed committed crime,
and then blesses his "chosen people" by saying "Be fruitful and multiply,
and replenish the earth" (Gen. ix. 1). The curse was not brought on mankind
by the Fourth Race, for the comparatively sinless Third Race, the still more
gigantic Antediluvians, had perished in the same way; hence the Deluge was
no punishment, but simply a result of a periodical and geological law. 

Nor was the curse of KARMA called down upon them for seeking natural union,
as all the mindless animal-world does in its proper seasons; but, for
abusing the creative power, for desecrating the divine gift, and wasting the
life-essence for no purpose except bestial personal gratification. 

When understood, the third chapter of Genesis will be found to refer to the
Adam and Eve of the closing Third and the commencing Fourth Races. In the
beginning, conception was as easy for woman as it was for all animal
creation. 

Nature had never intended that woman should bring forth her young ones "in
sorrow." Since that period, however, during the evolution of the Fourth
Race, there came enmity between its seed, and the "Serpent's" seed, the seed
or product of Karma and divine wisdom. 

For the seed of woman or lust, bruised the head of the seed of the fruit of
wisdom and knowledge, by turning the holy mystery of procreation into animal
gratification; hence the law of Karma "bruised the heel" of the Atlantean
race, by gradually changing physiologically, morally, physically, and
mentally, the whole nature of the Fourth Race of mankind, * until, from the
healthy King of animal creation of the Third Race, man became in the Fifth,
our race, a helpless, scrofulous being, and has now become the wealthiest
heir on the globe to constitutional and hereditary diseases, the most
consciously and intelligently bestial of all animals! † 

This is the real CURSE from the physiological standpoint, almost the only
one touched upon in the Kabalistic esotericism. Viewed from this aspect, the
curse is undeniable, for it is evident. The intellectual evolution, in its
progress hand-in-hand with the physical, has certainly been a curse instead
of a blessing — a gift quickened by the "Lords of Wisdom," who have poured
on the human manas the fresh dew of their own spirit and essence. ...

Our Saviours, the Agnishwatta and other divine "Sons of the Flame of Wisdom"
(personified by the Greeks in Prometheus ‡ ), may well, in 


-----------------------------------------Footnote---------------------------
--

* How wise and grand, how far-seeing and morally beneficent are the laws of
Manu on connubial life, when compared with the licence tacitly allowed to
man in civilized countries. That those laws have been neglected for the last
two millenniums does not prevent us from admiring their forethought. The
Brahmin was a grihasta, a family man, till a certain period of his life,
when, after begetting a son, he broke with married life and became a chaste
Yogi. His very connubial life was regulated by his Brahmin astrologer in
accordance with his nature. Therefore, in such countries as the Punjab, for
instance, where the lethal influence of Mussulman, and later on of European,
licentiousness, has hardly touched the orthodox Aryan castes, one still
finds the finest men — so far as stature and physical strength go — on the
whole globe; whereas the mighty men of old have found themselves replaced in
the Deccan, and especially in Bengal, by men whose generation becomes with
every century (and almost with every year) dwarfed and weakened. 

† Diseases and over-population are facts that can never be denied. 

‡ In Mrs. Anna Swanwick's volumes, "The Dramas of Æschylus," it is saidof
"Prometheus Bound" (Vol. II., pp. 146, 147), that Prometheus truly appears
in it "as —Footnote continued on next page—
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

the injustice of the human heart, be left unrecognized and unthanked. They
may, in our ignorance of the truth, be indirectly cursed for Pandora's gift:
but to find themselves proclaimed and declared by the mouth of the clergy,
the EVIL ONES, is too heavy a Karma for "Him" "who dared alone "— when Zeus
"ardently desired" to quench the entire human race — to save "that mortal
race" from perdition, or, as the suffering Titan is made to say: — 

"From sinking blasted down to Hades' gloom.
For this by the dire tortures I am bent,
Grievous to suffer, piteous to behold,
I who did mortals pity! . . . . " 
The chorus remarking very pertinently: — 
"Vast boon was this thou gavest unto mortals . . . ." 

Prometheus answers: — 

"Yea, and besides 'twas I that gave them fire.
CHORUS: Have now these short-lived creatures flame-eyed fire? 
PROM.: Ay, and by it full many arts will learn. . . . . " 

But, with the arts, the fire received has turned into the greatest curse:
the animal element, and consciousness of its possession, has changed
periodical instinct into chronic animalism and sensuality.* It is this which
hangs over humanity like a heavy funereal pall. Thus arises the
responsibility of free-will; the Titanic passions which represent humanity
in its darkest aspect; "the restless insatiability of the lower passions and
desires, when, with self-asserting insolence, they bid defiance to the
restraints of law." † 

Prometheus having endowed man, according to Plato's "Protagoras," with that
"wisdom which ministers to physical well-being," but the lower aspect of
manas of the animal (Kama) having remained unchanged, 

------------—Footnote continued from previous page—-----------------

the champion and benefactor of mankind, whose condition . . . . is depicted
as weak and miserable in the extreme. . . . Zeus, it is said, proposed to
annihilate these puny ephemerals, and to plant upon the earth a new race in
their stead." We see the Lords of Being doing likewise, and exterminating
the first product of nature and the sea, in the Stanzas (V, et seq.). . . .
Prometheus represents himself as having frustrated this design, and as being
consequently subjected, for the sake of mortals, to the most agonising pain,
inflicted by the remorseless cruelty of Zeus. We have, thus, the Titan, the
symbol of finite reason and free will (of intellectual humanity, or the
higher aspect of Manas), depicted as the sublime philanthropist, while Zeus,
the supreme deity of Hellas, is portrayed as the cruel and obdurate despot,
a character peculiarly revolting to Athenian sentiment." The reason for it
is explained further on. The "Supreme Deity" bears, in every ancient
Pantheon — including that of the Jews — a dual character, composed of light
and shadow. 

* The animal world, having simple instinct to guide it, has its seasons of
procreation, and the sexes become neutralized during the rest of the year.
Therefore, the free animal knows sickness but once in its life — before it
dies. 

† Introduction to "Prometheus Bound," p. 152. 
------------------------------------------------------------

instead of "an untainted mind, heaven's first gift" (Æschylus), there was
created the eternal vulture of the ever unsatisfied desire, of regret and
despair coupled with "the dreamlike feebleness that fetters the blind race
of mortals" (p. 556), unto the day when Prometheus is released by his
heaven-appointed deliverer, Herakles. " S D II 410-13


Again:


"Esoteric philosophy, however, teaches that one third* of the Dhyanis —
i.e., the three classes of the Arupa Pitris, endowed with intelligence,
"which is a formless breath, composed of intellectual not elementary
substances" (see Harivamsa, 932) — was simply doomed by the law of Karma and
evolution to be reborn (or incarnated) on Earth.† Some 

-----------------------Footnote-----------------------------
* Whence the subsequent assertions of St. John's vision, referred to in his
Apocalypse, about "the great red Dragon having seven heads and ten horns,
and seven crowns upon his heads," whose "tail drew the third part of the
stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth" (ch. xii.). 

† The verse "did cast them to the Earth," plainly shows its origin in the
grandest and oldest allegory of the Aryan mystics, who, after the
destruction of the Atlantean [[Footnote continued on next page]] 
----------------------------------------------------------------

of these were Nirmanakayas from other Manvantaras. Hence we see them, in all
the Puranas, reappearing on this globe, in the third Manvantara, as Kings,
Rishis and heroes (read Third Root-Race). This tenet, being too
philosophical and metaphysical to be grasped by the multitudes, was, as
already stated, disfigured by the priesthood for the purpose of preserving a
hold over them through superstitious fear. 

The supposed "rebels," then, were simply those who, compelled by Karmic law
to drink the cup of gall to its last bitter drop, had to incarnate anew, and
thus make responsible thinking entities of the astral statues projected by
their inferior brethren. Some are said to have refused, because they had not
in them the requisite materials — i.e., an astral body — since they were
arupa. 

The refusal of others had reference to their having been Adepts and Yogis of
long past preceding Manvantaras; another mystery. But, later on, as
Nirmanakayas, they sacrificed themselves for the good and salvation of the
Monads which were waiting for their turn, and which otherwise would have had
to linger for countless ages in irresponsible, animal-like, though in
appearance human, forms. It may be a parable and an allegory within an
allegory. Its solution is left to the intuition of the student, if he only
reads that which follows with his spiritual eye. 

As to their fashioners or "Ancestors" — those Angels who, in the exoteric
legends, obeyed the law — they must be identical with the Barhishad Pitris,
or the Pitar-Devata, i.e., those possessed of the physical creative fire. 

They could only create, or rather clothe, the human Monads with their own
astral Selves, but they could not make man in their image and likeness. "Man
must not be like one of us," say the creative gods, entrusted with the
fabrication of the lower animal but higher; (see Gen. and Plato's Timaeus).
Their creating the semblance of men out of their own divine Essence means,
esoterically, that it is 

------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] giants and sorcerers, concealed
the truth — astronomical, physical, and divine, as it is a page out of
pre-cosmic theogony — under various allegories. Its esoteric, true
interpretation is a veritable Theodice of the "Fallen Angels," so called;
the willing and the unwilling, the creators and those who refused to create,
being now mixed up most perplexingly by Christian Catholics, who forget that
their highest Archangel, St. Michael, who is shown to conquer (to master and
to assimilate) the DRAGON OF WISDOM and of divine Self-sacrifice (now
miscalled and calumniated as Satan), WAS THE FIRST TO REFUSE TO CREATE! This
led to endless confusion. So little does Christian theology understand the
paradoxical language of the East and its symbolism, that it even explains,
in its dead letter sense, the Chinese Buddhist and Hindu exoteric rite of
raising a noise during certain eclipses to scare away the "great red
Dragon," which laid a plot to carry away the light! But here "Light" means
esoteric Wisdom, and we have sufficiently explained the secret meaning of
the terms Dragon, Serpent, etc., etc., all of which refer to Adepts and
Initiates. 
-----------------------------------------------------------

they who became the first Race, and thus shared its destiny and further
evolution. They would not, simply because they could not, give to man that
sacred spark which burns and expands into the flower of human reason and
self-consciousness, for they had it not to give. This was left to that class
of Devas who became symbolised in Greece under the name of Prometheus, to
those who had nought to do with the physical body, yet everything with the
purely spiritual man. (See Part II of this volume, "The Fallen Angels"; also
"The Gods of Light proceed from the Gods of Darkness.") 

Each class of Creators endows man with what it has to give: the one builds
his external form; the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes
the Human Higher Self owing to the personal exertion of the individual; but
they could not make men as they were themselves — perfect, because sinless;
sinless, because having only the first, pale shadowy outlines of attributes,
and these all perfect — from the human standpoint — white, pure and cold as
the virgin snow. Where there is no struggle, there is no merit. Humanity,
"of the Earth earthy," was not destined to be created by the angels of the
first divine Breath: therefore they are said to have refused to do so, and
man had to be formed by more material creators,* who, in their turn, could
give only what they had in their own natures, and no more. Subservient to
eternal law, the pure gods could only project out of themselves shadowy men,
a little less ethereal and spiritual, less divine and perfect than
themselves — shadows still. The first humanity, therefore, was a pale copy
of its progenitors; too material, even in its ethereality, to be a hierarchy
of gods; too spiritual and pure to be MEN, endowed as it is with every
negative (Nirguna) perfection. Perfection, to be fully such, must be born
out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible,
having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast. Absolute light is
absolute darkness, and vice versa. In fact, there is neither light nor 

--------------------------------------Footnote------------------------------
----
* In spite of all efforts to the contrary, Christian theology — having
burdened itself with the Hebrew esoteric account of the creation of man,
which is understood literally — cannot find any reasonable excuse for its
"God, the Creator," who produces a man devoid of mind and sense; nor can it
justify the punishment following an act, for which Adam and Eve might plead

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