Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00196)

[Beginning of Part I I ]
 
Ordinary men continually, recklessly, and wickedly, are making these events
sure to come to pass, but the Sages, Mahâtmâs, and the Adepts of the good
law, make only such pictures as are in accordance with Divine law, because
they control the production of their thought. In the astral light are all
the differentiated sounds as well. The elementals are energic centers in it.

 
The shades of departed human beings and animals are also there. Hence, any
seer or entranced person can see in it all that anyone has done or said, as
well as that which has happened to anyone with whom he is connected. Hence,
also, the identity of deceased persons—who are supposed to report specially
out of this plane—is not to be concluded from the giving of forgotten or
unknown words, facts, or ideas. 
 
Out of this plane of matter can be taken the pictures of all who have ever
lived, and then reflected on a suitable magneto-electrical surface, so as to
seem like the apparition of the deceased, producing all the sensations of
weight, hardness, and extension.
 
Through the means of the Astral Light and the help of Elementals, the
various material elements may be drawn down and precipitated from the
atmosphere upon either a plane surface or in the form of a solid object; 
this precipitation may be made permanent, or it may be of such a light
cohesive power as soon to fade away.  But the help of the elementals can
only be obtained by a strong will added to a complete knowledge of the laws
which govern the being or the elementals.  It is useless to give further
details on this point;  first, because the untrained student cannot
understand;  and second, the complete explanation is not permitted, were it
even possible in this space.
 
The world of the elementals is an important factor in our world and in the
course of the student.  Each thought as it is evolved by a man coalesces
instantly with an elemental, and is then beyond the man's power.
 
It can be easily seen that this process is going on every instant.
Therefore, each thought exists as an entity.  Its length of life depends on
two things:  (a)  The original force of the person's will and thought;  (b) 
The power of the elemental which coalesced with it, the latter being
determined by the class to which the elemental belongs.
 
This is the case with good and bad thoughts alike, and as the will beneath
the generality of wicked thoughts is usually powerful, we can see that the
result is very important, because the elemental has no conscience and
obtains its constitution and direction from the thought it may from time to
time carry.
 
Each human being has his own elementals that partake of his nature and his
thoughts. If you fix your thoughts upon a person in anger, or in critical,
uncharitable judgment, you attract to yourself a number of those elementals
that belong to, generate, and are generated by this particular fault or
failing, and they precipitate themselves upon you. Hence, through the
injustice of your merely human condemnation, which cannot know the source
and causes of the action of another, you at once become a sharer of his
fault or failing by your own act, and the spirit expelled returns "with
seven devils worse than himself."
 
This is the origin of the popular saying that "curses, like chickens, come
home to roost," and has its root in the laws governing magnetic affinity.
 
In the Kali-Yuga we are hypnotized by the effect of the immense body of
images in the Astral Light, compounded of all the deeds, thoughts, and so
forth of our ancestors, whose lives tended in a material direction. These
images influence the inner man—who is conscious of them—by suggestion. In a
brighter age the influence of such images would be towards Truth. The effect
of the Astral Light, as thus molded and painted by us, will remain so long
as we continue to place those images there, and it thus becomes our judge
and our executioner. 
 
Every universal law thus contains within itself the means for its own
accomplishment and the punishment for its violation, and requires no further
authority to postulate it or to carry out its decrees.
 
The Astral Light by its inherent action both evolves and destroys forms. It
is the universal register. Its chief office is that of a vehicle for the
operation of the laws of Karma, or the progress of the principle of life,
and it is thus in a deep spiritual sense a medium or "mediator" between man
and his Deity—his higher spirit.
 
Theosophy also tells of the origin, history, development and destiny of
mankind.
 
            Upon the subject of Man it teaches:
 
First. That each spirit is a manifestation of the One Spirit, and thus a
part of all. It passes through a series of experiences in incarnation, and
is destined to ultimate reunion with the Divine.
 
Second. That this incarnation is not single but repeated, each individuality
becoming re-embodied during numerous existences in successive races and
planets of our chain, and accumulating the experiences of each incarnation
towards its perfection.
 
Third. That between adjacent incarnations, after grosser elements are first
purged away, comes a period of comparative rest and refreshment, called
Devachan—the soul being therein prepared for its next advent into material
life.
 
The constitution of man is subdivided in a septenary manner, the main
divisions being those of body, soul and spirit. These divisions and their
relative development govern his subjective condition after death. The real
division cannot be understood, and must for a time remain esoteric, because
it requires certain senses not usually developed for its understanding. If
the present seven-fold division, as given by Theosophical writers is adhered
to strictly and without any conditional statement, it will give rise to
controversy or error.
 
For instance, Spirit is not a seventh principle. It is the synthesis, or the
whole, and is equally present in the other six. The present various
divisions can only be used as a general working hypothesis, to be developed
and corrected as students advance and themselves develop.
 
The state of spiritual but comparative rest known as Devachan is not an
eternal one, and so is not the same as the eternal heaven of Christianity.
Nor does "hell" correspond to the state known to Theosophical writers as
Avitchi.
 
All such painful states are transitory and purificatory states. When those
are passed the individual goes into Devachan.
 
"Hell" and Avitchi are thus not the same. Avitchi is the same as the "second
death," as it is in fact annihilation that only comes to the "black
Magician" or spiritually wicked, as will be seen further on.
 
The nature of each incarnation depends upon the balance as struck of the
merit and demerit of the previous life or lives—upon the way in which the
man has lived and thought; and this law is inflexible and wholly just.
 
            Karma
 
"Karma"—a term signifying two things, the law of ethical causation
(Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap); and the balance or
excess of merit or demerit in any individual, determines also the main
experiences of joy and sorrow in each incarnation, so that what we call
"luck" is in reality "desert"—desert acquired in past existence.
 
Karma is not all exhausted in a single life, nor IS a person necessarily in
this life experiencing the effect of all his previous Karma; for some may be
held back by various causes. The principle cause is the failure of the Ego
to acquire a body which will furnish the instrument or apparatus in and by
which the meditation or thoughts of previous lives can have their effect and
be ripened. Hence it is held that there is a mysterious power in the man's
thoughts during a
life, sure to bring about its results in either an immediately succeeding
life or in one many lives distant; that is, in whatever life the Ego obtains
a body cap-able of being the focus, apparatus, or instrument for the
ripening of past Karma. There is also a swaying or diverging power in Karma
in its effects upon the soul, for a certain course of life—or thought—will
influence the soul in that direction for sometimes three lives, before the
beneficial or bad effect of any other sort of Karma can be felt. Nor does it
follow that every minute portion of Karma must be felt in the same detail as
when produced. for several sorts of Karma may come to a head together at one
point in the life, and, by their combined effect, produce a result which,
while, as a whole, accurately representing all the elements in it, still is
a different Karma from each single component part. This may be known as the
nullification of the postulated effect of the classes of Karma involved.
 
            Evolution
 
The process of evolution up to reunion with the Divine is and includes
successive elevation from rank to rank of power and usefulness. The most
exalted beings still in the flesh are known as Sages, Rishis, Brothers,
Masters. Their great function being the preservation at all times, and when
cyclic laws permit, the extension of spiritual knowledge and influence.
 
When union with the Divine is effected, all the events and experiences of
each incarnation are known.
 
 
            As to the process of spiritual development, Theosophy teaches:
 
First. That the essence of the process lies in the securing of supremacy, to
the highest, the spiritual, element of man's nature.
 
Second. That this is attained along four lines, among others,—
 
[a] The entire eradication of selfishness in all forms, and the cultivation
of broad, generous sympathy in, and effort for the good of others.
 
(b) The absolute cultivation of the inner, spiritual man by meditation, by
reaching to and communion with the Divine, and by exercise of the kind
described by Patanjali, i.e., incessant striving to an ideal end.
 
(c) The control of fleshly appetites and desires, all lower, material
interests being deliberately subordinated to the behests of the spirit.
 
(d) The careful performance of every duty belonging to one's station in
life, without desire for reward, leaving results for Divine law.
 
Third. That while the above is incumbent on and practicable by all
religiously disposed men, a yet higher plane of spiritual attainment is
conditioned upon a specific course of training, physical, intellectual and
spiritual, by which the internal faculties are first aroused and then
developed.
 
Fourth. That an extension of this process is reached in Adeptship,
Mahâtmâship, or the states of Rishis, Sages and Dhyan Chohans, which are all
exalted stages, attained by laborious self-discipline and hardship,
protracted through possibly many incarnations, and with many degrees of
initiation and preferment, beyond which are yet other stages ever
approaching the Divine.
 
            As to the rationale of spiritual development it asserts:
 
First. That the process takes place entirely within the individual himself,
the motive, the effort, and the result proceeding from his own inner nature,
along the lines of self-evolution.
 
Second. That, however personal and interior, this process is not unaided,
being possible, in fact, only through close communion with the supreme
source of all strength.
 
As to the degree of advancement in incarnations it holds:
 
First. That even a mere intellectual acquaintance with Theosophic truth has
great value in fitting the individual for a step upwards in his next
earth-life, as it gives an impulse in that direction.
 
Second. That still more is gained by a career of duty, piety and
beneficence.
 
Third. That a still greater advance is attained by the attentive and devoted
use of the means to spiritual culture heretofore stated.
 
Fourth. That every race and individual of it reaches in evolution a period
known as "the moment of choice," when they decide for themselves their
future destiny by a deliberate and conscious choice between eternal life and
death, and that this right of choice is the peculiar appanage of the free
soul. It cannot be exercised until the man has realized the soul within him,
and until that soul has attained some measure of self-conscious-ness in the
body. 
 
The moment of choice is not a fixed period of time; it is made up of all
moments. It cannot come unless all the previous lives have led up to it. For
the race as a whole it has not yet come. Any individual can hasten the
advent of this period for himself under the previously stated law of the
ripening of Karma. Should he then fail to choose right he is not wholly
condemned, for the economy of nature provides that he shall again and again
have the opportunity of choice when the moment arrives for the whole race.
After this period the race, having blossomed, tends towards its dissolution.
A few individuals of it will have outstripped its progress and attained
Adeptship or Mahâtmâship. 
 
The main body, who have chosen aright, but who have not attained salvation,
pass into the subjective condition, there to await the influx of the human
life wave into the next globe, which they are the first souls to people; the
deliberate choosers of evil, whose lives are passed in great spiritual
wicked-ness (for evil done for the sheer love of evil per se), sever the
connection with the Divine Spirit, or the Monad, which forever abandons the
human Ego. 
 
Such Egos pass into the misery of the eighth sphere, as far as we
understand, there to remain until the separation between what they had thus
cultivated and the personal Ishwara or divine spark is complete. But this
tenet has never been explained to us by the Masters, who have always refused
to answer and to explain it conclusively. At the next Manvantara that Divine
Spark will probably begin again the long evolutionary journey, being cast
into the stream of life at the source and passing upward again through all
the lower forms.
 
So long as the connection with the Divine Monad is not severed, this
annihilation of personality cannot take place. Something of that personality
will always remain attached to the immortal Ego. Even after such severance
the human being may live on, a man among men—a soulless being. This
disappointment, so to call it, of the Divine Spark by depriving it of its
chosen vehicle constitutes the "sin against the Holy Ghost," which its very
nature forbade it to pardon, because it cannot continue an association with
principles which have become degraded and vitiated in the absolute sense, so
that they no longer respond to cyclic or evolutionary impulses, but,
weighted by their own nature, sink to the lowest depths of matter. The
connection, once wholly broken, cannot in the nature of Being be resumed.
But innumerable opportunities for return offer themselves throughout the
dissolving process, which lasts thousands of years.
 
There is also a fate that comes to even Adepts of the Good Law which is
somewhat similar to a loss of "heaven" after its enjoyment for incalculable
periods of time. When the Adept has reached a certain very high point in his
evolution he may by a mere wish, become what the Hindus call a "Deva"—or
lesser god. If he does this, then, although he will enjoy the bliss and
power of that state for a vast length of time, he will not at the next
Pralaya partake of the conscious life "in the bosom of the Father," but has
to pass down into matter at the next new "creation," performing certain
functions that could not now be made clear, and has to come up again through
the elemental world; but this fate is not like that of the Black Magician
who falls into Avitchi. And again between the two he can choose the middle
state and become a Nirmânakâya—one who gives up the bliss of Nirvâna and
remains in conscious existence outside of his body after its death; in order
to help Humanity. This is the greatest sacrifice he can do for mankind. By
advancement from one degree of interest and comparative attainment to
another as above stated, the student hastens the advent of the moment of
choice, after which his rate of progress is greatly intensified.
 
            It may be added that Theosophy is the only system of religion
and philosophy which gives satisfactory explanation of such problems as
these:
 
First. The object, use, and inhabitation of other planets than this earth,
which planets serve to complete and prolong the evolutionary course, and to
fill the required measure of the universal experience of souls.
 
Second. The geological cataclysms of earth; the frequent absence of
intermediate types in its fauna; the occurrence of architectural and other
relics of races now lost, and as to which ordinary science has nothing but
vain conjecture; the nature of extinct civilizations and the causes of their
extinction; the persistence of savagery and the unequal development of
existing civilizations; the differences, physical and internal, between the
various races of men; the line of future development. 
 
Third. The contrasts and unisons of the world's faiths, and the common
foundation underlying them all.
 
Fourth. The existence of evil, of suffering, and of sorrow—a hopeless puzzle
to the mere philanthropist or theologian.
 
Fifth. The inequalities in social condition and privilege; the sharp
contrasts between wealth and poverty, intelligence and stupidity, culture
and ignorance, virtue and vileness; the appearance of men of genius in
families destitute of it, as well as other facts in conflict with the law of
heredity; the frequent cases of unfitness of environment around individuals,
so sore as to embitter disposition, hamper aspiration, and paralyze
endeavor; the violent antithesis between character and condition; the
occurrence of accident, misfortune and untimely death—all of them problems
solvable only by either the conventional theory of Divine caprice or the
Theosophic doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation.
 
Sixth. The possession by individuals of psychic powers—clairvoyance,
clairaudience, etc., as well as the phenomena of psychometry and
statuvolism.
 
Seventh. The true nature of genuine phenomena in spiritualism, and the
proper antidote to superstition and to exaggerated expectation.
 
Eighth. The failure of conventional religions to greatly extend their areas,
reform abuses, reorganize society, expand the idea of brotherhood, abate
discontent, diminish crime, and elevate humanity; and an apparent inadequacy
to realize in individual lives the ideal they professedly uphold.
 
I think this is of value as a basis for study and for teaching others.
 
 
Best wishes,
 
Dallas
 
(extracts from Judge – The EPITOME OF THEOSOPHY)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Behalf Of krishtar
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 3:21 AM
To: Subject: Re: study and compare and not combat
 
Hi (always welcome)Dallas
 
"He thinks that adversity alone will win attention, but, based on that
alone, is it constructive over a long time into the future ?" DT
 
 
 

Dallas