Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00132)

8/13/2005 11:15 AM
 
Dear Etzion:
 
You quote:
 
“Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogis offering themselves as voluntary
victims in order to redeem Humanity -- created god-like and perfect at first
-- and to endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they
had to give up their natural status and, descending on our globe, take up
their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahayuga, thus exchanging their
impersonal individualities for individual personalities -- the bliss of
sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. 
This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and
Love, was construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows
"the rebel angels hurled down from heaven into the darkness of Hell" -- our
Earth.”
 
As I understand it:
 
            “him”  in this case, refers to “HUMANITY” --  taken as a
collective noun in the singular.
 
-------------------------------
 
In another place HPB says – as an explanation ---
 
 
“…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 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 S D  I  570-3]
 
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  [ATMA-BUDDHI] owing to the personal  [BUDDHI-MANAS]
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 darkness in the realms of
truth. 
Good and Evil are twins, the progeny of Space and Time, under the sway of
Maya. Separate them, by cutting off one from the other, and they will both
die. Neither exists per se, since each has to be generated and created out
of the other, in order to come into being; both must be known and
appreciated before becoming objects of perception, hence, in mortal mind,
they must be divided. 
Nevertheless, as the illusionary distinction exists, it requires a lower
order of creative angels to "create" inhabited globes — especially ours — or
to deal with matter on this earthly plane. 
The philosophical Gnostics were the first to think so, in the historical
period, and to invent various systems upon this theory. Therefore in their
schemes of creation, one always finds their Creators occupying a place at
the very foot of the ladder of spiritual Being. 
With them, those who created our earth and its mortals were placed on the
very limit of mayavic matter, and their followers were taught to think — to
the great disgust of the Church Fathers — that for the creation of those
wretched races, in a spiritual and moral sense, which grace our globe, no
high divinity could be made responsible, but only angels of a low hierarchy,
to which class they relegated the Jewish God, Jehovah. “
----------------------------------   FOOTNOTE   
---------------------------------
“…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! 
… "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. 
            S D  II  94 - 96
=====================================================
 
“The creating powers produce Man, but fail in their final object. All these
logoi strive to endow man with conscious immortal spirit, reflected in the
Mind (manas) alone; they fail, and they are all represented as being
punished for the failure, if not for the attempt. What is the nature of the
punishment? A sentence of imprisonment in the lower or nether region, which
is our earth; the lowest in its chain; an "eternity" — meaning the duration
of the life-cycle — in the darkness of matter, or within animal Man. “
          S  D  II  98
 
-------------------
 
“On the other hand, it [Man’s Consciousness as Perceiver] is the active
repository of all experiences.  It looks directly on IDEAS.  Its visionis
Universal.  Therefore it is intimately connected with KARMA.
 
The connection of man's consciousness with and through Buddhi to the Higher
Self (Atma) can only be traced by a number of definitions, and some appear
to contradict others.  But when taken all together they are found to offer a
more complete picture of this most important "principle."
 
It is inevitable that some definitions that relate to Manas are used here,
as they throw more light on the function and activity of Buddhi. ]
 
 
“The nature of the Soul is unmodifiable, and this must be grasped...
 
The Mind as at present constituted is attracted or repelled by
externalities, 
 
and the power of the Soul flows in the direction of concentration, be that
long or short.  
 
Through the Mind, the Soul determines bad, good, better, best, on this or
any plane.  
 
Mind has to be adjusted by knowledge of essential nature, of causes, and by
analogies
and correspondences...
 
There is just "Consciousness" and its "states," which are conditioned
consciousness.  
 
We speculate on conditions;  we cannot [speculate] on Consciousness itself,
for we are that." 
            F.P. p. 50
 
====================================================
 
Best wishes,
 
Dallas
 
=======================
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Etzion Becker [mailto:etvionbb@bezeqint.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 10:20 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Help: SD volume 2, stanza 10
 
http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd2-1-13.htm
 
The question is (note the red him below) why him in singular, while the
sentence is in plural. To whom Blavatsky refers by him?
I suspect to humanity, but then, it should be written *she* or *them*.
Etzion
 
 
 
 
To close this rather lengthy comment, the Secret Doctrine teaches that the
Fire-Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumaras, the "Virgin-Angels," (to whom
Michael and Gabriel, the Archangels, both belong), the divine "Rebels" --
called by the all-materializing and positive Jews, the Nahash or "Deprived"
-- preferred the curse of incarnation and the long cycles of terrestrial
existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery (even if unconscious) of the
beings (evolved as shadows out of their Brethren) through the semi-passive
energy of their too spiritual Creators. If "man's uses of life should be
such as neither to animalize nor to spiritualize, but to humanize Self,"*
before he can do so, he must be born human not angelic. Hence, tradition
shows the celestial Yogis offering themselves as voluntary victims in order
to redeem Humanity -- created god-like and perfect at first -- and to endow
him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up
their natural status and, descending on our globe, take up their abode on it
for the whole cycle of the Mahayuga, thus exchanging their impersonal
individualities for individual personalities -- the bliss of sidereal
existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the
Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and Love, was construed by the
exoteric theologies into a statement that shows "the rebel angels hurled
down from heaven into the darkness of Hell" -- our Earth.
 
 
 
 
 
---
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