Theos-Talk Archives (December 2005 Message tt00282)

Dec 24 2005

Friends:


I suggest you use the SECRET DOCTRINE - see INDEX on   


"Moon" 

[ S D I 124; 149fn; 155fn; 180; 440fn; II 45; 105; 109; 120;
595;  



"animal"  

[ S D I 185fn; 453; II 103; 120; 185-6; 241; 254; 260; 289-90; 701; 



Best wishes,


Dallas

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P S 

1


"ISIS UNVEILED" AND THE "THEOSOPHIST" ON REINCARNATION

Article by H. P. Blavatsky


IN Light (July 8) C.C.M. quotes from the THEOSOPHIST (June 1882) a sentence
which appeared in the Editor's Note at the foot of an article headed
"Seeming Discrepancies." Then, turning to the review of "The Perfect Way" in
the same number, he quotes at length from "an authoritative teaching of the
later period," as he adds rather sarcastically. Then, again, a long
paragraph from Isis. The three quotations and the remarks of our friend run
thus: 

"There never was, nor can there be, any radical discrepancy between the
teachings in 'Isis' ('Isis Unveiled') and those of this later period, as
both proceed from one and the same source--the ADEPT BROTHERS. (Editor's
Note in Seeming Discrepancies.") 

Having drawn the attention of his readers to the above assertion C.C.M.
proceeds to show--as he thinks--its fallacy: 

"To begin with, re-Incarnation--if other worlds besides this are taken into
account--is the regular routine of nature. But re-Incarnation in the next
higher objective world is one thing; re-Incarnation on this earth is
another. Even that takes place over and over again till the highest
condition of humanity, as known on this earth, is attained, but not
afterwards, and here is the clue to the mystery.... But once let a man be as
far perfected by successive re-incarnations as the present race will permit,
and then his next re-incarnation will be among the early growths of the next
higher world, where the earliest growths are far higher than the highest
here. The ghastly mistake that the modern re-lncarnationists make is in
supposing that there can be a return on this earth to lower bodily
forms";--not, therefore, that man is re-incarnated as man again and again
upon this earth, for that is laid down as truth in the above cited passages
in the most positive and explicit form." (Review of T.P.W. in the
Theosophist.) 

And now for "Isis": 

"We will now present a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of
re-Incarnation--as distinct from metempsychosis--which we have from an
authority. Re-Incarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual--or
rather, of his astral monad--twice on the same planet is not a rule in
nature; it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a
two-headed infant. It is preceded by a violation of the laws of harmony of
nature and happens only when the latter, seeking to restore its disturbed
equilibrium, violently throws back into earth-life the astral monad, which
has been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime or accident. Thus in
cases of abortion, of infants dying before a certain age, and of congenital
and incurable idiocy, nature's original design to produce a perfect human
being has been interrupted. Therefore, while the gross matter of each of
these several entities is suffered to disperse itself at death through the
vast realm of being, the immortal Spirit and astral monad of the
individual--the latter having been set apart to animate a frame, and the
former to shed its divine light on the corporeal organization--must try a
second time to carry out the purpose of the creative intelligence. If reason
has been so far developed as to become active and discriminative, there is
no re-incarnation on, this earth, for the three parts of the triune man have
been united together, and he is capable of running the race. But when the
new being has not passed beyond the condition of monad, or when, as in the
idiot, the trinity has not been completed, the immortal spark which
illuminates it has to re-enter on the earthly planet, as it was frustrated
in its first attempt. . . . Further, the same occult doctrine recognizes
another possibility, albeit so rare and so vague that it is really useless
to mention it. Even the modern Occidental Occultists deny it, though it is
universally accepted in Eastern countries." . . . 

This is the occasional return of the terribly depraved human Spirits which
have fallen to the eighth sphere--it is unnecessary to quote the passage at
length. Exclusive of that rare and doubtful possibility, then "Isis"--I have
quoted from volume I, pp. 351-2--allows only three cases--abortion, very
early death, and idiocy--in which re-Incarnation on this earth occurs. 

I am a long-suffering student of the mysteries, more apt to accuse my own
stupidity than to make "seeming discrepancies" an occasion for scoffing. But
after all, two and three will not make just four; black is not white, nor,
in reference to plain and definite statements, is "Yes" equivalent to "No."
If there is one thing which I ardently desire to be taught, it is the truth
about this same question of re-Incarnation. I hope I am not, as a dutiful
Theosophist, expected to reconcile the statement of "Isis" with that of this
authoritative Reviewer. But there is one consolation. The accomplished
authoress of "Isis" cannot have totally forgotten the teaching on this
subject therein contained. She, therefore, certainly did not dictate the
statements of the Reviewer. If I may conjecture that Koot Hoomi stands close
behind the latter, then assuredly Koot Hoomi is not, as has been maliciously
suggested, an alias for Madame Blavatsky. 
       
"C.C.M."

We hope not--for Koot Hoomi's sake. Mme. B. would become too vain and too
proud, could she but dream of such an honour. But how true the remark of the
French classic: La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile--though we
feel more inclined to hang our diminished head in sincere sorrow and
exclaim: Et tu Brute!--than to quote old truisms. 

Only, where that (even) "seeming discrepancy" is to be found between the two
passages--except by those who are entirely ignorant of the occult
doctrine--will be certainly a mystery to every Eastern Occultist who reads
the above and who studies at the same school as the reviewer of "The Perfect
Way." 

Nevertheless the latter is chosen as the weapon to break our head with. It
is sufficient to read No. 1 of the Fragments of Occult Truth, and ponder
over the septenary constitution of man into which the triple human entity is
divided by the occultists, to perceive that the "astral" monad is not the
"Spiritual" monad and vice versa. That there is no discrepancy whatsoever
between the two statements, may be easily shown, and we hope will be shown,
by our friend the "reviewer." The most that can be said of the passage
quoted from Isis is, that it is incomplete, chaotic, vague, perhaps--clumsy,
as many more passages in that work, the first literary production of a
foreigner, who even now can hardly boast of her knowledge of the English
language. 

Therefore, in the face of the statement from the very correct and excellent
review of "The Perfect Way"--we say again that "Reincarnation, i.e., the
appearance of the same individual--or rather, of his astral monad (or the
personality as claimed by the modern Reincarnationists)--twice on the same
planet is not a rule in nature "and that it is an exception." 

Let us try once more to explain our meaning. The reviewer speaks of the
"Spiritual Individuality" or the Immortal Monad as it is called, i.e. the
7th and 6th Principles in the Fragments. In Isis we refer to the personality
or the Finite astral monad, a compound of imponderable elements composed of
the 5th and 4th principles. 

The former as an emanation of the ONE absolute is indestructible; the latter
as an elementary compound is finite and doomed sooner or later to
destruction with the exception of the more spiritualized portions of the 5th
principle (the Manas or mind) which are assimilated by the 6th principle
when it follows the 7th to its "gestation state" to be reborn or not reborn,
as the case may be, in the Arupa Loka (the Formless World). 

The seven principles, forming, so to say, a triad and a Quaternary, or, as
some have it a "Compound Trinity" subdivided into a triad and two duads may
be better understood in the following groups of Principles : 
 
And now we ask,--where is the "discrepancy" or contradiction? Whether man
was good, bad, or indifferent, Group II has to become either a "shell," or
to be once or several times more reincarnated under "exceptional
circumstances." There is a mighty difference in our Occult doctrine between
an impersonal Individuality, and an individual Personality. 

C.C.M. will not be reincarnated; nor will he be in his next re-birth C.C.M.,
but quite a new being, born of the thoughts and deeds of C.C.M.: his own
creation, the child and fruit of his present life, the effect of the causes
he is now producing. Shall we say then with the Spiritists that C.C.M., the
man, we know, will be re-born again? No; but that his divine Monad will be
clothed thousands of times yet before the end of the Grand Cycle, in various
human forms, every one of them a new personality. 

Like a mighty tree that clothes itself every spring with a new foliage, to
see it wither and die towards autumn, so the eternal Monad prevails through
the series of smaller cycles, ever the same, yet ever changing and putting
on, at each birth, a new garment. The bud, that failed to open one year,
will re-appear in the next; the leaf that reached its maturity and died a
natural death--can never be re-born on the same tree again. While writing
Isis, we were not permitted to enter into details; hence--the vague
generalities. We are told to do so now--and we do as we are commanded. 

And thus, it seems, after all, that "two and three" will "make just four,"
if the "three" was only mistaken for that number. And, we have heard of
cases when that, which was universally regarded and denounced as something
very "black"--shockingly so--suddenly re-became "white," as soon as an
additional light was permitted to shine upon it. Well, the day may yet come
when even the much misunderstood occultists will appear in such a light.
Vaut mieux tard que jamais! 

Meanwhile we will wait and see whether C.C.M. will quote again from our
present answer--in Light. 

Theosophist, August, 1882 

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

2


ISIS UNVEILED AND THE VISHISHTADWAITA
 
CORRESPONDENCE

SIR,--"R.P." attempts in the October number of our Magazine to prove that I
have taught in Isis Unveiled substantially the doctrine of Visishtadwaita,
to which view I take exception. I am quite aware of the fact that Isis is
far from being as complete a work as, with the same materials, it might have
been made by a better scholar; and that it lacks symmetry, as a literary
production, and perhaps here and there accuracy. But I have some excuse for
all that. It was my first book; it was written in a language foreign to
me--in which I had not been accustomed to write; the language was even more
unfamiliar to certain Asiatic philosophers who rendered assistance; and,
finally, Colonel Olcott, who revised the manuscript and worked with me
throughout, was then--in the years 1875 and 1876--almost entirely ignorant
of Aryan Philosophy, and hence unable to detect and correct such errors as I
might so readily fall into when putting my thoughts into English. Still,
despite all this, I think "R.P.'s" criticism is faulty. 

If I erred in making too little distinction between an Impersonal God, or
Parabrahm, and a Personal God, I scarcely went to the length of confounding
the one with the other completely. 

The pages (vol. ii. 216-17; and 153; and pref. p. 2) that he relies upon,
represent not my own doctrine but the ideas of others. 

The first two are quotations from Manu, and show what an educated Brahman
and a Buddhist might answer to Prof. Max Müller's affirmation that Moksha
and Nirvana mean annihilation; while the third (vol. ii. p. 153) is a
defense and explanation of the inner sense of the Bible, as from a Christian
mystic's standpoint. Of course this would resemble Visishtadwaitism, which,
like Christianity, ascribes personal attributes to the Universal Principle.
As for the reference to the Preface, it seems that even when read in the
dead-letter sense, the paragraph could only be said to reflect my personal
opinion and not the Esoteric Doctrine. 

A sceptic in my early life, I had sought and obtained through the Masters
the full assurance of the existence of a principle (not Personal God)--"a
boundless and fathomless ocean" of which my "soul" was a drop. Like the
Adwaitis, I made no difference between my Seventh Principle and the
Universal Spirit, or Parabrahm; nor did, or do I believe in an individual,
segregated spirit in me, as a something apart from the whole. And see, for
proof, my remark about the "omnipotence of man's immortal spirit"--which
would be a logical absurdity upon any theory of egoistic separation. 

My mistake was that throughout the whole work I indifferently employed the
words Parabrahm and God to express the same idea: a venial sin surely, when
one knows that the English language is so poor that even at this moment I am
using the Sanskrit word to express one idea and the English one for the
other! 

Whether it be orthodox Adwaita or not, I maintain as an occultist, on the
authority of the Secret Doctrine, that though merged entirely into
Parabrahm, man's spirit while not individual per se, yet preserves its
distinct individuality in Paranirvana, owing to the accumulation in it of
the aggregates, or skandhas that have survived after each death, from the
highest faculties of the Manas. The most spiritual--i.e., the highest and
divinest aspirations of every personality follow Buddhi and the Seventh
Principle into Devachan (Swarga) after the death of each personality along
the line of rebirths, and become part and parcel of the Monad.

The personality fades out, disappearing before the occurrence of the
evolution of the new personality (rebirth) out of Devachan: 

but the individuality of the spirit-soul [dear, dear, what can be made out
of this English!] is preserved to the end of the great cycle
(Maha-Manwantara) when each Ego enters Paranirvana, or is merged in
Parabrahm. 

To our talpatic, or mole-like, comprehension the human spirit is then lost
in the One Spirit, as the drop of water thrown into the sea can no longer be
traced out and recovered. But de facto it is not so in the world of
immaterial thought. This latter stands in relation to the human dynamic
thought, as, say, the visual power through the strongest conceivable
microscope would to the sight of a half-blind man: and yet even this is a
most insufficient simile--the difference is "inexpressible in terms of
foot-pounds." 

That such Parabrahmic and Paranirvanic "spirits," or units, have and must
preserve their divine (not human) individualities, is shown in the fact
that, however long the "night of Brahma" or even the Universal Pralaya (not
the local Pralaya affecting some one group of worlds) yet, when it ends, the
same individual Divine Monad resumes its majestic path of evolution, though
on a higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure chain of earths than
before, and brings with it all the essence of compound spiritualities from
its previous countless rebirths. 

Spiral evolution, it must be remembered, is dual, and the path of
spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical,
semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution. But I am being tempted into
details which had best be left for the full consideration which their
importance merits to my forthcoming work, the Secret Doctrine. 
       
H. P. BLAVATSKY
Theosophist, January, 1886
 
====================================
 

-----Original Message-----
>From Cass Silva
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 6:22 PM
To: 
Subject: Re: Isis Unveiled on Reincarnation

I was also told by a long standing member of the TS over 20 years
ago that we were animals on the moon, that when we are 5th vibrational, we
are more suited for Jupiter and of course 6th vibrational we return to our
parent source- the venusians, but I did not at the time question the source
of this information.
   
Cass