Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00510)

This is an excerpt from The Key to Theosophy pp. 167-8. It explains  
the spiritual EGO and its multiple incarnations. I would like to see  
discussions generated. There is important information in this single  
paragraph. For example:

What is the difference between the spiritual individuality and every  
personality that the Ego creates ?

Why are so important all these diverse personalities ? Some pleasant,  
some unpleasant...

What is the result after the Ego concludes with its pilgrimage ?

Thank you

Rodolfo Don

"The spiritual Ego of man moves in eternity like a pendulum between  
the hours of birth and death. But if these hours, marking the periods  
of life terrestrial and life spiritual, are limited in their  
duration, and if the very number of such stages in Eternity between  
sleep and awakening, illusion and reality, has its beginning and its  
end, on the other hand, the spiritual pilgrim is eternal. Therefore  
are the hours of his post-mortem life, when, disembodied, he stands  
face to face with truth and not the mirages of his transitory earthly  
existences, during the period of that pilgrimage which we call "the  
cycle of re-births"--the only reality in our conception. Such  
intervals, their limitation notwithstanding, do not prevent the Ego,  
while ever perfecting itself, from following undeviatingly, though  
gradually and slowly, the path to its last transformation, when that  
Ego, having reached its goal, becomes a divine being. These intervals  
and stages help towards this final result instead of hindering it;  
and without such limited intervals the divine Ego could never reach  
its ultimate goal. I have given you once already a familiar  
illustration by comparing the Ego, or the individuality, to an actor,  
and its numerous and various incarnations to the parts it plays. Will  
you call these parts or their costumes the individuality of the actor  
himself? Like that actor, the Ego is forced to play during the cycle  
of necessity, up to the very threshold of Paranirvana, many parts  
such as may be unpleasant to it. But as the bee collects its honey  
from every flower, leaving the rest as food for the earthly worms, so  
does our spiritual individuality, whether we call it Sutratma* or  
Ego. Collecting from every terrestrial personality, into which Karma  
forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual qualities  
and self-consciousness, it unites all these into one whole and  
emerges from its chrysalis as the glorified Dhyan Chohan. So much the  
worse for those terrestrial personalities from which it could collect  
nothing. Such personalities cannot assuredly outlive consciously  
their terrestrial existence.

Sutratma = one of the meanings of Sutratma is the string of  
incarnations that the Ego goes through. Think of it as a "spiritual  
path" for the Ego.




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