Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00516)

Friends, 

There is a famous verse ascribed to the Catholic saint Francis of Assisi: 

"It is by dying that one is born to the eternal life".

The sentence is no mere poetry, as it refers to the psychological death of the lower self. 

Such a Franciscan precept  is but  re-wording the famous New Testament passage where Jesus says that 'those who lose their lives will live, yet those who will keep attached to their own lives will die'. 

One can find the same occult principle in the first fragment of  "The Voice of the Silence", by HPB: 

"Give up thy life, if thou wouldst live." (1) 

You have it described in more technical terms later on in the same book: the disciple is supposed  to "die" in his lower nature,  so that he can live in his higher principles: 

"Before that path is entered, thou must  destroy thy lunar body, cleanse thy mind-body, and make clean thy heart.  Eternal life's pure waters, clear and crystal, with the monsoon muddy torrents cannot mingle."

Those who are thus "born again" tend to undergo minor or greater initiations and correspond to the 'second born' of ancient traditions. 

HPB's Theosophy gives us valuable elements with which to start a preparatory journey towards this  inner, occult  'rebirth'.  

As those things which are great can be experimented in small scale and right there where we are at any time,  this is a real  opportunity before us, no matter how small and limited we are, or feel we are.   

The law of analogy between "great" and "small" permeates everything in the universe. No one can be an exception to that, and each single atom is a powerfully energized  miniature of the entire solar system.  


Regards, Carlos. 


NOTES:

(1) "The Voice of the Silence", translated and annotated by H.P.Blavatsky,  Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 110 pp., see p. 06.  In the Adyar TPH (India),  pocket edition, 1988 reprint, see aphorism 21.  

(2) See p. 12, Theosophy Co. edition, and  aphorisms 51-52, TPH India, pocket edition. 


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