Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00020)

PART 4 ==

AVATARS, MAHATMAS, ADEPTS, etc


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INNATE - INHERENT IDEAS FROM "PLANETARY SPIRITS"


"Up to the period marked by the first earthly King called
Ikshwaku, the Ruler was a spiritual Being whom all men knew to be
such, for his power, glory, benevolence, and wisdom were evident.
He lived an immense number of years, and taught men not only Yoga
but also arts and sciences. The ideas implanted then, having
been set in motion by one who knew all the laws, remain as
inherent ideas to this day...(105) They are preserved by the
uneducated masses, who, having no scholastic theories to divert
their minds, keep up what is left of the succession of ideas."
GITA NOTES p. 104-5


"Alone the adepts, i.e., the embodied spirits--are forbidden by
our wise and intransgressible laws to completely subject to
themselves another and weaker will,--that of free born man. The
latter mode of proceeding is the favorite one resorted to by the
"Brothers of the Shadow," the Sorcerers, the Elementary Spooks,
and, as an isolated exception--by the highest Planetary (41)
Spirits, those, who can no longer err. But those appear on Earth
but at the origin of every new human kind; at the junction of,
and close of the two ends of the great cycle. And, they remain
with man no longer than the time required for the eternal truths
they teach to impress themselves so forcibly upon the plastic
minds or the new race as to warrant them from being lost or
entirely forgotten in ages hereafter, by the forthcoming
generations. The mission of the planetary Spirits is but to
strike the KEY-NOTE OF TRUTH. Once he has directed the vibration
of the latter to run its course uninterruptedly along the
catenation of that race and to the end of the cycle--the denizen
of the highest inhabited sphere disappears from the surface of
our planet--till the following "resurrection of flesh." The
vibrations of the Primitive Truth are what your philosophers name
"innate ideas."	M.L. 40-1


"...the primeval one Truth, taught humanity in the infancy of its
races by every First Messenger--the Planetary Spirit mentioned
[above]--and whose (49) remembrance lingered in the memory of man
as Elu of the Chaldees, Osiris the Egyptian, Vishnu, the first
Buddhas and so on."
M.L. 48-9


"...Truth is One, and cannot admit of diametrically opposite
views; and pure Spirits who see it as it is, with the veil of
matter entirely withdrawn from it cannot err. Now, if we allow
of different aspects or portions of the Whole Truth being visible
to different agencies or intelligences, each under various
conditions, as for example various portions of the one landscape
develop themselves to various persons at various distances and
from various standpoints--if we admit the fact of...individual
Brothers for instance endeavoring to develop the Egos of
different individuals, without subjecting entirely their wills to
their own (as it is forbidden) but by availing themselves of
their physical, moral, and intellectual idiosyncrasies; if we
add the countless kosmical influences which distort and deflect
all efforts to achieve definite purposes; if we remember,
moreover, the direct hostility of the Brethren of the Shadow
always on the watch to perplex and haze the neophyte's brain, I
think we shall have no difficulty in understanding how even a
definite spiritual advance may to a certain extent lead different
individuals to apparently different conclusions and theories."
M.L. 49



THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY


"In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the form of Kapila and other
(inspired sages)...imparts to the world true wisdom as Enoch did.
In the Treta age he restrains the wicked, in the form of a
universal monarch (the Chakravartin) or the 'Everlasting King' of
Enoch) and protects the three worlds (or races). "In the Dwapara
age, in the person of Veda-Vyasa, he divides the one Veda into
four, and distributes it into hundreds (Sata) of branches."
Truly so; the Veda of the earliest Aryans, before it was
written, went forth into every nation of the Atlanto-Lemurians,
off-shoots of the never dying tree of wisdom have scattered their
dead leaves even on Judaeo-Christianity. And at the end of the
Kali. our present age, Vishnu, or the "Everlasting King" will
appear as Kalki, and re-establish righteousness upon earth. The
minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened, and
become as pellucid as crystal. "The men who are those changed by
virtue of that peculiar time (the 6th race) shall be as the seeds
of other human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall
follow the laws of the Krita age of purity;" i.e., it shall be
the 7th race, the race of "Buddhas," the "Sons of God," born of
immaculate parents." SD II 483



TOTAL EVOLUTION : -- THE INDIVIDUAL CHOICE FOR THE
GOAL --	SPIRITUAL TRAINING


"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 functions being
the preservation at all times, and when cyclic laws permit, the
extension of spiritual knowledge and influence.

As to the process of spiritual development, Theosophy teaches:

1.	That the essence of the process lies in the securing of
supremacy to the highest, the spiritual, element of man's nature.

2.	That this is attained along 4 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
[within], 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.

3.	That while the above is incumbent on and practicable by all
religiously disposed men, a yet higher plane of spiritual
attainment is conditioned (26) upon a specific course of
training,
physical, intellectual and spiritual, by which the internal
faculties are first aroused and then developed.

4.	That an extension of this process is reached in Arhatship,
Mahatmaship, 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:

1.	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.

2.	That still more is gained by a career of duty, piety and
beneficence.

3.	That a still greater advance is attained by the attentive and
devoted use of the means to spiritual culture heretofore stated.

4.	That every race and individual of it reaches in evolution a
period known as "the moment of choice," when they decided for
themselves their future 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-consciousness 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 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..."	WQJ -- AN EPITOME OF THEOSOPHY, p. 25-27



"FAILURES" OF HUMANITY -- FURTHER OPPORTUNITIES


"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 Mahatmaship. 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 wickedness (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 "8th 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...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 if,
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, weighed by their own
nature, sink to the lowest depths of matter. The connection once
broken, cannot in the nature of Being be resumed. But
innumerable opportunities offer themselves throughout the
dissolving process, which lasts thousands of years..."
WQJ -- EPITOME 27-28



SACRIFICE OF SPIRITUAL BEINGS FOR BENEFITING MATTER


"...the surname Christos is based on, and the story of the
Crucifixion derived from, events that preceded it. Everywhere,
in India as in Egypt, in Chaldea as in Greece, all these legends
were built upon one and the same primitive type; the voluntary
sacrifice of the logoi--the rays of the one Logos, the direct
manifested emanation from the One ever-concealed Infinite and
Unknown--whose rays incarnated in mankind. They consented to
fall into matter, and are, therefore, called the "Fallen Ones."
HPB ART III 189



REGAINING SPIRITUAL FREEDOM


"One has to die in Chrestos, i.e., kill one's personality and its
passions, to blot out every idea of separateness from one's
"Father," the Divine Spirit in man; to become one with the
eternal and absolute Life and Light (SAT) before one can reach
the glorious state of Christos, the regenerated man, the man in
spiritual freedom."	HPB ART III 190fn



DESCENT INTO HELL OR HADES


"In esoteric philosophy, this going down into the pit has the
most mysterious significance. The Spirit "Christos" or rather
the "Logos" (read LOGOI), is said to "go down into the pit," when
it incarnates in flesh, is born as a man. After having robbed
the Elohim (or gods) of their secret, the pro-creating "fire of
life," the Angels of Light are shown cast down into the pit or
abyss of matter, called Hell, or the bottomless pit, by the kind
theologians. This, in Cosmogony and Anthropology. During the
Mysteries, however, it is the Chrestos, neophyte (as man), etc.,
who had to descend into the crypts of Initiation and trials; and
finally, during the "Sleep of Siloam" or the final trance
condition, during the hours of which the new Initiate has the
last and final mysteries of being divulged to him. Hades,
Scheol, or Patala, are all one. The same takes place in the East
now, as took place 2,000 years ago in the West, during the
MYSTERIES."	HPB ART III 192fn



SYMBOLISM OF THE SWASTICA -- PRAMANTHA --
AGNI -- FIRE


"...the father of the sacred fire (in India) bore the name of
Twashtri, that is the divine carpenter who made the Swastika and
the Pramantha, whose friction produced the divine child Agni, in
Latin Ignis; that his mother was named Maya; he himself, styled
Akta (anointed, or Christos) after the priests had poured upon
his head the spirituous soma and on his body butter purified by
sacrifice;" ...	HPB ART III 196



FIRST STEPS IN MANIFESTATION AND EVOLUTION


"Matter or substance is septenary within our World, as it is so
beyond it. Moreover, each of its states or principles is
graduated into seven degrees of density."	S D I 289


"It is that LIGHT which condenses into the forms of the "Lords of
Being"--the first and highest of which are, collectively JIVATMA
or Pratyagatma (GLOS. 261 - ALAYA)...From these downwards--formed
from the ever consolidating waves of that light, which becomes on
the objective plane gross matter--proceed the numerous
hierarchies of the Creative Forces, some formless, others having
their own distinctive form."	SD II 33-4


"Having sprung into being under the quickening influence of the
uncreated beam, the reflection of the great Central Sun that
radiates on the shores of the river of Life, it is the inner
principle in them [the Beings of Hierarchies] which belong to the
waters of immortality, while its differentiated clothing is as
perishable as man's body."	SD I 275-6


"The hosts of these Sons of Light and "Mind-born Sons" of the
first manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of
spiritual man."	SD I 106


"...an absolute consciousness, "Adi-Buddhi"; and the Buddhist
philosopher knows that there are Planetary Spirits, the "Dhyan
Chohans."... If the Dhyan Chohans and all the invisible
Beings--the Seven Centres and their direct Emanations, the minor
centres of Energy--are the direct reflex of the ONE LIGHT, yet
men are far removed from these, since the whole of the visible
Kosmos consists of "self-produced beings, the creatures of
Karma." ... they teach that only "two things are (objectively)
eternal, namely Akasa and Nirvana;" and that these are ONE in
reality, and but a maya when divided."	SD I 635-6



PLANETARY POWERS AND SPIRITS


"...to the eye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear
under two aspects: the subjective--as influences--, and the
objective--as mystic FORMS, which under Karmic law, become a
Presence, Spirit and Matter being ONE, ... Spirit is matter on
the seventh plane; matter is Spirit--on the lowest point of its
cyclic activity; and both -- are MAYA."	SD I 633


"The Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of the Stars in
general, and of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies
of men who are all born under one or other of their
constellations; the 2nd and 3rd groups pertaining t other systems
have the same functions, and all rule various departments of
Nature...guardian deities who preside over the 8 points of the
compass...Loka-Palas...the Lipika...are the Spirits of the
Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own planetary
deities. The former belong to the most occult portion of
Cosmogenesis...the Lipika are connected with Karma--being its
direct Recorders...the Lipika are concerned with Humanity's
hereafter."	SD I 128, 126



THE ETERNAL MAN


"...the true esoteric meaning is that most of them (the
Agnishwatta Pitris) were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the
forthcoming crop of Mankind. The human Ego is neither Atman nor
Buddhi, but the higher Manas; the intellectual fruition and the
efflorescence of the intellectual self-conscious Egotism--in the
higher spiritual sense. The ancient works refer to it as Karana
Sarira on the plane of the Sutratma, which is the golden thread
on which, like beads, the various personalities of this higher
Ego are strung...these beings were returning Nirvanees, from
preceding Maha-Manvantaras--ages of incalculable duration..."
SD II 79

"...from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic
being--the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose
links are all connected."	SD I 604



EVOLUTION OF THE IMMORTAL MAN


"It is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that
forms the fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences...the ONE
Universal Life, independent of matter...and...the individual
intelligences that animate the various manifestations of this
Principle...The ONE Life is closely related to the one law which
governs the World of Being--KARMA."
SD I 634



FINAL INITIATION


"Every Buddha meets at his last initiation all the great adepts
who reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages...every class of
adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them
together...The only possible and effectual way of entering into
such brotherhood...is by bringing oneself within the influence of
the Spiritual light which radiates from one's own Logos...such
communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive
their life and sustenance from the same divine RAY, and that, as
seven distinct rays radiate from the 'Central Spiritual Sun,' all
adepts and Dhyan Chohans are divisible into 7 classes, each of
which is guided, controlled, and overshadowed by one of the 7
forms or manifestations of the divine wisdom."	(S. Rao quoted -
THEOSOPHIST, AUG. 1886) SD I 574



SEVEN-FOLD GROUP OF DHYAN CHOHANS -
WATCHERS OVER EVOLUTION


"There are 7 chief groups of such Dhyan Chohans...the primeval
SEVEN Rays. Humanity, occultism teaches, is divided into 7
distinct groups and their sub-divisions, mental, spiritual, and
physical (fn) ...(FN) Hence the 7 chief planets, the spheres of
the indwelling 7 spirits, under each of which is born one of the
human groups which is guided and influenced thereby. There are
only 7 planets (specially connected with this earth), and 12
houses...countless...each of which varieties is born under one of
the 7 planets and one of the said countless planetary
combinations."	SD I 573 & fn


"...'the MIND'...the collective body of Dhyan Chohans, we
say--began to work upon and communicated to it motion and
order..."	SD I 595


"The hosts of these Sons of Light and "Mind-born Sons" of the
first manifested Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of
spiritual man."	SD I 106


"...the 7 wise ones (rays of wisdom, Dhyanis) fashion 7 paths (or
lines as also Races in another sense)...they are primarily beams
of light falling on the paths leading to wisdom...the 7 Rays
which fall free from the macrocosmic centre, the 7 principles in
the metaphysical, the 7 Races in the physical sense."	SD II 191
fn


"It is then the "Seven Sons of Light"--called after their planets
(by the rabble) often identified with them--namely Saturn,
Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus...the Sun and Moon, which are...our
heavenly Parents, or "Father," synthetically...the 4 exoteric
planets, and the 3 others...were the heavenly bodies in direct
astral and psychic communication with the Earth its Guides, and
Watchers--morally and physically...their "Regents" or Rectors
with our Monads and spiritual faculties."	SD I 575


"The 7 Beings in the Sun are the 7 Holy Ones, Self-born from the
inherent power in the matrix of Mother substance. it is they who
send the 7 Principal Forces, called rays, which at the beginning
of Pralaya will center into 7 new Suns for the next Manvantara.
The energy from which they spring into conscious existence in
every Sun, is what some people call Vishnu (fn) which is the
Breath of ABSOLUTENESS. (FN) In the same manner as a man
approaches a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own
image, so the energy or reflection of Vishnu (the Sun) is never
disjointed but remains in the Sun as in a mirror that is there
stationed."(Vishnu Purana)	SD I 290



INTELLIGENCE INNATE TO ALL FORMS


"The essential faculty possessed by all the cosmic and
terrestrial elements, of generating within themselves a regular
and harmonious series of results, a concatenation of causes and
effects is an irrefutable proof that they are either animated by
an extra or intra INTELLIGENCE, or conceal such within or behind
the manifested veil...Newton...recognized fully the limits that
separate the action of natural Forces from that of the
INTELLIGENCES that set the innumerable laws into order and
action... To become complete and comprehensible, a cosmological
theory has to start with a primordial Substance diffused
throughout boundless Space, of an intellectual and divine Nature.
That substance must be the Soul and Spirit, the Synthesis and 7th
Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and to serve as a spiritual
Upadhi to this, there must be the 6th, its vehicle--primordial
physical matter...though its nature must for ever escape our
limited normal senses."	SD I 594



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B I B L I O G R A P H Y

================================================================
ARTICLE or BOOK TITLE	BOOK - AUTHOR	PAGE
================================================================

MAHATMAS AND CHELAS HPB ARTICLES, Vol. I, p.
293

CAN THE MAHATMAS BE SELFISH ? - do - Vol. I, p. 321

THE THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS - do - Vol. I, p. 301

MODERN APOSTLES AND PSEUDO MESSIAHS- do - Vol. II, p. 514

CHELAS - do - Vol. I, p. 299

CHELAS AND LAY CHELAS - do - Vol. I, p. 308


THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, ITS MISSION AND ITS FUTURE
Vol. I, p. 245

WHAT ARE THE THEOSOPHISTS ? - do - Vol. I, p. 48

REINCARNATIONS IN TIBET - do - Vol. III, p. 356

SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH - do - Vol. I, p. 115

THE ADEPTS WQJ ARTICLES Vol. II, p. 52

THE ADEPTS AND MODERN SCIENCE WQJ ARTICLES Vol. II p. 63

ADEPTS AND POLITICS - do - Vol. II p. 74

MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS, AND DISCIPLES Vol. II p. 9

BOEHME AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE - do - Vol. I p. 270

CAGLIOSTRO -- PRINCE TALLEYRAND - do - Vol. I p. 472

HPB ON MESSAGES FROM MASTERS - do - Vol. II p. 55

HPB WAS NOT DESERTED BY MASTERS - do - Vol. II p. 13

THE MAHATMAS AS IDEALS AND FACTS - do - Vol. II p. 39

BOGUS MAHATMA MESSAGES - do - Vol. I p. 369

A MAHATMA'S MESSAGE TO SOME BRAHMINS Vol. II p. 321

AN OLD MESSAGE FROM THE MASTER - do - Vol. II p. 309

WHAT THE MASTERS HAVE SAID - do - Vol. II p. 218

WILL MASTERS' HELP BE WITHDRAWN IN 1898 UNTIL 1975 ?
Vol. II p. 76

PLAIN THEOSOPHICAL TRACES - do - Vol. I p. 244

PROOFS OF THE HIDDEN SELF - do - Vol. I p. 289

RULES IN OCCULTISM - do - Vol. I p. 440

SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND THEIR ATTAINMENT Vol. II p. 385

THEOSOPHY AND THE MASTERS -- THE OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY p. 1

THEOSOPHY AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, p. 1

ANSWER TO QUESTIONS ON THE 'OCEAN' p. 1

THE "THEOSOPHICAL MAHATMAS" THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, p. 288

LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME

ADEPTS p. 38 110 117 12 38 250 21 15 53
CHELAS p. 112 45 103 266 84 40 120 46 51
MASTERS p. 111 110 73 164 50 283 136 112 75
113 87 84 123 68 8 95 14 72 74 126 109
122

NOTES ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA

ADEPTS p. 38 52 76 130
MASTERS p. 136 149 52 53 76 113-4

FRIENDLY PHILOSOPHER
ADEPTS p. 42 132 74
CHELAS p. 172 202 75 145
MASTERS P. 324 5 6 8 13 11 14 18 28 29 39 42-3
43 08 117 52 58 81 68 363 75 338 76 92-3
171 96 107-8 368 389 398 114 117-8 126
134 136 142 147 149 152-3-4 163 166 171
198 401 173-4 179 184 186 188 192 194 196
198 201 206 332 243 248 269 285 289 309
318 323-4 331-2 337-8 377 68 371 374-5
381-2 384 395-6 386 390 394 397


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