Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00196)

.....the Secret Doctrine teaches: 

(c) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-
Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the 
obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul -- a spark of the former -- 
through the Cycle of Incarnation (or 'Necessity') in accordance with 
Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term. In other words, no 
purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent 
(conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure 
Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the OVER-SOUL, -- 
has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world 
of that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural 
impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked 
by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of 
intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and 
plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The pivotal 
doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special 
gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort 
and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses and 
reincarnations. This is why the Hindus say that the Universe is 
Brahma and Brahma, for Brahma is in every atom of the universe, the 
six principles in Nature being all the outcome -- the variously 
differentiated aspects -- of the SEVENTH and ONE, the only reality 
in the Universe whether Cosmical or micro-cosmical; and also why the 
permutations (psychic, spiritual and physical), on the plane of 
manifestation and form, of the sixth (Brahma the vehicle of Brahma) 
are viewed by metaphysical antiphrasis as illusive and Mayavic. For 
although the root of every atom individually and of every form 
collectively, is that seventh principle or the one Reality, still, 
in its manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance, it is no 
better than an evanescent illusion of our senses. 

H.P. Blavatsky, THE SECRET DOCTRINE, I, p. 18