Re: Reading Circle (Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine)
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2022 1:48 pm
Let's take a couple weeks off for the Christmas holidays and continue on Stanza VII. 1. come 1st of January. Peaceful holidays for all!
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Missing the deadline I'm going to make a short notion to the previous stanza and prepare to write notions on the next one by 8th of January.
Emphasis mine. Continuing on my previous appreciation of the teaching on the rounds, the sevenfold cycles are known repeating a certain evolution-involution pattern with known stages. In the light of the quote, this teaching of the rounds can be seen as a systematic learning method to observe the Past, the Present, and the Future and thus a training method to become an Arhat. If one is to adopt this way of looking in to things and make predictions of what is the challenge of different operators based on their past and present and what do they (or most importantly I) probably have to see in order to reach to the next phase. Although leaning to observe things through the rounds is rather formal and systematic, it surely helps training one's mind in to a living vision of the Arhat. The systematic training is always necessary as heuristic ladders that can be tossed once we have climbed on top of the clouds with them.Secret Doctrine wrote:There are four grades of initiation mentioned in exoteric works, which are known respectively in Sanskrit as “Sçrôtâpanna,” “Sagardagan,” “Anagamin,” and “Arhan”—the four paths to Nirvana, in this, our fourth Round, bearing the same appellations. The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela (pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship.
Here we are entering a bit more familiar area. The divine vehicle, according to Blavatsky’s commentary, seems to speak of Atma as the vehicle of Logos where there is the abstract idea – the unmanifested Logos –, and the manifested Logos (Atma) acting as a vehicle of the latter. This manifested Logos in turn is then seen through aspecual manifestations all the way to the sevenfold division of Logos, and this pattern repeating itself on all the areas of manifestation, the ”globes” etc.Book of Dzyan wrote:Behold the beginning of sentient formless life (a). First, the divine (vehicle) (b), the one from the mother-spirit
(Atman) ; then the Spiritual—(Atma-Buddhi, Spirit-soul) (c) ; (again) the three from the one (d), the four from the one (e), and the five (f), from which the three, the five and the seven (g)—these are the three-fold and the four-fold downward ; the “mind-born sons of the first Lord (Avalôkitêswara) the Shining Seven (the “Builders ”). It is they who are thou, me, him, O Lanoo ; they who watch over thee and thy mother, Bhumi (the Earth).
With the Fourth, we are talking about the atom’s basic structure as a nursery or a womb. I’m making a leap here and suggesting this nursery in its archetypal round womb function connects to the Scribes who oversee the karmic law of the cosmos. When we come to face our karma through this nursery, we become conscious and attached to our spiritual souls (which the nursery is said to be there for), and consequently become able to proceed with our dharma. Simply put, it is a sort of encoding place where energy is informed by the skandhas of an individual to take a certain kind of position inorder to form a reality as it should be formed according to karma. In cosmic proportions the karma is that of higher entities – planets and their spirits, karma from the previous manvantaras and ”globes” put forth in order for the occult evolution to proceed forth meaningfully in the next phase.Secret Doctrine wrote:The Fourth are substantial Entities. This is the highest group among the Rupas (Atomic Forms). It is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls. They are called the “Imperishable Jivas,” and constitute, through the order below their own, the first group of the first septenary host—the great mystery of human conscious and intellectual Being.
In this stanza and its commentary we get more acquainted with the one principle dividing in to many. It is kind of an advanced study in to what happens between the usual principles we are familiar with from our Hieroglyphic Key. If I understood correctly, atma (or one higher – the Monad) is or corresponds to the one ray, multiplying in to atma-buddhi and manas, and interestingly in this stanza we seem to focus largely on the Five – the Human Star –, which is illustrated also in between the two triangles in the Hieroglyphic Key illustration. As fluid, it seems to be described having similar qualities as linga sharira, that is vitality of Life (as called in the stanza), yet as a Manasic Star it seems higher. To a degree it seems to be overlapped with the Sun/Prana, which perhaps maps its vitality to its right place, being more of a general than particular nature. Prana is called Jivatma, mapping out another point of an ego, which is precisely the self as compiled by the previous races and the current building of the fifth. Jivatma would thus be the Magician of Tarot in the making. The highest and the lowest Dhyan Chohans, or Elohim if you will, is said to be outside this Five fold human Jivatma, where the lowest gives the form, and the Highest being the One principle (Atma, or perhaps Monad). Thus Atma as the ”seventh” embodies the hexagram, while Jivatma is the pentagram build and manifested in to Life through the procession of globes and races.The Book of Dzyan wrote:The one ray multiplies the smaller rays. Life precedes form, and life survives the last atom (of Form, Sthula-sarira, external body). Through the countless rays the life-ray, the one, like a thread through many beads (pearls)
In its heart the sloka draws out the moment where ”the One Eternal drops its reflection into the region of Manifestation, that reflection, “the Ray,” differentiates the “Water of Space”. There is a voice in me which wants to suggest the three are the higher triad, central sun and the lower triad as a reflection, but with further consideration this is only a reflection of what the stanza really is talking about. To make a human microcosmic comparison to this cosmic event, One Eternal could be seen as the Monad, while in ”Chaos becom[ing] male-female, and Water, incubated through Light, and the “three-fold being issu[ing] as its First-born” could be seen atma-buddhi-manas as the First-born of the parents who are One Eternal, and Mother Chaos. In some ways this procreation chain seems to repeat, or more accurately, the seed proceeds in to different phases where Manas proceeds its own seed as the Manasic Star, which constitutes of the elements, and the 4+1 ”ancestors” of mankind, and perhaps further the instruments of the lower triad are created as well as birth in to the higher instruments takes place.Book of Dzyan wrote:When the one becomes two—the “three-fold ” appears (a). The three are (linked into) one ; and it is our thread, O Lanoo, the heart of the man-plant, called Saptaparna
An important definition from Blavatsky where Akâsha is said to be unmanifested side of Divine Universal Soul, while Ether is the manifested side. We can probably think of these through the idea of karma where the akashic libraries are all the records of all positive or negative deeds waiting in the pre-cosmic state to be made null in the manifested side – the cosmos. Thus Ether is the substance of the world, the Chaos impregnated by the spirit and the particular karma each of the ruling Creator of each aeon carries upon it from previous rounds. Human beings then seem like entities that are intervowen (by each portion or aspect of the Divine Man embodying one part of the rounds) in to this formation, and created especially for the retribution of the karmic weight. Does Architects or Creators preside in Akasha, while Builders or Watchers are to be seen in Ether, being the same group of Seven, yet a different if we locate them on different spheres? Similar to the relationship of Absolute and Logos, where they are one in their shared operation and even in their being, yet through their metaphysical and physical locations they are different, let’s say, by their name.Secret Doctrine wrote:The Egyptian Ra, issuing from the deep, is the Divine Universal Soul in its manifested aspect, and so is Narâyana, the Purusha, “concealed in Akâsa and present in Ether.”
Secret Doctrine commentary opens the relation of the flames and wicks, where the higher triad is recognized as the immortal part of us. Manas as the five-fold human pentagram has reached to certain occult developments during its latest incarnation and its fruit is absorbed by atma-buddhi to their higher sphere. Theosophists have written a lot about what happens next. Devachan, the rest beyond devachan etc. SD commentary, quoting an Egyptian source (perhaps their book of the dead) offers another interesting perspective or detail to the process:Book of Dzyan wrote:4. It is the root that never dies, the three-tongued flame of the four wicks * (a) . . . The wicks are the sparks, that draw from the three-tongued flame (their upper triad) shot out by the seven, their flame; the beams and sparks of one moon reflected in the running waves of all the rivers of the earth
This sowing of the seed is a vast area of interest especially for occultists. First, this simply means that we reap what we sow and our processes may take longer in both purgatories and devachan than we'd ideally fancy in a strictly occult sense (will to transcend thoroughly to the absolute state). Secondly we might try to pause here for a little while and consider the sowing of the seed and its relation to the gift an adept occultist leaves behind. Does the seed of a spirit dwelling in higher spheres correspond somehow to ascended masters guidance given to his pupils?“I am the three-wicked Flame and my wicks are immortal,” says the defunct. “ I enter into the domain of Sekhem (the God whose arm sows the seed of action produced by the disembodied soul) and I enter the region of the Flames who have destroyed their adversaries,” i.e., got rid of the sin-creating “ four wicks.”
Emphasis mine. The reason why I'm again and again confused with the three and the four while reading the Secret Doctrine is that there are multiple ways to understand them, and the seven can be talked about as a collective - the Elohim - within the unmanifested state of Logos, or it can mean the manifested three and four. The four on its turn can be looked through the corresponding human principles, the corresponding kingdoms of nature, or even the elements. The reader’s mind needs to adjust and try to see to the four of the context.Book of Dzyan wrote:The wicks are the sparks, that draw from the three-tongued flame (their upper triad) shot out by the seven, their flame
Just as I took up the problem with the 3+4 and 7 on the previous sloka, some of it is further explained in this weeks Secret Doctrine commentary. The writer points how the four rounds can be seen as the four planes in the Microprosopus of the Kabbalistical Tree of Life, while the seven are the ”limbs” of the Microprosopus. As the seven creators manifest their respective parts of the round as ”limbs” of the Microprosopus – the lesser face (manifested) – each steps in to a new plane only down to the fourth. After which on the return trip – the ascension – where the rest of the creators appear on planes 3, 2 and 1.The Book of Dzyan wrote:(5) The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat. It journeys through the Seven Worlds of Maya (a). It
stops in the first (Kingdom), and is a metal and a stone; it passes into the second (Kingdom), and behold—a plant; the
plant whirls through seven forms and becomes a sacred animal; (the first shadow of the physical man) (b).
From the combined attributes of these, manu (man), the thinker, is formed.
Who forms him? The seven lives ; and the one life (c).
Who completes him? The fivefold Lha. And who perfects the last body? Fish, sin, and soma (the moon) (d)
The Book of Dzyan wrote:Who forms him? The seven lives ; and the one life.
On the basis of what we’ve gone through, this sloka seems quite obvious. Sort of a breather in the whole of the stanza. The increasing radiance seems to come to the point how the Master receives more instruments as the shadow goes through its initiations. The Magician of the tarot comes to mind. This despite the radiance being buried deeper and deeper as the descend in to the darkness of matter (instruments) furthers.Book of Dzyan wrote:6. From the first-born (primitive, or the first man) the thread between the silent watcher and his shadow becomes more strong and radiant with every change (re-incarnation) (a). The morning sun-light has changed into noon-day glory . . . .
I first read the latter sentence to speak of the lunar path, but it talks about the Monad holding its individuality during one Manvantara, and I believe consequently suggesting the Monad being an egg brooded by the Seven. Thus the lunar path is not referred here as revolving around an individual Dhyan Chohan. Rather the lunar path severs its ties to the Inner Master and is just hanging on to mayavic structures – the illusions of the Moon. Reminds me of some simple forms of life hovering in ther dark without eye-sight, or evolution imagined by the old biologists going through different forms by random testing rather than any guidance. Or people, who building not on principles but mostly just on reactions and primitive defenses, are rather helpless in finding the hidden rock and its guidance. Perhaps in the denial they sometimes reach the inner guidance and the genius of virtue which guides them to the right direction, but its rather chaotic and usually harmful to their surroundings. The Lunar Path as a ”spiritual path” seems a delusion of how things are and a delusions of oneself, unless there is included a deep sense of the mysteries of the magical substance of matter, ability to reach the archetypal beyond form with ease; a real ability to approach the spirit from the darkness of the chthonic world (EDIT: which is already a connection to the inner master). Nature read as nature is, is its strong side which can lack from the all-spirit and hierarchies RHP school of thought taken with too much emphasis.Secret Doctrine wrote:The Watcher, or the divine prototype, is at the upper rung of the ladder of being; the shadow, at the lower. Withal, the Monad of every living being, unless his moral turpitude breaks the connection and runs loose and “astray into the lunar path”—to use the Occult expression—is an individual Dhyan Chohan, distinct from others, a kind of spiritual individuality of its own, during one special Manvantara.
There are many precious stones in this poetic ending to the commentary on the cosmogony. First of all it offers consolation to the present day occultist, who might be anxious with the slow pace and self-torturing state of the world, for it reminds us that everyone has to walk in to the sinful depths of matter and go through it all before they can take upon the journey back home. This should ease us with the knowledge how we can not lift the whole world with us because the world and its individuals need to go down by themselves first. If we would manage to create seemingly magnificent and massive cultural changes, these changes would be completely exoteric and already rotting inside, because it is only within individuals where the change must happen before the Golden Age with its culture may rise. Although I guess there are some overlap here, because we as occult aspirants are still making the mistakes and and learning – descending in to ”Sin” as we aim towards adepthood.Secret Doctrine wrote:”--that each atom, we say, may reach through individual merits and efforts that plane where it re-becomes the one unconditioned ALL. But between the Alpha and the Omega there is the weary ”Road” hedged in by thorns, that ”goes down first, then –
Winds up hill all the way
Yes, to the very end . . . .
Starting upon the long journey immaculate; descending more and more into sinful matter, and having connected himself with every atom in manifested Space – the Pilgrim, having struggled through and suffered in every form of life and being, is only at the bottom of the valley of matter, and half through the cycle, when he has identified himself with collective Humanity. This, he has made in his own image. In order to progress upwards and homewards, the ”God” has now to ascend the weary uphill path of he Golgotha of Life. It is the martyrdom of self-conscious existence. Like Visvakarman he has to sacrifice himself to himself in order to redeem all creatures, to resurrect from the many into the One Life.”