Tag Archives: evolution

Legacy of Luna

THE famous meditation of John Donne, “never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,” highlights two Theosophical principles:

First, the affirmation that there is no isolation, that nature and all mankind are interconnected — and second, karmic responsibility.

“It’s one thing to fashion a particular work of art, sculpture, painting, a worthy accomplishment,” Thoreau once wrote, “but much greater is the creation of one’s life.”

“…to exemplify the highest potential imagined, it is the highest of loving artistic accomplishments,” he believed.

A compassionate activist, Julia Butterfly Hill is a living example of Theosophy pure and simple, took the decisive action taught in The Voice of the Silence — sacrificing  her comfort and well-being to “help Nature and work on with her.”

It must have been a profound inner sense of the sacred that roused Julia, as she climbed up those ropes, to begin a permanent encampment in the endangered redwood trees.

“She doesn’t follow any organized religion but says she believes very strongly in the spirituality of the universe.”

Continue reading

The Shiva Life

WE live on a planet constantly in motion, and except for the occasional natural catastrophe, a usually very slow, orderly motion.

The Earth is billions of years old and still in the making, where glacial cycles come and go, continents move, mountains form and erode.

Scientists investigate everything from the hypothetical big bang to the smallest geologic and biologic forces. But where Earth came from, how evolution works,

…and why and how life itself arose, is still the most profound mystery in science.

Please note this post was updated and republished at the following link:

Masquerade

Separation Syndrome

TODAY humanity is divided into sects and cults, castes, creeds and classes, religious denominations and political ideologies. Instead of being bearers of love and cooperation, we still engage in criticizing, opposing and attacking each other.

A united world has been the hope of humanity for ages. Poets and philosophers have dreamed of it. Statesmen and politicians are trying to find a solution to the great problem of disunity.

They have not succeeded because the approach is usually reductionist instead of holistic. Our obsession with the trees of sectarian differences and selfish, materialistic agendas, we never see the forest as whole.

It is not through legislatures that harmony and peace can be established between different nations. What is needed is a sea change of mind and heart, a basis of universal ideas and facts as given out by the great spiritual teachers down the ages.

Mme. Blavatsky, in her Key to Theosophy, Section 12, describes four Links of a Golden Chain that, if implemented, would bind humanity into one universal family. They are:

“Universal Unity and Causation – Human Solidarity – the Law of Karma – Reincarnation.”

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“From Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a star to a rush-light, from the Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being,” Blavatsky memorably wrote (SD 1:604), “the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain, whose links are all connected.” Continue reading

Never Ending I

EVOLUTION is spiral, Theosophy teaches and the path of spirituality turns “corkscrew-like.”

Soul experiences are layered securely “within and around the physical, semi-physical, and supra-physical.”

Man’s immortality and the existence of God, are the two primary doctrines that H. P. Blavatsky determined to prove.

Analogizing in her Preface to Isis Unveiled, her first Theosophical opus, she sets the bar to its highest level,  posing immediately the keynote question:

“Who ever saw the Immortal Spirit of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man’s immortality?”

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Often it is only the clear-eyed children, unfettered by dogmas, who are the ones able to perceive spirit, not their parents or teachers.

Please note, this post has been updated and republished at:

The Unwrapped Soul

Doing What is True

Guadalupe Urbina

WE don’t have to ‘go’ anywhere to be physical. If you are reading this you are probably living in a ‘physical’ body, and using the senses that came with it.

We don’t have to go anywhere special to be ‘spiritual’ either — we are old souls having a physical experience right now — our spirit is using these physical senses.

The virtual ‘paper’ this blog is written on, does not appear to be ‘physical’ like paper made from trees. And it doesn’t have the same look, or ‘feel.’

Yet this website paper really exists, and it is made of matter — albeit an invisible, electronic-photonic sort of matter — like our souls.

Understanding that both the tree and the website are simply manifestations of an energy, then they are not very different at all. They are really the same in essence.

And this invisible energy canvas serves a real purpose — with the added benefit of saving trees — and is making a kinder impact on the planet.

So forms can be made of many differing states of energy, which like our minds and souls are full of life and consciousness. We cannot see them, or say what “life” or “consciousness” is — but we know they exist. Continue reading

Closer to Home

GALAXIES form groups from few to a few dozen, to large clusters up to several thousands.

These vast star systems are called “Local Groups,” and all the galaxies they hold, like cells, are in mutual attraction and interaction with each other.

On a lesser scale our solar system, the home of our Earth the other planets, calls the Milky Way Galaxy its home.

Correspondingly, just as the Earth is home to us humans, so our human bodies are habitats and landscapes to billions of microbes — all interconnected with a common mission in the vastness of inner space.

View from Outer Space

At the request of Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft — having completed its primary mission and now leaving the solar system — to turn its camera around and take a photograph of Earth from outer space. Continue reading

The Language of Life

BLIND chance could never on its own have produced a self-conscious thinking human being, nor would it have any reason for doing so.

Because for the random neo-Darwinist evolution machinery, an underlying intelligence is not necessary.

But intelligence, whatever one calls the force, undeniably exists. The paradoxes of self-consciousness evident in human nature are challenging to materialism—especially the concept of personal responsibility.

But just like every caterpillar’s solo struggle to grow wings and fly, with the progressive development of awareness of truth, and individual spiritual growth, H. P. Blavatsky wrote:

“the true Adept must become,
he cannot be made.”

Continue reading

Never Ending Life

LOOKING past our relatively short physical lives on Earth, Theosophy views the soul as eternal. Further, we don’t just ‘have’ a soul, we are souls, the wisdom tradition teaches.

There are many human beings who live to a ripe old age, and according to Wikipedia, the United Nations estimated in 2009 there were 455,000 living centenarians worldwide.

Methuselah is mentioned in the Bible as living 969 years. “But I have never heard of mortal man, layman, or Adept,”  H. P. Blavatsky says in The Key to Theosophy, “who could live even half the years allotted to Methuselah.”

“Some Adepts do exceed, by a good deal, what you would call the ordinary age — yet there is nothing miraculous in it, and very few of them care to live very long.”

She refers here to the Earthly body, not the Spiritual Body that high adepts have learned to occupy and control, thereby achieving self-conscious immortality — albeit invisible to uninitiated mankind.

Gautama, the Buddha, after reaching the goal of enlightenment, refused its fruition and remained on earth as a Teacher-Reformer, it is explained, and esoteric tradition teaches that he still remains in the world, invisibly watching over and protecting mankind.

Not only Gautama, but a “Wall of Protection” is built by the “accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis, Saints and Adepts,those Buddhas of Compassion

who have woven for themselves glorious bodies in which they remain invisibly in the world, contributing towards man’s salvation.”

They do this “by influencing him to follow the Good Law and to tread the Path of Righteousness. Silently they impress the invisible atmosphere of our earth with their Ideation, thus keeping the balance on the side of right.”

Continue reading

Ethical Alchemy

spiritawakenedTHE perennial philosophy assures us that compassion is far from a gushy sentimentalism, or an intellectual idea.

More than a gut feeling, it is rather a universal, non-sectarian, non-dual energy — the primal oneness undertone of Life.

The Voice of the Silence declares it to be foundational heart energy, “the LAW of LAWS.”

We already share, as humanity, the core values of caring for others less fortunate. Rooting for the underdog comes naturally to us.

But, the prefix ‘com’ (with: together: jointly) raises com-passion to a level far above the acquisitive passion of the selfish and greedy — and the evil desire that dries up the Earth’s human and natural resources for individual and corporate profiteering.

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New Voices

“There is an urgent need for a new focus,” the global coalition Charter for Compassion seeks to remind the world — and to bring together “voices from all cultures and religions.”

The realization of universal brotherhood was championed by H. P. Blavatsky throughout her life, and is the First Object of the Theosophical Society. (Thoughts That Count)

There is, Blavatsky notes:

“A great psychic and spiritual change now taking place in the realm of the human soul.”

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Free Hugs Campaign

“Sometimes, a hug is all what we need,” says The Free Hugs Campaign. “Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whose sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.”

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

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Concerning our motives, in Letter 7, Helena Blavatsky’s Master wrote:

“The practical value of good motives is best seen when they take the form of deeds…”

“As this symbol of human hope spread across the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring:”

“KINDNESS, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to oneself, are its chief features. He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of goodwill — and the converse of this is true also — he who preaches the gospel of goodwill, teaches Theosophy.” - H. P. Blavatsky

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Mme. Helena Blavatsky

Confucius and Plato, belonged psychically, mentally and spiritually to the higher planes of evolution,” Blavatsky maintained, and “Gautama Buddha —Wisdom incarnate — was still higher and greater.”

She saw that the seeds of a future Spiritual Evolution lay imprisoned alive in the heart of humanity. That growth was temporarily stifled in the Twentieth Century with the rise of wars, industrial greed, social strife, bigotry, crime and prejudice.

An indigenous materialism, strongly encamped in fundamentalist science and religion, still weaves a dark cloud that hovers precipitously over any Movement promoting change. Self-interest protects the status quo.

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The Golden Rule

Now, despite it all, social reformer Karen Armstrong sees evidence of a vitalizing “ethical alchemy” on the rise.

The Charter for Compassion speaks to the Ideal in straight-forward, practical terms, as did H. P. Blavatsky, who wrote “… the essence of Theosophy is the perfect harmonizing of the divine with the human in man, the adjustment of his god-like qualities and aspirations, and their sway over the terrestrial or animal passions in him.”

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The Charter brings together the voices of people from all religions. “It seeks to remind the world that while all faiths are not the same,” but “they all share the core principle of compassion, and the Golden Rule.”

“The Charter seeks to change the conversation around religion, and will be a clarion call to the world.”

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Karen Armstrong

Weeks from the Charter for Compassion launch, Karen Armstrong looks at religion’s role in the 21st century: “Will its dogmas divide us? Or will it unite us for common good?” She reviews the catalysts that can drive the world’s faiths to rediscover the Golden Rule. Join the world at charterforcompassion.com to write the Charter for Compassion.

Spiritual Rights of Man

“Whoever feels his heart beating in unison with the great heart of humanity, whoever feels his interests at one with those who are poorer and less fortunate than himself,” Blavatsky wrote in The New Cycle

“Whoever, man or woman, is ever ready to lend a helping hand to those who suffer, whoever is fully conscious of the real meaning of ‘Egoism,’ is a Theosophist by birth and by right.”

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The sea change in humanity that Blavatsky foresaw “is quite remarkable” she said. It is a call to spiritual awakening which may be realized, finally, in our own Century. “Verily the Spirit in man,” she declared in her own time,

“so long hidden out of public sight has at last awakened. It now asserts itself and is loudly re-demanding its unrecognized yet ever legitimate rights. It refuses to be any longer trampled under the brutal foot of Materialism, speculated upon by the Churches.”

Peter Russell: The Global Brain

(Excerpt)

In words that are sorely needed today, she continues:

“Take advantage of, and profit by, the ‘tidal wave’ which is now happily overpowering half of Humanity,” she said, and “speak to the awakening Spirit of Humanity, to the human Spirit and the Spirit in man, these three in One and the One in All.”

Her soaring prose, however, bore a cautionary footnote. “But woe to the XXth century,” she warned, “if the now reigning school of thought prevails, for Spirit would once more be made captive and silenced till the end of the now coming age.”

THE-BEHEADING

The Twentieth Century indeed found humanity held hostage—by two world wars and threats of war, and by suffering, disease, poverty — culminating today in a reign of terror, remembered only in the Medieval Dark Ages of burnings and beheadings.

Activating deep yearnings of the Soul for peace and harmony, is all that can save us from extinction.

Attitudes and Limitations

The tidal wave of deeper souls,
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares,
Out of all meaner cares.

LONGFELLOW

joy

“To a large extent, the way we think determines who we are and what happens to us.”

“We cannot harbor poisonous thoughts without their effects visibly showing in our lives. If we dwell on our inadequacy and ineffectiveness, for example, circumstances will prove us correct because we will invite self-defeating events to us.

“On the other hand, replacing destructive thoughts with hope-filled, optimistic ones brings peaceful and confidence-producing circumstances to us. We will radiate competence and joy.”

Story of Compassion: Samia Shoaib, Pakistan

“We would be wise, therefore, to take the advice of twentieth century author Orison Swett Marden:

‘Stoutly determine not to harbor anything in the mind which you do not wish to become real in your life. Shun poisoned thoughts, ideas which depress and make you unhappy, as instinctively as you avoid physical danger of any find – replace all these with cheerful, hopeful, optimistic thoughts.

‘Today I will make it a habit to continually replace pessimistic thoughts with optimistic ones. I will dwell on what is uplifting so that I may increase my courage and confidence as well as better my circumstances.’

[Above are excerpts from the book The Reflecting Pond, by Liane Cordes]

The Reflecting Pond is a collection of meditations that takes one subject at a time and covers it in depth. Whether we have a concern about self-acceptance, fear, friendship, or love, there is a chapter full of understanding thoughts. Used as an extra dose of support on specific issues, this book will help us think through day-to-day living problems.

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Insights and Similarities

“The second objective of the Theosophical Society is the study of the world’s religions, philosophies, and sciences,” writes David Pratt. And, “Blavatsky played a pioneering role in introducing the west to the sacred traditions of the east”:-

“She also provided insights into the deeper meaning of myth, allegory, and symbolism. When stripped of their later dogmatic accretions, the world’s religions are found to have more similarities than differences: they recognize that our essential self is fundamentally identical with the Universal Self…

“They advocate the golden rule of universal love; and they speak of enlightened teachers Krishna, Buddha, Christ, etc. who have appeared on earth at different times and restated some of the fundamental spiritual values.”

The Gnostic Code

Excerpt from a talk by John Algeo of The Theosophical Society explaining how religion became a hindrance to humanity’s spiritual evolution instead of a healing force.

The Tidal Wave

by H. P. Blavatsky

(Excerpts)

TODAY, the Spirit in man has returned like King Lear, from seeming insanity to its senses – and, raising its voice, it now speaks in those authoritative tones to which the men of old have listened in reverential silence through incalculable ages, until deafened by the din and roar of civilization and culture, they could hear it no longer. . . .

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Look around you and behold! Think of what you see and hear, and draw therefrom your conclusions.

The age of crass materialism, of Soul insanity and blindness, is swiftly passing away.

A death struggle between Mysticism and Materialism is no longer at hand, but is already raging. And the party which will win the day at this supreme hour will become the master of the situation and of the future – i.e., it will become the autocrat and sole disposer of the millions of men already born and to be born, up to the latter end of the XXth century.

And facing the hitherto domineering flood which is still steadily carrying off into unknown abysses the fragments from the wreck of the dethroned, cast down Human Spirit, they now command:

“So far hast thou come – but thou shalt go no further!”

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Amid all this external discord and disorganisation of social harmony; amid confusion and the weak and cowardly hesitations of the masses, tied down to the narrow frames of routine, propriety and cant – amid that late dead calm of public thought that had exiled from literature every reference to Soul and Spirit and their divine working during the whole of the middle period of our century – we hear a sound arising.

Like a clear, definite, far-reaching note of promise, the voice of the great human Soul proclaims, in no longer timid tones, the rise and almost the resurrection of the human Spirit in the masses.

It is now awakening in the foremost representatives of thought and learning – it speaks in the lowest as in the highest, and stimulates them all to action. The renovated, life-giving Spirit in man is boldly freeing itself from the dark fetters of the hitherto all-capturing animal life and matter.

Declan Galbraith: “Tell Me Why”

Declan was born on December 19, 1991 in ENGLAND, of Scottish AND Irish origin. More about him and his songs, can be found on his official website: http://www.declan-galbraith.co.uk/

The New Cycle

by H. P. Blavatsky

(Excerpts)

WHOEVER feels his heart beating in unison with the great heart of humanity,

WHOEVER feels his interests at one with those who are poorer and less fortunate than himself –

WHOEVER, man or woman, is ever ready to lend a helping hand to those who suffer,

WHOEVER is fully conscious of the real meaning of “Egoism,” is a Theosophist by birth and by right.

If it is objected that in it the atheist rubs elbows with the deist, and the materialist with the idealist, we answer: “What of it?”

What matters the passing form if the goal pursued is the same Eternal Essence, whether that Essence appear to human perception under the guise of a Substance, of an immaterial Breath, or of a No-thing!

Let us admit the PRESENCE, whether called Personal God or Universal Substance, and let us admit a cause, since we all see effects.

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In the final analysis, the greatest of materialists, as well as the most transcendental of philosophers, admits the omnipresence of an impalpable Proteus, omnipotent in its ubiquity throughout all kingdoms of nature, including man – a Proteus indivisible in its essence, without form and yet manifesting itself in all forms—

Which is here, there, everywhere and nowhere, which is the All and the Nothing, which is all things and always One, Universal Essence which binds, limits and contains everything, and which everything contains.

Not only humanity– even though consisting of thousands of races – but all that lives and vegetates, all that in one word is, is made up of the same essence and substance, is animated by the same spirit, and that, therefore, there is solidarity throughout nature, on the physical as well as on the moral plane.

HopkinsonRevOlives

We have already said in the Theosophist:

“Born in the United States of America, the Theosophical Society was constituted on the model of its mother country. The latter, as we know, omits the name of God from its constitution, lest, said the Fathers of the Republic, this word someday afford the pretext for a State religion – for they wanted to grant absolute equality in its laws to all religions so that all would support the State and all in their turn would be protected.”

The Theosophical Society was established on this beautiful model.

GreatSeal-Reverse

Related Posts:

Happy is Healthy

Our Green Horizon

The Caring Spirit

Future Seeing

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“THE PAST, the Present, and the Future are, in the esoteric philosophy, a compound time,” wrote Helena Blavatsky, “for the three are a composite number only in relation to the phenomenal plane—but in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity.”

Our generally accepted worldview of duration and time “are all derived from our sensations according to the laws of Association,” explained Blavatsky.

And according to a precept in the Buddhist Prasanga-Madhyamika teaching:

“The Past time is the Present time, as also the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still is.”

Because they are “inextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge,” as Blavatsky said, reductionist ideas are useful only for mechanical concerns—and because they ignore holistic experience, must eventually fall away in the face of man’s deeper spiritual understandings.

Senior scientist Dean Radin, of The Institute for Noetic Sciences (IONS), is a daring explorer who boldly goes where the establishment won’t, methodically measuring the immeasurable. In this clip he explains ongoing experiments demonstrating evidence of “presentiment” and “precognition”:

Clocks are useful for getting to meetings on time. Otherwise, time in this sense, being only the “panoramic succession of our [ordinary] states of consciousness,” it is therefore reductionist—and has only materialistic value.

Ground-level experience reveals only the outer edge of the rabbit hole, and keeps us blind to the mysteries hidden beneath — the experience which leads us to the sum-total of existence. The frontier consciousness sciences emerging today offer an exciting prospect.

In this new country, as the Red Queen told Alice:

“you must run fast just to stay in one place.”

rabbit

"I'm late for a very important date!"

The eye-popping series of progressive awakenings experienced by Alice, surely led her and her readers to a greater appreciation of the mysterious and paradoxical. “Stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without a change,” proclaimed Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. Like couch-potatoes, standard-model science sits on a railway platform for a train that, for them, will never come.

A Forest for The Trees

In the words of a Theosophical Master:

“Three clumsy words — Past, Present, and Future — miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving.”

Objective time and reality always appear in a linear frame. But even the legendary punster of the Yankee’s baseball team, Yogi Berra, sensed there was more when he took a playful swipe at the phenomenon of precognition and non-locality with:

“I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.”

The Mind’s Eye – 1

The author and diarist Anais Nin famously remarked:

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

Anaïs Nin

If what “we are” is determined solely by our five senses, then we see only what’s inside a sealed box.

John Muir, for whom stuffy boxes were anathema believed instead that “The clearest way to the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

Blavatsky’s “Compound time” cannot be separated from the future which is an essential part of the mystery “wilderness” within us. The illusion occurs in separation, and then we are unable see the greater forest for the trees, though they are one.

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Julia Butterfly Hill

William Blake saw “a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower,” that most of us would probably have passed unnoticed. (Heaven in a Wild Flower)

But even such sublime ethics “must give room to still further absolute perfection,” Blavatsky wrote, “to a higher standard of excellence — just as a perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower and die, in order to grow into a perfect fruit.”

“All instruction is but a finger pointing to the moon, and those whose gaze is fixed upon the pointer will never see beyond. Even let him catch sight of the moon, and still he cannot see its beauty.” – Osho (Adhyatama Upanishads)

Bruce Lee – “Finger Pointing To The Moon”

“Optical Illusion of Separateness”

Albert Einstein’s main objection to quantum mechanics, as accepted then, was that it provided no reasonable explanation of the world, and in some sense denied what many believed it means to truly exist. While walking with his biographer physicist Abraham Pais, Pais reported Einstein in frustration asked “whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it.”

Einstein also complained in a letter to friend and fellow physicist, Max Born who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics:

“You believe in the God that plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which objectively exists, and which I, in a wildly speculative way, am trying to capture.”

Uncertainty Principle

Uncertainty Principle

The complicated genius was, nevertheless, a universal and compassionate thinker, who said: “A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘the universe,’ a part limited in time and space.”

And Einstein wrote of the human being that:

“He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

The Mind’s Eye – 2

Non-Duality

Universal unity or non-duality is a popular topic of discussion today. There is a website devoted to it (nonduality.com), and a blog and even a conference October 21-25: titled Science And Non-Duality.

It’s the same concept that engaged Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. Everything is alive and conscious in “Esoteric philosophy,” she wrote, and “life we look upon as ‘the one form of existence, manifesting in what is called matter—or, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name Spirit, Soul and Matter.” Further:-

“Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul on this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all. The idea of universal life is one of those ancient conceptions which are returning to the human mind in this century, as a consequence of its liberation from anthropomorphic theology.”

Seeing The Future

Advaita

At Francis Lucille’s The Advaita Channel you’ll find an insightful article A Primer on Advaita.  We were inspired by a quote from Professor Lucille on Advaita philosophy, which tackles the problem of duality by first focusing our full attention on the ‘I’ at every moment.

Once the illusion or limitation becomes obvious, it falls away, and then begin to appreciate the ‘not-I’—by this practice, paradoxically, we are gradually compelled to attend to the greater wholeness within which the smaller ‘I’ exists. As Lao-Tze put it: “The Tao that can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao.”

EYE

“Consciousness is defined as that, whatever that is, which is aware of these very words right here, right now. … The student who practices self inquiry keeps his attention focused onto the source of the I-thoughts and I-feelings, whenever they arise.

“Once enlightenment has taken place, the process of self inquiry continues effortlessly. The attention spontaneously reverts to the source at the end of each thought and feeling and there is no need to focus the attention any longer.”

“Sum-Totals”

by H. P. Blavatsky

The Secret Doctrine

“TIME is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced — but ‘lies asleep.’

“The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past.

“Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change—or the same—for the billionth part of a second.

“And the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of ‘time’ known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past.

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“In the same way we experience a sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the retina. The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth.

“It is these ‘sum-totals’ that exist from eternity in the ‘future,’ and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the ‘past.’

“No one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the sea came into existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered the water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section thereof which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical plane that separates, and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean.

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“Even so of persons and things, which, dropping out of the to-be into the has-been, out of the future into the past—[they]

present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as it were, of their total selves,

as they pass through time and space (as matter) on their way from one eternity to another: and these two constitute that ‘duration‘ in which alone anything has true existence, were our senses but able to cognize it there.”


The Caring Spirit

FOLLOWING H. P. Blavatsky’s death in 1891, an editorial was published in the New York Daily Tribune (founded by Horace Greeley) noting:

“Madame Blavatsky held that the regeneration of mankind must be based upon the development of altruism.

“In this she was at one with the greatest thinkers, not alone of the present day, but of all time,” the Editorial acknowledged.

“And, it is becoming more and more apparent, at one with the strongest spiritual tendencies of the age.

“This alone would entitle her teachings to the candid and serious consideration of all who respect the influences that make for righteousness.”

Some of  the clearest statements of Blavatsky’s ethical views, are in The Key to Theosophy with the keynote that “altruism is an integral part of self-development.” Continue reading

Breath of Heaven

Birth of Venus ~ Sandro Botticelli

Birth of Venus ~ Sandro Botticelli

How comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is found in now? Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals, as taught by materialism.

For, as Carlyle says: — “The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself  ‘I,’ — what words have we for such things? — it is a breath of Heaven, the highest Being reveals himself in man. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for the unnamed?”

Miracle of Miracles

So wrote Helena Blavatsky in her The Secret Doctrine in 1888, and continues:- “The breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life, called in the bible Nephesh, is in every animal, in every animate speck as in every mineral atom. But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of the nature of that highest Being, as none has that divine harmony in its form which man possesses.” human-anatomy-03

The breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life is, as Novalis said, and no one since has said it better, as repeated by Carlyle:

“There is but one temple in the universe, and that is the body of man. Nothing is holier than that high form . . . . We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body!” “This sounds like a mere flourish of rhetoric,” adds Carlyle, “but it is not so.

“If well meditated it will turn out to be a scientific fact — the expression of the actual truth of the thing. We are the miracle of miracles — the great inscrutable Mystery.”  (SD 1:211-12)

Mysterious Complexity

What says Science today?

The August 5, 2009 NewScientist features 10 things about humans that science can’t yet explain. “We belong to a remarkably quirky species,” the article says, and “despite our best efforts, some of our strangest foibles still defy explanation.” Among these flaws are flippantly listed: blushing, laughter, teenagers, dreams, altruism, art, superstition—even kissing and nose-picking are on the list.

At one point the writer demands: “what are they for?” On “altruism”: if it is really true that we are altruistic by nature, “most agree it doesn’t make evolutionary sense.”

DNA_thmb

Second Guessing Nature

The appendix never made any sense either to physiologists and doctors, until recently, who once thought of the little worm-shaped organ as some long-ago evolutionary vestigial appendage, and therefore dismissed it as expendable. Like the tonsils, there was little at stake, “because we can survive without it.”

Recently, researchers published a new explanation in The Journal of Theoretical Biology. “The appendix, they suggest, is a ‘safe house’ for commensal bacteria, the symbiotic germs that aid digestion and help protect against disease-causing germs,” reported the New York Times in June of last year.

“It has even been suggested that the term vestigial is obsolete, useful only as a reflection of the anatomical knowledge of the day. In fact, these days many biologists are extremely wary of talking about vestigial organs at all,” wrote Laura Spinney in the May 14, 2008 NewScientist.

No Evidence for Randomness

“Why didn’t anyone check this before?”

Now the New York Times, August 4, 2009, reports that the human spleen may serve a function after all. No longer just a familiar literary device for irritability, the article Finally, the Spleen Gets Some Respect notes, and reports that “Scientists have discovered that the spleen, long consigned to the B-list of abdominal organs and known as much for its metaphoric as its physiological value, plays a more important role in the body’s defense system than anyone suspected.”

human-anatomy-02“Reporting in the current issue of the journal Science, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School describe studies showing that the spleen is a reservoir for huge numbers of immune cells called monocytes, and that in the event of a serious trauma to the body like a heart attack, gashing wound or microbial invasion, the spleen will disgorge those monocyte multitudes into the bloodstream to tackle the crisis.”

The parallel in military terms is a standing army,” said Matthias Nahrendorf, an author of the report. “You don’t want to have to recruit an entire fighting force from the ground up every time you need it.”

That researchers are only now discovering a major feature of a rather large organ they have been studying for at least 2,000 years demonstrates yet again that there is nothing so foreign as the place we call home.

“Often, if you come across something in the body that seems like a big deal, you think, ‘Why didn’t anybody check this before?’ ” Dr. Nahrendorf said.

“But the more you learn, the more you realize that we’re just scratching on the surface of life. We don’t know the whole story about anything.”

Evidence of Design

The Synthesis of Occult Science

The ancients had knowledge passed on to them from ancient master scientists, and understood that a higher, wiser consciousness is “king in the domain of man’s bodily life,” writes William Q. Judge in his article The Synthesis of Occult Science. The prototypical designs for all forms “descended into matter in the cosmic process, till it reached the mineral plane,” then

“journeyed upward through the ‘three kingdoms’ till it reached the human plane. The elements of its being, like the cells and molecules of human-anatomy-07man’s body, are groupings of structures accessory or subordinate to it. The human monad or Ego is therefore akin to all below it and heir to all above it, linked by indissoluble bonds to spirit and matter, ‘God’ and ‘Nature.’”

A Grand Plan

The order of the body’s cells is part of the Grand Plan he says, and the “order in which they are arranged, the principle upon which they are grouped, constituting the human form, is not simply an evolved shape from the lower animal plane, but an involved principle from a higher plane, an older world ….

cell_collection_web_thumb

“How could man epitomize Cosmos if he did not touch it at every point and involve it in every principle? If man’s being is woven in the web of destiny, his potencies and possibilities take hold of divinity as the woof and pattern of his boundless life. Why, then, should he grow weary or disheartened? Alas! Why should he be degraded, this heir of all things!”  The fundamental point is that there is:

“but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the whole finite Kosmos ….

Unlocking the Mystery of Life

The Inherent Design of Life

Of the occult evolutionary scheme, Helena Blavatsky writes (Secret Doctrine 1:277):-

“The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life. There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The whole process of evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this. The immutable laws that weed out the weak and feeble species, to make room for the strong, and which ensure the ‘survival of the fittest,’ though so cruel in their immediate action — all are working toward the grand end.

Everything is Conscious

“The very fact that adaptations do occur, that the fittest do survive in the struggle for existence, shows that what is called ‘unconscious Nature’ is in reality an aggregate of [intelligent] forces.”

“Nature…cannot be ‘unconscious,’ as it is the emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the absolute consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to deny to vegetation and even to minerals a consciousness of their own. All he can say is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension.”

design1

Humanity’s Spiritual Creators

All the ancient adept luminaries taught that the human we know today is the product of a triple evolutionary scheme: physical, mental and spiritual. “When, moved by the law of Evolution,” say these teachers, “the Lords of Wisdom infused into him the spark of consciousness” —and “the first feeling it awoke to life and activity was a sense of solidarity, of one-ness with his spiritual creators:”

“As the child’s first feeling is for its mother and nurse, so the first aspirations of the awakening consciousness in primitive man were for those whose element he felt within himself, and who yet were outside, and independent of him. Devotion arose out of that feeling, and became the first and foremost motor in his nature — for it is the only one which is natural in our heart, which is innate in us, and which we find alike in human babe and the young of the animal.”

design

“All a kind of worship”

“This feeling of irrepressible, instinctive aspiration in primitive man,” Blavatsky writes (SD 1:210), “is beautifully, and one may say intuitionally, described by Carlyle:”

“The great antique heart, how like a child’s in its simplicity, like a man’s in its earnest solemnity and depth! heaven lies over him wheresoever he goes or stands on the earth; making all the earth a mystic temple to him, the earth’s business all a kind of worship.

“Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common sunlight; angels yet hover, doing God’s messages among men. Wonder, miracle, encompass the man — he lives in an element of miracle. The essence of it lives through all times and all eternity!”

nature-1

Related Posts:

Reflecting Pool

Buddha’s Grace

Amphibios

Lofty Strangeness

New Swirled Order

Believing You Are

Lofty Strangeness


Neti Neti

THE idea that things can cease to exist and still be, is a fundamental one in Eastern psychology.

Under this apparent contradiction in terms, there rests a fact of Nature to realize is the important thing.

A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by chemical combination. The question whether Hydrogen and Oxygen cease to exist, when they combine to form water, is still a moot one.

Some [argue] that since they are found again when the water is decomposed, they must be there all the while—others contending that as they actually turn into something totally different, they must cease to exist as themselves for the time being.

“Neither side is able to form the faintest conception of the real condition of a thing, which has become something else, and yet has not ceased to be itself.”

Continue reading

Designing Mind

A COMMON sense critic of scientific pretensions, who has wit, sanity and elevated moral intelligence all wrapped up in one person, would likely be difficult to ignore.

Such a person is Mary Midgley, dubbed by the Guardian, UK as “the most frightening philosopher in the country” — and today nearly 10 years later, at age 91, she is still receiving accolades, and taking no prisoners.

We discovered this totem-toppling English moral philosopher by chance through a brief, unassuming comment she posted in the “Letters” section of the January 3-9, 2009, NewScientist — signed simply “Mary Midgley, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.”

Her logic appeared seamless, and upon mulling her 257 insightful words over a week of lunch breaks, her ideas also felt convincingly Theosophical — indeed, strongly Blavatskian.


Please Note: This post was updated and republished at:

Mary and Goliath


Hanging by a Thread

This post has been updated and republished at the following link:

Threads of Genius


New Swirled Order

8--Clatford-4

Wiltshire, UK - May 4, 2009 Photo: Steve Alexander

“I produce myself among creatures whenever there is a decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world; and thus I incarnate from age to age for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of righteousness.”

-Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita IV:31

The power of consciousness itself, is working through each of us, Eckhart Tolle says of the current cycle. Something in the collective consciousness wants that change, and we must try to be open to it.

We have chosen the mysterious crop circle phenomena, this week, as a stimulating reminder of ways that lead towards that change—becoming more consciously aware of the divine within us, and around us.

A Shift in Consciousness

“Mankind–the majority at any ratehates to think for itself, Blavatsky comments. “It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten tracks, and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction.”

Roundway Hill - April 29, 2009

Roundway Hill - April 29, 2009

But, as we establish more secure bonds to our spiritual mind, Theosophy teaches, self-knowledge arises, and old sense-driven habits of thought fade away naturally. These higher links are forged, most securely, through service and love, say the wisdom traditions.

Self-Knowledge

“Self-knowledge of this kind is unattainable by what men usually call ‘self-analysis,’ Blavatsky once said. “It is not reached by reasoning or any brain process—for it is the awakening to consciousness of the Divine nature of man.”

“To obtain this knowledge is a greater achievement than to command the elements or to know the future.”

But without parents, teachers, mentors and friends, “such knowledge—such intuitive and certain knowledge,” would be much more difficult. The odds of losing our way, are often overwhelming.

“That Which Ye Sow, Ye Reap”

Peaks Down - May 9, 2009

Peaks Down - May 9, 2009

All true Masters teach that “self-knowledge is of loving deeds the child.” And we prove this to ourselves every time we help another in need, with no thought of return. Every small effort we make, adds to our inner strength, and to theirs.

Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition,” say the Golden Precepts. “Help Nature and work on with her; and Nature will regard thee as one of her creators and make obeisance.”

“It is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms the fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences.”

This shows that the immortal part of us, our True Self, is the Prototype  masquerading as the Humantype in this earthstate of consciousness. As Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “we are spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the reverse. We are ambassadors from spirit whose duty is to help Nature—not injure and abuse her—but to serve and learn from her.

The “circle-makers,” the spiritual Prototypes, are our spiritmates, guides and protectors. They watch and stimulate us from inner planes, but they are invisible to average humanity. In reality, the higher state of consciousness, where they live, is also humanity’s forgotten residence.

We are prodigal sons, and wanderlusting “Self-gods”—Arjunas struggling to win the tests of our existence here—and ultimately to regain full self-consciousness of our heritage and purpose. But, like Arjuna, we are never without the help of Krishna, the Higher Self.  The Secret Doctrine explains:

Spiritual Mathematics

“The closer the approach to one’s Prototype, ‘in Heaven,’ the better for the mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh principle), as its terrestrial abode.

Rutlands Farm, April 23, 2009

Rutlands Farm, April 23, 2009

“For, with every effort of will toward purification and unity with that ‘Self-god,’ one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the first, until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into the one and highest beam of the Parent-Sun.

We Are All One

“Thus, ‘the events of humanity do run coordinately with the number forms,’ since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the same source — the central and its shadow, the visible Sun.

“For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases of the Solar course, astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols of the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to uninitiated mortals.

“And this explains the extraordinary numerical coincidences with geometrical relations …” SD 1:639

Dreaming and Waking Symbols

Ridgeway, June 15, 2008

Ridgeway, June 15, 2008

We are, in our ultimate essence, beings of light. This existence, like the dreamless state we enter every night, can only be faintly symbolized on our brain-plane of perception, remembered as symbolic dream ideas on waking.

In our developmental condition, the knowledge of the dreamless state is not accessed through direct recollection or remembrance, but is a “reminiscence.”

“A Sleep and a Forgetting”

As explained in Isis Unveiled 1:xiv, the purpose of deep meditational and sleep states, is to “arouse in us the reminiscence of that higher world that we once inhabited.”

All Cannings Bridge, May 22, 2009

All Cannings Bridge, May 22, 2009

The “us,” referred to, is ourselves as reincarnating Self-gods. The teaching of the differing memory systems we use, is further explained in The Key to Theosophy 123-133:

“Memory is a faculty depending entirely on the more or less healthy and normal functioning of our physical brain; and remembrance and recollection are the attributes and handmaidens of that memory. But reminiscence is an entirely different thing.

“- we call reminiscence the memory of the soul. And it is this memory which gives the assurance to almost every human being, whether he understands it or not, of his having lived before and having to live again. Indeed, as Wordsworth has it:”

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar.”

The “Seven Sons”

Morgan's Hill, May 2009

Morgan's Hill, May 2009

Theosophy teaches we are sevenfold beings. In the English and Sanskrit terms: Spirit (Atma-Buddhi) is having a human, (Manas-Kama) experience, aided by the life force (Prana) and pattern body (Astral,) in a molecular body (Silutha Sarira.)

Each of our inner “sheaths,” or states of consciousness, is a “ray” from one of those “seven sons,” symbolized spiritual prototypes, or hierarchies. Actual beings, living within the interwoven consciousness of the Earth.

The Secret Doctrine 1:430, translates this into a uniquely mystical, symbolic language:

It is then only in this “light” (of consciousness) of mental and physical perception, that practical Occultism can throw this into visibility by geometrical figures.

When closely studied, [the light of the Logos] will yield…a scientific explanation of the real, objective, existence of the “Seven sons of the divine Sophia.”

By means of other, yet undiscovered keys, with regard to Humanity, these “Seven Sons” and their numberless emanations, centres of energy personified, are an absolute necessity.

“Make away with them, and the mystery of Being and Mankind will never be unriddled, not even closely approached.”

Roundway Hill, April 29, 2009

Roundway Hill, April 29, 2009

An Undiscovered Key

Science will never understand mysteries of the spiritual and terrestrial aspects of human beings, on this plane of life, Blavatsky says, “if it rejects the evidence of the oldest records in the world, and refuses from the hand of the legitimate Guardians of the mysteries of Nature the key to Universal Symbology.

“The prototypes or ideas of things exist first on the plane of Divine eternal Consciousness,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote, and from there, these are reflected on our Earth plane of life.”

“As Above, So Below”

(Hermes Trismegistus)

Barely visible from the ground, and often appearing in remote fields around the world, the breathtaking geometry, and artistry of the crop circles is fully revealed—symbolically and literally—only from above.

crop_mayan-crop-2004

The power and presence of these unusual symbolic events can not be underestimated—because occult wisdom has always been closely associated with geometrical symbols.

“Without the help of symbology (with its seven departments, of which the moderns know nothing) no ancient Scripture can ever be correctly understood.” (SD 1:305)

There will always be hoaxers, of course, so long as there are the cynical among us. Yet it is a proven fact, that the majority of the crop formations are not man-made. (BLT Research Team, Inc.)

Who knows the possibilities of the future?. . .

“An era of disenchantment and rebuilding will soon begin–nay, has already begun. The cycle has almost run its course—a new one is about to begin, and the future pages of history may contain full proof that–

If ancestry can be in aught believed,
Descending spirits have conversed with man
And told him secrets of the world unknown.”

(Isis Unveiled 1:38)

avebury

The Sacred Tribe of Heroes

The Secret Doctrine offers proof of the wide dissemination of symbolic teachings, from the Neolithic, Egyptian and Greek secret societies, the Middle Ages, the Age of Enlightenment, to Freemasonry. We see it even in modern physics—represented in Fritjof Kapra’s “The Tao of Physics.”

“The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic records of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence in every land, together with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist to this day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternity.” (SD 1:xxxiv)

Synesius, Wisdom of the Egyptians

“Yet you must not think that the gods are without employment, or that their descent to this earth is perpetual. For they descend according to orderly periods of time, for the purpose of imparting a beneficent impulse in the republics of mankind.

For there is indeed in the terrestrial abode the sacred tribe of heroes who pay attention to mankind, and who are able to give them assistance even in the smallest concerns. . .This heroic tribe is, as it were, a colony from the gods established here in order that this terrene abode may not be left destitute of a better nature.”

2009 – April Flowers

Ridgeway, April 14, 2009 - Steve Alexander

Ridgeway, April 14, 2009 - Steve Alexander

The first crop circle formation of 2009 occurred April 14th, in Wiltshire, UK, not far from the Ancient Standing Stones of Avebury.

Avebury

Avebury

It is situated on the high downs outside the complex above the Avenue, not far from the Ridgeway track. Its appearance has a vibratory resonance to it, as if it is oscillating within the crop of yellow canola flowers! Located next to an ancient mound, we see the ongoing connection to important ancient sites.

Progressive Awakenings

“Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality;’ but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion].” (SD 1:40)

Woodcut 1678

Woodcut 1678

A Verified Interaction Between
Human Consciousness and the Circle Makers

by Janet Ossebaard (Circular Site)

“On 27 July 1999, an interesting experiment took place. Japanese crop circle researcher Maki Massau took a group of 11 Japanese people to the formation opposite Silbury Hill at Avebury (Wiltshire, UK) to carry out a meditation experiment.

“Sitting in the beautiful formation at sunset, the group sent out a prayer, asking the Circle Makers to create a new formation with four clear features. The formation had to appear that night, close to Silbury Hill, slightly to the West, and containing a Japanese element. If such a crop circle was to appear the next morning, they would know for sure their prayer was heard…

crop4“After finishing this meditation, they decided to extend the request. They drove to a formation at Cherhill and sent out their prayer into the cosmos once again. As they did this, they saw a large ball of light suddenly descend from the skies to just above Cherhill. Then the light ascended once again and disappeared…

“After this phase they went on to Oliver’s Castle, from where the prayer was sent out once again. Then the experiment was finished and they went back to their hotel.

“The next morning they drove off to the local airfield, in order to find out if any new formations had been reported yet. Their excitement rose when one of the pilots confirmed that indeed a new formation had been discovered that morning. He too had seen it at Beckhampton, slightly West of Silbury Hill.

“When Maki Massau asked the pilot if he could describe the formation, the pilot explained something about a piece of paper folded over another piece of paper. He was looking for the right word, when a colleague helped him: ‘Just like Japanese origami’ …

“Maki and his group were delighted when – only minutes later – they flew over the formation. This magnificent pattern was their formation all right, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It had all four features: it was located close to Silbury Hill, a bit to the West, it had appeared that night, and it clearly contained Japanese elements: origami, and it also represented a common Japanese family crest.”

Beckhampton, UK, 1999

Beckhampton, UK, 1999

Crop Circle Documentary 2009

5--Liddington Castle Fort-April23

Eckhart Tolle – Transformation of Consciousness

We should be opening more to what wants to happen on this planet, Eckhart Tolle says, but it can only be realized through each individual person. Each new realization helps others to shift in consciousness, which is necessary at this time. The question for humanity is to either shift and evolve together, or perish together.

Crop Circle Geometry

“Geometry, in the hands of the crop circles, becomes a resonant language of intelligent intent, which both contains the message and teaches the syntax of its meaning.

“The geometry is thus both the message and the meaning, and I feel this geometry to be consistently of a higher order than that which you or I would arrive at. Its simplicity and its ingenuity draws us upwards and subtly encourages an opening up of the mind.” -Allan Brown

crop6

TEMPORARY TEMPLES – CROP CIRCLE ARCHIVES

Not An Island

julia21

THE famous meditation of John Donne, “never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,” highlights two Theosophical principles:

First, the affirmation that there is no isolation, that nature and all mankind are interconnected — and second, karmic responsibility.

“It’s one thing to fashion a particular work of art, sculpture, painting, a worthy accomplishment,” Thoreau wrote, “but much greater is the creation of one’s life.”

“…to exemplify the highest potential imagined, it is the highest of loving artistic accomplishments,” he believed.

____________________

This post has been updated and re-posted in two parts, and can be found at:

Legacy of Luna

Legacy of Luna 2

Third Eye and Counting

thirdeye1In Theosophy, evolution is a custom blend of spirit-mind-matter. As implied in our last article, The Eye of Light, spiritual evolution is a top-down process.

The key to self-development is seeing the whole pyramid, that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience”— as Brian Weiss famously said. Self-knowledge is usually acquired by plodding through a challenging series of reincarnations in human form.

Initializing our “Third Eye,” we come to recognize, is the only sure stimulant to spiritual growth— upgrading ho-hum cogitation with intuitive flash. Coffee shop brew with French Roast. Because “altruism,” once awakened, “is an integral part of self-development.” (The Key to Theosophy)

Socrates vs Aristotle

Bottom-up experience also works. We benefit both from deductive and inductive methods. “The Secret Doctrine points where the lines of evolution and involution meet,” William Q. Judge writes in The Synthesis of Occult Science.

This is the point, where matter and spirit clasp hands; and where the rising animal stands face to face with the fallen god; for all natures meet and mingle in man.

holdinghandsOur Moment

The stage humanity is at now, this is our opportunity, the moment we “struggled so hard to reach,” as Judge says in the above article. — “Self-consciousness, which from the animal plane looking upward is the beginning of perfection,” he writes, “from the divine plane looking downward is the perfection of selfishness and the curse of separateness.”

In The Eye of Light, we promised a fuller discussion of these evolutionary stages, and further details about the endless reincarnations needed to achieve, in Judge’s words, conscious god-hood — while still on Earth.

Café Klatch

Before our main meal of metaphysics, let’s warm up our spiritual minds for a few minutes, and get inspired by an intriguing proof of reincarnation with the promised James’ Story Part 2:

Middle Managers

Theosophy’s plan includes the whole of Nature, atoms to zebras. But in this post we are considering only the human cycles leading to an enhanced mind function. We are caught in the middle, according to Theosophy, between spiritual and material concerns. Arjuna between two armies.

“Human” or Humanity means-the Thinker on earth humus-earth; man-to think. (EV,200) “Man” comes from the Sanskrit root “manas” or mind. The early races of humans had a working “Third Eye,” but today the great majority of us do not. Why not?

tightropeOn a Tight Rope

We are now in the “ascending” arc of the Fourth Round, between the stages on the “descending” side of First and Second Races in development. This is where things get interesting—the struggle between the spiritual and material evolutions. (See graph below) The cycles of these races are described in The Secret Doctrine, Volume 2:289:

Remember well, as we are in the manasa [mind] period of our cycle of races, or in the Fifth, we have, therefore, crossed the meridian point of the perfect adjustment of Spirit and Matter – or that equilibrium between brain intellect and Spiritual perception.

Experiences that shock us out of a one-life belief system can be useful stages in our spiritual development, as this video about Jeffrey Keene’s story depicts:

The Graphic Details

Earthlife is a school, the classrooms are stages of consciousness, self-awareness and growth in spirituality. Everyone settles into his/her own rhythm determined by a mix of past individual, family, racial and national karma, and at differing points on the now ascending evolutionary arc.

Mind is awake, and therefore free will is active now in our individual and collective life. “The Spirit in man—the direct ray of the Universal Spirit—has at last awakened,” Blavatsky confirms in The Tidal Wave.  But the final chapter of life on Earth is still in draft form— The Secret Doctrine 1:269:

“The History of Creation and of this world from its beginning up to the present time is composed of seven chapters. The seventh chapter is not yet written.”

Turning the Page

pineal1“It becomes comprehensible, now,” Blavatsky writes, “why the ‘odd eye’ has been gradually transformed into a simple gland, after the physical Fall of those we have agreed to call the ‘Lemurians’ [the Second>Third Race].”

Blavatsky continues:

…we find that during that transitional period – namely, in the second half of the First Spiritual ethero-astral race [1½ descending]— nascent mankind was devoid of the intellectual brain element. As it was on its descending line [1½], and as we are parallel to it, on the ascending [5½], we are therefore, devoid of the Spiritual element, which is now replaced by the intellectual.

This is akin to the transition from childhood to youth. See graph below showing the spiral Evolution of Root Races in the Fourth Round, SD 2:300: (note the similarity between the the brain and the graph. Buried deep in the brain, the pineal gland, seat of the third eye, is positioned at about the position of the “1st R. Race” shown on the graph.)

thirdeyesd2-300

The Atlantis Connection

The continent of Atlantis sank beneath the Atlantic waves prematurely, due to the depravity of its inhabitants (us.) With no foreseeable gratuitous bailout, our karmic debt load from our past is huge, and is still on the books. This has, and will continue to influence our future. But we still have time to write-down the debt. “Arise, then, O Atlanteans,” W. Q. Judge exhorts in his Article Cycles — “and repair the mischief done so long ago!” —But how?

Paul Johnson writes:“According to HPB, black magic, or the misuse of spiritual powers, led to loss of spiritual vision by the end of the fourth (Atlantean) race, as well as the gradual disappearance of the third eye, until ‘Its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent.’”

The full  quote from H. P. Blavatsky:

“The possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of Third Sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame made it disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psychically and spiritually, however, its mental and visual perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth [Sub] Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent. (SD 2:306)

“One important point has, however, to be borne in mind,” she says.

buddha3We are only in the Fourth Round, and it is in the Fifth that the full development of Manas [Sanskrit=mind], as a direct ray from the Universal mahat [Sanskrit=universal mind] a ray — unimpeded by matter — will be finally reached. Nevertheless, as every sub-race and nation have their cycles and stages of developmental evolution repeated on a smaller scale, it must be the more so in the case of a Root-Race.

Our race then [general humanity] has, as a Root-race, crossed the equatorial line and is cycling onward [ascending] on the Spiritual side; but some of our sub-races still find themselves on the shadowy descending arc of their respective national cycles; while others again — the oldest — having crossed their crucial point, which alone decides whether a race, a nation, or a tribe will live or perish, are at the apex of spiritual development as sub-races.

Breakthrough!

breakthroughWilliam Q. Judge refers to this “crucial point” as “the moment of choice.” We might liken it to a “point of no-return,” i.e. an airplane with only enough fuel to reach it’s destination but unable to return. That is, IF we actually make it to the median line or crucial point. There are analogues to this critical point in the various growth stages we go through. Mr. Judge continues:

Humanity passes from globe to globe in a series of Rounds, first circling about each globe, and reincarnating upon it a fixed number of times. Concerning the human evolution on the concealed planets or globes little is permitted to be said. We have to concern ourselves with our Earth alone. The latter, when the wave of humanity has reached it for the last time (in this, our Fourth Round), began to evolute man, subdividing him into races.

breakthrough21Each of these races when it has, through evolution, reached the period known as “the moment of choice” and decided its future destiny as an individual race, begins to disappear. The races are separated, moreover, from each other by catastrophes of nature, such as the subsidence of continents and great natural convulsions. Coincidentally with the development of races the development of specialized senses takes place; thus our fifth race has so far developed five senses. (An Epitome of Theosophy )

A Transition Age

dendera2“The race is, as a whole, in a transition state, and many of its units are kept back by the condition of the whole,” Mr. Judge writes in Letter 2. And further:– “the Masters have said this is a transition age, and he who has ears to hear will hear what has thus been said. We are working for the new cycles and centuries.”

We are working for “a change in the Manas and Buddhi of the Race,” he writes. “That is why it may seem indefinite, but it is, nevertheless, very defined and very great in scope.”

“Let once man’s immortal spirit take possession of the temple of his body,” Blavatsky assures us, “and his own divine humanity will redeem him.”

dendera1

To be continued . . .

Eye of Light

Helen Keller, Age 7

Helen Keller, Age 7

“Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.”- Helen Keller

Many people are suffering today as the world’s financial crisis worsens, property values decline, jobs are lost. We’ve been there before — contraction, recession, depression, expansion— a sure sign of the ruling law of cycles at work.

The Founders took pains to include the “All Seeing Eye” on our dollar bills, but ironically, we prefer to suffer the inevitable consequencesall-seeing-eye2 of our material shenanigans by ignoring the spiritual flip side.

CYCLES RULE

“This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that law of periodicity,” Blavatsky insists, and “in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe.”

As Krishna tells it in The Bhagavad-Gita, “These two, light and darkness, are the world’s eternal ways.”

Reincarnation is the evolutionary means by which lessons are learned. “It is abundantly clear that one life,” William Q. Judge says in The Necessity for Reincarnation, “even if prolonged, is no more adequate to gain knowledge, acquire experience, solidify principle, and form character, than would one day in infancy be adequate to fit for the duties of mature manhood.”

It is only through this Law of coordinated rebirths, that our spiritual eye can be gradually be awakened permanently.

THE STORY OF JAMES – Part 1

EVOLUTION TRIPLE

There are always three evolutionary forces in play, according to Theosophy — physical, mental and spiritual — “a triple evolutionary scheme,” Blavatsky writes, “which in our system are inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point” (S.D. I, 181).

In this scheme, evolution is much more than a blind physical process. “The cycles must run their rounds,” a Master writes, “Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other, as day does night.” - A Master’s Letter

LIGHT MATTERS

On our plane of existence, Spirit or light, and Matter or darkness, can never appear separately. They are twins — change one, you change the other. We carry them around every day, on dollar bills in our pockets, without realizing we are carrying around another spiritual light-bringer, the pineal gland in our brain.

drjilltaylor2This is referred to in the Bible: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light,” says Matthew 6:22, Luke 11:34.

The pineal gland is a small organ in the brain resembling a pine cone; technically called the epiphysis, forming part of the ventricular or hollow center of the brain, connected with the central canal of the spinal cord.

SPIRITUAL MIND

“[T]he pineal gland, as shown, is far more connected with Soul and Spirit than with the physiological senses of man,” Blavatsky writes, “…for nature never creates the smallest, the most insignificant form without some definite purpose and use.”

It was an active organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. The eye is the mirror and also the window of the soul, says popular wisdom, and Vox populi Vox Dei.

“[T]he pineal gland,” Blavatsky says, “… is the very key to the highest and divinest consciousness in manhis omniscient, spiritual and all embracing mind.” – Dialogue on the Mysteries of the Afterlife

“…there is a power in man which enables him to judge aright—he has the all-seeing eye,” Robert Crosbie writes, in The Kingly Mystery [13] — “the all-encompassing sight which permits him to see the justice of all things.” This power implies a choice, he says – “The questions before each human being are: Whom will ye serve?”

STRETCHING CONSCIOUSNESS

PROGRESSIVE AWAKENINGS

“Progressive awakenings,” are a hallmark of H. P. Blavatsky’s teachings in The Secret Doctrine. “As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities,” she writes,

and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached “reality;” but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion]. (SD I:39-40.)

ATTRACTING ATTENTION

But what practical measures can we take to achieve freedom from delusion? An example of the popular idiom “Be careful what you ask for” is the law of attraction, described first by William Q. Judge, in an article titled simply KARMA:

“By directing the mind and aspirations to the lower plane,” he writes, “a ‘fire’ or centre of attraction, is set up there, and in order to feed and fatten it, the energies of the whole upper plane are drawn down and exhausted in supplying the need of energy which exists below due to the indulgence of sense gratification.”

On the other hand, the centre of attraction may be fixed in the upper portion, and then all the needed energy goes there to result in increase of spirituality. It must be remembered that Nature is all bountiful and withholds not her hand. The demand is made, and the supply will come. But at what cost?

CHILDHOOD REINCARNATION PART 1

Stressing the importance of what we absorb in early childhood, leading to the age of responsibility, Blavatsky writes:

Man has his “double” or shadow, properly so called, around which the physical body of the foetus—the future man—is built. The imagination of the mother, or an accident which affects the child, will affect also the astral body. The astral and the physical both exist before the mind is developed into action, and before the Atma [spirit] awakes. This occurs when the child is seven years old, and with it comes the responsibility attaching to a conscious sentient being. (Raja Yoga or Occultism)

CHILDHOOD REINCARNATION PART 2


This is the “Third Fundamental” of Theosophy, human beings engaging a series of developmental stages. According to this, we acquire our individuality “first by natural impulse,” before the age of seven, “and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts” thereafter.

Each stage the reincarnating soul is “checked by its Karma,” Blavatsky says, and gradually “ascending through all the degrees of intelligence.” This is repeated at each of our new births, and the full acquirement of the highest spiritual mind could take many lifetimes.

The subject of the evolution of human beings cycling on a sevenfold plan, over millions of years, is vast. The journey is mirrored by like changes in the Earth itself, and will be continued in our next post.


The Wonder of You

WHEN disturbing, destructive events invade our collective human consciousness, we have the power as spiritual beings to transmute and heal those negative energies.

If there is news of corruption, greed, suffering — embedding their messages into our psyches — how do we counter their debilitating influences – mental, physical and psychological?

The forces impacting our personal, national and global life, have taught us much about ‘inherent evil.’  But what of ‘inherent good?’

This week, we intended a post about modern cosmology and evolution, in the light of Theosophy.

We choose, instead to focus on optimism and light, against the numbing pessimism of materialism. Continue reading