Tag Archives: krishna

Spiritual Beings

EVOLUTION as defined in the occultism of Theosophy, is a triple-faceted scheme — a blend of spirit, mind, and matter — “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.”

True and lasting self-knowledge is acquired gradually and lovingly — and largely unawares at first — through a long, but finite series of reincarnations in human form.

A major factor in our self-development lies in recognizing the continuity of life, Theosophy says — and that for the soul, there is really no such thing as final death.

Self-knowledge evolves gradually out of the recognition, as the philosopher-mystic Teilhard de Chardin famously said, that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the reverse.

We are first and foremost spiritual beings, and humanity is our field of experience.

Memory of Past Lives

“Getting back the memory of other lives is really the whole of the process,” wrote W. Q. Judge in Letter 5, “and if some people don’t understand certain things, it is either because they have not got to that point in their other lives, or because no glimmer of memory has yet come.”

In 1980, Brian Weiss, head of the psychiatry department at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, began treating Catherine, a 27-year-old woman plagued by anxiety, depression and phobias. Continue reading

A New Order of Ages 2

THE gods are not without employment, wrote the Greek bishop Synesius of Cyrene (c. 373 – c. 414) – but their “descent to this earth” is not continuous.

They descend according to orderly periods of time, he said, “for the purpose of imparting a beneficent impulse in the republics of mankind.”

“For this providence is divine and most ample,” quotes W. Q. Judge in Cycles —”which frequently one man pays attention to, and affects countless multitudes of men.”

Describing the Gods, Synesius writes: “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.”

The Mahatmas

mahatma gandhi - Sharang and Prash 2007

These “gods” are also known in India as Mahatmas. No better description of these sages can be pointed to than  W. Q. Judge explaining the Sanskrit terms in his article The Mahatmas as Ideals and Facts:

“The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word Mahatma,” Judge writes. “Maha is ‘great,’ Atma is ‘soul’ — and both compounded into one, mean those great souls who have triumphed before us:

“Not because they are made of different stuff and are of some strange family, but just because they are of the human race.”

Continue reading

The Shiva Life

EVOLUTION is an interactive sampling of spirit, mind and matter, Theosophy teaches.

There is a natural progression of awakenings that go hand-in-hand with these three intertwined, challenging gifts of Earth life.

The blind, undirected dogmas of neo-Darwinism are no match for the ancients view of evolution — spiritual, mental and physical.

The true key to our spiritual progress lies in our recognition of the bigger evolutionary picture, one that was described famously by Brian Weiss – as elegantly stated:

“… we are spiritual beings having a human experience”

Self-knowledge is acquired, according to esoteric tradition, by struggling through a challenging series of reincarnations while in a human form.

The key to success, spiritual teachers say, is for us to awaken with compassion to the higher human potential, and for us to become more Self-aware of our inner god.

The Eye of Shiva

And such self-development is defined by the degree to which each of us is able to activate our inner, or “all-seeing” spiritual eye.

Re-initializing the dormant intuitional “third eye,” the old adepts all say, defines our spiritual development — increased by following in the dance steps of the Hindu god Shiva, our lives gradually become more spiritually directed. Continue reading

Never Ending I

EVOLUTION is spiral, Theosophy maintains, “and the path of spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical, semi-physical, and supra-physical.”

Man’s immortality and the existence of God, are the two doctrines that H. P. Blavatsky sets out to prove in the Preface to Isis Unveiled, her first Theosophical opus.

Raising the bar to the highest possible level in the key question, she asks:

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

Often it is the clear-eyed children, unfettered by dogmas, who are the ones able to see their immortal spirit, not their parents or other adults.

In their attempt to answer these monumental questions Mme. Blavatsky reveals, while traveling in the East, they had encountered certain very wise sages:

“… we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge … that to their instructions,” she said, “we lent a ready ear.” Continue reading

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

Healing the Beast

WHEN acting through human brains and bodies, our minds reveal a complex dual nature — a pivotal tenet of Theosophical psychology.

Mind’s higher aspect gravitates toward spirit, while the natural tendency of its physical reflection is attraction to form and desire.

Broadly considered, what is called higher mind is a soul faculty, our intuitional power source according to Theosophy — it is the “god” in man.

The alter-ego, our personal self, epitomized by the gut and brain consciousness, seems to be a conflicted mix of god and demagogue.

This enigma is dramatized by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in her New York Times bestseller “My Stroke of Insight.” As a brain researcher Dr. Taylor’s focus is of course anatomical, the left and right hemispheres. (See Love and Fury) Continue reading

Love and Fury

“NO physiologist, not even the cleverest, will ever be able to solve the mystery of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestation,” wrote H. P. Blavatsky.

“Or in its dual aspect of the psychic and the noetic — or even to comprehend the intricacies of the former on the purely material plane — unless he knows something of, and is prepared to admit the presence of this dual element.”

“This means that he would have to admit a lower (animal), and a higher (or divine) mind in man, or what is known in Occultism as the ‘personal’ and the ‘impersonal’ Egos.” Continue reading

Nothing to Lose

THE classic struggle between hero and villain, the “good guys vs the bad guys,” is a staple of our entertainment and literary culture.

Without this persistent duality, there would never have been Hercules, Batman, Spiderman or Superman — or the Lone Ranger on his white horse Silver.

Nor would we be enjoying productions of Macbeth or Hamlet, or any of the riveting psychological dramas of Shakespeare.

Daytime television, also, would be soap-free. (Hey, can’t you leave us with something?) Continue reading

The Mystic Power

THE oral teachings of Buddha were transcribed forming The Dhammapada, which means “the path of Dharma,” or Duty. Not meant to be a new religion, these were practical teachings anyone could understand and follow. In his first commentary Buddha emphasized that our thoughts have real creative power:

“ALL that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts.”

Depending on their source and intention, thoughts could also have destructive power, and the ability to deceive.  They could either be directed to service and harmony, or cause confusion and harm — both emanating from conflicting aspects of the mind. This is why the mind, with its companion desire, is sometimes thought of as a ‘two edged sword.’ Continue reading

Never Ending Life

THE Founders of the modern Theosophical Society and Masters behind the wider Movement, labored tirelessly during the late 19th Century to document and publicize the lost teachings concerning man, nature and the universe.

The restoration of this ancient Wisdom came at a critical juncture — the rise of materialistic science was threatening to deliver a death-blow to mysticism, and the immortal soul of man.

“Modern science believes not in the ‘soul of things,’” Blavatsky wrote then, “and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony.”

She called upon the two autocrats, science and religion, to end their combative ways — and collaborate towards a higher synthesis. As it turned out, both got their comeuppance from an unexpected source. Continue reading

Visions or Illusions

Pathways2

THE true student of The Secret Doctrine is a Jnana Yogi, and this Path of Yoga is the True Path for the Western student, Blavatsky said. “It is to provide him with sign posts on that Path that The Secret Doctrine has been written.”

This mode of thinking, she explained, is what the Indians call Jnana Yoga. “As one progresses in Jnana Yoga one finds conceptions arising which though conscious of them, one cannot express nor yet formulate into any sort of mental picture.”

Gallery of Illusions

“As time goes on these conceptions will form into mental pictures,” she explained to a small group of her most earnest students.

“This is a time to be on guard and refuse to be deluded with the idea that the new found and wonderful picture must represent reality. It does not. As one works on one finds the once admired picture growing dull and unsatisfying, and finally fading out or being thrown away.”

We seem to be left in a void without support, she says, and “be tempted to revive the cast-off picture for want of a better to cling to.”

Illusions

Look carefully at above optical illusion - what do you see?

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” -Albert Einstein

And Blavatsky writes:

“THE true student will work on unconcerned, and presently further formless gleams come, which again in time give rise to a larger and more beautiful picture than the last.

“Eventually [he] will learn that no picture represents the whole truth, and this process continues as each picture fades away like the last. “And so the process goes on,” she says, “until at last the mind and its pictures are transcended and the learner enters and dwells in the World of no form — but of which all forms are narrowed reflections.”

Eckhart Tolle – Form is Not the Moment

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Dharana

The SanskritDharana is defined as:

“the intense and perfect concentration of the mind upon some one interior object, accompanied by complete abstraction from everything pertaining to the external Universe, or the world of the senses.” And, The Voice of the Silence repeats:

“…from the stronghold of your Soul, chase all your foes away — ambition, anger, hatred, e’en to the shadow of desire — when even you have failed…”

Photo: Bianca Van der Werf

Photo: Bianca Van der Werf

WHEN the Voice and the Bhagavad-Gita speak about “killing” and “slaying” this is a metaphor about control. About not allowing the “mental noise” or the “monkey mind” to gain rulership over ourselves. It is the silent center, our True Self, which should always rule. Thus says the Voice,

“The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real.
Let the Disciple slay the Slayer.”

For: –

“When to himself his form appears unreal, as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams – when he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the ONE  the inner sound which kills the outer.”

Peter Russell – Letting Go

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“We are not all too happy, wrote W. Q. Judge, “but are rich in hope, knowing the prize at the end of time, and not deterred by the clouds, the storms, the miasms and dreadful beasts of prey that line the road.”

“Let us, then, at the very outset wash out of our souls all desire for reward, all hope that we may attain. For so long as we thus hope and desire, we shall be separated from the Self.”

“If in the Self all things are,” he advises a correspondent (Letter 15) — “then we cannot wish to be something which we can only compass by excluding something else.”

Knowledge Not in Books

“The Bhagavad-Gita is right in saying “spiritual knowledge includes every action without exception,” wrote Judge in his Essays on the Bhagavad-Gita, “and that it is to be attained by means of devotion. Ignorant men who had no access to books have by their inward sense perceived the real truth of things, not only those round about them, but relating to the larger concerns of nature.”

Jacob Böhme was born in Alt Seidenberg in Silesia nearby Görlitz, where he worked as a master shoemaker. He received his first vision in 1600, a second one in 1610, which he recorded in Morgenrote im Aufgang, also called Aurora.

Jacob Böhme

Jacob Böhme

JACOB BOEHME was wholly unlettered, but he knew the truth,” Judge said, and “His writings show an acquaintance, not to be then gained from books, with the true doctrines found in the Hindu scriptures and secret books.”

“The reason is, that these men have attained to devotion, and thereby cleared away from before the eye of the soul the clouds of sense whose shadows obscure our view of truth.”

The First and The Best

journey

“I do not decry or despise learning,” he says, “it is a great possession— but if the learned man were also a devoted one in the sense of the Bhagavad-Gita, how much wider would be the sweep of his intellection no one could calculate.”

“Learning of the human sort is not despised among the highest occultists, even among the adepts. They use it and acquire it. They accumulate the record of the experiences of seers and devoted men of small learning for long periods of time, until a great master of both learning and devotion arises.”

“By reason of his profound knowledge joined to devotion, he can make the wonderful deductions … respecting matters so far beyond us that they can with difficulty be imagined. But this again proves that devotion is the first and best, for these extraordinary Masters would not appear unless devotion had been the aim of their existence.”

Alison Wright – Story of Compassion

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“Without devotion a vast confusion arises within us that has been likened by some to a whirling motion, by others to the inrushing, overpowering flow of turbid waters. Boehme calls it in some aspects the turba. It is the delusion produced by the senses.

“And so Krishna, in closing the second lecture, says:

‘The performance of works is by far inferior to mental devotion… Seek an asylum, then, in this mental devotion, which is knowledge.

‘But he who by means of Yoga is mentally devoted dismisses alike successful and unsuccessful results, being beyond them. Yoga is skill in the performance of actions: therefore do thou aspire to this devotion.’

The Self-Governed Sage

“The uncontrolled heart, following the dictates of the moving passions, snatcheth away his spiritual knowledge, as the storm the bark upon the raging ocean. Therefore, O great-armed one, he is possessed of spiritual knowledge whose senses are withheld from objects of sense. What is night to those who are unenlightened is as day to his gaze — what seems as day is known to him as night, the night of ignorance. Such is the self-governed Sage!

Bruce Lipton – The Piece Left Out

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But he who, free from attachment or repulsion for objects, experienceth them through the senses and organs, with his heart obedient to his will, attains to tranquility of thought.

“And this tranquil state attained, therefrom shall soon result a separation from all troubles; and his mind being thus at ease, fixed upon one object, it embraceth wisdom from all sides. The man whose heart and mind are not at rest is without wisdom or the power of contemplation — who doth not practice reflection, hath no calm — and how can a man without calm obtain happiness?”

Eckhart Tolle – To Think or Not to Think

Seeking nothing, he gains all -
Forgetting self, the Universe grows ‘I’.

– The Light of Asia

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“The tumultuous senses and organs hurry away by force the heart even of the wise man who striveth after perfection,” Krishna, the Higher Self, says to his disciple Arjuna. “Let a man, restraining all these, remain in devotion at rest in me, his true self — for he who hath his senses and organs in control possesses spiritual knowledge.”

“He who attendeth to the inclinations of the senses, in them hath a concern — from this concern is created passion, from passion anger, from anger is produced delusion, from delusion a loss of the memory, from the loss of memory loss of discrimination, and from loss of discrimination loss of all!

Knowledge Comes in Visions

blavatsky

Helena Blavatsky

“If you could’st empty all thyself of self
Like to a shell dishabited …
then there would be no room for (little) Me.”

“… first in dreams and then in pictures presented to the inner eye during meditation. Thus have I been taught the whole system of evolution, the laws of being and all else that I know—the mysteries of life and death, the workings of karma.

“Not a word was spoken to me of all this in the ordinary way, except, perhaps, by way of confirmation of what was thus given me—nothing taught me in writing.

“And knowledge so obtained is so clear, so convincing, so indelible in the impression it makes upon the mind, that all other sources of information, all other methods of teaching with which we are familiar dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this.

“One of the reasons why I hesitate to answer offhand some questions put to me is the difficulty of expressing in sufficiently accurate language things given to me in pictures, and comprehended by me by the pure Reason…” (CW 13, p. 285)

Tenzin Palmo

Tenzin Palmo

“A childlike quality of the mind really means a mind which is fresh,
which sees things as if for the first time.”

“You see a glass and you see it as it is, rather than seeing all the other glasses you have seen in your life, together with your ideas and theories about glasses and whether you like glasses in this or that shape, or the kind of glass you drank out of yesterday. We are talking about a mind which sees the thing freshly in the moment. That’s the quality we are aiming for. We lose this as we become adults.”

–from Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism by Venerable Tenzin Palmo, published by Snow Lion Publications

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Neti Neti

zen7THE 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.”

Existence as water may be said to be, for Oxygen and Hydrogen, a state of Non-being which is ‘more real being’ than their existence as gases. And it may faintly symbolize the condition of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be — to awaken or reappear again, when the dawn of the new [Universe] recalls it to what we call existence. waterdrop-by-snap

Transcendental Reality

The above sentences could have been written by any one of today’s numerous visionaries or thought leaders. Instead, they are the words of Theosophical Pioneer Mme. Helena Blavatsky, excerpted from her magnum opus The Secret Doctrine — a quintessential blend of Eastern and Western wisdom traditions.

The idea non-duality and non-locality is not new, and is found in The Bhagavad-Gita, Dhammapada, Upanishads, and Lao Tze’s Tao Te Ching. Lao Tze begins his teaching pointing directly to this transcendental paradox:

tori-gate-750

Tori Gate

“THE Tao which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao — the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name. Without a name, it is the Beginning of Heaven and Earth — with a name, it is the Mother of all things. Only one who is eternally free from earthly passions can apprehend its spiritual essence — he who is ever clogged by passions can see no more than its outer form. These two things, the spiritual and the material, though we call them by different names, in their origin are one and the same. This sameness is a mystery — the mystery of mysteries. It is the gate of all spirituality.”

Bhagavad Gītā, “Song of God”

The Bhagavad Gītā (Sanskrit भगवद् गीता) is one of the most important Hindu scriptures. It is revered as a sacred scripture of Hinduism, and an important world philosophical classic.

Krishna-Arjuna

Krishna-Arjuna

The Bhagavad Gītā comprising 700 verses, is a part of the Mahabharata. In Chapter 10, Krishna, alternating between God and Guru, addresses Arjuna his favorite disciple, with the Taoist conundrum:

“I am the Ego which is seated in the hearts of all beings — I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all existing things. I established this whole universe with a single portion of myself, and remain separate.”

In this now familiar quantum paradox, the spiritual and material are depicted as simultaneously united and contrasted. This correlate of “Neti Neti” may be analogized as the spirit-body. The human body, for example, is inhabited by 500 species of cells totaling on average 70 trillion. The microbial communities of the body (bacteria) outnumber cells by 10-1.

Yet we would never conflate the Thinker or Ego with these 800 trillion living organisms, or any or all of its body parts individually or collectively. Though we seem to remain separate from our creation, like Krishna, without these living parts we could not exist as we do. “Neti Neti,” we are neither and both at the same time.

Nonsectarian Spirituality

In keeping with the ancient wisdom traditions, Blavatsky’s writings were delivered to the world with no patent of “authorship” attached. She referred to herself only as the “writer.” She desired to establish no new religion, no exclusive cult or sect. Her aim was to prove the common source of all spiritual teachings.

Her aim was to elevate the human condition, and relieve it of the burdens of idolatry and sectarianism.

Blavatsky presented the ancient universal teachings saying, after Montaigne, “I have brought nothing of my own but the string that ties them” — cut the string up, if you will, but you cannot destroy truth. (The Secret Doctrine 1:xlvi)

Traditional Sufi Teaching

sufi

The story of the seeker of truth, is often portrayed as the lover seeking access to the beloved.

The Lover knocks at the door of The Beloved.
‘Who is it?’, asked a voice from inside.
‘It is me, please let me in’, said the Lover.
‘No, there is only room for one in here, go away’,
replied the voice from inside.
Again there was knocking on the door,
‘Who is it?’, asked the voice from inside once again.
‘It is You’, said the Lover.
This time the door opened and the Lover could enter.

The One Rule of Seekership

“None can feel the difference between himself and his fellow-students, such as ‘I am the wisest,’ ‘I am more holy and pleasing to the teacher, or in my community, than my brother,’ etc.,” wrote Elena Blavatsky, and to be a true disciple:-

“His thoughts must be predominantly fixed upon his heart, chasing therefrom every hostile thought to any living being. The heart must be full of the feeling of its non-separateness from the rest of beings as from all in Nature — otherwise no success can follow.”

A Chinese Tradition

In traditional China, it was actually an insult to say “thank you” to loved ones because in doing so, it creates separation, says co-editor Kara LeBeau, who yearschinesetea ago lived in Taiwan.

“When I thanked a friend of mine in Taiwan for doing me a favor,” she writes, “She looked at me, visibly hurt, and said, ‘I thought we were friends!’” Another American friend of Kara’s who lived in Taiwan at the same time she was there, will get angry and say “shut up” whenever Kara thanked him.

So, too, couples never said “I love you” to each other. Doing so splits their unity. Besides, their love for each other should be evident in everything they do for each other.

Compound Spirituality

To our talpatic, or mole-like, comprehension the human spirit is then lost in the One Spirit, as the drop of water thrown into the sea can no longer be traced out and recovered. But de facto it is not so.

zen9Everyone “must preserve their divine (not human) individualities, and

“… however long the rest period between worlds or births. When the rest is over, “the same individual [spirit] resumes its majestic path of evolution, though on a higher, hundredfold perfected and more pure chain of earths than before — and brings with it all the essence of compound spiritualities from its previous countless rebirths.”

Evolution has a spiral motion and is dual, according to Blavatsky — “the path of spirituality turns, corkscrew-like, within and around physical, semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution.

[H. P. Blavatsky, Article: Isis Unveiled and the Vishishtadwaita]

The Upanishads: Neti Neti

The expression, neti–neti, literally means “neither this, nor that.” The first is the rejection of a separate self or ego. It is a rejection of fragmentation or split from universal spirit. It means in the wholistic multidimensional context that we are not just separate egos. We can not ever be defined as being separate from spirit without introducing a delusion. Thus “neti neti” as a statement means that we are not anything separate, as in the dualistic framework of a separate “I” or “Is.”

So just as the first neti can say no to a separate observer (ego) free from subject-object duality, the second neti can say I am not just the whole, but also the parts of the whole —I am both at the same time.

What is Consciousness?

“What consciousness is can never be defined psychologically.
We can analyse and classify its work and effects.”
-H. P. Blavatsky

Peter Russell: Why is There Mind?

Anatta

One may say that it is an affirmation of the Buddhist idea of anatta or anatman, the unreality of a separate self or ego. That the ego is “maya,” a necessary illusion produced by ignorance of central unity which bind us all — yet a realizable Reality.

Thus neti neti is best understood as an affirmation that we are not the body — that the body is part of a vaster interconnected web of life — both of form and formless. “Neti neti” can be said to be a deep statement of non-duality, neither one or the other, but rather both. Neither form nor void but both form and void. Both body and separate from body simultaneously.

Dharmaputra and His Dog

dog

(Adapted from Your Life is Your Message, by Eknath Easwaran)

There is a story from the Indian tradition: There once lived a king called Dharmaputra, who was the soul of virtue and compassion. When the time came for him to shed his body, he ascended to heaven accompanied by a dog. When he reached heaven’s gate, the Indian equivalent of St. Peter looked up his name.

“Let’s see . . . Dharmaputra. Yes, we have orders to let you in. But we don’t have any listing for a dog.”

“Won’t you please look again?” asked Dharmaputra.

So St. Peter looked up all the rules and said, “I’m sorry, but there is no provision here for dogs.”

Dharmaputra did not hesitate. “That dog loves me,” he said. “Wherever I go, he goes too, so I have got to take him with me.”

“Rules are rules,” St. Peter said finally. “Either you come in alone, or you go back.”

Dharmaputra didn’t budge. He said simply, “No dog, no me.”

Then a miracle took place. Suddenly, instead of a dog, it was the God Krishna, the Lord of Love, standing at Dharmaputra’s side. St. Peter opened the gates.

Little stories like this can remind us to always be compassionate towards our fellow creatures, recognizing that the same Self lives in them as in us.

Eknath Easwaran

(Click to play)

The Basic Truth of Being

In The Secret Doctrine, Elena Blavatsky intuited a term for “neti neti” she referred to as “Be-ness.” It is an “Infinite and Eternal Cause,” she wrote, which “is the rootless root of  ‘all that was, is, or ever shall be.’”

It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is “Be-ness” rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.

zen3

This “Be-ness” is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself.

On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned Consciousness. … This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also symbolized by the term “The Great Breath,” a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation.

Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE — BE-NESS

Dolphins and Humans

The Grand Enigma

The enigmatic comment made by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine,  “the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself,” begs a question.

If both universe and all it manifestations, including us, are illusions, then:

“What is reality—really?”

zen4

In Eastern psychology “the Universe is called, with everything in it, Maya [illusion.]” We never know “things in themselves.” This is also the persistent mystery of consciousness. We cannot define consciousness, but the fact that we are conscious is the one thing we cannot either escape or deny.

Causation is a ladder. Everything and every action has its cause, and that cause, in turn, has a cause — up to the “causeless cause” — that condition of Being which is often called “The Absolute.” It is the Dreamless Sleep of the whole universe.

That One Be-ness is  called “the summum bonum,” and in Sanskrit is called ” Paranirvana.”

Individual and Universal Consciousness

zen6

Blavatsky continues, still using Sanskrit terms:  “Besides being the final state it is that condition of subjectivity which has no relation to anything but the one absolute truth (Para-marthasatya) on its plane. It is that state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full meaning of Non-Being, which, as explained, is absolute Being.

Sooner or later, all that now seemingly exists, will be in reality and actually in the state of Paranishpanna [absoluteness]. But there is a great difference between conscious and unconscious “being.” The condition of Paranishpanna, without Paramartha, the Self-analysing consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven Eternities).

“Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun will get heated through, but will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while a man will. It is only ‘with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its collectivity (the whole living and sentient Universe),’ that one gets rid of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute, and continuing in full possession of Paramartha [self-analyzing consciousness]. (SD 1:54)

The Omnipresent Proteus

galaxy2

by Elena Blavatsky

(Excerpt from “The New Cycle”)

“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.

“What theologian can go beyond that? … not only humanity—even though consisting of thousands of races—but all that lives … is made up of the same essence and substance, is animated by the same spirit. Therefore, there is solidarity throughout nature, on the physical as well as on the moral plane.”



“Consciousness is Everywhere”

Other Posts:

Peeling The Onion

Conscious Without a Brain

Dueling Egos, Pt. 1

Dueling Egos, Pt. 2

Fields of Dream

life

WHEN our rational brains are all heated up, arguing life’s complexities, that’s usually the best time to kick off our shoes and give it a rest.

“Ever drifting down the stream, lingering in the golden gleam,” Lewis Carroll wondered, “Life, what is it but a dream?”

Yet, at times when we are faced with a critical decision, or stuck on a complex problem, sleeping or napping on it, researchers have found, often leads to the right answer.

The notes of a song, the smell of burning leaves, the babbling of a mountain stream, all open the door to the the non-rational, poetic mind. They can awaken dim recollections of childhood.

And like Wordsworth’s inspired poem “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” open up unexpected vistas into previous lives. Continue reading

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

The Real Jesus

christusEASTER week is Christianity’s “Jesus week,” and now the secular media-mob have been waging an unprecedented, virulent assault on Christian beliefs. We decided to enter the fray as peace-makers instead.

The cover of NEWSWEEK (April 4th) is emblazoned The Decline and Fall of Christian America.

As a result, that runner-up news magazine was forced to disable comments on Jon Meacham’s lead article.

The End of Christian America” received over 5,000 comments, blogger Kurt Soller reported, “making the site wobbly.”newsweek3

(See Colleen Raezler’s column For the media, it’s un-Holy Week if you want all the bloody details.)

Outrage: “God Is Back”


It is true that Theosophy’s H. P. Blavatsky, took no prisoners attacking the faults of what she called “Churchianity.” But she always sided with the “true Christians,” whose “faith in their respective churches is pure and sincere.”

Elevate to Christos

The difference between Christian theology and Theosophy,” she wrote, is that the “former enforces belief in the Descent of the Spiritual Ego into the Lower Self,” and Theosophy “inculcates the necessity of endeavouring to elevate oneself to the Christos, or Buddhi state.” (Key to Theosophy)

Ascension1

This will not be a scholarly tome or an historical argument. We have too little time and space. (But for an important study, please be sure to read David Pratt’s impeccably researched Who Was the Real Jesus?)

H. P. Blavatsky

The rest of this article is entirely in the words of Blavatsky, (with emphasis added), from Isis Unveiled, her first major work — subtitled “A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology.”

hpbtm-12

From Chapter III, Isis Unveiled

(Vol. 2, p. 123)

The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of Gautama-Buddha, to benefit humanity at large by producing a religious reform which should give it a religion of pure ethics—the true knowledge of God and nature having remained until then solely in the hands of the esoteric sects, and their adepts.

Sakyamuni

Sakyamuni

Gautama

Gautama

When we use the term Buddhists, we do not mean to imply by it either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama-Buddha, nor the modern Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of Sakyamuni, which in its essence is certainly identical with the ancient wisdom-religion of the sanctuary, the pre-Vedic Brahmanism.

Perfected Living Masters

Thus, in common with Pythagoras and other hierophant reformers, Jesus divided his teachings into exoteric and esoteric.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Except a handful of self-styled Christians who subsequently won the day, all the civilized portion of the Pagans who knew of Jesus honored him as a philosopher, an adept whom they placed on the same level with Pythagoras and Apollonius.

Whence such a veneration on their part for a man, were he simply, as represented by the Synoptics, a poor, unknown Jewish carpenter from Nazareth? As an incarnated God there is no single record of him on this earth capable of withstanding the critical examination of science

Apollonius

Apollonius

As one of the greatest reformers, an inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most sublime codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grandest and most clearly-defined figures on the panorama of human history.

We see that the Golden Rule was not original with Jesus — that its birth-place was India. … the doctrines of Manu and Gautama harmonized exactly with his own philosophy.

Christ Not a Person

With the Christians, Christ is another name for Jesus. The philosophy of the Gnostics, the initiates, and hierophants understood it otherwise. The word Christos, (Christos), like all Greek words, must be sought in its philological origin — the Sanskrit.

Krishna

Krishna

God-like beings as Gautama-Buddha, Jesus, Tissoo, Christna, and a few others had united themselves with their spirits permanently hence, they became gods on earth.

Others, such as Moses, Pythagoras, Apollonius, Plotinus, Confucius, Plato, Iamblichus, and some Christian saints, having at intervals been so united, have taken rank in history as demi-gods and leaders of mankind.

When unburdened of their terrestrial tabernacles, their freed souls, henceforth united forever with their spirits, rejoin the whole shining host, which is bound together in one spiritual solidarity of thought and deed, and called “the anointed.”

Hence, the meaning of the Gnostics, who, by saying that “Christos” suffered spiritually for humanity, implied that his Divine Spirit suffered mostly.

isis2From The Preface to Part II – Isis Unveiled

[Vol. 2, Page iii-iv]

WERE it possible, we would keep this work out of the hands of many Christians whom its perusal would not benefit, and for whom it was not written.

We allude to those whose faith in their respective churches is pure and sincere, and those whose sinless lives reflect the glorious example of that Prophet of Nazareth, by whose mouth the spirit of truth spake loudly to humanity.

Such there have been at all times. History preserves the names of many as heroes, philosophers, philanthropists, martyrs, and holy men and women — but how many more have lived and died, unknown but to their intimate acquaintance, unblessed but by their humble beneficiaries!

These have ennobled Christianity, but would have shed the same lustre upon any other faith they might have professed — for they were higher than their creed.

gautama1The Virtues

And yet, in comparison with the millions who have been accounted Christians, such have always formed a small minority. They are to be found at this day, in pulpit and pew, in palace and cottage — but the increasing materialism, worldliness and hypocrisy are fast diminishing their proportionate number.

Their charity, and simple, child-like faith in the infallibility of their Bible, their dogmas, and their clergy, bring into full activity all the virtues that are implanted in our common nature.

isis3Faith and Immortality

We have personally known such God-fearing priests and clergymen, and we have always avoided debate with them, lest we might be guilty of the cruelty of hurting their feelings — nor would we rob a single layman of his blind confidence, if it alone made possible for him holy living and serene dying.

An analysis of religious beliefs in general, this volume is in particular directed against theological Christianity, the chief opponent of free thought.

[Isis Unveiled] contains not one word against the pure teachings of Jesus, but unsparingly denounces their debasement into pernicious ecclesiastical systems that are ruinous to man’s faith in his immortality and his God, and subversive of all moral restraint.

calla-liliesJesus of The Future

His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into the gloomy and hazy mists of the past — and his theology — based on human fancy and supported by untenable dogmas [theology] must with every day lose more of its unmerited prestige …

Alone the grand figure of the philosopher and moral reformer instead of growing paler will become with every century more pronounced and more clearly defined.

It will reign supreme and universal only on that day when the whole of humanity recognizes but one father — the UNKNOWN ONE above — and one brother — the whole of mankind below.

Related Post:

Sacred Tribe of Heroes

Center Is Everywhere

meditation11THE SECRET SITS

“We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”

- Robert Frost

One of my recurring childhood memories is attending Sunday morning Theosophy School in New York City.

We began our morning in the basement woodworking shop, practicing our “readings” for the Assembly program. What I remember vividly was a framed verse above an electric wall clock. Below it was a long oak bench, strewn with aromatic curlicue wood shavings. It became, for us, a kind of sacred altar. The verse read:

“Now Is The Only Time We Have”

Cliche perhaps, but a never-to-be-forgotten soul print of an aha childhood moment. Ancient truths never perish. One finds occult correlates in Helena Blavatsky’s teaching of the “zero-point.”

“Deity is in every point of the Universe,” she writes — the “laya centre.”

meditation“Remember that every man has a god within,” she says in Transactions, “a direct ray from the Absolute, the celestial ray from the One — he has his ‘god’ within, not outside, of himself.” And further,

“Man is the microcosm of the macrocosm; the god on earth is built on the pattern of the god in nature. But the universal consciousness of the real Ego transcends a millionfold the self-consciousness of the personal or false Ego.”

“Remember that the only God man comes in contact with is his own God, called Spirit, Soul and Mind, or Consciousness, and these three are one.”

The idea of an eternal, spiritual core within man, not bound by space and time, was popularized early in the 20th century by Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker, and founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung:

Carl Jung – Death and the Human Psyche

Modern Soul Psychology

Later motivational psychologists arrived on the scene, notably Abraham Maslow who wrote:

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.”

The potency of this ancient teaching is popularized worldwide by teachers such as Eckhart Tolle inThe Power of Now and A New Earth, two of the most influential spiritual books of our time.

Eckhart Tolle:
The Silent Space of Stillness

“Our Center Produces a Field of Thought”

(The Secret Doctrine 1:65)

…the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal—the sphere having been with every nation the emblem of eternity and infinity— the serpent swallowing its own tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its center.

The field of vision or of thought, is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one’s self in every direction and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all around.

It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists “whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.” – H. P. Blavatsky

“Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.” -Blaise Pascal

What Physicists Are Thinking:
The Dynamism of the Nucleus

Quantum Physicist – Dr. John Hagelin

“The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” – Empedocles

Meditation, Concentration, Will

THESE three, meditation, concentration, will, have engaged the attention of Theosophists perhaps more than any other three subjects.

The majority would rather hear these subjects discussed and read definite directions about them than any others in the entire field. [...]

Will and Desire lie at the doors of Meditation and Concentration. If we desire truth with the same intensity that we had formerly wished for success, money, or gratification, we will speedily acquire meditation and possess concentration.

meditation_enlightenmentIf we do all our acts, small and great, every moment, for the sake of the whole human race, as representing the Supreme Self, then every cell and fibre of the body and inner man will be turned in one direction, resulting in perfect concentration.

Let us meditate on that which is in us as the Highest Self, concentrate upon it, and will to work for it as dwelling in every human heart. – William Q. Judge

Deepak Chopra: Introduction to Meditation

Mediumship vs Adeptship

Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies. -Isis Unveiled, II, 588

The practical bearing of one-pointedness on our daily life, on “finding one’s center,” was taught centuries ago in the Upanishads, and by sages and masters, among them Patanjali, who wrote “At the time of concentration the soul abides in the state of a spectator without a spectacle.”

meditation_inner-peaceIt is central to the teachings of Masters such as Buddha, Confucious, Lao Tze and Krishna. Specific directions are given, and meditation is Krishna’s core teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita for example:

“The man of meditation as thus described is superior to the man of penance and to the man of learning and also to the man of action—wherefore, O Arjuna, resolve thou to become a man of meditation.”

“He who has attained to meditation should constantly strive to stay at rest in the Supreme, remaining in solitude and seclusion, having his body and his thoughts under control, without possessions and free from hope. He should in an undefiled spot place his seat, firm, neither too high nor too low…”

“For even unwittingly, by reason of that past practice, he is led and works on. Even if only a mere enquirer, he reaches beyond the word of the Vedas. But the devotee who, striving with all his might, obtaineth perfection because of efforts continued through many births, goeth to the supreme goal.”

Of all devotees he is considered by me as the most devoted who, with heart fixed on me, full of faith, worships me [the Higher Self].

krishna

Krishna

Children and Seniors in Meditation

March 10, 2009
More Americans say they have no religion

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

“More Americans are saying they have no religion — according to a wide ranging study done by Trinity College.”

The Dhyana Centre

dhyana_centre1The Dhyana Centre was founded in London in 1991 for the sole purpose of teaching meditation and encouraging its practice as a spiritual discipline.

The Centre, an independent department of the Theosophical Society in England, adopts a non-sectarian and non-religious approach that combines both Eastern and Western contemplative techniques.

The emphasis is on introductory courses, open to all-comers without restriction or charge, but the Centre aims to cater for all levels of meditative experience by offering intermediate and advanced groups as well.


That Which Ye Sow

sower2NEW YEAR’S Resolutions are easily made. Mix in some “will power” and suddenly we’ve made a life change, right? Nice try, but not really. We know better.

Statistically, despite good intentions, resolutions are broken within a few days or weeks. Why is this?

Recidivism is rampant among us mortals. Habits are powerful. We can replace one with another, a strategy that sometimes works, but the habits only change places like musical chairs, and seldom get to root causes of behavior. For example:

Addictions

There is the person who started running to give up smoking. It worked! He traded off nicotine for “runner’s high,” and is now “abusing” endorphins, the brain’s “feel good” chemical.

This person changed the behavior without curing the underlying addiction. A healthy change, no doubt, but the addictive personality did not change, and that underlying driver has infinite ways to steer us wrong.

Larry Dossey, MD, explains how changing our separative world view, leads to true healing:

LarryDossey_healing

LarryDossey_healing

This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback.

Purpose

We know we ought to be looking deeper for the paths to transformation, but mostly we are prone to travel the road of least resistance. W. Q. Judge offers some sage observations:

It is interesting to note that the modern basis of thought and action is the reverse of that of the ancient sages, and that whereas our ways of thinking leave us in the dark, the ways of the ancients throw a clear light upon all our problems. Let us therefore study the wisdom of the past, that we may go forward with a clearer and more definite purpose than we now have.

“The more awake we become,” Adyashanti says, “the less divided we become.” But this requires us to become “ruthlessly honest:”

Clear Light

Let’s us study then, in search of some clear light. “Thoughts are the seeds of Karma,” is a familiar Theosophical mantra: (Eternal Verities: 64) And The Buddha’s first words in THE DHAMMAPADA – The Teachings of The Buddha, seem a good place to start:

ALL that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain pursues him, as the wheel of the wagon follows the hoof of the ox that draws it.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought happiness pursue him like his own shadow that never leaves him.

Fields of Being

Clearly, we do not give enough thought to the nature of thoughts. Spiritual teachers understood that thoughts, like DNA, are designers of our destinies. They have programming power over both our hidden inner life, and the visible circumstances of life that surround us.

Thought is not separate from action. The light bulb goes on because we “think” to throw the switch. Therefore thought, whether conscious or automatic, is primary. If we remain focused on effects, and not their causes, we will continue stumbling in the dark.

“Thought is the real plane of action,” according to Robert Crosbie, in Notes on The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. 18:232, and cautions, “as we never cease thinking, action continually goes on. …The thoughts and aspirations of our life form a mass of force that operates instantly.”

In a previous post, H. P. Blavatsky was quoted as stating that  “every plant without an exception feels and has a consciousness of its own.” Author Lynn McTaggart is convinced of this, citing Cleve Backster’s laboratory experiments on how plants respond to our thoughts:

Planet Smarts

Theosophical occult teachings uphold the power of thought and intention, and how collectively it can affect the whole planet. (Aphorisms On Karma #30):

Karma operates to produce cataclysms of nature by concatenation through the mental and astral planes of being. A cataclysm may be traced to an immediate physical cause such as internal fire and atmospheric disturbance, but these have been brought on by the disturbance created through the dynamic power of human thought.

This is the meaning of the “flying of arrows” which cause even Krishna’s favorite disciple, Arjuna, to sit down despondently on the bench of his chariot. Arjuna represents everyman. How difficult would it be for us uninitiated mortals, struggling to control a few personal habits, to change the world?

Carnegie Hall is the musicians reward for one thing only–practice. Similarly, a spiritual life requires nothing less than a practice of the art and science of moral law. The reward is the harmony it produces for all who choose its practice, to serve, or remain within its precincts.

Consciousness expert, Peter Russell, thinks we need to make some fundamental changes first:

NEW BEGINNINGS

When a seed is planted, of any kind, it is both a metaphor and a fact of new beginnings. There is a direct causal relationship between its origin, and what that seed grows into.This model of cause and effect is what is called Karma by the Sages of the East.

The most powerful truths are the simplest, as evidenced in an excerpt from a favorite book The Eternal Verities:  “wrapped up in every seed of thought is Karma. Whatever the seed–if it be ugly, unkind, selfish; if it be generous, considerate, beautiful–so the seed will grow.” In the seed lies potentially the power to act or grow. “The growth is the effect. And both are Karma.”

The power of right growth through unselfish intention, says Dean Radin, Senior Scientist and the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), may turn us into healers of others. Spiritual meditators are doing it, as Dr. Radin’s video demonstrates:

Right Speech

“The pepper-plant will not give birth to roses,” says The Voice of the Silence, “nor the sweet jessamine’s silver star to thorn or thistle turn.” So again we learn how important are those seeds of future harvest. Therefore let us consider the ancient Laws of Manu:138 and choose our seeds:

Let him say what is true.
Let him say what is useful.
Let him say what is pleasant.
Let him utter no disagreeable truth.
Let him utter no agreeable falsehood.

Character is Destiny

Sow a thought, reap an act,
Sow an act, reap a habit,
Sow a habit, reap a character,
Sow a character, reap a destiny.

- The Upanishads

Russell Gough

Russell Gough

Russell W. Gough, professor of ethics and philosophy at Pepperdine University, lectures frequently across the country and is a chairman for the annual White House Conference on Character Building, wrote Character Is Destiny: The Value of Personal Ethics in Everyday Life.

“An inescapable truth lies at the heart of this simple yet profound book,” writes a reviewer. In the description of Dr. Gough’s book, one hears an echo of the profoundly practical wisdom of ancient sages:

“The quality of our lives is not determined by the happenstance of genetics or by the influence of environment; it is not measured in material possessions or in the trappings of youth; it is not dependent on personality or social acclaim. On the contrary, the intrinsic value of the lives we lead reflects the strength of a single trait: our personal character. Character Is Destiny, a sort of self-help guide for the soul, shows how we can lead richer lives simply by being better people.”

Thoughts We Sow

With the lines of the Upanishads in mind, our destiny or “harvest” is a return on an investment we make every moment: the thoughts we sow.

Every act, thought and desire is the effect of an antecedent cause, in its turn it becomes the cause of a subsequent effect: ‘whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’ (Gal. vi 7). Similarly, the verses of Siddhartha Buddha’s life from The Light of Asia summarize the twin doctrines of karma and reincarnation:

The Books say well, my Brothers! each man’s life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss,
That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew!
So is a man’s fate born.

Rugged Oaks

Nothing of what is written here by this student, should be considered in any sense a homily. There is only a sincere desire to serve the highest good, as W. Q. Judge wrote in his article Hit The Mark:  “the highest spiritual life we are at any time capable of.”

We attempt to respectfully replant some simple seeds, seeds of truth passed on to humanity by Masters who were once human like ourselves–those “rugged oaks” of moral courage and ethical thought, down through the ages.

Of such were Buddha, Plato, Jesus, Lao-Tze, Confucius, and many others. From these have sprouted thousands of teachers inspired by Them, and by their own inner visions. In this new age, there are many insightful healers, so-called “self-help” gurus, who are in step with the wisdom tradition, who teach both by precept and example.

In closing we defer to, with gratitude, the two selfless teachers whose innate wisdom every day inspires the making of Theosophy Watch.

The Eternal Thinker

W. Q. Judge

W. Q. Judge

William Q. Judge writes, in his Notes on The Bhagavad-Gita:

“Man, made of thought, occupant only of many bodies from time to time, is eternally thinking. His chains are through thought, his release due to nothing else.

“His mind is immediately tinted or altered by whatever object it is directed to. By this means the soul is enmeshed in the same thought or series of thoughts as is the mind. If the object be anything that is distinct from the Supreme Self then the mind is at once turned into that, becomes that, is tinted like that.

Becoming

“This is one of the natural capacities of the mind. It is naturally clear and uncolored…It is movable and quick, having a disposition to bound from one point to another. Chameleon-like it changes color, sponge-like it absorbs that to which it is applied, sieve-like it at once loses its former color and shape the moment a different object is taken up.

“Thus, full of joy from an appropriate cause, it may suddenly become gloomy or morose upon the approach of that which is sorrowful or gloomy. We can therefore say it becomes that to which it is devoted.

The Unseen

“Thinkers everywhere admit that what is needed in the world is a self evidently true basis for thought and action; they realize that our sciences, philosophies and religions are attempts, more or less sincere, to obtain such a basis, but are being continually confronted with the fact that none of these supply a sure foundation for the peace, happiness and true progress of mankind.

“It is realized, for instance, that our modern modes of thought are based upon and applied to material existence and external appearances, all of these being the effects of unseen causes, and that where attempt is made to fathom the unseen, material existence is taken as the cause, and the unseen as the effect, with no perceptible gain in the direction of an understanding of Life or its purpose.

True Meditation

“When face to face with these, one is first confused by the multiplicity of objects, and we strive to find one simple thing, some law or doctrine, practice, dogma, or philosophy, by which, being known, happiness can be secured.

“They say that knowing the result one is sure to become interested in it. But this is the very task to be essayed – to so hold one’s mind and desires as not to be attached to the result.

“By pursuing this practice true meditation is begun and will soon become permanent. For one who watches his thoughts and acts, so as to perform those that ought to be done, will acquire a concentration in time which will increase the power of real meditation.”

THE NEW YEAR

by H. P. Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky

“PEOPLE usually wish that their friends shall have a happy new year, and sometimes ‘prosperous’ is added to ‘happy.’

“Neither happiness nor prosperity are always the best of bedfellows for such undeveloped mortals as most of us are; they seldom bring with them peace, which is the only permanent joy.

“The American Transcendentalists discovered that life could be made a sublime thing without any assistance from circumstances or outside sources of pleasure and prosperity.

“Of course this had been discovered many times before, and Emerson only took up again the cry raised by Epictetus. But every man has to discover this fact freshly for himself.

Coloring the Day

“Thoreau pointed out that there are artists in life, persons who can change the colour of a day and make it beautiful to those with whom they come in contact. We claim that there are adepts, masters in life who make it divine, as in all other arts.

“Is it not the greatest art of all, this which affects the very atmosphere in which we live? That it is the most important is seen at once, when we remember that every person who draws the breath of life affects the mental and moral atmosphere of the world, and helps to colour the day for those about him.

In Our Own Hands

“If all our readers…endeavoured to learn the art of making life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no longer to be hampered by disbelief in the possibility of this miracle, but to commence the Herculean task at once, then [the] year, would have been fitly ushered in …

“Man’s life is in his own hands, his fate is ordered by himself. Why then should not [this] year [be] of greater spiritual development than any we have lived through? It depends on ourselves to make it so. This is an actual fact, not a religious sentiment. In a garden of sunflowers every flower turns towards the light. Why not so with us?

Astral Life

“And let no one imagine that it is a mere fancy, the attaching of importance to the birth of the year. The earth passes through its definite phases and man with it; and as a day can be coloured so can a year. The astral life of the earth is young and strong between Christmas and Easter. Those who form their wishes now will have added strength to fulfill them consistently.”

Theosophy Pure and Simple

Foreclosure Angel: A Stranger Buys Foreclosed House at Auction and Gave it Back to the Owner!


Following The Wheel of The Good Law

Compassion is no attribute. It is the LAW of laws – eternal Harmony…

The Voice of the Silence

Dharma Wheel (Dharmachakra, Wheel of Law)

Dharmachakra

Dharmachakra

So much “original” writing is done today, so much “self-expression” is indulged in that, in the glamour that is raised, the chants of the Gods remain unheard. One of our tasks is to bring home the truth that it is not derogatory to respect the old age facts of the science of the soul.

The study of the wise ancients convinces us that our forefathers knew better and more than we do. …It is one of the tasks of this journal to awaken an intelligent appreciation of the hoary past so that an intelligent adaptation of some of the old truths to modern life and conditions may take place. -B.P.Wadia, “The Aryan Path”

THE KARMIC HEART

False learning is rejected by the Wise, and scattered to the Winds by the good Law. Its wheel revolves for all, the humble and the proud. … The wheel of the good Law moves swiftly on. It grinds by night and day. The worthless husks it drives from out the golden grain, the refuse from the flour. The hand of Karma guides the wheel; the revolutions mark the beatings of the Karmic heart.

True knowledge is the flour, false learning is the husk. If thou would’st eat the bread of Wisdom, thy flour thou hast to knead with Amrita’s [immortality] clear waters. But if thou kneadest husks with Maya’s dew, thou canst create but food for the black doves of death, the birds of birth, decay and sorrow. … Follow the wheel of life; follow the wheel of duty to race and kin, to friend and foe, and close thy mind to pleasures as to pain. Exhaust the law of Karmic retribution. Gain Siddhis for thy future birth. -The Voice of the Silence

THE SACRIFICE

Sri Krishna

Sri Krishna

“Those who dress their meat but for themselves eat the bread of sin, being themselves sin incarnate. Beings are nourished by food, food is produced by rain, rain comes from sacrifice, and sacrifice is performed by action. Know that action comes from the Supreme Spirit who is one; wherefore the all-pervading Spirit is at all times present in the sacrifice.”

The Bhagavad-Gita – Krishna, Chapter 3, “Devotion Through The Right Performance of Action.”

“This Law — whether Conscious or Unconscious,” says H. P. Blavatsky, “predestines nothing and no one. It exists from and in Eternity, truly, for it is ETERNITY itself; and as such, since no act can be co-equal with eternity, it cannot be said to act, for it is ACTION itself…Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects; which adjustment is not an act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position.”

- H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine 2:304-5

At this time of “Thanksgiving,” all students of Theosophy feel an extra impulse to recognize the sacredness of life, and teach by example. To perform “sacrifice” by action, as Krishna says,  we avoid the unnecessary suffering and destruction of living beings. When the fruits and vegetables provided by Mother Gaia are so plentiful and nutritious, is it necessary to butcher millions of helpless animals for our sensory pleasure? Just a question, and we would be remiss if we did not raise the question on Theosophically inspired pages.

xmas-tree-revenge_150Each of us, semi-self-conscious humans, has the power of choice that other beings living here with us do not. With that comes moral responsibility. We were shamed, and strongly impressed by a Mike Adams article in NaturalNews.com dated Dec. ’07 “Revenge of The Christmas Trees.” Sorry if this seems raw, but the occasional straight talk can be a useful wake up call:

I’ve noticed that the people who are killing all the trees are the same people eating all the meat at Christmas dinners, too! How do those Christmas dinner prayers really work for meat eaters and tree harvesters, anyway? “God, please bless this family, bless this house, bless all the people on Earth… but MURDER ALL THE FREAKING TREES AND ANIMALS!” I guess those people believe God somehow supports animal factory farms that produce mass suffering and mass animal murder just so they can have their pretty nitrite-enhanced Christmas ham dinner.

THE WHEEL OF RECIPROCITY

“In other places and ages food is produced, but it does not in everything come up to the required standard. In this age we have to submit to these difficulties, and can overcome them by following Krishna’s instructions….

“In the verse above quoted the distinction is made between food naturally produced without, and that due to, sacrifice, for Krishna says, “For, being nourished by sacrifices, the gods will give you the desired food.”

“They are not the mere idols and imaginary beings … but are certain powers and properties of nature which leave the world when the Kali-yuga or dark age, as this is called, has fully set in.

“There is, however, another meaning to the “revolution of the wheel” spoken of by Krishna. He makes it very clear that he refers to the principle of reciprocity or brotherhood. And this he declares must be kept revolving; that is, each being must live according to that rule, or else he lives a life of sin to no purpose.

“And we can easily believe that in these days this principle, while admired as a fine theory, is not that which moves the people. They are, on the contrary, spurred by the personal selfish idea of each one becoming better, greater, richer than his neighbor. …

“And it was to counteract this that the Theosophical Society was founded, with the object of inducing men to once more revolve this wheel of brotherly love.”

Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. 3, William Q. Judge


Wife of Billionaire T. Boone Pickens Plots to Save Wild Horses From Slaughter

Wild Horses

Wild Horses



Sacred Tribe of Heroes

SYNESIUS (c. 373 – c. 414), a Greek bishop of Ptolemais, is quoted by William Q. Judge in his article Cycles,” on the question of the ancient gods:

“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 this providence is divine and most ample, which frequently through one man pays attention to and affects countless multitudes of men.”

Synesius, describing the Gods, continues: “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.”

The Mahatmas

mahatma gandhi - Sharang and Prash 2007These beings are also known as Mahatmas. No better description can be pointed to than that of W. Q. Judge, explaining the Sanskrit words in “The Mahatmas as Ideals and Facts:”

“The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word Mahatma. Maha is “great,” Atma is “soul,” and both compounded into one mean those great souls who have triumphed before us not because they are made of different stuff and are of some strange family, but just because they are of the human race.”

Krishna Painting by Trimbhak Joshi

Krishna, by Trimbhak Joshi

This is what Krishna in The Bhagavad-Gita, some 5000 years ago at the beginning of the Hindu “Kali-Yuga,” the Dark Age, explained to his favorite disciple Arjuna:

“I produce myself among creatures, O son of Bharata, 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.”

The first 5000 years of Kali-Yuga ended around the year 1898, marking a critical cycle for humanity. Anticipating this event, the Theosophical Movement of the modern era was re-established by The Sacred Tribe of Heroes through H. P. Blavatsky, on November 17, 1875.

The Kali-Yuga

“With the onset of Kali Yuga, 3102 BC,” writes Allan J. Stover in The Thesophical Forum, “it was as though a curtain had been dropped before the stage of history.”  Stover continues:

“… the death of Krishna occurred. Science has discovered that for several thousands of years previous to this date a “climatic optimum” existed during which the world climate was much warmer than at present …

“Soon after the coming of Kali Yuga, all this was changed, and some 4,000 years ago, roughly speaking, the arctic seas began to refreeze… Since then this cooling trend has advanced and retreaded in minor cycles, each accompanied by the wars and migrations of peoples which we know in history.”

Adepts in America

Clearly The Sacred Tribe of Adepts has been acutely interested in America for a very long time. H. P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical Glossary places the visit of Arjuna to America (Patala) at 5,000 years ago.

Great Serpent Mound, Ohio

Great Serpent Mound, Ohio

Blavatsky in her Secret Doctrine 2:214 explains this in detail:

“Arjuna, Krishna’s companion and chela, is said to have descended into Patala, the ‘antipodes,’ and therein married Ulupi, a Naga (or Nagini rather), the daughter of the king of the Nagas [Serpents] Kauravya.

“… the late Pundit Dayanand Saraswati, certainly the greatest Sanskrit and Puranic authority in India on such questions, personally corroborated that Ulupi was daughter of the king of the Nagas at Patala, or America, 5000 years ago, and that the Nagas were Initiates.”

Ulupi

Describing the devotional classic of theosophy, which she titled “The Voice of the Silence,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote in the Preface: “The work from which I here translate forms part of the same series as that from which the ‘Stanzas’ of the Book of Dzyan were taken, on which the Secret Doctrine is based.

“Together with the great mystic work called Paramartha, which, the legend of Nagarjuna tells us, was delivered to the great Arhat by the Nagas or ‘Serpents’ (in truth a name given to the ancient Initiates), the ‘Book of the Golden Precepts’ claims the same origin.”

Uktena design from a shell engraving found at the Spiro Site in Oklahoma

Uktena design from a shell engraving found at the Spiro Mound Site in Oklahoma

Their influence in America continued into our recently history.

“More then is claimed for the Theosophical Adepts than the changing of baser metal into gold, or the possession of such a merely material thing as the elixir of life,” writes William Q. Judge, in his article The Adepts In America in 1776:

“They watch the progress of man and help him on in his halting flight up the steep plane of progress.

“They hovered over Washington, Jefferson, and all the other brave freemasons who dared to found a free government in the West, which could be pure from the dross of dogmatism.

“They cleared their minds, inspired their pens and left upon the great seal of this mighty nation the memorial of their presence.”

A New Order of Ages

A New Order of Ages

Washington’s Vision

General George Washington, at the battle of Valley Forge, experienced an angelic vision of the future, related to one of his officers Anthony Sherman.

The purported “Washington’s vision” was retold more than a century ago by Mr. Wesley Bradshaw in an article quoting Anthony Sherman, reprinted in the National Tribune for December, 1880.

George Washington 1772

George Washington 1772

The first part of his vision was reported as follows:

“This afternoon, as I was sitting at this table engaged in preparing a dispatch, something seemed to disturb me. Looking up, I beheld standing opposite me a singularly beautiful female.

“So astonished was I, for I had given strict orders not to be disturbed, that it was some moments before I found language to inquire the cause of her presence.

“A second, a third and even a fourth time did I repeat my question, but received no answer from my mysterious visitor except a slight raising of her eyes. …

OliveBritAmerica1775

“A new influence, mysterious, potent, irresistible, took possession of me. All I could do was to gaze steadily, vacantly at my unknown visitor. Gradually the surrounding atmosphere seemed as if it had become filled with sensations, and luminous.

“Everything about me seemed to rarefy, the mysterious visitor herself becoming more airy and yet more distinct to my sight than before …

OliveBritAmerica1774

“Presently I heard a voice saying, ‘Son of the Republic, look and learn,’ while at the same time my visitor extended her arm eastwardly, I now beheld a heavy white vapor at some distance rising fold upon fold.

“This gradually dissipated, and I looked upon a stranger scene. Before me lay spread out in one vast plain all the countries of the world – Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

“I saw rolling and tossing between Europe and America the billows of the Atlantic, and between Asia and America lay the Pacific.”

At the end of his vision Washington is quoted as saying:

“[I] felt that I have seen a vision wherein had been shown me the birth, progress, and destiny of the United States.”

Temple Peace

Temple Peace

We Are All Arjunas

[William Quan Judge - Essays on the Bhagavad-Gita]

“Arjuna, called Nara, represents not only Man as a race, but also any individual who resolves upon the task of developing his better nature. What is described as happening in the [Bhagavad-Gita] to him will come to every such individual.

“Opposition from friends and from all the habits he has acquired, and also that which naturally arises from hereditary tendencies, will confront him, and then it will depend upon how he listens to Krishna, who is the Logos shining within and speaking within, whether he will succeed or fail.

“We see that the fight is to be fought by every human being, whether he lives in India or not, for it is raging on the sacred plain of our body.

“Each one of us, then, is Arjuna.”

W. Q. Judge

W. Q. Judge

“Let us hit the mark, O friend! – and that mark is the indestructible, the highest spiritual life we are at any time capable of.”