Page 47 (part 3)

The first of these is the law of evolution, or, to phrase it for our purpose, the law of correlated successiveness or organized history in the individual , illustrated in the changing phases of every single maturing system of results. . . . These thoughts summon into our immediate presence the measureless past and the measureless future of material history. They seem almost to open vistas through infinity, and to endow the human intellect with an existence and a vision exempt from the limitations of time and space and finite causation, and lift it up toward a sublime apprehension of the Supreme Intelligence whose dwelling place is Eternity." ("World-Life," p. 535 and 548.) According to the teachings, Maya, or the illusive appearance of the marshalling of events and actions on this earth, changes, varying with nations and places. But the chief features of one's life are always in accordance with the "Constellation" one is born under, or, we should say, with the characteristics of its animating principle or the deity that presides over it, whether we call it a Dhyan Chohan , as in Asia, or an Archangel, as with the Greek and Latin churches. In ancient Symbolism it was always the S UN (though the Spiritual, not the visible, Sun was meant), that was supposed to send forth the chief Saviours and Avatars. Hence the connecting link between the Buddhas, the Avatars, and so many other incarnations of the highest S EVEN. 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. For, with every effort of will toward purification and unity [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "The Cycles of Matter," a name given by Professor Winchell to an Essay of his written in 1860. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 639 THE NETWORK OF DESTINY. 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- S UN. 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 S UN. 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, as shown by several authors. Yes; "our destiny is written in the stars!" Only, the closer the union between the mortal reflection MAN and his celestial PROTOTYPE, the less dangerous the external conditions and subsequent reincarnations -- which neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of all is it Fatalism. The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder power, and man is a free agent during his stay on earth. He cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal of misery -- if such is decreed to him, either in the snowy white robes of the Martyr, or in the soiled garments of a volunteer in the iniquitous course; for, there are external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two. Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny , which, from birth to death, every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral , or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self - made destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions, and this is -- K ARMA. A materialist, treating upon the periodical creations of our globe, has expressed it in one sentence. "The whole past of the Earth is nothing but an unfolded present. " This was Buchner, who little suspected that he was repeating an axiom of the Occultists. It is quite true also, as Burmeister (quoted in " Force and matter ") remarks, that [[Vol. 1, Page]] 640 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. "the historical investigation of the development of the Earth has proved that now and then rest upon the same base; that the past has been developed in the same manner as the present rolls on; and that the Forces which were in action ever remained the same." The "Forces" -- their noumena rather -- are the same, of course; therefore, the phenomenal Forces must be the same also. But how can any one feel so sure that the attributes of matter have not altered under the hand of Protean Evolution? How can any materialist assert with such confidence, as is done by Rossmassler, that "this eternal conformity in the essence of phenomena renders it certain that fire and water possessed at all times the same powers and ever will possess them?" Who are they "that darken counsel with words without knowledge," and where were the Huxleys and Buchners when the foundations of the earth were laid by the great Law? It is a fundamental principle of the Occult philosophy, this same homogeneity of matter and immutability of natural laws, which are so much insisted upon by materialism; but that unity rests upon the inseparability of Spirit from matter, and, if the two are once divorced, the whole Kosmos would fall back into chaos and non-being. Therefore, it is absolutely false , and but an additional demonstration of the great conceit of our age, to assert (as men of science do) that all the great geological changes and terrible convulsions have been produced by ordinary and known physical forces. For these forces were but the tools and final means for the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting periodically, and apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up with, but beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in every important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical.