Page 52 (part 12)

The men of Budha (Mercury) are [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] bloodshed, was but a secondary idea flowing out of the primary one of shedding of blood in conception for the first time." Hence Jehovah became later a fighting god, "Lord of Hosts," and one who commands war. He is the aggressive Zodh -- or Cain by permutation who slew his (female) " brother, " whose "blood crieth from the ground," the Earth having opened her mouth to receive the blood. ( Genesis iii . ) * Apollo Karneios is certainly a Greek transformation from the Hindu Krishna Karna . "Karna" means radiant from "carne," " a ray, " and Karneios, which was a title of Apollo with the Celts as with the Greeks, meant "Sun born." [[Vol. 2, Page]] 45 THE FIRST WAR IN HEAVEN. metaphorically immortal through their Wisdom. Such is the common belief of those who credit every star or planet with being inhabited. (And there are men of science -- M. Flammarion among others -- who believe in this fervently, on logical as well as on astronomical data). The Moon being an inferior body to the Earth even, to say nothing of other planets, the terrestrial men produced by her sons -- the lunar men or "ancestors" -- from her shell or body, cannot be immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self-conscious and intelligent men, unless they are finished, so to say, by other creators. Thus in the Puranic legend, the son of the Moon ( Soma ) is Budha (Mercury), "the intelligent" and the Wise, because he is the offspring of Soma, the "regent" of the visible Moon, not of Indu, the physical Moon. Thus Mercury is the elder brother of the Earth, metaphorically -- his step-brother, so to say, the offspring of Spirit -- while she (the Earth) is the progeny of the body. These allegories have a deeper and more scientific meaning (astronomically and geologically) thA n our modern physicists are willing to admit. The whole cycle of the "first War in Heaven," the Taraka-maya, is as full of philosophical as of Cosmogonical and astronomical truths. One can trace therein the biographies of all the planets by the history of their gods and rulers. Usanas (Sukra, or Venus), the bosom-friend of Soma and the foe of Brihaspati (Jupiter) the instructor of the gods, whose wife Tara (or Taraka) had been carried away by the Moon, Soma -- "of whom he begat Budha" -- took also an active part in this war against "the gods" and forthwith was degraded into a demon (Asura) deity, and so he remains to this day.* Here the word "men" refers to the celestial men, or what are called in India the PITAR or pitris, the Fathers, the progenitors of men. This [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Usanas-Sukra or Venus is our "Lucifer," the morning star, of course. The ingenuity of this allegory in its manifold meanings is great indeed. Thus Brihaspati (the planet Jupiter) or Brahmanaspati is, in the Rig Veda, a deity who is the symbol and the prototype of the exoteric or ritualistic worship. He is priest sacrificer, suppliant, and the medium through which the prayers of mortals reach the gods. He is the Purohita (family priest, or Court Chaplain) of the Hindu Olympus and the spiritual Guru of the Gods. Soma is the mystery god and presides over the mystic and occult nature in man and the Universe. Tara, the priest's wife, who symbolizes the worshipper, prefers esoteric truths to their mere shell, exotericism; hence she is shown as carried off by Soma. Now Soma is the sacred juice of that name, giving mystic visions and trance revelations, the result of which union is Budha (Wisdom), Mercury, Hermes, etc., etc.; that science in short which to this day is proclaimed by the Brihaspatis of Theology as devilish and Satanic. What wonder that by expanding the cycle of this allegory we find Christian theology espousing the quarrel of the Hindu gods, and regarding Usanas (Lucifer), who helped Soma against that ancient personification of ritualistic worship (Brahmanaspati, the lord of the Brahmans, now become "Jupiter-Jehovah") as S ATAN, the "enemy of God"! [[Vol. 2, Page]] 46 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. does not remove the seeming difficulty, in view of modern hypotheses, of the teaching, which shows these progenitors or ancestors creating the first human Adams out of their sides: as astral shadows. And though it is an improvement on Adam's rib, still geological and climatic difficulties will be brought forward. Such, however, is the teaching of Occultism. ( c ) Man's organism was adapted in every race to its surroundings. The first Root-Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the seven Creators, who evolved the seven primordial Adams,* surely required no purified gases to breathe and live upon (see Part III . of this Volume). Therefore, however strongly the impossibility of this teaching may be urged by the devotees of modern science, the Occultist maintains that the case was as stated aeons of years before even the evolution of the Lemurian, the first physical man, which itself took place 18,000,000 years ago.** Preliminary evolution is described in one of the B OOKS OF D ZYAN and the Commentaries thereon in this wise: -- Archaic Scripture teaches that at the commencement of every local Kalpa, or Round, the earth is reborn; "as the human Jiva (monad), when passing into a new womb, gets re-covered with a new body, so does the Jiva of the Earth; it gets a more perfect and solid covering with each Round after re-emerging once more from the matrix of space into objectivity" (Comment). This process is attended, of course, by the throes of the new birth or geological convulsions. Thus the only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume of the Book of Dzyan before us, where it says: -------- 4. A ND AFTER GREAT THROES SHE ( the Earth ) CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW SEVEN SKINS, AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE ( a ) .