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King: -- "Whatever the primary meaning (of the gem with the solar lion and vowels) it was probably imported in its present shape from I NDIA, that true fountain head of gnostic iconography" ( Gnostics, p. 218). The mysteries of the seven gnostic vowels, uttered by the thunders of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of Aryavarta, brought into India by the primeval Brahmins, who had been initiated in Central Asia. And this is the Occultism we study and try to explain, as much as is possible in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races and Seven Rounds of life and evolution around our terrestrial chain of spheres, may be found even in Revelation. ** When the seven "thunders," or "sounds," or "vowels" -- one meaning out of the seven for each such vowel relating directly to our own Earth and its seven Root-Races in each Round -- "had uttered their voices" -- but forbidden the Seer to write them, and made him "seal up those things" -- what did the Angel "standing upon the sea and upon the earth" do? He lifted his hand to heaven "and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever . . . . that there should be time no longer." "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the Mystery of God (of the Cycle) should be finished" (x. 7), which means, in theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is completed, then Time will cease. "There shall be time no longer" very naturally, since pralaya shall set in and there will remain no one on earth to keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution and arrest of conscious life. Dr. Kenealy and others believed this doctrine of the Rabbins (their calculations of cyclic seven and forty-nine) to have been brought by [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The lack of intuition in Orientalists and antiquarians past and present, is remarkable. Thus, Wilson, the translator of Vishnu Purana, declares in his Preface that in the Garuda Purana he found "no account of the birth of Garuda." Considering that an account of "Creation" in general is given therein, and that Garuda is co-eternal with Vishnu, the Maha Kalpa, or Great Life-CycIe, beginning with and ending with the manifesting Vishnu, what other account of Garuda's birth could be expected ! ** Vide Revelation xvii., verses 2 and 10; and Leviticus xxiii., verses 15 to 18; the first passage speaking of the "Seven Kings," of whom five have gone; and the second about the "Seven Sabbaths," etc. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 566 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. them from Chaldea. This is more than likely. But the Babylonians, who had all those cycles and taught them only at their great initiatory mysteries of astrological magic, got their wisdom and learning from India. It is not difficult, therefore, to recognize in them our own esoteric doctrine. In their secret computations, the Japanese have the same figures in their cycles. As to the Brahmins, their Puranas and Upanishads are a good proof of it. The latter have passed entirely into Gnostic literature; and a Brahmin needs only to read Pistis Sophia* to recognize his forefathers' property, even to the phraseology and similes used. Compare: in Pistis Sophia the disciple says to Jesus: "Rabbi, reveal unto us the Mysteries of the Light ( i.e. , the "Fire of Knowledge or Enlightenment") . . . forasmuch as we have heard thee saying that there is another baptism of smoke, and another baptism of the Spirit of Holy Light," i.e. , the Spirit of FIRE. "I baptize you with water, but . . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," says John of Jesus (Matt. iii. 2); meaning this esoterically. The real significance of this statement is very profound. It means that he, John, a non-initiated ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom than the mysteries connected with the plane of matter (water being a symbol of it). His gnosis was that of exoteric and ritualistic dogma, of dead-letter orthodoxy; ** while the wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate of the higher mysteries, would reveal to them, was of a higher character, for it was the " F IRE" Wisdom of the true gnosis or the real spiritual enlightment. One was F IRE, the other the S MOKE. For Moses, the fire on Mount Sinai, and the spiritual wisdom imparted; for the multitudes of the "people" below, for the profane, Mount Sinai in ( through ) smoke , i.e. , the exoteric husks of orthodox or sectarian ritualism. Now, having the above in view, read the dialogue between the sages Narada and Davamata in the Anugita, the antiquity and importance of which MS. (an episode from the Mahabharata) one can learn in the "Sacred Books of the East," edited by Prof. Max Muller.** Narada is discussing upon the breaths or the "life-winds," as they are called in [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- *Pistis Sophia is an extremely important document, a genuine Evangel of the Gnostics, ascribed at random to Valentinus, but much more probably a pre-Christian work in its original. It was discovered in a Coptic MS. by Schwartze, in the British Museum, quite accidentally, and translated by him into Latin; after which text and (Latin) version were published by Petermann in the year 1853. In the text itself the authorship of this Book is ascribed to Philip the Apostle, whom Jesus bids to sit down and write the revelation. It is genuine and ought to be as canonical as any other gospel. Unfortunately it remains to this day untranslated. ** In the Cycle of Initiation, which was very long, water represented the first and lower steps toward purification, while trials connected with fire came last. Water could regenerate the body of matter; FIRE alone, that of the inner Spiritual man. *** See Introduction by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 567 TRUTH BETWEEN TWO CONTRASTS. the clumsy translations of such words as Prana, Apana, etc., whose full esoteric meaning and application to individual functions can hardly be rendered in English. He says of this Science that "it is the teaching of the Veda that the fire verily is all the deities, and knowledge of it arises among Brahmans, being accompanied by intelligence." By "fire," says the Commentator, he means the S ELF.