Page 86 (part 6)

of the river Jordan, which had the same mythical use with the Hebrews that the Nile had with the Egyptians,* it was the source of descent, and held the waters of life" (Unpub. MS .) It was, to put it plainly, the symbol of the personified Earth, or Isis, regarded as the womb of that Earth. This is shown clearly enough; and Jordan -- the river so sacred now to Christians -- held no more sublime or poetical meaning in it than the parturient waters of the moon (Isis, or Jehovah in his female aspect). Now, as shown by the same scholar, Osiris was the sun, and the river Nile, and the tropical year of 365 days; while Isis was the moon, the bed of that river, or the mother earth "for the parturient energies, of which water was a necessity," as also the lunar year of 354 days, "the time-maker of the periods of gestation." All this then is sexual and phallic, and our modern scholars seem to find in these symbols nothing beyond a physiological or phallic meaning. Nevertheless, the three figures 365, or the number of days in a solar year, have but to be read with the Pythagorean Key to find in them a highly philosophical and moral meaning. One instance will be sufficient. It can read: The Earth -- animated by -- the Spirit of Life. ...... 3 .................. 6 ........................ 5 Simply because 3 is equivalent to the Greek gamma, or [[ G ]], which letter is the symbol of gaia (the Earth); while the figure 6 is the symbol of the animating or informing principle, and the 5 is the universal quintessence which spreads in every direction and forms all matter. (St. Germain's MS .) [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * It had no such meaning in the beginnings; nor during the earlier dynasties. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 584 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. The few instances and examples brought forward reveal only one small portion of the methods used to read the symbolical ideographs and numerals of antiquity. The system being of an extreme and complex difficulty, very few, even among the Initiates, could master all the seven keys. Is it to be wondered, then, that the metaphysical gradually dwindled down into the physical nature; that the Sun, once upon a time the symbol of D EITY, became, as aeons glided by, that of its creative ardour only; and that thence it fell into a glyph of phallic significance? But surely, it is not those whose method was (like Plato's) to proceed from the universals down to the particulars, who could ever have begun by symbolizing their religions by sexual emblems! It is quite true, though uttered by that incarnated paradox, Eliphas Levi, that "man is God on Earth, and God is man in Heaven." But this could not, and never did apply to the One Deity, only to the Hosts of I TS incarnated beams, called by us Dhyan Chohans, by the ancients, Gods; and now transformed by the Church into devils on the left, and into the Saviour on the right side! But all such dogma grew out of the one root, the root of wisdom, which grows and thrives on the Indian soil. There is not an Archangel that could not be traced back to its prototype in the sacred land of Aryavarta. These "prototypes" are all connected with the Kumaras who appear on the scene of action by refusing -- as Sanatkumara and Sananda -- to "create progeny." Yet they are called the "creators" of (thinking) man. More than once they are brought into connection with Narada -- another bundle of apparent incongruities, yet a wealth of philosophical tenets. Narada is the leader of the Gandharvas, the celestial singers and musicians; esoterically, the reason for it is explained by the fact that the latter ( the Gandharvas ) are "the instructors of men in the secret sciences." It is they, who "loving the women of the Earth," disclosed to them the mysteries of creation; or, as in the Veda -- the "heavenly Gandharva" is a deity who knew and revealed the secrets of heaven and divine truths, in general. If we remember what is said of this class of Angels in Enoch and in the Bible, then the allegory is plain: their leader, Narada, while refusing to procreate, leads men to become gods. Moreover, all of these, as stated in the Vedas, are Chhandaja (will-born) or incarnated (in different Manvantaras) of their own will; -- and they are shown in exoteric literature as existing age after age; some being "cursed to be re-born," others, incarnating as a duty. Finally, as the Sanakadikas, the seven Kumaras who went to visit Vishnu on the "White Island" ( Sveta-dwipa ) the island inhabited by the Maha Yogins -- they are connected with Sakadwipa and the Lemurians and Atlanteans of the Third and Fourth Races. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 585 SEEMING CONTRADICTIONS. In Esoteric Philosophy, the Rudras (Kumaras, Adityas, Gandharvas, Asuras, etc.) are the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas as regards intellectuality. They are those who, owing to their having acquired by self-development the five-fold nature -- hence the sacredness of number five -- became independent of the pure Arupa devas. This is a mystery very difficult to realize and understand correctly. For, we see that those who were "obedient to law" are, equally with the rebels, doomed to be reborn in every age. Narada, the Rishi, is cursed by Brahma to incessant peripateticism on Earth, i.e. , to be constantly reborn. He is a rebel against Brahma, and yet has no worse fate than the Jayas -- the twelve great creative gods produced by Brahma as his assistants in the functions of creation. For the latter, lost in meditation, only forgot to create; and for this, they are equally cursed by Brahma to be born in every manvantara. And still they are termed -- together with the rebels -- Chhandajas, or those born of their own will in human form! All this is very puzzling to one who is unable to read and understand the Puranas except in their dead letter sense.* Hence we find the Orientalists refusing to be puzzled, and cutting the Gordian knot of perplexity by declaring the whole scheme "figments" "of Brahminical fancy and love of exaggeration." But to the student of occultism, the whole is pregnant with deeply philosophical meaning. We willingly leave the rind to the Western Sanskritist, but claim the essence of the fruit for ourselves.