Page 89 (part 3)

Says the Ritual, the "Book of the Dead" -- [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Signatura rerum xiv. ps. 10, 15 et seq. ** This is indeed news! It makes us fear that the Lecturer had never read "Esoteric Buddhism" before criticising it, as there are too many such misconceptions in his notices of it. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 635 MAN, THE PARENT OF ALL THE MAMMALS. "I am the mouse." "I am the hawk." "I am the ape." . . . " I am the crocodile whose Soul Comes FROM MEN." " I am the Soul of the Gods. " Of these last two sentences, one: "whose soul comes from men" -- is explained by the Lecturer, who says parenthetically, " that is, as a type of intelligence, " and the other: " I am the Soul of the Gods, " as meaning, "the Horus, or Christ, as the outcome of all." The occult teaching answers: "It means far more." . . . It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the human monad has passed on globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the three kingdoms -- the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal -- in this our Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man if the semi-ethereal, many-shaped creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two races, can be regarded as Man. But it must be so called; for, in the esoteric language, it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as Man, which is in any way the M AN, but the inner divine M ONAD with its manifold principles or aspects. The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes "Esoteric Buddhism" and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent the whole as a newfangled doctrine. And there are many such, in Europe, America, and even India. Yet, between the esotericism of the old Arhats, and that which has now survived in India among the few Brahmins who have seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of the evolution of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all events it is no greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioque dogma, which since the XII th. century has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and importance in the Brahminical system may be judged by what one of India's learned metaphysicians and Vedantic scholars says of it: -- "The real esoteric seven-fold classification is one of the most important, if not the most important classification, which has received its arrangement from the mysterious constitution of this eternal type. I may also mention in this connection that the four-fold classification claims the same origin. The light of life, as it were, seems to be refracted by the treble-faced prism of Prakriti, having the three Gunams for its three faces, and divided into seven rays, which develop in course of time the seven principles of this classification. The progress of development presents some points of similarity to the gradual development of the rays of the spectrum. While the four-fold classification is amply [[Vol. 2, Page]] 636 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. sufficient for all practical purposes, this real seven-fold classification is of great theoretical and scientific importance. It will be necessary to adopt it to explain certain classes of phenomena noticed by occultists; and it is perhaps better fitted to be the basis of a perfect system of psychology. It is not the peculiar property of 'the trans-Himalayan esoteric doctrine.' In fact, it has a closer connection with the Brahminical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos. In order to make my meaning clear I may point out here that the Logos has seven forms. In other words, there are seven kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of these has become the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom-religion. This classification is not the seven-fold classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the slightest fear of contradiction. The real classification has all the requisites of a scientific classification. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states of Pragna or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. These principles are harmoniously arranged between two poles, which define the limits of human consciousness."* The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, one point. The "sevenfold classification" in the esoteric system has never been claimed (to the writer's knowledge) by any one belonging to it, as "the peculiar property of the Trans-Himalayan esoteric doctrine"; but only as having survived in that old school alone. It is no more the property of the trans, than it is of the cis -Himalayan esoteric doctrine, but is simply the common inheritance of all such schools, left to the sages of the Fifth Root Race by the great Siddhas** of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans became the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of the oldest MSS . of India, only toward their fall, the submersion of their continent having been brought on by it. What is claimed is simply the fact that the wisdom imparted by the "Divine Ones" -- born through the Kriyasakti powers of the Third Race before its Fall and Separation into sexes -- to the adepts of the early Fourth Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood. The said [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The Theosophist, 1887 (Madras). ** According to Svetasvatara-Upanishad (357) the Siddhas are those who are possessed from birth of superhuman powers, as also of "knowledge and indifference to the world." According to the Occult teachings, however, Siddhas are the Nirmanakayas or the "spirits" (in the sense of an individual, or conscious spirit) of great sages from spheres on a higher plane than our own, who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the human race in its upward progress. Hence their innate knowledge, wisdom and powers. [[Vol. 2, Page]] 637 AN ALLEGORY IN THE ANUGITA. School or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an inland sea, believed in by both Hindus and Buddhists, but called "mythical" by geographers and Orientalists, the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be.