Theos-Talk Archives (February 1994 Message tl00053)

This is by Brenda.

I've enjoyed all of the correspondence, but have only found a couple
of quotes that may pertain to what you are discussing, separately, of
course.  The quotes which follow are from THE SECRET DOCTRINE (except
one by Jerry H-E.)

First, Egyptian symbols and a geometrical key in use.

p.130 Vol II "Well acquainted as may be a scholar with the hieratic
writing and hieroglyphical system of the Egyptians, he must first of
all learn to sift their records.  He has to assure himself, compasses
and rule in hand, that the picture writing he is examining fits, to a
line, certain fixed geometrical figures which are the hidden keys to
such records, before he ventures on an interpretation." (If these
keys were in use, I would think they would have been found
ready-made, instead of requiring a compasses and ruler.)

Second, who are the liars?

When H.P.B.  uses the term Orientalists she does not mean Orientals.
She means those who have translated and sought to reveal the Eastern
literature to the Western world.  While there have also been
Easterners who have learned English and tried to present their ideas
to the public in an attempt to bring truth to the Western world, they
have not often been treated equally.  Here's what H.P.B.  says:

p.  225 Vol II "It is the Pundit who will in the long run be found
more truthful and nearer to fact that the Sanskritist.  Surely, it is
not because the curtailing of the latter-even when proven to have
been resorted to in order to fit a personal hobby-is regarded by
Western public opinion as "a cautious acceptance of facts," whereas
the Pundit is brutally treated in print as a liar, that everyone has
to see this in the same light.  An impartial observer may judge it
otherwise.  He may either proclaim both unscrupulous historians, or
justify both, each on his respective ground, and say: Hindu Aryans
wrote for their Initiates, who read truth between the lines, not for
the masses.  If they did mix up events and confuse Ages
intentionally, it was not in view of deceiving any one, but to
preserve their knowledge from the prying eye of the foreigner." .  .
.  .  .  "But such existing prejudices will have to give way and
disappear very soon before the light of new discoveries."

Who is right: the enquirer into foreign literature or the foreign
revealer of the literature? Usually the enquirer is attempting to
reveal the secrets of the text to the masses, so doesn't he have an
excuse either of "ignorance" or if not ignorant, excused for desiring
to veil and preserve the esoteric side of the material keeping it for
initiates.  And the Pundit or revealer may be trying to present
exoterically great truths which can only be found truthful "in the
long run," or he may be trying to teach a few "initiated"
English-speaking people.  Regardless of this form of "justification"
for each side, it is certainly possible to perceive each also as
laboring under prejudice.

Both the enquirer and revealer are faced primarily with the Western
masses who are seeking knowledge from the East.  The literary are
prejudiced against the Pundit and treat his description of chronology
as an unknowing and unworthy one.  The Western enquirer however is
only censored or "curtailed" in his investigation because the
findings are inconsistent with the meanderings or "personal hobby" of
someone else's search into the unknown.  The pastime of historical
chronology is made light of and as a rule the average Westerner is
not able to verify or dispel the ignorance of the enquirer as he is
unfamiliar with the Sanskrit or any other Oriental language,
therefore regarding what is told "cautiously."

It's like saying to a countryman, "Don't be surprised when you find a
better world-view over there." This is a hard thing to admit.
Prejudice does have its place.

One point in favor of the quote in TSD which says a more informed
disciple may be sent this century is that it DOESN'T refer to the
last quarter of the century.  That old saying has me in fits.  It's
so unfair.  If you remember anything about cyclic law, remember that
the time periods involved change.

Jerry H-E very beautifully wrote what he believed to be the valid
interpretations to what FB wrote on Jan 18, 1994 and again on Feb 1,
1994 and it follows here:

"Thus, if AAB is saying that TCF is the "psychological key" to ~The
Secret Doctrine,~ then, in light of the above, two possibilities of
her meaning come to mind: 1.  She doesn't know what she is talking
about.  2.  She is not referring to the seven keys at all, but is
really saying that TCF is an interpretation of ~The Secret Doctrine~
from a psychological context.  I already discussed this alternative
in my Jan 18th message to you, and unless you have another
possibility in mind, this seems to be the most feasible.  But if TCF
is only a psychological commentary, then this is much less profound
then what most readers assume she means.  As I had mentioned in my
Jan.  18th message, the text of HPB's "prediction" would probably
clarify things.  A third possibility comes to mind, that the
statement was a misprint in AAB's books that nobody ever bothered to
change--, and that she was not referring to ~The Secret Doctrine~ at
all, but that TCF is the psychological key to the Secret Doctrine.
The only problem with this alternative, is that HPB does not have a
"psychological key.""

There were many thousands of students of theosophy by the time the
Alice Bailey books began to circulate (60s right?).  Many students
like Arvind may have sought to attempt HPB's magnum opus as a result
of reading of it here.  Why take it out?
1.  AAB talked in riddles.
2.  The seven keys may change.
3.  AAB's work is profound.  Could the key be tested by examining
whether her proposed key serves the function of a key? Does it unlock
the secrets in THE SECRET DOCTRINE?
4.  We all live with misprints and misinterpretations.
5.  p.  517 Vol II "Therefore, we can give it only from its
philosophical and intellectual planes, unlocked with three keys
respectively for the last four keys of the seven that throw wide open
the portals to the mysteries of Nature are in the hands of the
highest Initiates, and cannot be divulged to the masses at large not
in this, our century, at any rate." (I believe she's talking about
the mystery of creation here.)

Jerry, what does this quote mean? I thought we had all the keys.  Now
it looks like we can only know the key through initiation.

I don't seem to have said much regarding the races, but have spent a
fair amount of time rah-rahing and neglecting what I set out to do.

Oh, yes, I have a great amount of material to present, but it is so
overwhelming that I'd best do it in minute amounts.  First, I may
answer my own question to Jerry above and say that regardless of the
complete nature of seven-foldness, much of what I have read points to
mankind's loss of ability past the number 3 or 4.  Only those who
have memory of the moon chain might have knowledge of what it means
to attain to the seventh stage, seventh round, even seventh race.  As
we are only in the fourth round, this tends to color everything that
goes on, three before being familiar and easily repeatable.  The
three which come last are mysterious, unsolvable, subject to much
perversity, and humbly attempted.  How can we be fifth race when we
have no knowledge of what that's supposed to mean? I can show that
the first three races were amazingly in harmony, races of Gods.

p.  220 Vol II "For it is the Third Race which inhabited the great
Lemurian continent, that preceded the veritable and complete human
races-the fourth and the fifth."

Footnote p.  227 Vol II "Strictly speaking, it is only from the time
of the Atlantean, brown and yellow giant Races, that one ought to
speak of MAN, since it was the Fourth race only which was the first
COMPLETELY HUMAN SPECIES, however much larger in size than we are
now."

p.  228 Vol II "The archaic commentaries explain, as the reader must
remember, that, of the Host of Dhyanis, whose turn it was to
incarnate as the Egos of the immortal, but, on this plane, senseless
monads that some "obeyed" (the law of evolution) immediately when the
men of the Third Race became physiologically and physically ready,
i.e., when they had separated into sexes.  These were those early
conscious Beings who, now adding conscious knowledge and will to
their inherent Divine purity, created by Kriyasakti the semi-Divine
man, who became the seed on earth for future adepts.  Those, on the
other hand, who, jealous of their intellectual freedom (unfettered as
it then was by the bonds of matter), said: "We can choose...we have
wisdom" (See verse 24), and incarnated far later.  These had their
first Karmic punishment prepared for them.  They got bodies
(physiologically) inferior to their astral models, because their
chhayas had belonged to progenitors of an inferior degree in the
seven classes.  As to those "Sons of Wisdom" who had "deferred" their
incarnation till the Fourth Race, which was already tainted
(physiologically) with sin and impurity, they produced a terrible
cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day.  It was
produced in themselves, and they became the carriers of that seed of
iniquity for aeons to come, because the bodies they had to inform had
become defiled through their own procrastination.  (See verses 32,
36.)
     This was the "Fall of the angels," because of their rebellion
against Karmic Law.  The "fall of man" was no fall, for he was
irresponsible."

p.  94 Vol II "Esoteric philosophy, however, teaches that one third
of the Dhyanis i.e., the three classes of the Arupa Pitris, endowed
with intelligence, which is a formless breath, composed of
intellectual not elementary substances (see Harivamsa, 932) was
simply doomed by the law of Karma and evolution to be reborn (or
incarnated) on Earth.  Some of these were Nirmanakayas, from other
Manvantaras.  Hence we see them, in all the Purnas, reappearing on
this globe, in the third Manvantara, as Kings, Rishis and heroes
(read Third Root-Race).  This tenet, being too philosophical and
metaphysical to be grasped by the multitudes, was, as already stated,
disfigured by the priesthood for the purpose of preserving a hold
over them through superstitious fear.  The supposed rebels, then,
were simply those who, compelled by Karmic law to drink the cup of
gall to its last bitter drop, had to incarnate anew, and thus make
responsible thinking entities of the astral statues projected by
their inferior brethren.  Some are said to have refused, because they
had not in them the requisite materials i.e., an astral body since
they were arupa.  The refusal of others had reference to their having
been Adepts and Yogis of long past preceding Manvantaras; another
mystery.  But, later on, as Nirmanakayas, they sacrificed themselves
for the good and salvation of the Monads which were waiting for their
turn, and which otherwise would have had to linger for countless ages
in irresponsible, animal-like, though in appearance human, forms.  It
may be a parable and an allegory within an allegory.  Its solution is
left to the intuition of the student, if he only reads that which
follows with his spiritual eye."

These quotes flow, it seems, through groups 1, 2, 3, and groups 2, 3,
respectively.  The groups then would be:

1.  The seeds of future adepts.  (Obeyed.  Took form after separation
    of the sexes.  (?))
2.  Arupa - no astral body.  (Were unable to obey without the
    projection of the chhayas by inferior beings.)
3.  Adepts and Yogis of long past Manvantaras.  (Since Wise, they
    postponed incarnation untill the fourth race.)

Even though it is said the karma was great, what could it have been?
Wouldn't adepts be able to take the inferior bodies and transform
them into appropriate vehicles for either their own use or the use of
men?

p.  491 Vol II "The Zohar gives it very suggestively.  When the "Holy
One" (the Logos) desired to create man, he called the highest host of
Angels and said to them what he wanted, but they doubted the wisdom
of this desire and answered: " Man will not continue one night in his
glory" for which they were burnt (annihilated?), by the "Holy" Lord.
Then he called another, lower Host, and said the same.  And they
contradicted the "Holy One": "What is the good of Man?" they argued.
Still Elohim created man, and when man sinned there came the hosts of
Uzza and Azael, and twitted God: "Here is the Son of Man that thou
hast made," they said.  "Behold, he sinned!" Then the Holy One
replied: "If you had been among them (men) you would have been worse
than they." And he threw them from their exalted position in Heaven
even down on the Earth; and " they were changed (into men) and sinned
after the women of the earth;" (Zohar, III, 208a.  ed.  Zolkiew)