Theos-Talk Archives (September 1994 Message tl00059)

This is by Brenda Tucker.

Nancy,

I enjoyed E.  Kubler-Ross's quote about the beauty of the stained
glass and thought you might enjoy a "stained glass" quote from
THE SECRET DOCTRINE, v.  1, p.238 (Stanza VII, Sloka 5(a)) by
Shelley in Adonais (1821) lii, 462-3:

"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity."

To all,

One idea found in THE SECRET DOCTRINE is that "man" is called
symbolically a stone.  (This is found near the table of elements
in Vol.  II, p.  627.) Trees (or plants) refer to Initiates, Vol
II p.  494-6, or trees with serpents in them to "animal man."
(Vol II p.  98) Animals were sacred to the Egyptians, who used
animal heads on human forms to represent their Gods.

Vol I, p.  355 "All the birds and animals now held "unclean" in
the Bible had been the symbols of the Deity in days of old.  It
was because they were too sacred that a mask of uncleanness was
placed over them, in order to preserve them from destruction.
The brazen serpent was not a bit more poetical than the goose or
swan, if symbols are to be accepted a la lettre."

In reference to what H.P.B.  means when she says "atom," see p.
410-412 in Vol XII Collected Writings.  "Physical Science, it
seems, gives the name of "atoms" to that which we regard as
particles or molecules.  With us "atoms" are the inner principles
and the intelligent, spiritual guides of the cells and particles
they inform.  This may be unscientific, but it is a fact in
nature.

Leibnitz's atoms "are the molecules of modern Science..." p.630,
Vol I, SD

FIVE YEARS OF THEOSOPHY is a collection of essays from THE
THEOSOPHIST, and H.P.B.  quotes from one of these articles,
"About the Mineral Monad" on p.  176, Vol I SD.  It is written by
herself.

"There are SEVEN kingdoms.  The first group comprises three
degrees of elementals or nascent centres of forces-from the first
stage of differentiation of [from] Mulaprakriti [or rather
Pradhana, primordial homogenous matter] to its third degree-i.e.,
from full unconsciousness to semi-perception; the second or
higher group embraces the kingdoms from vegetable to man; the
mineral kingdom thus forming the central or turning point in the
degrees of the 'Monadic Essence' considered as an Evoluting
Energy."

and on p.  177-178: "In short, as the spiritual Monad is One,
Universal, Boundless and Impartite, whose rays, nevertheless,
form what we, in our ignorance, call the "Individual Monads" of
men, so the Mineral Monad-being at the opposite point of the
circle-is also One- and from it proceed the countless physical
atoms, which Science is beginning to regard as individualized."

Continuing, "The 'Monadic Essence' begins to imperceptibly
differentiate [towards individual consciousness] in the vegetable
kingdom.  As the monads are uncompounded things, as correctly
defined by Leibnitz, it is the spiritual essence which vivifies
them in their degrees of differentiation which constitutes
properly the monad-not the atomic aggregation that is only the
VEHICLE and the substance through which thrill the lower and the
higher degrees of intelligences." (Same article.)

While the atom and the cell or molecule appear to be relatively
close to each other in proximity, they are worlds apart in terms
of function.  The atom is the ensouling life of matter and would
appear to reincarnate through motion.  The atom has a seven-fold
constitution, with its gross or dense body being either a cell or
molecule.

SD, Vol I, p.  632: "...the atoms, or material molecules, which
are informed in their turn by their APPERCEPTIVE monads, just as
every cell in a human body is so informed.  There are shoals of
such INFORMED atoms which, in their turn, inform the molecules;
an infinitude of monads, or Elementals proper, and countless
spiritual Forces-Monadless, for they are pure incorporealities,
except under certain laws, when they assume a form-not
NECESSARILY HUMAN."

SD, Vol I, p.  179: "Leibnitz conceived of the Monads as
elementary and indestructible units endowed with the power OF
GIVING AND RECEIVING with respect to other units, and thus of
determining all spiritual and physical phenomena.  It is he who
invented the term apperception, which together with nerve (not
perception, but rather) sensation, expresses the state of the
Monadic consciousness through all the Kingdoms up to Man.  Thus
it may be wrong on strictly metaphysical lines to call Atma-
Buddhi a MONAD, since in the materialistic view it is dual and
therefore compound.  But as Matter is Spirit, and vice versa; and
since the Universe and the Deity which informs it are unthinkable
apart from each other, so in the case of Atma-Buddhi."

All of the four states of matter: fire, air, water, and earth are
solvents.  They were developed in order by Round, so that the
first Round consisted of "Devourers" which differentiated
fire-atoms which then became life germs and so on.  These lives
worked on the matter and structure of the globe until it became a
formless, bright sphere, disintegrating and differentiating germs
of other lives in the Elements.  (In comparison to the effect of
aerobes on the chemical structure of organisms, transforming and
generating various substances in the process.)

fn.  p.  262, Vol I: "It might be supposed that these "fiery
lives" and the microbes of science are identical.  This is not
true.  The "fiery lives" are the seventh and the highest
subdivision of the plane of matter, and correspond in the
individual with the One Life of the Universe, though only on that
Plane.  The microbes of science are the first and lowest
sub-division on the second plane-that of material prana (or
life)."

There are lots of additional references regarding the "infinite
divisibility of" the atom, but H.P.B.  also remarks on the
countless lives which haven't been seen with microscopes.

I hope some of you may find these definitions and comments of
interest.