Theos-Talk Archives (October 1995 Message tl00219)

>Rich:

>>Thom writes:

>> The whole concept of a "next Messenger" is liable to produce more conflict
>> and delusion than it's worth (just as the concept of a Messiah does). I
>> don't know why H.P.B. even brought it up.

The concept is similar to the one where the day of miracles is past, that
Mahatmas walked the earth in Blavatsky's day but are to be found no more.
(Sounds like Christianity.)

In this case, we're putting off the day we'll see the more advanced ones
into the future rather than the past. The effect is the same: we ignore the
living reality of the moment for another time, another place.

>This may be. What is curious to me is why nearly every major movement seems
>to bring it up. Christianity expects the second coming. Zoroastrians have
>long expected their Soishyant, and the Jews the Messiah. Buddhists expect
>Maitreya, and Hindus, the Kalki Avatar. Muhammed is the "Seal of the
>Prophets" and when he comes again, it is THE END. Many native American
>tribes expected a Messenger to lead them away from the White Man's
>Destruction, and millenial movements (often called "cargo-cults" in African
>communities) have expected Jesus or another Savior to help them.

You're right, Rich, that most religions teach that their Avatara will
return again. The problem for them is that their Avatara may return as
a founder of a new religion rather than someone to reauthenticate their
religion, to bring back to it a sense of meaning and religious zeal that
has been lost ages ago.

>What is HPB up to when she mentions that in one hundred years (i.e. 1975)
>another Messenger(s) will arrive for the West? What is merely her hope?
> Part of a "plan"? Merely an allegory of the cyclic nature of things?

There's the idea that since Tsong-ka-pa at the end of every century there's
an effort to improve things in the west. Perhaps this on-going project is
the source of western Messengers. If that's the case, it's unrelated to
Avataras or cyclic events.

-- Eldon