PROLOGUE

“The Secret Doctrine” is the basic book of philosophy in the Theosophical literature, placing before the reader the plan of Evolution and its various processes; commencing from pre-manifestation state to that of the future of Humanity in the present circle.

It contains the ‘timeless wisdom’, unifies the different avenues of exploration into cosmology and elucidates the human psyche, the spiritual-being and its attainment to divinity at large. It provides the needed inspiration to exert in the right direction to achieve the Ultimate. It leads men and women of the World towards the Truth. This is the book that explains the meaning and method of emanation, emergence and manifestation of the Cosmos and the Man. It has a unique Teaching to humanity for its progression towards Perfection.

Statements made in the text are culled from the Esoteric Philosophy of the Ancient Lore, well corroborated with the numerous Mythologies and philosophies of the Globe. The Writer of this work was an ‘Extra-ordinary Woman’ of the 19^th Century, acclaimed for her Divine Knowledge and its Administration. She presents this knowledge to the world-reader, not to be taken on ‘authority’ but for examination of the rationale and for its use as a ‘spring board’ for newer ideas.

Being a granary of ideas, the book provides rich results after each reading. Awakening to Truth is not a moment’s job but is a continuous process. It is not that one is awakened now, then lapses into sleep and reawakens again and again. Once awakened, the process goes on incessantly; and this is what a student of Occult Science must note. It is only in the constant awareness of this awakening one can journey to the Truth, which is latent and inherent, as also in the manifestation as a whole – of which he is an embedded factor. The journey becomes an endless path, one which never meets a dead-end.

‘The Secret Doctrine’, the magnum opus of Madame Blavatsky, is available to the world-reader for the last 120 years and more; with very many ideas for centuries to come. In the scholarly world, a lurking doubt still prevails that the ideas are not yet fully understood and assimilated, particularly of the portion of ‘anthropogenesis’. A serious study of the Text is demanded of the successive generations, for the simple reason that the experiences and opportunities of each generation are incomparable with the other.

Many new studies of the text have come up after the centenary of its publication. A general reader always finds it tiresome and laborious to go through the whole text; and so, many adaptations, concise presentations, epitomes and abridgements have appeared. Simplifications and over-simplifications are to inculcate the reading-habit of the original text, initially and are not substitutes to the latter.

The text not only reveals the Occult and esoteric philosophy, but in addition gives apt and appropriate information from the earlier civilizations such as the Kabala, Chaldean, Egyptian – besides the thoughts from the East of Aryans and Buddhists. It provides much fare for those interested in Mythology, Symbology, and Philology etc.

The present tiny appearance of this slim text is only to help the reader in getting into the feel and the splendorous taste of the huge volumes, and is no way a substitute or an apology to the study of the original volumes. This is both for personal and collective study and is intended to kindle the interests in Occult Science. An introduction to the study of the text, not as a scholarly exposition but as one ‘torch-light’ for one groping in the darkness, is what is attempted. The themes, doctrines, tenets incorporated in the original texts are too many to be detailed here. To know what they are, what would be the result of its study and what we would ‘miss’ if we do not approach the original – is briefly placed before the enthusiastic reader in a simpler and direct manner. It will be to the pleasure of the compiler if this presentation meets that purpose.

What is The Secret Doctrine?

1. A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy.

2. A Work dedicated to ‘all true theosophists in every country and of every race for they called it forth and for them it was recorded’.

3. The knowledge that the custodians thought it right and appropriate to reveal to the world, so that it could help the furtherance of Cosmic evolution.

“The Secret Doctrine” is a voluminous text produced by Madame H.P. Blavatsky (1831-’91). When it came out in 1888, published by The Theosophical Publishing Company Limited, 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, WC, it ran into 2 volumes consisting of 676 & 798 pages respectively, not reckoning the preliminary pages of introduction etc. It was later published, severally; in sets of 3 volumes and 6 volumes; and a third volume was added in 1897 where some uncollected papers of the author were, for the first time, posthumously brought under covers.

The first volume is named “Cosmo genesis” meaning ‘the story of creation of Cosmos’, and the second “Anthropogenesis” meaning ‘the story of creation of Man’. Each volume is again divided into 2 prominent parts, the first the basic text and the second an explanation of the symbology incidentally connected to that. The whole Text is sub-titled “A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy.”

The basic philosophy underlying “The Secret Doctrine” is supplied in the Chapters: Introductory, Proem, The Summing-up, The Preliminary Notes and Conclusions.

“The Stanzas of the Dzyan” and occult commentaries thereupon form the ‘core of the text’. Cosmogenesis part has 7 verses further divided into 53 slokas and similarly the Anthropogenesis part has 12 verses further divided into 49 slokas. The basic book “The Stanzas” is not available on the lists of any libraries world over, but is obtained by the writer from the Akashic Records, read by her through Astral Sight. ‘Dzyan’ is a word meaning ‘Dhyana’ or ‘Jnana’ or both in Sanskrit.

The Story of Creation of the Cosmos and the Man is dealt with in the text. What is stated as canon of Occult doctrines, Esoteric philosophy, backed by the commentaries to the verses, is given out first. Then what was already available with the available and published records of science, philosophy and religion in support or opposition to this is narrated. The errors, misconceptions and misinterpretations that have crept into the old records are elaborately discussed. In particular, the dogmatism of the then prevailing science and the orthodoxy of the religion are elucidated to correct the distorted versions paving way for setting the record right and straight.

The purpose of the study is to search out and find the truth for oneself (Satyanveshana). This needs the corroboration of the three distinct approach roads viz. Science, Religion and Philosophy. A long-time error, according to the GREAT ONES, was that the three were placed one against the other and the entering into an endless controversy in supremacy of one particular study, while the three branches were supplementary and complementary. An integrated approach alone could yield the right results. An awakening to this facet of understanding is the specific pointer of text.

This work
I dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In every country,
And of every Race,
For they called it forth, and for them it was recorded ---

--- is how Madame Blavatsky makes the dedication of her stupendous work.

The meaning of the words is clear, yet the import can be immensely pondered over. The human thought had developed to a state that certain ‘new facts of nature’ could as well be presented before humanity. Wisdom does not confine to one time, one space, and one stage of understanding. It is an Order beyond, transcendental and equally applicable to all Space, Time and Understanding; it grows from strength to strength with undaunted courage.

The suggestion here is that the book is a ‘historical necessity’, the time having arrived for such a book to emerge and to fulfill the need. The world is torn in between the scientific dogmatism and the religious orthodoxy of the day; and it is felt that the humanity must be directed to look at the Spiritual science to fuse the material and psychological sciences rapidly expanding, if at all it has to survive.

The book records the information and knowledge needed for generations to come. All races are to realize that Truth is one, though severally stated. The Unity of existence is emphasized in the presentation; and the stress is on the point that all manifestation emanated from One source. The Unitary base is made irrevocably. The book is intending for a careful study of the intellectuals that they may not drift into the trap of the ‘seen’ only, and look into the ‘unseen’ too for a fuller understanding of Nature and Life. The dedication has this import.

The Wisdom is not brought into the manifestation for the first time. It is there all the time, at every stage of being including the ‘unmanifest’. It is concealed and inherent. This is ‘dis-covered’ and brought into focus from time to time. There is no ‘revelation’ as such but only ‘dis-covery’. Engrossed in our limitation and conditioned perspective we think we are discovering, yet no discovery is ‘original’. All is available to us, we have only to open our senses and look at things in perfect understanding. This is ‘awakening’.

Tradition says that the Wisdom is preserved, sustained and let out in fragments to accommodate or suit the level of human understanding each time by the custodians, who are also the directors of the process of evolution. The purpose of this is to help the cosmic evolution in which human evolution invariably is a part.

A pre-view of the Book:

Madame Blavatsky (1831-’91), the chief exponent of the theosophical philosophy, earlier, published a book ‘Isis unveiled’ (1877) which not only drew the attention but arrested the minds of scholars both in the West and the East. It took years for her to formulate her ideas and give them a definite shape. Her work in Search after Truth started in this life in 1851, at the age of 20, when she met the Spiritual Teacher who, she says, was guiding her through the journey of lives. She was given the option: ‘Do you desire for a worldly life now (which means marriage, wedded life, begetting children, running after the physical, emotional and intellectual wants) or Are you prepared to work for the Uplift of Humanity, in association with me, as in the earlier lives? The Choice is yours. No pressure on your psyche or the mind. Choose as you feel like.’ She made the choice as Arjuna in the scripture Bhagavad-Gita did. “Karishye Vachanam Tava” (I shall do your bidding).

She describes her plight in her first book Isis thus:

When, years ago, we first traveled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted sanctuaries, two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where, who, what is God? Who ever saw the immortal Spirit of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man’s immortality? It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient. To their instruction we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man’s spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid.

The bidding given her is to bring in an group of people to a better understanding of the Life and its processes, to make known to public there is a continuity for Life (no death) form after form till a stage of perfection is received, and the journey before the humanity is rather ‘obligatory’ than ‘optional’. She was given ‘instructions’ as to what s to be done; the ‘how’ part of it was subject to her thinking, imagination and good spirit. She was alone in the pursuit, of course joined by very few like-minded persons around the globe, too few around her to serve her needs occasionally. Her insight was improved upon and she was able to see material things, objects and events through a spiritual eye. She warned that objects of the spirit are attempted to be seen by physical eye and that is the source for all confusion and chaos in human understanding.

Philosophy starts with a look at the wonder enveloping the manifestation. A person looks at the surroundings, other men and women, the nature and its continuous springing with new stems etc. and is in unexplainable awe and wonder at everything. Then he or she starts questioning in a way to understand things better and clear. Ethics or Right Living is normally considered the beginning of philosophy, yet it is the culmination. Ethics is the end point of philosophic living and being. ‘Theosophy is first and foremost Ethics,’ asserts Madame Blavatsky and untiringly explains in her writings how the helping of the neighbor is a preliminary exercise gradually expanding to helping all ‘humanity’ without any distinction whatsoever.

She mentions about a Principle, which is ever-present, infinite, eternal and immutable for emanation and evolution of all manifestation. He further elucidates: It is that same Principle which may be understood and realized but in our innermost thought, in solemn silence and in reverential awe. It is but during such moments of illumination that man may have a glimpse of it, as from and in the Eternity. It broods in (not over) the Waters of Life, in the boundless chaos of cosmic Ether as the manifested or the unmanifest universe. This Narayana is the seventh principle of the manifested solar system. It is the Antaratma, or the latent spirit everywhere present in the five tanmatras, which in their admixture and unity, constitute what is called by Western occultists the pre-adamite earth. This principle or Paramanu is located by the ancient Rishis of India (as may be seen in Maha-Narayana or Taittiriya Upanishad) in the centre of astral fire. Its name of Narayana is given to it, because of its presence in all the individual spiritual monads of the manifested solar system. This principle is, in fact, the Logos, and the one ego of the Western Occultists and Kabalists, and it is the Real and Sole deity to which the ancient Rishis of Aryavarta addressed their prayers, and directed their aspirations.

This Principle emanates the First Cause for everything, periodically appearing and disappearing as Worlds, generating the beings that people it in gradation and ultimately reabsorbing them into the origin/source, after completion of the ‘obligatory journey.’ She establishes that there is perfect identity between the Principle and all items of manifestation, giving out elaborate explanations and evidences. If we look at these abstract statements, we clearly see that these are in sum and substance what every philosophical thought, in the West or the East, assert in their own terminology and tenor.

Then one would ask, ‘What is the Secret about it? How is it a Doctrine at all?’

It is true and also a fact that the general public knows the content of it on hearsay. It is now being told on authority of certain scriptural texts of the Ancient, time-tested findings and more than anything else the commonality of the knowledge is traced to One Source. The beauty and fineness of it is the content and substantiation is placed before the world reader for examination as to its rationale, scientific scrutiny and not for acceptance on blind belief or as a bitter pill for swallow on authority of some great Teacher. All this may appear to be a folk tale or a fairy tale; she says suggesting that those are only symbolical and allegorical statements in placing before the profane the truths/laws of Nature. All this is a doctrine said in parables or fables for common appeal and understanding; not one crystallized dogmatic presentation. The practice in popularization of philosophic truths the world over, notwithstanding the time and space, was this method. To oversimplify, everyone knows the secret but not the fact that it was a ‘secret’. All sacred things are secret, though the vice-versa is not true.

It starts with cosmology, ends with the ‘man in future’. History, anthropology and such standards are applied the same time, making it clear that source material for such studies is embodied therein. Evolution of man, world, civilizations, the keys and deadlocks therewith are elucidated. Certain new factors also spring. There is simultaneous evolution of seven human groups in seven different portions of the globe. Before the physical form is evolved, the astral root for that was available. Life proceeds through the forms and not that forms or matter emanate life and consciousness. Kingdoms of Life move on, there was the human form on this globe even before the animal kingdom sprang. Theories of evolution advanced by Darwin are furthered in understanding by supplying the missing links. Where did science not succeed, where did the religion superimpose its redundant practices extraneously? These questions were thoroughly discussed. Science of the objects is expanded to the inner or invisible life and new ways of finding solutions to numerous problems of Life and Consciousness are indicated. The whole gamut of symbolism underlying the earlier teachings is elaborated. The need for fusing the physical and psychological sciences with that of the spiritual sciences is made an inescapable necessity for the continuance of humanity on the globe. How the Intelligence came first and in advance, its guidance through ages by Beings, called reverentially the Celestial, and the manner and method involved in the course of manifestation are the topics of absorbing interest in these volumes titled as The Secret Doctrine.

‘The whole essence of truth cannot be transmitted from mouth to ear, unless man finds the answer in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the inner most depths of his divine intuitions. This is the seventh mystery of creation,’ avers Madame Blavatsky. Honoring the Master-Disciple relationship traditionally oriented, she makes it relevant that man finds the inner meanings of truths by personal effort and endeavor. Thus merit is gained. She explains Veda-s to be the ‘mirror of eternal wisdom’ and Rig-Veda, in particular, a ‘most sublime conception of the great highways of humanity’ among the world scriptural texts. She enlightens the pre-Vedic cultures and philosophies in the time-circles. ‘Truth is the daughter of Time’ and ‘scriptures provide a spring board’ to enumerate further policies to carry out. She subtitled The Secret Doctrine as a synthesis of religion, philosophy and science. Claiming no infallibility, the search for truth is an endless pursuit. ‘Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out her seven pillars’. In her concluding remarks, she asserts ‘The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which history refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of geology and anthropology.’ She shows how man is unique the way he has a Mind that invokes Intelligence and reach Divinity in Pure Consciousness, and calls him a ‘crown of creation’, emanation and evolution providing him this opportunity.

Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine to be read together:

Madame H P Blavatsky (1831-’91) is the writer of both the books, of course, in a gap of 11 years. One must remember that when the Theosophical Society was started in 1875, there was no literature on the organization and its philosophy, except few circulars and hand-outs issued by Col. H S Olcott, the Founder-President. Madame Blavatsky, besides being the co-founder, is the chief exponent of the theosophical philosophy. She made out her first book, Isis in 1877 and the second one, The Secret Doctrine in 1888. She did not hide the fact that she was advised, guided and superintended by the Masters of the Wisdom in doing these works. She was provided the astral sight required for the reproduction of the accumulated wisdom of the ages.

Isis provides the Master key for ancient mythologies the world over. The two principal questions that haunted her mind earlier were: Who, where and what is God? How to prove the immortality of human soul? She obtained answers from the sages of the East, and she tried to annotate all the Wisdom obtained from Them to the reader for his benefit. She put the knowledge of the ancient mysteries in covers and to make a long story short made Mother Nature stand in the witness box and unfurl her work through the times unrecorded, even before the term ‘time’ emerged. Her plea was that Science and Religion are complementary studies and are not to be considered one against the other.

Isis contains the very many details of human experience, human history, religion, science and tradition in astounding abundance, and then, gradually and methodically, as the evidences are focused, points out the "laws" that not only govern this universe but all manifestation in the cycle. In the last chapter of the second volume gives out, in the name of recapitulation, the ten points of the rational conclusions that one could arrive at. These conclusions are statements of the fundamental laws of nature -- the Universal Truths which underlie all experimental science and all religious experience.

The factors of Occult Science are never revealed untimely and to the ineligible. The Wise-men, who happen to be the custodians, safely guard them against misuse and abuse. They are made available to those who are keen and earnest. They want the knowledge to be utilized for the benefit of humanity and not otherwise. Effort is needed to obtain the right results.

The Secret Doctrine is a synthesis of Religion, Philosophy and Science. The basic philosophy of theosophy is embedded in the three fundamental propositions, the part of the proem to the text. There are several methods of reading the text. Though it is commonly felt that the Proem, Summing up, Four basic points, Six pointed items and conclusions serve the purpose, unless one goes through the Stanzas and the commentaries thereon much would be lost. The understanding would be inadequate. The text is basically the manner and method of manifestation. The cosmological and anthropological studies were very exhaustively made with all evidences and arguments that convince a rational mind.

The effort of both the books is to upgrade the human intellect to Intuition. It may appear that the topics dealt with in the two texts are similar, but their methods differ. Isis proceeds from particulars to universals, while the other takes the opposite way. In both, emphasis on Hermetic philosophy and its universality is proffered.

The Proem to The Secret Doctrine contains the Three Fundamental Propositions, "upon whose clear apprehension," says H.P.B, "depends all that follows..." These "axioms to be applied" closely lead to the numbered statements at the commencement of the final chapter in Isis. Thus the summation of Isis is a conclusion derived from the examination of evidence afforded by past history, religion, science, and tradition; while the New Propositions of The Secret Doctrine are inclusive not only of the past and present, but of the future.

Isis is the embodied Intellect of perception and experience, while The Secret Doctrine is the Intuition or the Buddhi-Manas of the same perception in the individual and the globe. Until the field of experience is better understood, i.e., until the human being recognizes the present status and function in the economy of nature, he will not be able to obtain results. .

Isis makes one understand the causes and look at manifestation as the world of causation, then Buddhi-Manas or Intuition comes to play. What is expressed in the texts is the universally Ancient Wisdom Religion. The Secret Doctrine is the text open for one who is thorough with the Isis, to make his understanding full and purposeful.

Premise for Study:

General readers, not excluding the members of the Theosophical Society, are nervous of reading “The Secret Doctrine” for numerous reasons.

The first uneasiness is – it is too voluminous and cites many ancient texts on religion and philosophy and so one has to labor a lot to get through the text.

The second predicament is – it is too scholarly and is meant only for highly educated and enlightened persons.

The third quandary is – it is a text of religion and is full of promotional endeavor involving much rejection of the established norms.

The fourth impasse is -- you land in a forest of speculative ideas and cannot find a way out.

The fifth inhibition is – mental lethargy which discards constant attention on specific topics of study and easy drifting to light reading.

The sixth reticence is – the title itself is paradoxical. How can a ‘secret’ doctrine, however valuable, be documented?

Apart from these, there are some valid reasons too; there are short volumes, booklets and pamphlets that are commentarial to the subject dealt with. They facilitate easy reading and quick understanding. Yet, the enchantment in reading the Original Text can never be substituted.

There are specific reasons for studying. The Text is a synthesis of Religion, Philosophy and Science. Academic and intellectual way of playing one against the other is common. These three disciplines are supplementary and complementary to each other. Truth or ultimate factors of Reality cannot be arrived at without a comprehensive and integrated study.

The expressive manner and method of manifestation of the Universe is never a settled question. There are very many theories and authoritative statements already the world over; each trying to change the other and establish its own superiority. That stated here in the Text is not ‘revelation’ or ‘authoritarian’ but simple presentation of ‘postulate’ for consideration and ‘hypothesis’ for examination.

It is rendered in sincere service to humanity by an honest seeker of Truth and a Messenger of The masters of The Wisdom, specially equipped to collect material from Unknown Zone. It is the ‘accumulated wisdom of the ages’ and enables the men and women of the world acquire a mind that ‘embraces the universe’ effortlessly and in perfect understanding.

There are Abridgements and Digests for the Text, many concise and epitomized versions, not to speak of thin volumes on the several doctrines introduced in the Text. All these serve as appetizers. The real quest and thirst for knowledge is quenched and fulfilled only by an organized study of the basic text.

Method of study:

1. Read the Preface, Introduction. Proem, Summing Up and Conclusions.

2. Read the Stanzas and the brief commentary following them; skip the evidences and arguments.

3. Read the story of manifestation and evolution portions, carefully scanning the Text.

4. Read the basics facts of the presentation, added with particular reference to the system of thought (Indian, Chaldean, Egyptian etc.) with which you are somewhat familiar.

5. Whatever be the method of study you adopt, do it with an Open Mind; not immediately accepting and unduly rejecting. Be sure of your intellectual understanding; the reflection thereupon is certain to lead you to the Region of Intuition. Logical and psychological understanding, if you do not anchor to that and that alone, will lead to the Spiritual realms of Enlightened Understanding.

Who wrote it, When and Why?

1. HPB wrote it. But the Authors are different.

2. Plans were drawn right from 1880 and the volumes finally came out in 1888- end.

3. Written in the service of Humanity.

Madame Blavatsky wrote these voluminous texts. She does not claim to be the author and shall reverentially give that credit to those who made her write, and who directed her at every stage of production of the text. She humbly states that she brought only the thread to link the various factors in incorporating therein.

The ‘Historical Introduction’ provided by the editor of her Collected Writings, Mr. Boris de Zirkoff, brought out in 1979 (many times reprinted already) by The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar is earnestly suggested to be studied by the readers, for it contains the whole story of the origin, evolution and experiments in the method of writing and publishing the Text. It is too long, 76 pages in large format, to be reproduced or too substantial to be reduced here.

Madame Blavatsky begins her Preface to the text with the words: The author – the writer – rather ….! This makes the suggestion that the author is different from the writer. The writer has only the role of a ‘scribe’ in the true meaning of the word. She was inspired and directed to do the work in her ‘service to humanity.’ She was provided the ‘astral vision’ to copy down the extracts from ‘Akashic Records’ and to obtain the source material. She was even asked to step down from the physical body to make room for a senior person, well equipped for the job, to occupy her vesture and carry on the work of writing. This method is not immediately comprehendible for us and must therefore be left as such there.

Her spiritual Teachers, who are also the resource persons for the establishment of the Theosophical Society, did help her in the production of this work. Besides these two Great Ones, known as Master Morya and Master Kuthumi, there is internal evidence that some more were associated in the job. Prominent among them is Master Jupiter or one known as Narayan, the Grand Old Man.

The volumes of the Text were published in 1888, but the writing was not done ‘overnight’ or in an year or two. It was originally contemplated that The Secret Doctrine would be an elaboration of the earlier work “Isis Unveiled”. But the plans were revised and “The Secret Doctrine” became a distinct book to synthesize Science, Religion and Philosophy, in the context of formation of the cosmos and the emergence of man, while Isis was a master key for mythologies to establish the uniqueness of Oriental Philosophy.

Madame Blavatsky was to give the well documented statements from the sacred texts of the Ancient, preserved in occult commentaries, stanzas of Dzyan etc. and Mr. T. Subba Row to provide substantive and supporting data from the Asiatic religious texts. While Subba Row, one considered equally, if not more, well informed in Occult Sciences as Blavatsky was, at first encouraged the writing of the Secret Doctrine and liked the “Proem” well, offered his unstinted cooperation, yet went back on his support. His main objection was that she (HPB) was revealing too much for the general public, the secret teaching reserved for ‘the eligible and well-trained minds’ only. That she had the permission from the Great ones to do that had not appealed well to his mind. His antipathy towards the westerners, their racial pride and colonial policies came in the way of his allowing the higher laws of Occult Science being let out very freely for their ridicule. Though some differences made Madame Blavatsky and T Subba Row part in their ways, she was ever grateful for all the earlier assistance given by him. She quoted profusely from his writings in her text; and used his sentence as ‘top-note’ for her Summing-up chapter. “The History of creation and of this world from its beginning up to the present time is composed of seven chapters. The seventh chapter is not yet completed. ____ T Subba Row, The Theosophist, vol.iii, Nov,1881, p.44.”

Why did she write in English? She answers thus: The English tongue is employed because it offers the most widely diffused medium for conveying the truths which it had become her duty to place before the world.

The text is considered her magnum opus. It is decidedly a work of genius, yet it is not fair to limit this appendage only to these volumes coming from her. In fact her first work ‘Isis Unveiled’ did astonish the scholars of both the West and the East, and that was the book which arrested the attention of intellectuals to draw them into the fold of the Theosophical Society and its philosophy. The other book ‘The Voice of the Silence’ though slim and precise is a pithy assertion of the yogic life and its invaluable philosophy. ‘The Key to Theosophy’ is a reader for beginners as well as for advanced learners. The basic philosophy of theosophy and its historical perspective were well formulated therein. All the other articles and short treatises were collected posthumously and presented to the reading world under the caption “Collected Writings” running to 14 volumes. Her contribution to the philosophic literature opens a ‘new continent of thought’.

The volumes of the Secret Doctrine serve as reference books for all branches of human knowledge, thought and development. Missing to read and ‘study’ them is decidedly an overlooking of the ‘finesse of Life’.

The Secret Doctrine was an attempt and an effort to ‘reconnect’ humanity to its own past and to lead it on the path of ‘right’ and ‘merit’. Continuity of the stream of cosmic forces at work is well established. Happenings at different parts of the globe, forgotten and concealed for various reasons, are compiled and made into a garland of fact and reality.

In her preface to the work, Madame Blavatsky puts forth the following as the ‘aims’ for writing this book:

1. To show that Nature is not ‘a fortuitous (= accidental or casual) concurrence of atoms’, and to assign Man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe.

2. To rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions.

3. To uncover, to some extent, the fundamental Unity from which they all spring. And finally,

4. To show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the science of modern civilization.

These aims were against the views prevailing in contemporary science and the orthodox-mind of the addicts to religious faith. Showing with all evidences the ‘rightful’ place of a human-being in the design of the universe and exploration into the ‘occult’ side of manifestation was the task before her. Establishing the unity in all religious thought and the views among manifestation of the universe was the self-chosen task. The basic work was the reassertion of the archaic truths. Records not available to the physical eye were made available to her by the grace of her Teachers.

She states that the work is done in ‘service to humanity’ and not for personal glorification or satisfaction. She also states that this is the beginning of the work and ‘a larger quantity of material has already been prepared, dealing with the history of occultism as contained in the lives of great Adepts of the Aryan race, and showing the bearing of occult philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it is and as it ought to be’.

She says the third volume is entirely ready, the fourth almost so; but they have not come out as such. A lot of controversy and discussion as to their existence or otherwise ran in later period. Enough is enough, all that it is not proposed to be enlisted here. We shall only attempt to see the content and impact of the text available.

The Secret Doctrine will help to familiarize the reader, a member of the Society or not, with the treasure of thought and insight, which is ‘increasingly discovered in it ever since it first appeared’, says Mr. N. Sri Ram in his preface to the fifth reprint of the Adyar edition (1961).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What does it contain?

1. Story of emergence of Universe and Man,

-- from antiquity to the future.

2. The stanzas of the Dzyan, commentaries and elaborations.

3. Evidences from historical records of mythologies, religions and civilizations; arguments and conclusions etc. An authentic document for the developed human thought.

The Secret Doctrine, in general, is the narrative of the story of emanation of the cosmos, the evolution of universes and globes; the eventual appearance of Man and the future progression of humanity. The narration follows the Stanzas of Dzyan, translation-annotation and explanation there upon, substantiate with statements from the texts of antiquity, evidenced from the ‘forgotten’ sacred texts. She draws conclusions at the end. The occult commentaries, esoteric philosophy and doctrines on laws of nature are made use of - to establish the right way in comprehensive understanding. These are placed before the reader as ‘postulates’ and ‘hypotheses’. Though highly reliable and authentic the statements are, Blavatsky has the humility to place the work for reflective examination and independent judgment, rather than ‘blind’ acceptance or ‘unconsidered’ rejection.

Apart from the preface, introductory in the preliminary pages, the text is divided into 2 volumes viz. Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis.

The volume on Cosmogenesis is further divided into:

1. Proem: Another sort of preface where the Three Fundamental Propositions were made and elaborated.

2. Part I : Cosmic Evolution: Seven Stanzas followed by long annotations.

3. Summing-up: the culmination of the study.

4. Part II: A narrative on evolution of symbolism and its appropriate order in 15 chapters.

5. Part III: 18 chapters where Science and the secret Doctrine are contrasted.

The Anthropogenesis volume is further divided thus:

1. Preliminary notes: Another introduction to the text where the Three New Propositions are made and elaborated.

2. Part I: Anthropogenesis: Twelve stanzas from the Dzyan with translation, annotation and elucidation.

3. Part II: The Archaic symbolism of World religions in 10 chapters.

4. Part III: Science and the Secret Doctrine contrasted in 7 chapters.

The volumes end with the Motto: Satyat Nasti Parodharmah (= There is no religion higher than truth).

Madame Blavatsky says, ‘Looking at the past with a piercing eye, in the present, reaching a far-fetched outlook of future is demanded.’ The eye is not a mere sensory organ, it must be a divine eye capable of penetrating and exploring nature in its physical, psychic, spiritual and divine regions.

Cosmogenesis

While beginning the narrative to the ‘Stanzas’, she refers to Nasadiya Suktam, a part of Rig-Veda (Mandal X, verses 129-135), which happens to be the first quest into the origination of manifestation. ‘Suktam’ means a well and fully stated subject. That some Supreme Power runs the design and the working system is the central understanding of this Suktam. It suggests an unknown, incomprehensible Nature and its unpredictability and an ever-expanding vision.

She made use of the translation rendered by one Colebrooke, which was available then. Later many more translated versions have arrived. The following is provided for an effortless grasp of the content:

Hymn of Creation

Then there was not non-existent nor existent:

There was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.

What covered in, and where? And what gave shelter?

Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal:

No sign was there, the day’s and night’s divider.

That one thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature

Apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness,

This all was indiscriminate chaos.

All that existed then was void and formless;

By the great power of warmth was born that unit.

Thereafter rose desire in the beginning,

Desire the primal seed and germ of spirit.

Sages who searched with their heart’s thought

Discovered the existent’s kinship in the non-existent.

Transversely was their serving line extended:

What was above it then, and what below it?

There were begetters, there were mighty forces,

Free action here and energy of yonder.

Who verily knows and who can ere declare it,

Whence it was born and whence comes this creation?

The gods are later than this world’s production.

Who knows, then, whence it first came into being?

We, the first origin of this creation,

Whether he formed it all or did not form it,

Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven,

He verily knows it, or perhaps he knows it not.

Nasadiya Sukta(Mandala X, verses 129-135, Rig Veda)*

This is a hymn of creation, used as preamble for her Commentary of the Cosmogenesis. It begins with the words: nasad asin no sad asit, which means ‘It was not what was not, it was not what was’. We speak of a thing as ‘it is’ only in relation to the things that are not elsewhere, or in relation to another that is not there. Similarly, we say that a thing is not, only in relation to something that is elsewhere or in relation to something that is there. In the absolute stage, such a relative usage is impossible. ‘There is no space nor the aspects of space at that stage.’ That is how the verses begin. Certainly the reference is to a positive thing. This accords with the Avyakta or the Unmanifest, the Prathana (the chief) or the Prakriti (the root cause) familiar in the Sankhya system. In the classical Sankhya, there is no life inherent in this Prathana, which is in itself insentient and which receives its sentience as a reflection from the Purusha, the self that is a pure sentience. The sentient is external to the absolute basis of the phenomenal world, in the classical Sankhya. But in Rig-Veda system of thought, sentience seems to be within the Absolute that is the basis of the phenomenal world.

‘That one breathed by its own power without the air coming in or going out as breath.’ (verse 2) This shows that there is the life fundamental within this absolute though there is no life function in it. There is also some power in that absolute, what is called Tapas. The root Tap has the meaning of both light and heat. Here it must be the heat aspect of the root that is to be understood in the context. The Germ was born out on account of this Tapas.(verse 3)

Then there arose a will, Kama. This was the seed of the mind.

There is this question in the verse last: ‘Who knows, who can declare, whence was born this creation?’ ‘It cannot be the gods that produced the first creation, the first change of the absolute into the phenomenal; the gods came after this event.’ The Sookta ends with the statement, ‘He from whom this creation arose, whether he made it or not, only the highest person in heaven who can see, perhaps knows, or perhaps even he does not’. The idea behind seems to be that there was no one who could be declared as a creator; the creation arose out of itself. The absolute from within was transformed into the phenomenal; there was no external agent. The absolute is regarded as matter with life in it.

There is no Vedic authority for the bifurcation of the universe into life and matter, into a dead Prakriti, and the sentience or the Purusha. In the Nasadeeya Sookta, the breath without the air coming out and going into (verse 2), is within the infinite, absolute matter itself and not a feature extraneous to it, a feature reflected on it or transferred into it from an external source. Kama and Tapas (Will and Power) also are in it and they become manifest.

*(Adopted from C Kunhan Raja’s Introduction to The Sankhya Karika of Isvarakrishna.)

The Proem and The summing Up

The Proem and the Summing up in the first volume of The Secret Doctrine are too important, for they contain the sum-total of the Main-stream Philosophy.

The proem begins with the introduction of an Archaic Manuscript, the symbols on its pages and the explanation thereupon. Extracts from the Occult Catechism are also imbedded there. The main focus of the Proem is the Three Fundamental Propositions. Madame Blavatsky said that the Secret Doctrine ‘establishes’ these.

At the outset, it must be remarked that the contents of the propositions is too well known to all men and women of the world, inasmuch as they had become the ‘common knowledge’ consequent upon the ‘Adept-thinking’. We know the essence of these teachings but are not sure of its ‘total meaning’ and impact on the manifested world. The philosophical, or rather metaphysical, ideas are placed before the reading public in a language they can easily understand and comprehend. The philosophical terminology used in the proem must be remembered because it occurs and reoccurs throughout the basic text. Unless the technical meanings of the term are made familiar to oneself, it would prove to be a difficult study.

First Proposition:

This speaks of a PRINCIPLE.

This Principle is Omnipresent (ever-present), Eternal, Boundless and Immutable. Any speculation upon this is impossible because it transcends the power of human imagination.

Human expression or similitude will only dwarf the understanding of the Principle. Mandukya Upanishad (in its verse 7) has expressed the same view when it said that it is Achintyam and Avachyam (Unthinkable and Unspeakable).

Madame Blavatsky adds on the following to make the basic statement clearer:

There is One Absolute Reality, and this is the pre-state of manifestation and conditioning.

This is the Infinite and eternal Cause; and is the “Rootless Root” of “all that was, is, or ever shall be.”

It is ‘devoid of all attributes’ and is ‘essentially without any relation to manifested, finite being.

It is “Be-ness” rather than “being.”

In Sanskrit the term for this is “SAT”.

This Be-ness is symbolized in two aspects: 1. absolute Abstract Space (bare Subjectivity) and 2. absolute Abstract Motion (Unconditioned Consciousness).

The absolute Abstract Motion is the “Great Breath”.

The “One Absolute or Be-ness” is symbolized by ‘finite intelligence’ as the religious ‘Trinity’.

Vedantic tenet: Parabrahman, the One Reality, the Absolute – is the field of Absolute Consciousness (that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence. Conscious existence is a conditioned symbol of this. This is Absolute Negation to us. Once we pass in thought from this, duality supervenes thus:

Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter; Subject and Object.

Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are not ‘independent realities’, but are two symbols or aspects of the Absolute, Parabrahman.

The Absolute constitutes the basis of ‘conditioned Being’ both subjective and objective.

Parabrahman (One reality or the Absolute), Spirit and Matter are the metaphysical triad. This triad is the ‘Root’ from which all manifestation proceeds.

The Great Breath assumes the character of ‘pre-cosmic ideation’. It is the ‘Force and of all individual Consciousness’ supplying the ‘guiding intelligence’ in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution.

The ‘pre-cosmic Root-Substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies ‘all the objective planes of Nature’.

The ‘pre-cosmic Ideation’ is the ‘Root of all individual consciousness’ and the ‘pre-Cosmic Substance’ is the substratum (bedrock) of Matter in the ‘various grades of its differentiation’.

The contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is essential to the existence of the ‘Manifested Universe.’

Cosmic Ideation could manifest as ‘individual consciousness’ only when there is a ‘vehicle’ (upadhi) of Matter. Without Cosmic ideation, Cosmic substance would remain an empty abstraction; and there will be no emergence of Consciousness.

The Manifested Universe is pervaded by duality, which is the very essence of its Ex-istence as “Manifestation.” The opposite poles (Subject/Object or Spirit/Matter) are but aspects of the ‘One Unity’. In the Manifested universe these two are fused by ‘something’ which the Occultists call “Fohat”.

Fohat is the bridge for the Ideas to be impressed on substance; and this imprint is what we call “Laws of nature”.

From Spirit or cosmic ideation comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance come the several vehicles in which that Consciousness is individualized and attains to ‘Self-consciousness.

Fohat in its various manifestations is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom in life.

Madame Blavatsky further restates the summary thus:

1. The Absolute: the Parabrahman, the One reality, Sat, both Absolute Being and Non-Being...

2. The First Logos: the impersonal, Unmanifest logos, the precursor of the manifested. This is the First Cause or the Unconscious (of European pantheists).

3. The Second Logos: Spirit-Matter, Life; the ‘Spirit of the Universe’, Purusha and Prakriti.

4. The Third Logos: Cosmic Ideation, Mahat or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of nature, also called Maha-Buddhi.

[The numbering of Logos as 1, 2 and 3is only for the purpose of our understanding the functional process.]

The Second Proposition:

The Eternity of the Universe, completely and including all parts, is a boundless plane. It is ‘periodically’ the playground of numerous Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing. These Universes are called “Manifesting Stars” and “Sparks of Eternity”

The eternity of the Pilgrim (Monad) is like a wink of the “Eye of Self-Existence”

The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux.

This second assertion, Madame Blavatsky explains, is the ‘absolute universality’ of that ‘Law of periodicity’. The ebb and flow, flex and reflex are observed and recorded in all departments of Nature, by the physicists.

Alteration such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and waking are perfectly universal and without exception. In this we see the ‘absolutely fundamental Laws of the universe.’

The Third proposition:

The Universal Over-Soul is itself an aspect of the Unknown Root. All souls (in Manifestation) have a fundamental ‘identity’ with the Universal Over-Soul.

Every Soul, which is a ‘spark of the Over-Soul’, has an ‘obligatory’ pilgrimage. This pilgrimage (journey) is through the ‘Cycle of Incarnation’ or Necessity. This proceeds during the whole term, in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic Law.

The ‘Spark’ issued from the Over-Soul (pure essence of the Universal Sixth Principle) has (1) to pass through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara (2) acquire Individuality—first by natural impulse, then by self-induced and self-devised efforts, checked by its Karma, thus ascending through all degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest Archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). Then only, the purely Spiritual Buddhi (Divine Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence.

There are no privileges or special gifts for Man; and he has to ‘win’ them by his own Ego through ‘personal effort and merit’ through a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations.

Madame Blavatsky adds: Hindus say that universe is Brahman and Brahma, for Brahman is in every atom of the Universe. The six Principles in Nature are the outcome (variously differentiated aspects) of the Seventh and One, the only Reality in the universe, whether cosmic or micro-cosmic. The permutations, psychic, spiritual and physical, on the plane of manifestation and form, of the Sixth (Brahma, the vehicle of Brahman) are viewed by metaphysical antiphrasis as ‘illusive’ and ‘mayavic’. The root of every atom individually and of every form collectively is that Seventh Principle or the One reality; and yet, in its manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance – it is no better than an evanescent (momentary and transitory) illusion of our senses.

The One Principle under its two aspects, Parabrahman and Mulaprakriti, is ‘sexless, unconditional and eternal.’ Its periodical manvantaric emanation, or primal radiation, is also One, androgynous (genderless), to become male and female principles in their lower aspects.

To those who are akin with the Indian system of thought, the following will be of interest:

A. The three fundamental principles can be likened to the terms 1. Ekata (Oneness/Togetherness), 2. Kramata (Orderliness/Periodicity) and 3. Samata (Identity/Equanimity).

B. They are also in similarity with the terms 1. Tattwa (Principle), 2. Hita (Beneficence) and 3. Purushartha( Man’s Way to the goal/aim), particularly mentioned in a South Indian School.

C. There is a particular verse in Bhagavat beginning with “Yasmat Jatam Jagat Sarvam, Yasminneva Praliyate, yenedam dharyatam chaiva, tasmaih Jnanatmanenamah.” which means: From who the whole World comes, to who it indeed goes again, by who the world is upheld – to Him, the Self that Knows, reverence be.

This is only illustrative and similar statements can be found in the very and numerous Systems of thought, to prove that the Occult Doctrine, as exemplified by the Secret Doctrine constitutes the ‘Mainstream’ of all metaphysical and philosophical thought, wherever it is found in the World Nations.

Stanzas:

Now, Madame Blavatsky proceeds to explain what the Seven stanzas of Cosmogenesis intend to convey:

1. State of the One All during Pralaya.

2. Almost the same, with some allegorical phrases.

3. Reawakening of the Universe to Life after Pralaya.

4. Differentiation of the Germ into Septenary Hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers.

5. Process of world-formation.

6. Subsequent stages and evolution up to our present period.

7. Descent of life down to the appearance of man.

She asserts only portions of the Stanzas are explained by her; and the full and complete stanzas are comprehensible and useful to the ‘high Occultists’ only.

The Stanzas of Dzyan

Cosmic Evolution (Part 1 of The Secret Doctrine) is the annotation and commentary of the ‘Seven Stanzas translated with commentaries from the Secret Book Of Dzyan.’

The Seven stanzas have sub-stanzas (slokas/verses) running to 9, 6, 12, 6, 6, 7 and 7 in order, thus making a total of 53.

The Summing Up

The Summing Up, in fact, is the recapitulation of the vol.1, the first chapter of the story of Creation of Universe. This has a top-note from T Subba Row’s statement: The History of Creation and of this World, from its beginning to the present time, is composed of seven chapters. The seventh chapter is not yet written.

‘The ever periodically recurring Law, impressed upon the plastic minds of the first Races endowed with Consciousness, by those who reflected the same from the Universal Mind’ is attempted here for rendering in a European tongue. --- It is not taught in any of the six Indian Schools of Philosophy, for it pertains to their synthesis, the seventh, which is the Occult Doctrine.’

She writes about Veda-s, Upanishad, Buddha and Shankaracharya and the original treatises; and later gives Six pointed (numbered) items.

1. The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate of all systems. It is an uninterrupted record, covering thousands of generations of Seers, whose respective experiences were made to test and verify the traditions, passed on orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted Beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. For long ages the ‘Wise Men’ of the fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, passed their lives in learning, not teaching. They did this – by checking, testing, and verifying, in every department of Nature, the traditions of old, by the independent visions of the great Adepts (men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organizations, to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions of other Adepts, and by centuries of experience.

2. One Homogeneous Divine Substance-Principle, the One Radical Cause --- is the ‘central point’. All emerges, around and towards which all gravitates is this point. All its philosophy hangs on this fundamental law in that system.

It remains a Principle, in the beginningless and endless, abstract, visible and invisible SPACE; becomes ‘Substance’ on the plane of the manifested Universe, an Illusion.

It is the omnipresent Reality; impersonal, because it contains all and everything. Its Impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself.

3. The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence. It is best described as neither Spirit nor Matter, but both.

4. The Universe, with everything in it, is called Maya, compared to the eternal immutability of the ONE. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious being in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.

5. Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is Conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.

There is no such thing as either ‘dead’ or ‘blind’ matter, as there is no ‘blind’ or ‘unconscious’ Law.

6. The universe is worked and guided, from within outwards. Man, the

microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm, is the living witness to this Universal Law, and to the mode of its action.

The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform, who are ‘Messengers’ and agents of Karmic and Cosmic laws.

The three distinct representatives (aspects) of the Universe are: the Pre-Existing; evolving from the Ever-Existing; and the Phenomenal – the world of illusion, the reflection, the shadow thereof. The Esoteric Philosophy passes over the ‘necessarianism’ of the purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first one, only, the Ever-Existing. This is the view of every one of the six great schools of Indian philosophy (Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta) – the six principles of that unit of body of Wisdom of which the Occult (hidden) knowledge is the seventh.

Now, she gives out Five facts which she did successfully prove:

1. The Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism. It rejects idols including every anthropomorphic God.

2. It admits a Logos, or a collective “Creator” of the Universe. It does not admit a personal Deity, an imperfect extra-cosmic God, but only the aggregate of the Dhyan Chohans and other Forces.

3. The Dhyan-Chohans are dual in their character, they are composed of 1. The irrational brute Energy, inherent in Matter;and 2.The intelligent Soul, or Cosmic Consciousness, which directs and guides that Energy, and which is the Dhyan Chohanic Thought reflecting the ideation of the Universal Mind. This results in a perpetual series of physical manifestations and moral effects on Earth, during manvantaric periods, the whole being subservient to Karma. All are entitled to the grateful reverence of Humanity. Man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming, to the best of his ability, a co-worker with Nature, in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart - invisible, intangible, unmentioned, except through the ‘still small voice’ of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their Spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence.

4. Matter is eternal. It is the Upadhi or vehicle for the One Infinite Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations.

5. The Universe is evolved out of its ideal plan, upheld to Eternity in the Unconsciousness (Parabrahman)

The whole Universe is ruled by intelligent and semi-intelligent Forces and Powers.

Considering the Forces, she quotes again T Subba Row who detailed the six primary forces in Nature thus: Parasakti, Jnanasakti, Itchhasakti, Kriyasakti, Kundalinisakti and Mantrikasakti.

She concludes the narrative with a quote from the Wise Commandments in the Esoteric catechism and the Rules of Initiation, which she mentioned 15 years back:

This is the secret which gives death:

close your mouth,

you should not reveal it to the vulgar;

compress your brain

so that something should not escape from it and fall outside.

“A few years later, a corner of the Veil of Isis had to be lifted and now another and large rent is made,” she asserts, while cautioning that “marshaled by blind conservatism, conceit and prejudice, they(material scientists) are constantly on the watch, ready to strangle every truth, which awakening from its age-long sleep, happens to knock for admission. Such has been the case ever since man became an animal. That this proves in every case moral death to the revealers who bring to light any of these old, old truths, is as certain as that it gives life and regeneration to those who are fit to profit even by the little that is now revealed to them.”

Anthropogenesis

She made use of a portion of Runo I of ‘Kalavela’ before getting into the Stanzas in the second volume, Anthropogenesis.

Kalavela (=Land of Heroes) is a compilation of verses and stories in the Finnish language. Finland is on the border of Russia. The verses give the myth, magic, love and war of the people.

The text, an epic, was compiled by one Elias Lonnrot, a physician and a literary scholar in 1880s from the folk poems called Runos and performed by the local singers. His epic generated a new pride in the Finnish national identity, and an independent movement which brought into being an independent Finland.

The gist of the text is as below:

Runo 1: The Virgin of the Air descended into the sea, became the Water-mother. Vainamoinen is born of her.

Runo 2: He clears the Land, plants the country, sows Barley.

Runo 3: Joukahainen competes with him, gets lost and was made to offer his sister Aino to V.

Runo 4: V. makes love to A, but she is drowned in the sea.

Runo 5: V. fishes her out, but she manages to escape. Her mother advises V. to seek a bride in Lapland (Pajola).

Runo 6: J. shoots V.’s horse, V. is drowned and driven onwards by a tempest.

Runo 7: An eagle carries V. to Pajola. Louhi offers her daughter to him, if only he could bring her the talisman ‘Sampo’; V. says he would send his brother Iemarinen to do this. Receives a sledge from her to travel back home.

Runo 8: V. on his way sees the daughter of Louhi, makes love to her. She sets tasks for him. He finds an old man who promises to staunch the blood from his wounds.

Runo 9: The old man heals V., reveals the origin of Iron. He salves the wounds too.

Runo 10: V. returns home. I. refuses to go to Pajola. V. causes a whirlwind. I. forges for Sampo. But the maiden does not marry him. He returns home in disappointment.

The epic depicts Man’s heroism, his capacity to move forward with desire to possess, enjoy and all that, his valor that would lead humanity to prosperity of Perfection.

The Secret Doctrine emphasizes a system and design in the working of the processes of emanation and evolution, emergence of a mind to embrace the whole of the universe, and onward progression into the other schemes of Nature.

The New Propositions as to Human Evolution:

The Doctrine of Evolution is very popularly stated by the Modern Science, it stands to human reason as also supported by the ancient legends and myths. The Secret Doctrine also corroborates this, of course with some additional data.

It is common knowledge that a flower ‘slowly develops from a bud’. The bud is from a ‘seed’. But where from this seed has arrived? The seed has within it a predetermined program of physical transformation and also an invisible ‘force’, which we call ‘spiritual’, which gradually develop the form, color and odor of the flower. Evolution means and implies this.

Having brought out this analysis, Madame Blavatsky further states: “The germ (seed) of the present human race must have pre-existed in the parent of this race, as the seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer; was developed in the capsule of its present flower.--- while it s positively absurd to believe the ‘transformation of species’ to have taken place according to some of the more materialistic views of the Evolutionists, it is but natural to think that each genus, beginning with the molluses and ending with monkey-man, has modified from its own primordial and distinctive form.’

“As regards the Evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new propositions.”Madame Blavatsky was not unaware that ‘they stand in direct antagonism to modern science as well as to current religious dogmas.’

The three new propositions run thus: the Secret Doctrine teaches --

1. The simultaneous evolution of Seven human groups on seven different portions of our Globe;

2. The birth of the astral, before the physical body, the former being a model for the latter; and

3. That man, in this Round, preceded every mammalian – the anthropoids included – in the animal kingdom.

She quotes extensively from Hermes the thrice great, to the Puranas of the Indian origin in support and evidence of the three postulates.

The seed for human evolution is the Logos, and the germ the latent powers.

Madame Blavatsky elaborates the three new propositions in her annotation and commentary to the ‘forty-nine Stanzas and the few fragments from the commentaries.’

To have a close examination of the propositions, we must first have knowledge of the appearance of Humanity on this Globe. Humanity on this Earth is to appear in 7 Races, called Root-races. Five of them have already appeared and two are destined for the future.

The progression made in each Root-race is as follows:

First Root-Race: Chhayas

Humanity did not have physical bodies then. Globe existed only on the Astral Plane. The beings were “Chhayas”. In fact, the same position continued in the Second Root-Race also. “But men, during the first and second races, were not physical beings, but merely rudiments of the future men.” We may call them elementals or Bhutas.

They were Arupa men,with form but no solid substance. These forms grew, ‘condensed through millions of ages, and became gigantic in its physical impulse and tendency, until it settled into the huge, physical form of the Fourth Root Race man.’

‘In those early ages, astral evolution was alone in progress, and the two planes, the astral and the physical, though developing on parallel lines, had no direct point of contact with one another. – The astral bodies of the Chhayas were created by the Lunar Pitris. In India we call them Pitris or Pitara. They were the creators of our bodies and the lower principles. The inferior Lha (Spirits), possessed of a dual body (an astral within an ethereal form). ‘They were the fashioners and creators of our body of illusion.’

The first race, the self-born, were the (astral) shadows of their progenitors. Self-born is a term applied ‘to all the gods or Beings born through the Will, whether of Deity or Adept.’

Second Root Race: (Hyperboreans)

Men existed only on the astral plane and did not yet descend to the physical plane or bodies.

‘The second race was the product by budding and expansion.’

‘When the season of reproduction arrives, the sub-astral (Chhayas) extrudes a miniature of itself from the egg of surrounding aura. This germ grows and feeds on the aura ill it becomes fully developed, when it gradually separates from its parent, carrying with it its own sphere of aura; just as we see living cells reproducing like by growth and subsequent division into two.’

They are called Sweat-born (Swethaja). ‘When the race became old, the old waters (chhayas) mixed with the fresher waters(Hyperboreans); when the drops became turbid, they vanished and disappeared, in the new stream, in the hot stream of life. The outer of the First became the inner of the Second. (Here is the root for my Container and content theory). The old race merged in the second race, and became one with it.’

The shadowy, ethereal, and negative material forms of the first race were drawn or absorbed into the complement of the forms of the second race.

The ‘men’ of the first race never die. They melt gradually away, become absorbed in the bodies of their own ‘sweat-born’ progeny, more solid than their own. The old form vanishes, disappears into the new form. This form is more physical and human.

Chhayas lived all the entire time in a single astral body, eventually made the transition into the Hyperboreans.

The first two races have gone forever, without leaving any fossil remains or traces, because they did not have physical bodies.

Third Root-Race: The Lemurians

The first physical man was the Lemurean, formed from the budding from the previous race. The second race evolved out of itself, the Androgyne Race. The very earliest of that race were: the Sons of Passive Yoga. ‘They issued from the second Manushyas (human race), and became oviparous. The emanations that come out of their bodies during the seasons of procreation were ovulary; the small spheroidal nuclei developing into a large soft, egg-like vehicle, gradually hardened, when, after a period of gestation, it broke and the young human animal issued from it unaided, as the fowls do in our race.’

The third race is in three distinct divisions. Men were differently procreated. ‘The first two are produced by an oviparous method unknown to modern Natural History. The early sub-races of the Third humanity procreated their species by a kind of exudation of moisture or vital fluid, the drops of which coalescing formed an oviform ball – or shall we say egg – which served as an extraneous vehicle for the generation therein of a foetus and child, the mode of procreation by the later races changed, in results at all events.’

1. Earlier period (Sweat-born, the same as second race)

2. Middle period (Egg-born)

3. Later period (Sex-born, as we see today)

The sex-division happened in this Lemurian Root-Race. ‘The so-called Sons of Will and Yoga were generated sexually after the separation of sexes. This was termed as “Fall of Man”. The single person procreation stopped here and the sexual progeny commenced.

‘The History of races begins at the separation of the Sexes, when the preceding egg-bearing androgynous race perished rapidly, and subsequent sub-races of the Third Root-Race appeared as an entirely new race physiologically.’

‘The Third Race is almost human in its latest portion, since it is during its fifth sub-race that mankind separated sexually, and that the first man was born according to the now normal process.’

‘Humanity is 18 million and odd years old, (which is a point of time within the Third Race). We say, yes; but only so far as physical or approximately physical, man is concerned, who dates from the close of the Third Root-Race. Beyond that period MAN, or his filmy image, may have existed for 300 million years, for all we know.’

The Third Race is grouped into three:

1. The sons of Wisdom, who incarnated into human bodies. These humans had ‘prematurely developed intellects’.

2. Human who were half ready. They received ‘but a spark’ making the average humanity.

3. Those who were not ready at all. These were the latest Monads, which had hardly evolved from their last transitional and lower forms at the close of the Third Round and who remained the ‘narrow-minded.’

The Solar Pitris incarnated into the bodies of the first group. They were the Divine Leaders or Kings.

The Lunar Pitris were able to provide astral forms for the new humans, but they could not give them the Higher mind or Manas.

‘Two connecting Principles were needed: Manas and Kama. Living spiritual Fire (Agnisattwas) provide these. Humans, at last, developed Manas or Intelligence.

‘Third Root-Race shows three distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically:

1. The Earlier, sinless 2. Awakening to intelligence and 3.Manas succumbed to the temptations of Kama (Animal).’

‘The Monad of the animal is as immortal as that of man, yet the brute knows nothing of this; it lives an animal life of sensation just as the first human lived, when attaining physical development in the Third Race, had it not been for Agnishwatta and the Manasa Pitris.’

‘It was only in the mid-point of the 3^rd Race that man was endowed with Manas. ---Manas or Intelligence, first appeared in the 3^rd Race and became well-established in the 4^th Race.’

Fourth Root-Race: The Atlanteans

‘Atlanteans were developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian Third Race men, centered roughly speaking, towards a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean. Their continent was formed by the coalescence of many islands and peninsulas which were upheaved in the ordinary course of time and became ultimately the ture home of the great Race known as the Atlanteans.’(not to be taken as one race or nation). ‘There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans; giant and dwarf.’

‘The Atlanteans were really the first purely human and terrestrial race, those that preceded it being more divine and ethereal than human and solid. --- Since the beginning of the Atlantean race many million years have passed, yet we find the last of the Atlanteans, still mixed up with the Aryan element, 11,000 years ago. This shows the enormous overlapping of one race over the race which succeeds it, though in character and external type the elder loses its characteristics, and assumes the new features of the younger race. This is proved in all the formations of mixed human races.’

Fifth Root-Race: The Aryans

‘The Aryan Race was born and developed in the far North, though after the sinking of the continent of Atlantis its tribes emigrated further south into Asia.’

‘The Aryan nations trace their descent through the Atlanteans from the more spiritual races of the Lemurians, in whom the “Sons of Wisdom” had personally incarnated.’

‘The Aryan races now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy color, are yet all of one and the same stock – the 5^th Race – and spring from one singular progenitor, called in Hindu exotericism by the generic name of Vaivasvata Manu.’

‘The rapid progress of anthropomorphism and idolatry led the early Fifth, as it had already led the 4^th Race, into sorcery.’

Sixth Root-Race: Not named

‘The 5^th will overlap the 6^th race for many hundreds of millenniums, changing with it slower than its new successor, still changing in stature, general physique, and mentality, just as the 4^th overlapped our Aryan race, and the 3^rd had overlapped the Atlanteans.’

‘The 6^th Root-Race will (move) out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh. ---- In the 6^th Root-Race, new forms will develop from the “ cast off ” types of the human races as they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical life.’

‘Occult philosophy teaches that even now, under our very eyes, the new Race and Races are preparing to be formed, and that is in America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced. --- all we know is, that it will come into existence; so silently, indeed, that for long millenniums shall its pioneers – the peculiar children who will grow into peculiar men and women – be regarded as anomalous lusus naturae, abnormal oddities physically and mentally. They, as they increase, and their numbers become with every age greater, one day they will awake to find themselves in a majority.’

‘Process of preparation for the 6^th great Race must last throughout the whole of 6^th and 7^th sub-race. But the last remnants of the 5^th continent will not disappear until some time after the new Race; when another and new dwelling, the 6^th continent, will have appeared above the new waters on the face of the globe, so as to receive the new stranger. To it also will emigrate and settle all those who shall be fortunate enough to escape the general disaster.’

‘Mankind will not grow again into giant bodies as in the case of the Lemurians and the Atlanteans; because while the evolution of the 4^th Race let the latter down to the very bottom of materiality in its physical development, the present Race is on its ascending arc; and the 6^th will be rapidly growing out of its bounds of matter, and even of flesh.’

Seventh Root-Race: Not Named

‘The great adepts and Initiated ascetics will “multiply”, once more produce Mind-born immaculate Sons in the 7^th Root-Race.

It will thus be seen that ‘evolution’ is a very slow process, yet gradual and thematic.

There is perception at a higher stage and then ensues the manifestation. Human race is not just made to appear, or created but it evolved ‘from within’.

The Stanzas of Dzyan and the elaborate commentary afforded by Madame Blavatsky need a careful study.

One may say, there is no need for us to study the ‘Pedigree of Man’ so meticulously; it is adequate to know how to conduct ourselves in the present day. Whether we like it or not, we mind it or not, the past ever flows into the present and far into the future. The philosophical base of existence is to be an essential area and focus in our daily performance. Let us recapitulate what was quoted at the end the Anthropogenesis part of The Secret Doctrine, as one coming from a Sage, known only to a few Occultists:

THE PRESENT IS THE CHILD OF THE PAST; THE FUTURE, THE BEGOTTEN OF THE PRESENT, AND YET, O PRESENT MOMENT! KNOWEST THOU NOT THAT THOU HAST NO PARENT, NOR CANST THOU HAVE A CHILD; THAT YOU ARE EVER BEGETTING BUT THYSELF? BEFORE THOU HAST EVEN BEGUN TO SAY ‘ I AM THE PROGENY OF THE DEPARTED MOMENT, THE CHILD OF THE PAST,’ THOU HAST BECOME THAT PAST ITSELF. BEFORE THOU UTTEREST THE LAST SYLLABLE, BEHOLD! THOU ART NO MORE THE PRESENT BUT VERILY THAT FUTURE. THUS, ARE THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE, THE EVERLASTING TRINITY IN ONE –THE MAHAMAYA OF THE ABSOLUTE IS.

Human Races

The truths of today are the falsehoods

And errors of yesterday, and vice versa.
(The Secret Doctrine)

THE human races have been born one from the other, grow, develop, become old, and die. Their sub-races and nations follow the same rule. We have spoken of seven races, five of which have nearly completed their earthly career, and have claimed that every root-race, with its sub-races and innumerable family divisions and tribes, was entirely distinct from its preceding and succeeding race. This will be objected to, on the authority of uniform experience in the question of Anthropology and Ethnology. While Materialists deny everything in the universe, save matter, Archaeologists are trying to dwarf antiquity, and seek to destroy every claim to ancient Wisdom by tampering with Chronology. Our present-day orientalists and historical writers are to ancient History that which the white ants are to the buildings in India. More dangerous even than those termites, the modern archaeologists -- the "authorities" of the future in the matter of Universal History -- are preparing for the history of past nations the fate of certain edifices in tropical countries: "History will tumble down and break into atoms in the lap of the twentieth century, devoured to its foundations by her annalists," said Michelet.

Very soon, indeed, under their combined efforts, it will share the fate of those ruined cities in both Americas, which lie deeply buried under impassable virgin forests. Historical facts will remain as concealed from view by the inextricable jungle of modern hypotheses, denials and scepticism. But very happily actual History repeats herself, for she proceeds, like everything else, in cycles; and dead facts and events deliberately drowned in the sea of modern scepticism will ascend once more and reappear on the surface. Once more we address only those who, doubting the general derivation of myths from "the contemplation of the visible workings of external nature" ... think it less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and demigods, of giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions are transformations, than to believe them to be inventions. It is only such "transformations" in physical nature, as much as in the memory and conceptions of our present mankind, that the Secret Doctrine teaches. It confronts the purely speculative hypotheses of modern Science, based upon the experience of barely a few centuries, with the unbroken tradition and records of its Sanctuaries. And brushing away that tissue of cobweb-like theories, spun in the darkness that covers a period of hardly a few millenniums back, and which Europeans call their "History," the Old Science says to us: Listen, now, to my version of the memoirs of Humanity.

The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Aryan nations of the present are in their fifth root-race. Hence the Aryan nations could trace their descent through the Atlanteans, who constituted the fourth root-race, from the more spiritual races of the Lemurians who preceded the Atlanteans, and in whom the "Sons of Wisdom" had personally incarnated. It is taught that with the advent of the divine Dynasties, ... referred to, the first civilizations were started. Under the guidance of their divine Rulers, the third-race built large cities, cultivated arts and sciences, and knew astronomy, architecture and mathematics to perfection. Such divine Dynasties among men were claimed by the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks, etc., as being those which preceded their human kings; they are still believed in by the modern Hindus, and are enumerated in their sacred books.

The primeval civilization, that of the Lemurians, did not, as one may think, immediately follow their physiological transformation (i.e., that of the separation of the sexes from the hermaphroditic condition which preceded). Between the final evolution and the first city built by the third-race Humanity, many hundred thousands of years had passed. We find the Lemurians in their sixth sub-race building their first rock-cities, out of stone and lava. One of such great cities of primitive structure was built entirely of lava, some thirty miles west from where Easter Island now stretches its narrow piece of sterile ground, and was entirely destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions. The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings were all the handiwork of the Lemurians of the last sub-races; and an occultist shows, therefore, no wonder on learning that the stone relics found on the small piece of land called Easter Island by Captain Cook, are "very much like the walls of the Temple of Pachacamac or the Ruins of Tia-Huanuco in Peru," and that they are in the CYCLOPEAN STYLE. The first large cities appeared on that region of the continent which is now the island of Madagascar. It is further asserted that there were civilized people and savages in those days as there are now.It is this latter fact which would account for the great difference and variation between the intellectual capacities of races, nations, and individual men today. Evolution achieved its work of perfection with the former, the "civilized"; and Karma -- its work of destruction with the latter, the "savage." While incarnating, and in other cases only informing the human vehicles evolved by the first brainless (manasless) race, the incarnating Powers and Principles had to make their choice between, and take into account, the past Karmas of the Monads -- between which and their bodies they had to become the connecting link. The aboriginal Australians still with us today, and their like, are the descendants of those who, instead of vivifying the spark dropped into them by the "Flames," extinguished it by long generations of bestiality. And while, in some regions of the Earth during the period of the third root-race, a portion of mankind preferred leading a nomadic and patriarchal life, and in others savage man was hardly learning to build a fire to protect himself against the Elements, his brothers -- more favoured than he by their Karma, and helped by the divine intelligence which informed them -- built cities, and cultivated arts and sciences. Nevertheless, and civilization notwithstanding, while their pastoral brethren enjoyed wondrous powers as their birthright, the builders, could now obtain theirs only gradually; even these being generally used for power over physical nature and selfish and unholy purposes. Civilization has ever developed the physical and the intellectual at the cost of the psychic and spiritual. The command and the guidance over his own psychic nature, which foolish men now associate with the supernatural, were with early Humanity innate and congenital, and came to man as naturally as walking and thinking. These have become "secrets" only in our race, and were public property in the third.

Gradually, mankind went down in stature, for even before the real advent of the fourth or Atlantean race, the majority of mankind had fallen into iniquity and sin, save their hierarchy of the "Elect," the followers and disciples of the "Sons of Will and Yoga" called later the "Sons of the Fire Mist." Then came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their fourth sub-race.

Lemuria is said to have perished about 700,000 years before the commencement of what is now called the Tertiary Age (the Eocene). H. P. Blavatsky quotes the author of "Historie des Vierges: Les Peuples et les Continents Disparus," who says:-- "One of the most ancient legends of India, preserved in the temples by oral and written tradition, relates that several hundred thousand years ago there existed in the Pacific Ocean an immense continent which was destroyed by geological upheaval, and the fragments of which must be sought in Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the principal isles of Polynesia. The high plateaux of Hindustan and Asia, according to this hypothesis, would only have been represented in those distant epochs by great islands contiguous to the central continent...." And further, "that a religious belief, common to Malacca and Polynesia, that is to say, to the two opposite extremes of the Oceanic world, affirms 'that all these islands once formed two immense countries, inhabited by yellow men and black men, always at war; and that the gods, wearied with their quarrels, having charged Ocean to pacify them, the latter swallowed up the two continents, and since, it has been impossible to make him give up his captives. Alone, the mountain-peaks and high plateaux escaped the flood, by the power of the gods, who perceived too late the mistake they had committed.' ... The three summits of this continent, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, Easter Island, are distant from each other from fifteen to eighteen hundred leagues, and the groups of intermediate islands ... are themselves distant from these extreme points from seven or eight hundred to one thousand leagues. ... And yet each of these people maintained that their island had at one time formed part of an immense stretch of land which extended toward the West on the side of Asia. All, brought together, were found to speak the same language, to have the same usages, the same customs, the same religious belief. And all to the question, 'Where is the cradle of your race?' for sole response, extended their hand toward the setting sun."

It is asked by some Theosophists: "What will Atlantis be like when raised?" Here, there is a slight misconception. Were the same identical lands of Atlantis that were submerged to be raised again, then they would indeed be barren for ages. Because the Atlantic sea-bottom is covered with some 5,000 feet of chalk at present, and more is forming; this is no reason why, however, when the time for a new continent to appear arrives, a geological convulsion and upraising of the sea bottom should not dispose of these 5,000 feet of chalk, for the formation of some mountains -- and 5,000 more come to the surface. The racial cataclysms are not a Noah's deluge of forty days -- a kind of Bombay monsoon. The periodical sinking and reappearance of the mighty continents, now called Atlantis and Lemuria by the modern writers, is no fiction. Our globe is subject to seven periodical entire changes which go pari passu with the races. During this Round, The Secret Doctrine asserts, there must be seven terrestrial pralayas, three occasioned by the change in the inclination of the earth's axis. It is a law which acts at its appointed time, and not at all blindly as science may think; but in strict accordance and harmony with Karmic law. In Occultism this law is referred to as "the great ADJUSTER." The cataclysm which destroyed the huge (Lemurian) continent of which Australia is the largest relic, was due to a series of subterranean convulsions and the breaking asunder of the ocean floors. That which put an end to its successor -- the fourth continent -- was brought on by successive disturbances in the axial rotation. The latter changed the face of the globe, and no memory of its flourishing continents and isles, of its civilizations and sciences remains in the annals of history, save in the sacred records of the East. Nor have we many details about the submersion of the continent inhabited by the second root-race, called the "Hyperborean."

But the term "Atlantean" must not mislead the reader to regard these as one race only, or even a nation. It is as though one said "Asiatics." Many, multiplied, and various were the Atlanteans, who represented several humanities, and almost a countless number of races and nations -- more varied indeed than would be the "Europeans" were this name to be given indiscriminately to the five existing parts of the world. There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans; giants and dwarfs (as some African tribes comparatively are, even now). In the Eocene age, even in its very first part, the great cycle of the fourth race men, the (Lemuro) Atlantean had already reached its highest point of civilization, and the great continent, the father of nearly all the present continents, showed the first symptoms of sinking. Atlantis as a whole perished during the Miocene period.

Ælian preserved an extract from Theophrastus written during the days of Alexander the Great. It is a dialogue between Midas, the Phrygian, and Silenus. The former is told of a continent that had existed in times of old, so immense, that Asia, Europe and Africa seemed like poor islands compared with it. It was the last to produce animals and plants of gigantic magnitudes. There, said Silenus, men grew to double the size of the tallest man in his (the narrator's) time, and they lived to twice as old an age. They had wealthy cities with temples, and one of such (cities) held more than a million inhabitants in it, gold and silver being found there in great abundance. Records came to the fifth race Aryans from their predecessors of the fourth, which had been piously preserved and which told them how their parent root-race, becoming with every generation more arrogant, owing to the acquisition of super-human powers, had been gradually gliding toward its end. Those records reminded them of the giant intellect of the preceding races as well as of their giant size. One finds the repetition of those records in every age of history, in almost every old fragment which has descended to us from antiquity. As to the question of the four distinct races of mankind which preceded our fifth race, there is nothing mystical in it, except the ethereal bodies of the first races; and it is a matter of legendary, nevertheless, very correct history. That legend is universal. If the Western savant pleases to see in it only a myth, it does not make the slightest difference. The Mexicans had, and still have, the tradition of the fourfold destruction of the world by fire and water, just as the Egyptians had, and the Hindus have, to this day.

To show how continents, races, nations and cycles overlap each other, one has but to think of Lemuria, the last of whose lands perished about 700,000 years before the beginning of the Tertiary period, and the last of "Atlantis" only a few thousand years ago; thus both overlapping -- one the Atlantean period, and the other the Aryan. Since the beginning of the Atlantean race many millions of years have passed, yet we find the last of the Atlanteans, still mixed up with the Aryan element, 11,000 years ago. While this takes place, in this immense period, the elder race loses its characteristics and external type and assumes the new features of the younger race. This is proved by all the formations of mixed human races. Now, Occult philosophy teaches that even now, under our very eyes, the new Race and Races are preparing to be formed, and that it is in America that the transformation will take place, and has already silently commenced.

Thus the Americans have become in only three centuries a "primary race" pro tem, before becoming a race apart, and strongly separated from all other now existing races. They are, in short, the germs of the Sixth sub-race (of the Aryan race), and in some few hundred years more, will become most decidedly the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present

European or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics. After this, in about 25,000 years, they will launch into preparations for the seventh sub-race; until in consequence of cataclysms -- the first series of those which must one day destroy Europe, and still later the whole Aryan race (and thus affect both Americas), as most of the lands directly connected with the confines of our continent and isles -- the Sixth Root-Race will have appeared on the stage of our Round.

When shall this be? Who knows save the great Masters of Wisdom, perchance, and they are as silent upon the subject as the snow-capped peaks that tower above them. All we know is, that it will silently come into existence; so silently, indeed, that for long millenniums shall its pioneers -- the peculiar children who will grow into peculiar men and women -- be regarded as anomalous lusus naturae, abnormalities physically and mentally. Then, as they increase and their numbers become with every age greater, one day they will awake to find themselves in a majority. It is the present men who will then begin to be regarded as exceptional mongrels, until these die out in their turn in civilized lands; surviving only in small groups on islands -- the mountain peaks of today -- where they will vegetate, degenerate, and finally die out, perhaps millions of years hence, as the Aztecs have, as the Nyam-Nyam and the dwarfish Moola Koorumba of the Nilghiri Hills are dying.

All these are the remnants of once mighty races, the recollection of whose existence has entirely died out of the remembrance of the modern generations, just as we shall vanish from the memory of the Sixth Race Humanity. The fifth will overlap the sixth race for many hundreds of millenniums, changing with it slower than its new successor, still changing in stature, general physique, and mentality, just as the fourth overlapped our Aryan race, and the third had overlapped the Atlanteans.

This process of preparation for the sixth great race must last throughout the whole sixth and seventh sub-races. But the last remnants of the Fifth Continent will not disappear until sometime after the birth of the new Race; when another and new dwelling, the sixth continent, will have appeared above the new waters on the face of the globe, so as to receive the new stranger. To it will emigrate and settle all those who shall be fortunate enough to escape the general disaster. When this shall be -- as just said -- it is not for the writer to know. Only, as nature no more proceeds by sudden jumps and starts, than man changes suddenly from a child into a mature man, the final cataclysm will be preceded by many smaller submersions and destructions both by wave and volcanic fires. The exultant pulse will beat high in the heart of the race now in the American zone, but there will be no more Americans when the Sixth race commences; no more, in fact, than Europeans; for they will now have become a new race, and many new nations.

Yet the Fifth will not die, but survive for a while: overlapping the new Race for many hundred thousand years to come, it will be transformed with it -- slower than its new successor -- still getting entirely altered in mentality, general physique, and stature. Mankind will not grow again into giant bodies as in the case of the Lemurians and the Atlanteans; because while the evolution of the fourth race led the latter down to the very bottom of materiality in its physical development, the present race is on its ascending arc; and the Sixth will be rapidly growing out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh. Thus it is the mankind of the New world -- one by far the senior of our Old one, a fact men had also forgotten, whose mission and Karma it is to sow the seeds for a forthcoming, grander, and far more glorious Race than any of those we know of at present. On the law of parallel history and races, the majority of the future mankind will be composed of glorious Adepts.

Occult Hierarchy down to those connected with Earth

Theosophy brought into currency the existence of an Occult Hierarchy right from the day of manifestation, its continuous activity to the present times and its plans for the future. The process of emanation and manifestation is guided, directed and monitored by it. The knowledge of its operation would surely help the human progression on the right lines. The concept of Hierarchies is one of the corner-stones of the Ancient Wisdom.

The term ‘hierarchy’ comes from Greek words ‘hieros’ meaning sacred and ‘archien’ to rule. It embodies the grades of being with delegated authority by One Supreme Power. Hierarchical organization is a natural working system, each entity working in close coordination with other entities. This situation is necessary for what we call in common parlance the ‘evolution’. The human body by itself is direct evidence to this.

The universe is a hierarchy of Life extending from the earth to the far beyond spiritual realms. We have the example in Indian books of an Aswattha tree with its roots in heaven and branches all over the earth.

Madame Blavatsky states: The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform, and who are messengers in the sense only that they are the agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and intelligence; and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the earthly alloy ‘which time is wont to prey upon’ is only to indulge in poetic fantasy. For each of these Beings either was, or perhaps to become, a man, if not in the present, then in a past or a coming cycle. (SD.I.274-5)

Cosmic intelligence and divine substance, emanating from the boundless Unknowable, together produce all transformations related to the spiritual side of nature.

She enumerates the Hierarchies thus:

1. Men in the Human kingdom: We are in the midpoint of evolution between the elementals and Adepts. Having reached the degree of self-consciousness, capable of functioning with Viveka, we have a choice to further progress or stagnate.

2. Bodhisattvas: Spiritually and intuitionally advance human beings, who remain in touch with the earth to guide humanity.

3. Manushya-Buddhas: Born in a human body, they work among mankind to help the emergence of 7 root-races and sub-races. They normally appear in the mid-point of the root-race. (Gautama Buddha is the second racial Buddha in the 5^th root-race)

4. Dhyani-Budhisattvas: They supervise the 7 globes of each round of planetary life. The one in charge of our globe is also called ‘The silent Watcher’.

5. Dhyani-Buddhas: They are the divine architects who caused the formation of our Solar system. For each round there will be one such.

6. Sons of Light: They are the reflected rays of manifestation. They provide the Light needed for the system. Sun of our kingdom has seven rays yielding the planetary spirits.

7. Diaviprakriti: The divine matter or original substance that fills the system.

8. Mahabuddhi: The Cosmic mind and intelligence. The operations in nature are caused by this Intelligence.

9. Adi-Buddhi: The universally diffused mystic essence. The wisdom side of the universe swells from this source.

Every form on earth and every atom in Space strives in its effort towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the Heavenly Man, asserts Madame Blavatsky. This Heavenly Man has given the life, form and being to every creature in the kingdom of Nature. “He emanates all Nature out of Himself ”.

The downward arc in the Chains is as below:

Chain 1: Asura Hierarchy, who developed the MansII and Mineral forms.

Chain 2: Agnishvatta Hierarchy, who developed Astral and Plant forms.

Chain 3: Barhishad Hierarchy, who developed the Physical I and Animal forms

Chain 4: The present humanity, who develop Physical II and Human forms.

We are in the mid-point. The Heavenly Man is the ‘sum total of Spirit-Matter’, expressed in Life-Form in humanities, for the earth-scheme. We are on the ascending arc.

We have to master the centers of forces in the causal body, those of the higher Mans, Buddhi and Atma. The subtler levels of spiritual consciousness must be ‘evoked’ and eventually the subtler spiritual bodies (Aprakrita sarira) be mastered. All this is ‘from within’.

“During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like the Globe on which it lives, will be ever tending to reassume its primeval form, that of a Dhyan Chohanic Host.”

“Man, being a compound of the essences of all the celestial Hierarchies, may succeed in making himself, as such, superior, in one sense, to any Hierarchy or class, or even combination of them. ---- By paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full knowledge of the non-separateness of his Higher Self from the One Absolute SELF, man can, even during his terrestrial life, become as “one of us”.

The heavenly Man, in Indian texts, is called the “Purusha”, and a sooktam available in Rig-veda elaborated his emanation and processes of His manifestation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Direct from the Occult Records

Occult Catechism:

Madame Blavatsky uses too frequently, while making propositions and substantiating them, the term “Occult” as prefix for the words Philosophy, Teaching, Symbology, Principles, Law, Doctrine, Science, Wisdom etc. in her The Secret Doctrine.

To start with, she quotes from an Occult Catechism – also called the esoteric Senzar Catechism.

“What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a universe or not; whether there be gods or none?”

The answer made is --- SPACE.

It is also expressed as the “One Unknown ever-present God in Nature”(Nature in abscondito).

The questions and answers in the Occult Catechism run thus:

“What is it that ever is?”

“Space, the eternal Anupadaka (=parentless)”

“What is it that ever was?”

“The Germ in the Root.”

“What is it that is ever coming and going?”

“The Great Breath.”

“Then, there are the three Eternals?”

“No, the three are one. That whichever is is one, that whichever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is also one: and that is Space.”

“Explain, oh Lanoo (disciple).”

“The One is an unbroken Circle (ring) with no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the boundless plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the manvantaric periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived everywhere during those periods; it is Vertical and the Horizontal, the Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the rings that are within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the ‘Breath which is eternal.’ It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from within outwardly, when it is nowhere –(i.e., maya). It expands and contracts (exhalation and inhalation). When it expands, the mother diffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manvantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but during Evolution and Manvantara her garment is cold and radiant. Hot breath is Father who devours the progeny of many-faced Element(heterogeneous); and leaves the single faced ones(homogeneous). Cool breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahma, or Manvantara)…..”

Occult Science recognizes Seven Cosmic Elements; four are entirely physical, the fifth semi-material(Ether)’ the 4^th will become visible in the air towards the end of our 4^th Round, to reign supreme over the others during the whole of the 5^th Round. The remaining 2 are as yet absolutely beyond the range of human perception. These will be present in the 6^th and 7^th Races of this Round and will become known then. The 7 Elements with their sub-elements are simply conditional modifications and aspects of the ONE and only Element.

The Occult Catechism is again quoted while commenting on the Stanza 5.

‘A bright star dropped from the Heart of Eternity; the beacon of hope on whose Seven Rays hang the Seven Worlds of Being.’ These are the Seven Lights whose reflections are the human immortal Monads – the Atma, or the irradiating Spirit of every creature of the human family, says Madame Blavatsky.

Here follows the portion of Catechism:

“Lift thy head, O Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark midnight sky?”

“I see one Flame, O Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it.”

“Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy Brother-men?”

“It is no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, ‘Thy Soul and My Soul’.”

The inseparability from the source and perfect identity of the individual soul with the Over-soul, later developed as the third proposition is suggestive here.

Commenting on Stanza 6 where manifestation is further discussed, the Catechism says:

“The Great Breath digs through Space seven holes into Laya, to cause them to circumgyrate during Manvantara.”

Fohat is producing the ‘Seven Laya Centers’ for creative purposes. They are the seven invisible points within the area of Manifested Universe.

The “Mother lies stretched in infinity, during Pralaya, as the great Deep, the ‘dry Waters of Space,’ and becomes wet only after the separation and as Narayana moves over its face. Catechism says, “Space which is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it touches, and gives it life and generation.”

Commenting on Stanza 1 of Anthropogenesis, we find extensive quote from the Occult Commentary, which runs thus:

“The Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth, and his six Assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven planetary Dhyanis from the Spirit of the Sun. they are his messengers of Light and Life.

“Like each of the Seven Regions of the Earth, each of the seven Firstborn (the primordial Human groups) receives its light and life from its own especial Dhyani – spiritually, and from the Palace (House, the Planet) of that Dhyani – physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The First is born under the Sun; the Second under Brihaspati (Jupiter); the Third under Lohitanga (Kuja, Mars, the fiery-bodied and also under Venus or Sukra); the Fourth, under Soma (the Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being born under and from the Moon) and Shani, Saturn, the Krura-lochana (Evil-eyed), and the Asita (the Dark); the Fifth, under Budha (Mercury).

“So also with man and every “man” (every principle) in man. Each gets its specific quality from its Primary (the planetary Spirit), therefore every man is a septenate (or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that special Dhyani). Every active power or force of the Earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords. Light comes through Shukra (Venus), who receives a triple supply, and gives one-third of it to the Earth. Therefore the two are called “Twin-Sisters’, but the Spirit of the earth is subservient to the Lord of “Sukra’. Our wise men represent the two Globes, one over, the other under the double Sign (the primordial Svastika bereft of its four arms, or the cross, +)”

The double sign is the symbol of male and female principles in Nature. The Svastika is all that and much more.

“It is through Shukra that the ‘double ones’(the hermaphrodites) of the Third (Root Race) descended from the ‘Sweat-born’. Therefore it is represented under the symbol , the circle and diameter, during the Third (Race), and during the fourth.”

Madame Blavatsky further explains that the diameter isolated in the circle stands for feminine nature; for the first ideal World, self-generated and self-impregnated by the universally diffused Spirit of Life, also referring to the primitive Root Race.

“Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Ushanas-Shukra. The Guru of Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Shukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth.”

These are shown only as ‘illustrative’ and if an exhaustive survey is to be made we have to quote the entire Text.

Studies in Symbology:

Madame Blavatsky has expended a greater portion of her life in the study of: Hidden meanings in every religions and profane legends of all nations, preeminently in the traditions of the East.

She devoted part 2 of Cosmogenesis (vol. 1) to the study of ‘The Evolution of Symbolism’ and part 2 of Anthrpogenesis (vol.2) to the study of ‘The Archaic Symbolism of the World Religions’

The whole text, apart from the basic propositions, is an expression in Symbols and Glyphs. She begins with ‘A white disk within a dull background and the same disk with a central point etc.’ which is clear symbology.

She asserts following factors:

The Mythological story, traditional event in the folklore – is not pure fiction. It has an actual historical lining in it.

Symbology must be studied from every one of its aspects. It has seven departments within it. It should not be interpreted ‘literally.’

Emblem: comprises a larger series of thoughts than a Symbol. A series of pictures (graphic) viewed and explained allegorically and unfolding an idea in panoramic views one after the other. Puranas are written emblems.

Symbol: a concrete visible picture or sign representing a series of principles, recognizable by those who have received certain instructions – Initiates.

All esoteric societies have made use of emblems and symbols.

Students of Archaic school should be careful not to divulge ‘secrets of far more importance to humanity’, they being dangerous in ignorant hands.

Adept will not impart the conditions and means that lead to any correlation of Elements (which may produce harmful as well as beneficent results). He is ready to impart to the earnest student the secrets of ancient thought, and to furnish a few more landmarks for a retrospective view of the past. (Eg. Origin of Man, Evolution of Races etc.)

Parable is a spoken symbol, is an allegorical representation of life-realities, events and facts.

Spoken word has a potency not only unknown to, but even unsuspected and naturally disbelieved in, by the moderns.

Sound and rhythm are closely related to the four elements of the Ancients.

Esoteric reading of symbolism is one of the keys to the once ‘Universal Mystery Language’.

Divine Origin ( = not revelation of an anthropomorphic God) is ‘A Language and a system of science imparted to early mankind by a more advanced mankind, so much higher as to be divine in the sight of that infant humanity by a “mankind”.’

Mystery language of the prehistoric ages is now called symbolism.

Mystery language and its keys: every theology has sprung from One Universal Esoteric of Mystery language. To the hall of Mysteries, key is turned once. Sacred wisdom-science from pre-historic ages.

Seven mysteries of Nature: Each has its own symbolism. All the words of mystery language signified, in the olden days, the same thing to each man, of whatsoever nationality.

Seven keys to the Mystery Tongue were held by Initiated Hierophants of antiquity.

India – in its ancient boundaries – is the only country in the world which still has among her sons Adepts, who have the knowledge of all the seven subsystems; and the key to the entire system.

Exoteric dogmas may often have been altered, the Esoteric never.

Every old religion is but a chapter or two of the eternal volume of archaic primeval mysteries; Eastern Occultism alone being able to boast that it is in possession of the full secret, with its Seven Keys.

Men of Learning and research in the department of symbology have not yet dawned, to who – all the seven keys are known.

Secret records hold the said seven keys to the mystery of the birth of Man.

The seven keys open the mysteries, past and future, of the seven Root-races, and of the seven kalpas.

Once the Mystery Language is approximately mastered, the archaic teaching will be accepted.

Now, let us see the definitive meaning of the term:

Symbolism: The pictorial expression of an idea or a thought. Primordial writing had at first no characters, but a symbol generally stood for a whole phrase or sentence. A symbol is thus a recorded parable, and a parable a spoken symbol. The Chinese written language is nothing more than symbolic writing, each of its several thousand letters being a symbol. (Glossary, p.116)

Mr. Ernest Wood, in his Digest categorized the explanations found in The Secret Doctrine thus:

1. Place of symbolism in Religions.

2. The Circle and the Square.

3. The Disc, the Diameter and the Cross.

4. Qualities of Numbers.

5. The Egg and the Birds.

6. Meaning of the Lotus.

7. The Moon and the cat.

8. Trees and Serpents.

9. Creative Gods and the God-men.

The literature on Religions, the world over, consists of philosophical and scientific explanations; and the allegorical stories, parables and myths intended for the illiterate masses. Madame Blavatsky stated, ‘even a parable is a spoken symbol: a fiction or a fable an allegorical representation of life-realities, events and facts. A moral was ever drawn from a parable, that moral being an actual truth and fact in human life, so an historical, real event was deduced from certain emblems and symbols recorded in the ancient archives of the temples.’

‘It is from the exoteric religions that we have to dig out the root-idea before we turn to esoteric truths. Furthermore, every symbol may be read esoterically, and the proof furnished for its being correctly read by transliterating it into its correct numerical and geometrical forms, however much the glyphs and symbols may vary among themselves. For in the origin those symbols were all identical.’

The circle represents the ‘boundless All’, both at the level of matter and the spirit.

The square indicates the manifestation. The square is all the time within the circle. Madame Blavatsky refers to the Pythagorean triangle with 1, 2. 3. 4 dots within in horizontal lines, suggesting the ‘reality in the manifested world is composed units or unity.’

The Disc, the Diameter and the Cross are further presentations of the process of manifestation.

Annotating the quality of numbers, she said Number 10 represents ‘the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and the unknown depths of the spiritual Soul.’ She provides explanations for all numerical, and finally says, the symbol of man is a cube unfolded, three crossways (the female) and four vertically and the man is the culmination of the deity on Earth.

The egg was revered both on account of its form and its inner mystery. ‘ The gradual development of the imperceptible germ within the closed shell; the inward working, without any apparent outward interference of force, which from a latent nothing produced an active something,---- must have been a standing miracle…’ The bird has two wings, symbolizing the divine substance and divine ideation, with which it carries on its journey. ‘The bird of Time’ (Kala-hamsa) is a much known word.

Lotus ‘is the flower sacred to Nature and her Gods, and represents the abstract and the concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive power of Nature, through the agency of fire and water. --- The spirit of Fire stirs up and fructifies and develops into concrete form everything from its ideal prototype, which is born of Water or primordial earth

Moon chain was the precedential one to our Earth chain. Moon is the giver of Life to our globe, while the sun is the giver to the planetary system. ‘The Sun and the Moon, as male-female deities, fructify the earth, the microcosmic mother, and the latter conceives and brings forth in her turn.’ Cat is a symbol and orbit of the moon. ‘The eye of the cat seems to follow the lunar phases in its growth and decline, and its orbs shine like two stars in the darkness of night.’

‘In the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal Being, the tree and the Serpent were divine imagery, truly.’ The roots of the tree were generated in the heaven and it grew out of the Rootless Root of all-being. As its trunk grew and developed, the terrestrial worlds came into existence. The serpent is the symbol of Eternity. The tree is also a symbol of the Adept and wise-man. Serpent swallowing its own tail indicates the continuous nature of existence.

‘A hierarchy of Forces or rather the intelligent Powers of Nature’ is the creative Gods. She says that all the gods of Olympus, as well as those of the Hindu (Indian) Pantheon and the Rishis were the seven-fold personating of:

1. The noumena of the intelligent Powers of nature

2. Cosmic Forces

3. Celestial Bodies

4. Dhyan-Chohans

5. Spiritual powers

6. Divine Kings on Earth and

7. Terrestrial heroes or men.

Coming to the God-men, the world mythologies and histories have much to say.

Manas, or the mind, has much to do with the man, as it is a great power from the cosmic fire. At the human level it is the ‘thinking principle’. It is a friend of mankind in its progression and perfection. ‘No being can become god, or deva, unless he passes through the human cycles.’ The human monad has its task of arriving at the point. Man is described as the ‘God in the Becoming’.

In these modern days we live, the term ‘God-men’ is used very loosely to describe every saffron-robed man, or a miracle worker; and the term has become a symbol of mockery and disdain. The fact remains that every man is a god in the making.

Occult Philosophy:

Madame Blavatsky brought out her The Secret Doctrine (1888), The Key to Theosophy (1889), founded her magazine The Lucifer, saw through the proofs (of the first 32 pages) of her Thesophical Glossary and passed on from the physical plane on 8 May 1891. Some papers from her were yet to see the open light and become available to the public reader. Dr Annie Besant who was in charge her papers collected some of them and brought out as The Secret Doctrine vol.III (1897). This volume and The Theosophical Glossary happen to be her principal works too, though posthumously. The papers brought out in the Volume III were organized in 51 Sections and ‘Some papers on the bearing of Occult Philosophy on Life’ were included too.

These papers carry many informative facts that can be used for enlightening oneself. A summary of the beginning of the latter part is attempted now in the following pages.

Most important that needs our special study is the Diagram I which explains the correspondences among the Centres of Creative Forces, the Potential Forces and the Centres of Action. In other words, they are the Macrocosm along with the Manifested Logos, the Microcosm (the Inner Man) and Microcosm (the Physical man).

The Macrocosm is A. Sexless, Unmanifested Logos, B. Potential wisdom and C. Universal Ideation. They are the unknowable, One in Three.

The Manifested Logos projecting therefrom is a) Creative Logos (Purusha), b) Eternal Substance (Prakriti) and Spirit (Mahat). These 3 constitutes the Pradhana, an undifferentiated matter Sankhya) – Good, evil and Chaotic darkness (Sattva, rajas and Tamas)- neutralizing each other. When differentiated they become the Seven Creative Potencies: Spirit, Substance and Fire stimulating Matter to form itself. They make the Spiritual, psychic, Astral and Material planes.

The Microcosm (the Inner Man) consists of Atman, although exoterically reckoned as the 7^th Principle, is no individual Principle at all, and belongs to the Universal soul; 7 is the ‘auric egg’, the magnetic sphere round every human and animal being. The three hyper states of Atman contact the nature. The resultant 4^th is the Man. Thus Man is a Quaternary (Tetraktys), which is named the Higher Self.

The 6 Principles, acting on 4 different Planes, and having their Auric envelope on the 7^th are as below:

1. Buddhi, the vehicle of Atma; 2. Manas, the vehicle of Buddhi; 3. Lower Manas (the upper and Lower Manas are two aspects of one and the same principle; 4.Kama-rupa, its vehicle; 5. Prana, Life; and 6. Linga sarira, its vehicle. The 7^th is denoted as “Maya”, the Physical Body (which is not considered a principle at all) and is entirely ignored.

The six are used by the Adepts of the Right Hand, or White Magicians (Dakshinacharas) and the 7^th by those of Left hand or Black Magicians (Vamacharas).

Now comes in the Microcosm (the Physical man with his Centres of Action as below:

1.Buddhi (Right Eye); 2. Mans (Left Eye); 3. Lower Mans (Right Ear); 4. Kama Rupa (Left Ear); 5. Life principle (Right Nostril); 6. Life Vehicle (Left Nostril); 7. The Organ of the creative logos, the Mouth, (This is the Paradigm of the Creative Orificein the Lower Triad. 8, 9 and 10. The Lower Ternary having direct connection with the Higher Auric Triad and its three spheres (creative, preservative and regenerative)

These Physical organs are used by the Black Magicians. The abuse of the corresponding functions is the most terrible of Karmic sins.

The ‘auric body’ is not mentioned in exoteric literature because it is too sacred. It is this bodywhich assimilates at death the essence of Buddhi and Mans and becomes the vehicle of these spiritual principles, which are not objective, and then, with the full radiation of Atma upon it, ascends as Manas-Taijasi into the Devachanic state. It is also called the ‘Sutratma’, which incarnates from the beginning of Manvantara to the end, stringing upon itself the pearls of human existence. It is also the material from which an Adept forms his Astral bodies.

We have seven physical senses, two are not yet publicly known and named. They correspond to the seven states of consciousness: 1. Waking; 2. Waking-dreaming; 3. Natural sleeping; 4. Induced or trance sleep; 5. Psychic; 6. Super-psychic; and 7. Purely Spiritual –corresponding with one of the seven cosmic planes.

In Diagram II, the Atmic correspondences with the terrestrial plane through numbers, metals, planets, the human principles, days of the week, colors and sound (musical scale0 are detailed.

She later explains what Magic is in Reality. Magic means the “Great Life” or divine life in spirit. The root of magh (sansktit – Mahat) means “Great”.

In Diagram III, she explains the relation the Human Principles have with the Colors as below:

1.Violet: Linga Sharira; 2. Indigo: Higher Manas; 3. Blue: Auric Egg; 4.Green: Lower Manas; . 5.Yellow: Buddhi; 6. Orange: Prana and 7. Red: Kama Rupa.

Occultism provides 2 reasons for Secrecy:

1. The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.

2. The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric teachings is too dangerous in profane hands.

The writings have many purposeful suggestions for one who has deep intent in studying and living the Occult Life, which is full and splendorous.

Target Readers, Relevance and Impact

1. Thinkers and intellectuals who are awaiting their ‘intuitions to open.

2. The facts presented are ever relevant, but need exploration forever.

3. Many men and women of the World in literary, scientific, artistic and philosophical fields of study could advance their thought further.

The following statements appearing in the text need special mention:

A Law in Nature provides implant in Man as in every heart a passionate, inherent and instructive desire for freedom and self-guidance.

First lesson in Esoteric Philosophy is that the Incognizable Cause does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, but only exhibits periodically different aspects of itself to the perception of finite minds.

There is an elaborate law in Nature, one that always tends to adjust contraries and to produce final harmony. It is owing to this law of spiritual development superseding the physical and purely intellectual that mankind will become freed from its false gods and find itself finally self-redeemed.

Madame Blavatsky provides the basis for integration in comprehensive levels of human understanding, which was her special mission in life. The target readers are the discerning thinkers and true seekers of Truth. The fusion of material and psychological sciences with that of spiritual wisdom, through opening the chapters of Occult Science, is a historical necessity. The very purpose of establishing a Society for such study and its fulfillment stands a bystander for this. The students of occultism have many veils moved and removed providing a path to the sanctum-sanctorum of Nature. Every branch of study in nature finds a definite opening here. The onward movement of evolutionary process receives a new impetus to greater heights.

We exist, yet knowing why? and how? of it decidedly improves our knowledge and search. Goings into the roots of ‘Being’ enhances the purpose meaningfully. Apart from other factors, the study helps to regain the faith in one’s being, to obtain a rational view, to understand the great plan, to strengthen effort in reaching perfection and finally, to fulfill the objective of divinizing the Matter in nature.

The study should not, in any way, bring intellectual pride. As Madame Blavatsky indicates in her ‘The Voice of The Silence’, one must be humble to receive wisdom and be humbler after receiving it. The awakening may be slow but steady and the aspirant always holds the ‘key’ in oneself, not in an external agency. In mental and spiritual regions, as she asserts, one stands upon one’s own merit; fear or favor being absent. ‘Theosophy remains a riddle for those who are mentally lazy.’ The facts may at the first sight appear abstruse but a persistent effort makes the way easier and welcoming.

The text is relevant for anytime for the simple reason that it is open-ended. Cosmological and anthropological studies receive a new impetus. A Divine Plan and a Path are drawn intelligible for humanity.

The pre-requisites for right understanding can be summed up thus:

1. Caught up in a mesh of illusion and worldliness, it is first necessary that we are ceaselessly self-deceived.

2. An awakening to the knowing of divine nature in manifestation needs much effort supported by indomitable determination.

3. Seeking the knowledge of Occult Science (Atma-Vidya) is more important than obtaining command over the elements of nature.

4. All old superstitions and errors, of centuries, must be swept away by the hurricane of Truth. The Text is the accumulated wisdom of the ancient Rishis.

5. Unselfishness, altruism in theory and practice, devotion to human race and its perfection are of supreme importance.

‘Civilization may progress; human nature will remain the same throughout all the ages. Occultists, beware!’ forewarns Madame Blavatsky.

Much can be said on the point of relevance, since it would appear to be prima-facie hyperbolic, and could be taken as ‘indoctrination’. Yet relevance depends on deeper understanding of the enunciated truths. An examination into the Ancient Wisdom-Religion is relevant here.

Madame Blavatsky describes theosophy as ‘Wisdom-Religion’ or ‘Divine-Wisdom’. Wisdom-Religion means the ‘One Religion’ which underlies all the existing religions. The faith being primordial, it got revealed directly to the humankind by the progenitors and the ‘informing egos’. It then required no grace, nor blind faith – for it was the ‘Knowledge’. It is on this ‘Wisdom-Religion’ that the statements of theosophy are based. This wisdom-Religion is ‘the inheritance of all nations the world over.’

When we say ‘Ancient Wisdom-Religion’, we do not mean that there is a ’modern’ part of it. Ancient here means that which is ‘eternal, ever-new, boundless; to use the Indian terms “Sanatana”, “Nitya’ and “Nutana”. The term should not be taken to mean ‘obsolete’ or ‘dead’. It only means ‘age old, yet current’. There can be no modern or ancient Wisdom on opposing poles. Wisdom is ‘ancient, all-time, time-honored knowledge’.

‘Gupta-vidya’ and ‘Guhya-vidya’ are two facets of this knowledge popular in India, for the esoteric or secret science; and if we could translate into the English language identical to the terms are ‘Occultism and Mysticism’.

Madame Blavatsky also refers to a coinage of the terms as ‘esoteric philosophy.’ This is the reconciliation of all religions, striped every one of the outer garments and gets into the ‘source’ of all. It proves the necessity of a ‘divine absolute principle in Nature’. It denies ‘deity’, never rejecting the ‘god in nature’, ‘nor deity as the absolute and in abstract’. It only refuses to accept any of the gods created by man in human image and the likeness.

She refers to an ‘old book’ which is the original work from which all the volumes of ‘Kiu-ti’ were compiled. It is taken down in ‘Senzar (cenzar)’ the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of divine beings who dictated it to the Sons of Light, in Central Asia at the very beginning of the fifth race. This record stops with the beginning of Kali-yuga, at the death of Sri Krishna. She refers to yet another book that is as old as the ‘Black age’ of about 5000 years.

In a foot-note she states: The first 5000 years of the Egyptian darkness of Kali-yuga, the ‘Black-age’ is preparing to close the world between 1897-98. Unless we succeed in placing the theosophical society before this date on the safe side of the spiritual current, it will be swept away irretrievably into the deep called failures and the cold waves of oblivion will close over its doomed head. Thus will hwve ingloriously perished the only association whose aims, and rules and original purposes answer in every particular and detail – if strictly carried out – to the innermost fundamental thought of every Adept-Reformer, the beautiful dream of a ‘universal brotherhood of Man’.

Her “The Secret Doctrine” is ‘an attempt to render in a European language the grand panorama of the ever periodically recurring Law’. ’It is not in any of the six Indian schools of philosophy, for it pertains to their “synthesis”, the seventh- which is the Occult Doctrine. She makes reference to Upanishads and says, they ‘speak of the origin of the universe, the nature of Deity, and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind and matter. They treat and expound the secret and mystic meaning of the Vedic texts.’

In her recapitulationof an earlier volume of the text, she affirms:

There is but one indivisible absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and that thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the whole Kosmos, which has no bounds, and which people call Space, considered independently of anything contained in it.

The whole order of Nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life.

There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces.

Three distinct representations of the universe are impressed upon oour thoughts: (i) pre-existing, evolving from the (ii) ever-existing, and the phenomenal; and (iii) the World of illusion, the reflection and shadow thereof.

The esoteric philosophy passes over the necessarianism of this purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first one, only the Ever-existing. This is the view of every one of the six great schools of Indian philosophy, viz. Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta, - the principals of that Unity body of Wisdom of which the Gnosis, the hidden knowledge, is the Seventh.

The work ‘The secret Doctrine’ withholds more than it gives out; the student is invited to use his own instincts. It gives life and regeneration to those who are fit to profit even by the little that is now revealed to them.

The Radical Unity in Nature:

The main philosophical-literary output from Madame Blavatsky in her Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888) gave an entirely different opening to the awakening mind of the last part of 19^th century. Subtitled respectively as ‘A Master key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology’ and ‘A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy’, the contents of the books brought in a new continent of thought to the puzzled mind overridden with the new psychism and spiritual séances. She based her texts on the spiritual wisdom derived from her Teachers who also endowed her with the faculty of visioning the Astral Records, those of eternal existence and indelible perennial value. She focused her writings as “occult” and hitherto not given out except in fragments and named it the “Esoteric Philosophy”. The Stanzas of Dzyan (Dhyana-sloka-s) and the texts of Kiu-ti were her basics.

Her intention in producing the books was to show to the thinking world that the universe is not recent born but is a reflective projection from the Absolute Space, the humanity has a long line of time to proceed and perfect itself, and it is necessary for all to know their origin and purpose in Life.

In her preface to the first book, she said: “It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to aid the student to detect the vital principles which underlie the philosophic systems of old. --- Truth, high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme.--- Our work is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic philosophy, the anciently universal Wisdom Religion, as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and theology.--- It will hardly fail to result ultimately in the over throw of error and the triumph of Truth. We are laboring for the brighter morrow.”

In her preface to the second book she asserted that “what is contained in this work is to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the Scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed. --- What is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and unbroken whole.” The book explains the manner and method of emanation and manifestation of the Universe and Man.

The books are popular around the world and provide the spring board for new ideas to all thinkers including men of religion and science. Elaborate studies are made thereupon and continue to be made. Sumptuous food for thought is seen by all sections of scholars in all Nations.

The key-note provided by Madame Blavatsky was the express statement as to the “One Fundamental Law in Occult Science.” This runs thus: “The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of compounds in Nature – from star to mineral atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest infusorium, in the fullest acceptance of the term, and whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds – this unity is the one fundamental law in Occult Science.” This statement provides the base for very many concepts and action points. Let us go into the sections of thought:

1. Nature has unity and that unity is radical. The term ‘radical’ means many, viz. fundamental, essential, deep-seated, sweeping, thorough, far-reaching, drastic, major, extreme, uncompromising, militant, activist, revolutionary etc.

2. Nature has various compounds and constituents, right from a distant star and a nearer mineral (hard and solid) atom; a small insect below and an ever expanding Intelligence. Ultimate essence of these makes the radical unity. Variety of differentiation and diffusion is suggested here, the Mother Nature being One.

3. The constituent parts of Nature have a number of states and stages, broadly reckonable as: Spiritual, intellectual and Physical worlds. The plurality of the worlds is to be noticed here.

4. The stages and states of Nature are both terrestrial and transcendental. The outer form and the inner life are to be seen as two-different and yet unified by the Ultimate essence. The material and essence might undergo trans-formations and a change, but the ultimate facet of the essence is that radical Unity.

The Unseen and the Visible Space, called the “Seven-skinned Eternal Mother-Father”, is the source for the Nature and its Unity. Undifferentiated Space and its differentiation are composed of ‘seven layers’.

Quoting from an esoteric Senzar Catechism, she said: What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is Universe or not; whether there be gods or none? – The answer made is –“SPACE.” “The oldest religions of the world are the Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian and next comes the Chaldean.”

Besides being an open book on Occult Science, it had influenced the way of thinking in all walks of life. Ms. Sylvia Cranston in her well documented book: ‘H P B : The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky, Founder of the modern Theosophical Movement’ (Pub: Tarcher/Putnum, 1993) gives out the names of two Nobel Laureate Scientists Robert Millikang and Albert Einstein, besides those of Mohanlal Karamchand Gandhi, W.B.Yeats, James Joyce, Jack London, D.H. Lawrence, Frank Baum, Kurt Vonnegut, Nicholas Roerich, Kandinsky, Mondrain, Klee, Gaugin, Gustav Mahler, Sibelius, Edgar Cayce, Elvis Presley, Joseph Campbell and Carl Yung as those who were greatly influenced in their work and endeavor. Madame Blavatsky was very prophetic when she said, ‘in the 20^th century that portions, if not the whole, of the present work will be validated.’

Reed Carson, in his book ‘Blavatsky’s Foreknowledge of twentieth century Science’ gives out at least three ‘prefigured discoveries’: 1. Atoms are divisible 2.atoms are perpetually in Motion 3. Matter and energy are convertible. That a universal vital principle, independent of matter, manifests as ‘atomic energy’ on our plane of consciousness, is what she categorically said. The coining of the term ‘Atomic Energy’ is credited to her.

She changed the face of physical and chemical sciences not to speak of other literary arts and humanities. The religious and philosophical thoughts were entirely ‘different’ after her work. She did affect the scales of human thought enormously.

She did not mind the reader taking the work as a fairy tale, and in fact, recommends that. Yet, he wants him to be ‘kindly to judge’. The text is considered a scientific presentation of Yoga. George S Arundale’s book ‘The lotus Fire’, Sri Krishna Prem and Madhav Asishs’ books ‘Man: The Measure of tings’ and ‘Man: The Son of Man’ are in fact commentaries on the same Stanzas of Dzyan, first introduced by her. It was Annie Besant who reviewed the volumes of ‘The Secret Doctrine’ for The Pall Mall Gazette, and how her life changed to take a new turn is well known and needs no elaboration here. The influence on the readers in the east is more unequivocal.

The impact in general is boundless in churning the human consciousness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The preface to ‘The Secret Doctrine’ contains the following observations:

This book is not the Secret Doctrine in its entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon various writers and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.

But it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained, in these volumes, belong neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialized. (Italics added)

Her Theosophical Glossary, says this with reference to Puranas of India:

(Lit.) ancient, A collection of symbolical writings – eighteen in number now – supposed to have been compiled by Vyasa. ----Sacred Hindu works treating of the creation, destruction and renovation of worlds; the genealogy and deeds of gods and heroes; the reigns of the Manus and the deeds of their descendants. There are 18 principal Puranas and 18 supplementary Upa-puranas. (1)

Vishnu Purana:

Of the 18 Puranas, Vishnu Purana is considered the Purana-Ratna (the crest jewel of puranas) and a verse in that says, ‘accomplished in the purport of the puranas, Vyasa compiled a Pauranik Samhita, consisting of historical and legendary traditions, prayers and hymns, and sacred chronology. It is considered equal in sanctity to the Veda (Wisdom). Puranam Veda sammitam, which means also that it consists of the content of Veda and is in strict accordance with that.

The text of the Secret Doctrine is basically a commentary of the Stanzas of Dzyan (Dhyana-slokas) supported in evidence by various sacred books of the world. Vishnu Purana happens to be the principal book considered for such support as we find as many as 130 references drawn from it.

She relied on the English translation of Vishnu Purana rendered by H H Wilson, edited by Fitzerald Hall (published during 1864 &’70) which was available then, (2). When the translation, explanation or elaboration of Wilson was defective, being not faithful to the original, she did not pause to mention that fact and supplying the right meaning and import of the verse-passage.

While it is not possible, and not even necessary, to list out all the 130 and odd references, an effort is made here to particularize certain ideas used by her from the Purana.

1. Elucidating the two aspects of the One principle, (Parabrahman and Mulaprakriti) she quotes Hall’s revised notes:

That Brahma in its totality, has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of Spirit and the aspect of Time. Spirit, O twice born, is the leading aspect of the Supreme Brahma. The next is a twofold aspect, --- Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved, and Time is the last.

She cites this in support of her statement:

The periodical manvantaric emanation, or primal radiation of the One principle is also One androgynous and phenomenally finite.

She also brings in the eastern philosopher’s term Bhranti-darshanah meaning ‘false apprehensions and something conceived of erroneous appearance, as material form’.

2. Explaining the ‘Seven Eternities’ (Stanza1, Sloka 1), she cites the verse 90 (chapter VIII, Book II) which means:

By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa; life as long as the three regions (earth, sky and heaven) last, is called exemption from (reiterated) death.

She draws specific reference to Hall’s foot-note, which rums thus:

This, according to Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution.

She makes a distinction here and says in accordance with the Esoteric philosophy thus:

They (the gods) perish not, but are reabsorbed.

In other words, she corrects the misapprehension of the translator.

3. Explaining the Sanskrit term Prabhavapyaya, (sloka 9 in Stanza I) she says the meaning is ‘the place or the plane whence is the origination, and into which is the resolution of all things’ and this is not brought out totally in the translation by the term ‘one form of existence’. ‘Mother of the world or womb of the world’ is not the correct import of the term ‘Jagad-yoni’ but it should be ‘the material cause of the world’.

4. In the same sloka, the term Pradhana occurs. That which is the unevolved cause is emphatically called, by the eminent sages, Pradhana, original base, which is subtle Prakriti, viz. that which is eternal, and which at once is (or comprehended what is) and (what) is not, or is mere process.

The statement is made here that ‘Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or create, but only exhibits various aspects of itself, one which is Prakriti, an aspect of Pradhana’.

5, Commenting on the term ‘World-egg’, she says;

The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water – four ready, three secret) and draws attention of the reader to the sloka in Vishnu purana: Avyaktonavrito brahmasmaih sahito mahan/ Ebhiravaranairh andam saptabhih Prakritairvritam/ Narikelaphalasyantarbijam bahya dalairiva.

She further comments: Elements are translated as ‘envelopes’; and a secret one “ahamkara” is added by Wilson. But the text of purana has no reference to Ahamkara. It only mentions seven elements specifying the last three.

6. In the ‘Summing up’ of vol.1, she makes the following statement:

The universe was evolved out of its ideal plan, upheld through eternity in the unconsciousness of that which the Vedantins call Parabrahma.

She compares this idea with the following sloka of the purana: Gunasaabhyat tatastasmaat kshetrajnadhishtitaatmune/ Gunavyanjana sambhutih sargakale dwijottama

‘From Pradhana (primordial substance) presided over by Soul, Kshetrajna (embodied spirit?) proceeds the unequal development (evolution) of those qualities. From the great principle (Mahat) (universal) Intellect (or mind) is produced the origin of the (subtle) elements and of the organs of sense.

She quotes further evidence from Purana in the Slokas beginning with “Avikaraaya suddhaya--“ meaning the following:

Glory to the Unchangeable, holy, eternal, supreme Vishnu, of One Universal nature, the mighty Over-all; to Him who is Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Shankara (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva) the creator, preserver and destroyer of the world; to Vasudeva, the liberator of his worshippers; to Him whose essence is both subtle and corporeal, indiscreet and discreet; to Vishnu, the cause of final emancipation.

Glory to the Supreme Vishnu, the cause of the creation, existence, and end of the world; who is the Root of the world, and who consists of the world.

7. The “Summing up” has the following statement from the Eastern Private commentary:

The real substance of the concealed Sun is a nucleus of Mother substance.—He who tells thee he has seen the Sun, laugh at him, as if he had said that the Sun moves really onward in his diurnal path.

She quotes the following from the Purana:

Vishnu, in the form of his active energy, never either rises or sets, and is, at once, the seven fold Sun and distinct from it.

8. Discussing the topic on ‘Creation of Divine Beings’, she quotes from the Purana a sloka which means:

In the manner, Jyotsna (dawn); Ratri (night); Ahar (day); and Sandhya (evening twilight) are the 4 bodies of Brahma. Thus it is to be accounted that Brahma, for the purposes of creation, assumes 4 bodies invested in 3 qualities.

9. Advancing the thought that ‘man lived 18 millions of years ago’ she rests upon the Indian chronology and cites the figure available in Book I of the Purana, particularly the period of 4,320,000 years of a Mahayuga; and the regular descending series of 4,3,2 with ciphers multiplied.

10. She draws a parallel between Saria, the wife of Abraham; and Sri, the consort of Vishnu, and quotes extensively from the Purana to reiterate that ‘all in ancient scriptures is allegorical, -- all based upon and inseparably connected with astronomy and cosmolatry. Slokas 15 to 32 of the Book I, chapter 8 of the Purana give a narrative of the status of Sri. The notes of the translator ends with the comment: ‘Hari is all that is called male; Lakshmi is all that is termed female: there is nothing else than they.’

11. Acclaiming Bharata, India – in general --, as the one symbolizing ‘the chosen land of those days (of the third Root-race), she says, ‘it is the land of active, (spiritual) works par excellence; the land of Initiation and of divine Knowledge. In the foot-note she adds:

In the Vishnu Purana with careful reading, may be found many corroborations of the same. The reigns of Gods, and Men are all enumerated in the descriptions of the seven islands, seven seas, seven mountains etc. ruled by Kings. Each King is invariably said to have seven sons, allegory to the seven sub-races.

She draws material in support from chapters 3 & 4 of the Book II of the Purana.

12. Discussing the distinction of classes Agnishatvas and Barhishads, she has the following to say:

Agnishvatta Pitris are devoid of fire, of creative passion, because they are too divine and pure; whereas Barhishads, being Lunar spirits move closely connected with earth, because the creative Elohim of form or the Adam of dust.

She relies on the Vishnu Purana here too.

13. Explaining how the universe is an expansion of the Divine Substance, in her Section “Eastern Gupta-Vidya and the Kabala as a system” and ‘the dissimilarity in their philosophical interpretations since the middle ages’, she mentions the identity of the meanings of terms. Kabala means ‘to receive’ and Srmiti means ‘that received by tradition’. Then she quotes from Zohar to say ‘the universe or the visible world is a farther expansion of the divine substance, and is called ‘the garment of God’; and continues ‘this is the doctrine of all the Hindu Puranas, especially of the Vishnu Purana’. She quotes from Vishnu Purana (Book II, chap.7, slokas 40-3) thus:

Vishnu pervades the Universe and is that universe; Brahma enters the Mundane Egg and issues from it as the Universe; Brahma even dies with it and then remains only Brahman, the impersonal, the eternal, pre unborn and unquantifiable.

This Vishnu is the supreme spirit (Brahma) from whence all this world proceeds, who is the world, by whom the world subsist, and in whom it will be resolved. That spirit (or Brahma) is the supreme state of Vishnu, which is the essence of all that that is visible or invisible, with which all that is identical, and hence all animate and inanimate existence is derived. He is the primary nature; he, in the perceptible form, is the world; and in him all finally melts; through him all things endure.

He is the performer of the rites of devotion; he is the rite; he is the fruit which it bestows; he is the implements by which it is performed. There is nothing besides the illimitable Hari.

14. Detailing the mysteries and their origin in the Section 28(vol.5), she reiterates:

` One must read the Puranas with the esoteric key in one’s hand in order to find out how on almost every page they corroborate the Secret Doctrine.

The Seven Creations:

Madame Blavatsky in her chapter on the subject draws much material from The Vishnu Purana.

The Seven Creations referred here are as below:

1. Maha-tattva : The universal soul, Infinite Intellect or Divine Mind.

2. [Tanmatras] Bhuta or Bhutasargas : Elemental creation, the first differentiation of Universal indiscrete Substance.

3. Indriya or Aindriyaka : Organic evolution.

4. Mukhya : the fundamental creation of perceptible things – of inanimate bodies.

5. Tairyagyonya or Tiryaksrotas : animals.

6. Urdhvasrotas : Divinities

7. Arvaksrotas : Man

According to esoteric teaching there are seven Primary and seven Secondary “Creations”. The seven primary ones are the forces of self-evolving from the one causeless Force. The secondary ones shows the manifested universe emanating from the already differentiated divine elements.

Both exoterically and esoterically, all the enumerated creations stand for the seven periods of Evolution. The Occult Philosophy never uses the terms creation or evolution with regard to the primary creation. It explains all such forces as the ‘aspects of the Causeless Force.’

Hindu philosophy: When active Creator has produced the world of Gods, the Germs of all the undifferentiated Elements, and the rudiments of future senses(the world) the Universe remains unaltered for a Day of Brahma (a period of 4,320,000,000 years ).

Satapatha Brahmana: The absolute Cause of all causes, radiates the Gods.

In the Vishnu purana, the whole seven periods are give; and the progressive Evolution of the “Spirit-Soul”, and of the seven Forms of Matter or Principles is shown.

Manu : He creates the Ten Lords of being, the Prajapathis. They create other seven Manus.

Primary creation is called the creation of Light (Spirit). The secondary creation is that of Darkness (Matter).

Now follows the explanation of the Seven Creations, mentioned above, as in Vishnu Purana.

1. The first creation is called Maht-tattva Creation because it was primordial self-evolution of that which had to become Mahat, the Divine Mind, conscious and intelligent. Esoterically, it is the “Spirit of the Universal Soul.”

The Esoteric Docrtine teaches that the Dhyan Chohans are the collective aggregate of divine intelligence or primordial Mind, and that the first Manus, the seven ‘mind-born’ Spiritual Intelligences, are identical with the former. Manu is from the root Man, to think; and thinking proceeds from mind. It is, in cosmogony, the pre-nebular period.

2. The second creation is Bhuta of the rudimental Princip;es (Tanmatras); thence termed the Elemental Creation (Bhutavarga). It is the period of the first breath of the differentiation of the pre-cosmic Elements, or Matter.

3. The third creation or Indriya Creation was the modified form of Ahamkara, the conception of “I”, termed the organic Creation, or creation of senses, Aindriyaka.

4. The fourth creation is the Mukhya or Primary, as it begins the series of four. The Mukhya is the ‘creation,’ or rather organic evolution, of the vegetable kingdom. In this secondary Period, the three degrees of the elemental or rudimental kingdoms are evolved in this World, corresponding, inversely in order, to the three Prakritic Creations, during the Primary Period of Brahma’s activity.

5. The fifth creation, the Tiryaksrotas (orTairyagyonya) Creation, that of the “(sacred” animals,” corresponding on Earth only to the dumb animal creation. In the Primary creation, this is the germ of awakening consciousness that which is faintly traceable in some sensitive plants on Earth and more distinctly in the protistic Monera(=neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two).

6. The sixth creation is the Urdhvasrotas Creation, or that of Divinities, simply the Prototypes of the First Race, the fathers of their ‘mind-born’ progeny with the ‘soft bones.’ It is these who became the Evolvers of the “Sweat-born” collecting his mind into itself (Yoga-willing), Brahma creates ‘ the four orders of beings : gods, demons, Progenitors and Men.

7. The seventh creation is the evolution of the Arvaaksrotas Beings, and was that of man.

The eighth creation is no creation at all, it is a blind, a purely mental process, the cognition of the ‘ninth creation’ which, in its turn, is an effect, manifesting in the Secondary, of that which was a ‘creation’ in the Primary (Prakritika) Creation. The eigth is called Anugraha, the Pratyayasarga or Intellectual creation of the Sankhyas. The ninth is the Kaumara Creation. “The Kumaras are the Dhyanis, derived immediately from the supreme Principle, who reappear in the Vaivasvata Manu period, for the progress of mankind. ( they may indeed mark a special or extra creation, since it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root-Races, and a great portion of the Third Root-Race, create, so to speak, a new race; that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men). The exoteric four Kumaras are: Sanatkumara, Sanandana, Sanaka and Sanatana; while the esoteric three Sana, Kapila and Santsujata.

Humanity is more concerned with the Kumaras, but not of all the seven divisions of Dhyan Chohans. The importance attached to the number “Seven” is no fanciful imagining of uneducated priests but is of ‘a profound knowledge of natural Law.’

Madame Blavatsky, by an extensive use of the material from Vishnu Purana, among other Sacred Books of the East and of the West, and by providing the right key to understanding thereof, has strengthened the very purpose of her writing ‘The Secret Doctrine’.

She also writes at great length about Gautama Buddha and the ‘mystic’ and ‘occult’ nature of his teaching. As from any other mythology of the world nations, she made abundant use of the Indian wisdom to bring home the conceptual understanding.

References:

1. The 18 Puranas are named: Brahma, Padma, Vaishnava(Vishnu), Saiva, Bhagavata, Narada, Markandeya, Agneya, Bhavishya, Brahmavaivaita, Linga, Varaha, Skand, Vamana, Kaurma, Matsya, Garuda, and Brahmanda.

The 18 Upa-puranas as listed in Devi Bhagavata are: Santkumara, Narasimha, Naradiya, Siva, Durvasa, Kapila, Manava, Ausasana, Varuna, Kalki, Samba, Nandi, Saura, Parasara, Aditya, Maheswara, Bhagavata and Vasishta.

2. The Vishnu Purana (Notes enlarged and edited by Nag Sharan Singh) is a publication of Nag publishers, Delhi-1.

Epilogue

Madame Blavatsky concludes her work and again makes a beginning, which should mean that the manifestation or the Story about it is ‘never ending’ and ‘ever continuing.’ Let us look at what she says at the end of the vol. 2, part 1:

“Only, as nature no more proceeds by sudden jumps and starts, than man changes from a child into a mature man, the final cataclysm will be preceded by many smaller minor submersions and destructions both by wave and volcanic fires. The exultant pulse will beat high in the heart of the race now in the American zone, but there will be no Americans when the sixth root race commences; no more, in fact, than Europeans; for they will have now become a new race, and many new nations. Yet, the fifth will not die, but survive for a while; overlapping the new race for many hundred thousands of years to come, it will become transformed with it – slower than its new successor – still getting entirely altered in mentality, general physique, and stature. ----- Thus it is the mankind of the new world– one by far the senior of our old one, a fact men had already forgotten – of Patala (the antipodes, or the Nether world, as America is called in india), whose mission and Karma it is, to sow the seeds for a forthcoming, grander, and far more glorious race than any of those we know of at present. The cycles of Matter will be succeeded by the cycles of spirituality and a fully developed mind. ---- thus will mankind, race after race, perform its appointed cycle-pilgrimage.

“Such is the course of Nature under the sway of karmic Law: of the ever-present and ever-becoming nature. For in the words of a sage, known only to a few Occultists, “ --- Before You ever begin to say “ I am the progeny of the departed moment, the child of the past”, you have become the past itself.”---

She says space forbids her to say anything more; there are still old records’ to which none but the highest initiates have access – and a whole library of comments, glossaries and explanations, form the synopsis of man’s genesis.

In a further volume she intends to give ‘a brief history of all great adepts known to the ancients and the moderns in their chronological order, as also a bird’s eye view of the mysteries, their birth, growth and decay, and final death; and yet another volume entirely devoted to Occult teachings’. But time has not given the opportunity for her to do all that.

She sums up her effort in making the Text thus:

No religion, since the very earliest, has ever been entirely based on fiction, as none was the object of special revelation; and no human-born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. ---These two volumes only constitute the work of a pioneer who has forced his way into the well-nigh impenetrable jungle of the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement has been made to fell and uproot the deadly ‘Upas trees of superstition, prejudice, and conceited ignorance,’ --- Until the rubbish of the ages is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists to whom these volumes are dedicated, it is impossible that more practical teaching contained in the third volume should be understood.

What she has put forth in the volumes of ‘The Secret Doctrine’ is the mainstream of philosophy, a record of advancement in human thought in its exploration. She makes the ‘metaphysical reality’ a ‘ground reality’ and the ‘cosmic sense’ a ‘commonsense’, thus offering a great future for humanity.

________________________________________________________________

Bibliography

[Books helpful for the study of The Secret Doctrine]

The Secret Doctrine by Madame Blavatsky

(The Basic Text in 6 volumes) various editions of the text from different publishing houses are available)

The Stanzas of the Dzyan, commented upon by Madame Blavatsky

The Secret Doctrine Digest by Ernest Wood

Abridgement of The Secret Doctrine by Various Authors (at least 3 books are available under this title.)

The Divine Plan by Geoffrey Barbarka

The Story of Human Evolution by Geoffrey Barbarka

Peopling of the Field by Geoffrey Barbarka

Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology by Elizabeth Preston

The Story of Creation by Elizabeth Preston

The Story of Man by Elizabeth Preston

Life and its Spirals by Elizabeth Preston

The Earth and its Cycles by Elizabeth Preston

The Pedigree of Man by Annie Besant

Building of the Kosmos by Annie Besant

Civilization’s Deadlocks and Keys by Annie Besant

Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy by G de Purucker

Foundations of Esoteric Philosophy by Ianthe Hoskins

The Web of the Universe by E L Gardner

The Play of the Consciousness by E L Gardner

This Dynamic Universe by E L Gardner and others

The Imperishable Body by E L Gardner

The Heavenly Man by E L Gardner

The Creative Hierarchies by E M Lavender

Fields of Force by Winifred Duncan

Cosmic Creation and Atomic Energy by William Slater

Man, the Measure of Things by Sri Krishna Prem and Madhav Ashish

Man, the Son of Man by Sri Madhav Ashish

The Lotus Fire by G S Arundale

The Secret Doctrine and its Study by Robert Bowen

Studies in the Secret Doctrine by B P Wadia

Many Books and Pamphlets brought out as Transactions of The Science Group of the Theosophical Research Centre, London contain critical studies.

Matter for Blurb:

Madame H P Blavatsky (1831-91) was the Chief founder and exponent of the Theosophical Society and its Philosophy. Her The Secret Doctrine (1888) is well documented and authoritative presentation of the world records on Mythologies, religions and systems of Thought; besides being the narrative depicting the meaning and manner of Manifestation.

Studied in greater detail and highly appreciated by Scholars and thinkers the World over, the Text proved A Granary of Ideas and A container of Occult Wisdom, the study of which is a must for seekers in any walk of Life.

This slim Volume is to provide an incentive to study; included also are sections on HPB, The Theosophical Society and the Indian Wisdom in the Philosophy.

Dr N C Ramanujachary, the compiler of this slim text, is a keen student of Theosophy and Indian Wisdom. His special studies incorporate the works of Blavatsky, T. Subba Row and J. Krishnamurti. His earlier writings received good attention of readers.

Theosophy: Approach Books A Prapti Books Publication

Return ti the index of Theosophy Approach series