HPB-SD(ed.1) v.1 p.1 st.6 sl.7

The Secret Doctrine

The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Verbatim first edition

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volume 1 Cosmogenesis, part 1 Cosmic Evolution, stanza 6 Our World, its Growth and Development, sloka 7

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STANZA VI. — Continued.

7. Make thy calculations, O Lanoo, if thou wouldst learn the correct age of thy small wheel (chain). Its fourth spoke is our mother (Earth) (a). Reach the fourth “ fruit ” of the fourth path of knowledge that leads to Nirvana, and thou shalt comprehend, for thou shalt see (b).

(a) The “ small wheel ” is our chain of spheres, and the fourth spoke is our Earth, the fourth in the chain. It is one of those on which the “ hot (positive) breath of the Sun ” has a direct effect. *

* The seven fundamental transformations of the globes or heavenly spheres, or rather of their constituent particles of matter, is described as follows : (1) The homogeneous ; (2) the aeriform and radiant (gaseous) ; (3) Curd-like (nebulous) ; (4) Atomic, Ethereal

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To calculate its age, however, as the pupil is asked to do in the Stanza, is rather difficult, since we are not given the figures of the Great Kalpa, and are not allowed to publish those of our small Yugas, except as to the approximate duration of these. “ The older wheels rotated for one Eternity and one half of an Eternity,” it says. We know that by “ Eternity ” the seventh part of 311,040,000,000,000 years, or an age of Brahmâ is meant. But what of that ? We also know that, to begin with, if we take for our basis the above figures, we have first of all to eliminate from the 100 years of Brahmâ (or 311,040,000,000,000 years) two years taken up by the Sandhyas (twilights), which leaves 98, as we have to bring it to the mystical combination 14 × 7. But we have no knowledge at what time precisely the evolution and formation of our little earth began. Therefore it is impossible to calculate its age, unless the time of its birth is given — which the teachers refuse to do, so far. At the close of this Book and in Book II., however, some chronological hints will be given. We must remember, moreover, that the law of Analogy holds good for the worlds, as it does for man ; and that as “ The one (Deity) becomes Two (Deva or Angel) and Two becomes Three (or man),” etc., etc., so we are taught that the Curds (world-stuff) become wanderers, (Comets), these become stars, and the stars (the centres of vortices) our sun and planets — to put it briefly. *

(b) There are four grades of initiation mentioned in exoteric works, which are known respectively in Sanskrit as “ Sçrôtâpanna,” “ Sagar-dagan,” “ Anagamin,” and “ Arhan ” — the four paths to Nirvana, in this, our fourth Round, bearing the same appellations. The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate ; for the Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela (pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. There are those who have reached it even in this fifth race of ours, but the faculties necessary for the attainment of these higher

(beginning of motion, hence of differentiation) ; (5) Germinal, fiery, (differentiated, but composed of the germs only of the Elements, in their earliest states, they having seven states, when completely developed on our earth) ; (6) Four-fold, vapoury (the future Earth) ; (7) Cold and depending (on the Sun for life and light).

* This cannot be so very unscientific, since Descartes thought also that “ the planets rotate on their axes because they were once lucid stars, the centres of Vortices.”

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grades will be fully developed in the average ascetic only at the end of this Root-Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh. Thus there will always be Initiates and the Profane till the end of this minor Manvantara, the present life-cycle. The Arhats of the “ fire-mist ” of the 7th rung are but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy — the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain. This “ Root-Base ” has a name which can only be translated by several compound words into English ” — “ the ever-living-human-Banyan.” This “ Wondrous Being ” descended from a “ high region,” they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of the sexes of the Third Race.

This Third Race is sometimes called collectively “ the Sons of Passive Yoga,” i.e., it was produced unconsciously by the second Race, which, as it was intellectually inactive, is supposed to have been constantly plunged in a kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the conditions of the Yoga state. In the first or earlier portion of the existence of this third race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the “ Sons of Wisdom,” who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Third Race, produced by Kriyasakti a progeny called the “ Sons of Ad ” or “ of the Fire-Mist,” the “ Sons of Will and Yoga,” etc. They were a conscious production, as a portion of the race was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual, superior intelligence. It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the “ Initiator,” and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. “ Set apart ” in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis, “ Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras ” — to form the nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle. These “ Sons of Will and Yoga ” born, so to speak, in an immaculate way, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.

The “ Being ” just referred to, which has to remain nameless, is the Tree from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., etc., have branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane — the ever invisible) yet ever present Personage about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the

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initiated Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the “ Nameless One ” who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown. He is the “ Initiator,” called the “ great sacrifice.” For, sitting at the threshold of light, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross ; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post ? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know — aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its heaven ? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the great sacrifice.

It is under the direct, silent guidance of this Maha — (great) — Guru that all the other less divine Teachers and instructors of mankind became, from the first awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It is through these “ Sons of God ” that infant humanity got its first notions of all the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge ; and it is they who have laid the first foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations that puzzle so sorely our modern generation of students and scholars. *

* Let those who doubt this statement explain the mystery of the extraordinary knowledge possessed by the ancients — alleged to have developed from lower and animal-like savages, the cave-men of the Palæolithic age — on any other equally reasonable grounds. Let them turn to such works as those of Vitruvius Pollio of the Augustan age, on architecture, for instance, in which all the rules of proportion are those taught anciently at initiations, if he would acquaint himself with the truly divine art, and understand the deep esoteric significance hidden in every rule and law of proportion. No man descended from a Palæolithic cave-dweller could ever evolve such a science unaided, even in millenniums of thought and intellectual evolution. It is the pupils of those incarnated Rishis and Devas of the third Root Race, who handed their knowledge from one generation to another, to Egypt and Greece with its now lost canon of proportion ; as it is the Disciples of the Initiates of the 4th, the Atlanteans, who handed it over to their Cyclopes, the “ Sons of Cycles ” or of the “ Infinite,” from whom the name passed to the still later generations of Gnostic priests. “ It is owing to the divine perfection

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Although these matters were barely hinted at in “ Isis Unveiled,” it will be well to remind the reader of what was said in Vol. I., pp. 587 to 593, concerning a certain Sacred Island in Central Asia, and to refer him for further details to the chapter in Book II. on “ The Sons of God and the Sacred Island.” A few more explanations, however, though thrown out in a fragmentary form, may help the student to obtain a glimpse into the present mystery.

To state at least one detail concerning these mysterious “ Sons of God ” in plain words. It is from them, these Brahmaputras, that the high Dwijas, the initiated Brahmins of old justly claimed descent, while the modern Brahmin would have the lowest castes believe literally that they issued direct from the mouth of Brahmâ. This is the esoteric teaching, which adds moreover that, although these descendants (spiritually of course) from the “ sons of Will and Yoga,” became in time divided into opposite sexes, as their “ Kriyasakti ” progenitors did themselves, later on ; yet even their degenerate descendants have down to the present day retained a veneration and respect for the creative

of those architectural proportions that the Ancients could build those wonders of all the subsequent ages, their Fanes, Pyramids, Cave-Temples, Cromlechs, Cairns, Altars, proving they had the powers of machinery and a knowledge of mechanics to which modern skill is like a child’s play, and which that skill refers to itself as the ‘ works of hundred-handed giants.’ ” ( See “ Book of God,” Kenealy. ) Modern architects may not altogether have neglected those rules, but they have superadded enough empirical innovations to destroy those just proportions. It is Vitruvius who gave to posterity the rules of construction of the Grecian temples erected to the immortal gods ; and the ten books of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio on Architecture, of one, in short, who was an initiate, can only be studied esoterically. The Druidical circles, the Dolmen, the Temples of India, Egypt and Greece, the Towers and the 127 towns in Europe which were found “ Cyclopean in origin ” by the French Institute, are all the work of initiated Priest-Architects, the descendants of those primarily taught by the “ Sons of God,” justly called “ The Builders.” This is what appreciative posterity says of those descendants. “ They used neither mortar nor cement, nor steel nor iron to cut the stones with ; and yet they were so artfully wrought that in many places the joints are not seen, though many of the stones, as in Peru, are 18ft. thick, and in the walls of the fortress of Cuzco there are stones of a still greater size.” (Acosta, vi., 14.) “ Again, the walls of Syene, built 5,400 years ago, when that spot was exactly under the tropic, which it has now ceased to be, were so constructed that at noon, at the precise moment of the solar solstice, the entire disc of the Sun was seen reflected on their surface — a work which the united skill of all the astronomers of Europe would not now be able to effect.” — (Kenealy, “ Book of God.”)

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function, and still regard it in the light of a religious ceremony, whereas the more civilized nations consider it as a mere animal function. Compare the western views and practice in these matters with the Institutions of Manu in regard to the laws of Grihasta and married life. The true Brahmin is thus indeed “ he whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the moon-plant (Soma),” and who is a “ Trisuparna,” for he has understood the secret of the Vedas.

And, to this day, such Brahmins know that, during its early beginnings, psychic and physical intellect being dormant and consciousness still undeveloped, the spiritual conceptions of that race were quite unconnected with its physical surroundings. That divine man dwelt in his animal — though externally human — form ; and, if there was instinct in him, no self-consciousness came to enlighten the darkness of the latent fifth principle. When, moved by the law of Evolution, the Lords of Wisdom infused into him the spark of consciousness, the first feeling it awoke to life and activity was a sense of solidarity, of one-ness with his spiritual creators. As the child’s first feeling is for its mother and nurse, so the first aspirations of the awakening consciousness in primitive man were for those whose element he felt within himself, and who yet were outside, and independent of him. Devotion arose out of that feeling, and became the first and foremost motor in his nature ; for it is the only one which is natural in our heart, which is innate in us, and which we find alike in human babe and the young of the animal. This feeling of irrepressible, instinctive aspiration in primitive man is beautifully, and one may say intuitionally, described by Carlyle. “ The great antique heart,” he exclaims, “ how like a child’s in its simplicity, like a man’s in its earnest solemnity and depth ! heaven lies over him wheresoever he goes or stands on the earth ; making all the earth a mystic temple to him, the earth’s business all a kind of worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common sunlight ; angels yet hover, doing God’s messages among men . . . . . Wonder, miracle, encompass the man ; he lives in an element of miracle * A great law of duty, high as these two infinitudes (heaven and hell), dwarfing all else, annihilating all else — it was a reality, and it is one : the garment

* That which was natural in the sight of primitive man has become only now miracle to us ; and that which was to him a miracle could never be expressed in our language.

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only of it is dead ; the essence of it lives through all times and all eternity ! ”

It lives undeniably, and has settled in all its ineradicable strength and power in the Asiatic Aryan heart from the Third Race direct through its first “ mind-born ” sons, — the fruits of Kriyasakti. As time rolled on the holy caste of Initiates produced but rarely, and from age to age, such perfect creatures : beings apart, inwardly, though the same as those who produced them, outwardly.

While in the infancy of the third primitive race : — 

“ A creature of a more exalted kind Was wanting yet, and therefore was designed ; Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast For empire formed and fit to rule the rest. ”

It was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating denizens of higher spheres, who took forthwith their abodes in these forms born of Spiritual will and the natural divine power in man. It was a child of pure Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element. Its physical frame alone was of time and of life, as it drew its intelligence direct from above. It was the living tree of divine wisdom ; and may therefore be likened to the Mundane Tree of the Norse Legend, which cannot wither and die until the last battle of life shall be fought, while its roots are gnawed all the time by the dragon Nidhogg ; for even so, the first and holy Son of Kriyasakti had his body gnawed by the tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for ever undecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven not on earth. He was the first of the First, and he was the seed of all the others. There were other “ Sons of Kriyasakti ” produced by a second Spiritual effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of divine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial “ Sons of Wisdom.” Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every age — aye, even in our own — there have been great intellects who have understood the problem correctly.

How comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is found in now ? Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals, as taught by materialism. For, as Carlyle says : — “  The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself

‘ I,’ — what words have we for such things ? — it is a breath of Heaven,

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the highest Being reveals himself in man. This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for the unnamed ? ”

The breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life, called in the Bible Nephesh, is in every animal, in every animate speck as in every mineral atom. But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of the nature of that highest Being, * as none has that divine harmony in its form which man possesses. It is, as Novalis said, and no one since has said it better, as repeated by Carlyle : — 

“ There is but one temple in the universe, and that is the body of man. Nothing is holier than that high form . . . . We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body ! ” “ This sounds like a mere flourish of rhetoric,” adds Carlyle, “ but it is not so. If well meditated it will turn out to be a scientific fact ; the expression . . . of the actual truth of the thing. We are the miracle of miracles, — the great inscrutable Mystery.”

* There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion or of religious mysticism is more developed and prominent than in the Hindu people. See what Max Müller says of this idiosyncracy and national feature in his works. This is direct inheritance from the primitive conscious men of the Third Race.