Publications: Lucifer, Vol. I, No. 6, February, l 888, pp. 472, 482-83
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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
Aanru is the celestial field where the defunct’s soul received wheat and corn, growing therein seven cubits high (See Book of the Dead, 124 et seq.)[1]
Amrita (immortal) applied to the Soma juice, and called the “Water of Life.”
[“Though . . . . the sun-souls attract the earth-souls, the lost ones, for a while, to bring them up to themselves by the path that leads to Nirvana. . .”] This is a doctrine of the Visishtadwaita sect of the Vedantins. The Jiva (spiritual life principle, the living Monad) of one who attained Moksha or Nirvana, “breaks through the Brahmarandhra and goes to Suryamandala (the region of the sun) through the Solar rays. Then it goes, through a dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapada” to which it is directed by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga, and helped thereinto by the Devas (gods) called Archis, the “Flames,” or Fiery Angels, answering to the Christian archangels.[2]
64 [We have now discovered a triangular key—light, music, form—which will disclose to us the exact relations which colour sustains to the interlaced triangles, the six-rayed star, universal symbol of creative force acting upon matter] Hence in Kabalistic symbolism the pentacle, or the six-pointed star, is the sign of the manifested “Logos,” or the “Heavenly man,” the Tetragrammaton. “The four-lettered Adni (Adonai, ‘the Lord’), is the Eheieh (the symbol of life or existence), is the Lord of the six limbs (6 Sephiroth) and his Bride (Malkuth, or physical nature, also Earth) is his seventh limb.” (Chaldean Book of Numbers, viii, 3-4.)
[The culmination of light resides in the yellow ray, and hence to that colour is given the East point in our symbolised centre of radiation] It is the secret of the great reverence shown in the East for this colour. It is the colour of the Yogi dress in India, and of the Gelugpa sect (“Yellow caps”) in Thibet. It symbolizes pure blood and sunlight, and is called “the stream of` life.” Red, as its opposite, is the colour of the Dugpas, and black magicians.
[The following footnote and closing Editorial Note are appended by H. P. B. to the second instalment of a mystical poem by Wm. C. Eldon Serjeant, entitled “Twilight Visions.” The writer’s verse: “O, woman, clothed with the Bridegroom’s Power” elicited the following comment from H. P. B.:]
In the Kabala, the Bride of the “Heavenly Man,” Tetragrammaton, is Malkuth—the foundation or kingdom. It is our earth, which, when regenerated and purified (as matter), will be united to her bridegroom (Spirit). But in Esotericism there are two aspects of the LOGOS, or the “Father-Son,” which latter becomes his own father; one is the UNMANIFESTED Eternal, the other the manifested and periodical LOGOS. The “Bride” of the former is the universe as nature in the abstract. She is also his “MOTHER”;
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who, “clothed with the bridegroom’s power,” gives birth to the manifested universe (the second logos) through her own inherent, mystic power, and is, therefore, the Immaculate Mother; “the woman clothed with the sun, and travailing” in child birth, in Revelation, ch. xii.
This second part of the three which form the bulk of the poem called “Twilight Visions” by their author—from a purely Kabalistic standpoint of universal symbolical Esotericism, is most suggestive. Its literary value is apparent. But literary form in occultism counts for nothing in such mystic writing if its spirit is sectarian—if the symbolism fails in universal application or lacks correctness. In this, Part II, however (of the third to come we can yet say nothing), the Christian-Judaean names may be altered and replaced by their Sanskrit or Egyptian equivalents, and the ideas will remain the same. It seems written in the universal “mystery-language,” and may be readily understood by an occultist, of whatever school or nationality. Nor will any true mystic, versed in that international tongue, whose origin is lost in the dark night of prehistoric ages, fail to recognise a true Brother, who has adopted the phraseology of the Initiates of the ancient Judaean Tannaim—Daniel and St. John of the Apocalypse—and partially that of the Christian Gnostics, only to be the more readily understood by the profane of Christian lands. Yet the author means precisely the same thing that would be in the mind of any Brahminical or Buddhist Initiate who, while deploring the present degenerated state of things, would place all his hope in the transient character of even the Kali Yuga, and trust in the speedy coming of the Kalki Avatar. We say again, the divine Science and Wisdom—Theosophia—is universal and common property, and the same under every sky. It is the physical type and the outward appearance in the dress, that make of one individual a Chinaman and of another a European, and of a third a red-skinned American. The inner man is one and all are “Sons of God” by birth-right.
Footnotes
- ↑ [Chap. CIX, 7-8, and Chap. CXLIX, text of second Vignette in E.A.W. Budge’s translation of the Theban Recension.—Compiler.]
- ↑ [In The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 132, H. P. B. quotes at greater length from the Viśishtâdwaita Catechism of Pandit N. Bhâshyâchârya, F.T.S. It is apparently a more complete text of the quotation as given in the above editorial comment, and runs thus:
“The Jiva (Soul) goes with Sukshma Sarira from the heart of the body, to the Brahmarandhra in the crown of the head, traversing Sushumna, a nerve connecting the heart with the Brahmarandhra. The Jiva breaks through the Brahmarandhra and goes to the region of the Sun (Suryamandala) through the solar Rays. Then it goes, through a dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapada. The Jiva is directed on its way by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga. The Jiva thus proceeds to Paramapada by the aid of Athivahikas (bearers in transit), known by the names of Archi-Ahas . . . . Adityas, Prajapati, etc. The Archis here mentioned are certain pure Souls, etc., etc.”
H. P. B. defines in a footnote the Sukshma-śarîra as being the “ ‘dream-like’ illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyanis of the celestial Hierarchy.”—Compiler.]