The Torch of Truth
SYNESIUS of Cyrene was a Greek bishop of Ptolemais in ancient Libya. What could that Sage have to do with modern America one might ask?
While still a youth he went with his brother Euoptius to Alexandria, where he became an enthusiastic Neoplatonist and disciple of Hypatia. (Wikipedia)
He once wrote: “you must not think that the gods are without employment.”
This idea was further developed by the Theosophical Society Co-Founder William Q. Judge in his Article “Cycles,” concerning the voluntary duty of the ancient gods to watch over humanity.
“Men’s minds are only preparing for an alteration into that state which will permit the human race to advance to the point suitable for the Elder Brothers to introduce their actual presence to our sight. They may be truly called the bearers of the torch of truth across the ages.”
– William Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy, Ch. 1
Mind and Nature
“For this providence is divine and most ample, which frequently through one man pays attention to and affects countless multitudes of men. But this happens when they harmonize a kingdom and send to this earth for that purpose souls who are allied to themselves.
“For they descend according to orderly periods of time:
for the purpose of imparting a beneficent impulse in the republics of mankind.
Describing these descending Gods, Synesius continued: “For there is indeed in the terrestrial abode the sacred tribe of heroes who pay attention to mankind, and who are able to give them assistance even in the smallest concerns.”
Olympia Flame
“This heroic tribe is, as it were, a colony from the gods established here in order that this terrene abode may not be left destitute of a better nature.”
But when the harmony adapted in the beginning by the gods to all terrene things becomes old, they descend again to earth
“that they may call the harmony forth, energize and resuscitate it when it is expiring. . . . When, however, the whole order of mundane things, greatest and least, is corrupted, then it is necessary that the gods should descend for the purpose of imparting another orderly distribution of things.”
10 Questions
Tibetan Buddhism’s 14th Dalai Lama, born Lhamo Dhondrub on July 6, 1935, at his enthronement in Lhasa as the spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet on Feb. 22, 1940. He assumed full power as the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso on Nov. 17, 1950. Read more here: The Dalai Lama: Six Decades of Spiritual Leadership – Photo Essays – TIME
“I always look at any event from a wider angle,” he says. “There’s always some problem, some killing, some murder or terrorist act or scandal everywhere, every day. But if you think the whole world is like that, you’re wrong.”
The Mahatmas
Certain god-like human beings are known in Theosophy as Mahatmas. No better description can be pointed to than that of W. Q. Judge (under the penname Eusebio Urban), in “The Mahatmas as Ideals and Facts,” where he explains the Sanskrit meaning of the term:
“The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word Mahatma,” he writes. “Maha is ‘great,’ Atma is ‘soul,’ and both compounded into one mean those great souls who have triumphed before us.”
Not because they are made of different stuff and are of some strange family, but just because they are of the human race.
Mahatma Gandhi
“Evolution demands that such beings should exist or there is a gap in the chain. A belief in Mahatmas — whatever name you give the idea — is a common property of the whole human race, and all the [objections] of empirical science and dogmatic religion can never kill out the soul’s own memory of its past.”
Pema Chödrön
There are probably many individuals serving humanity, working unconsciously for the Mahatmas perhaps. One such devoted servant of humanity may be Gampo Acharya Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City. She attended Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. As a devoted parent, Pema has two children and three grandchildren.
Krishna & Kali-Yuga
In The Bhagavad-Gita, produced some 5000 years ago at the beginning of the Hindu “Kali-Yuga,” the Dark Age, Krishna explains his appearance on Earth to his favorite disciple Arjuna, in the following words:
“I produce myself among creatures, O son of Bharata, whenever there is a decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world, and thus I incarnate from age to age for
the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of righteousness.
The Kali Yuga
The first 5000 years of Kali-Yuga ended around the year 1898, marking a critical cycle for humanity. Anticipating this event, the Theosophical Movement of the modern era was re-established by The Sacred Tribe through their chosen agent H. P. Blavatsky, on November 17, 1875.
The action taken is the same impulse [Edwin Arnold’s translation] ascribed to Krishna in Bhagavad-Gita :
“When Righteousness
Declines, O Bharata! when Wickedness
Is strong, I rise, from age to age, and take
Visible shape, and move a man with men,
Succoring the good and thrusting the evil back,
And setting Virtue on her seat again.”
The Kali-Yuga
“With the onset of Kali Yuga, 3102 BC,” Theosophist Allan J. Stover wrote in The Rising Tide of a New Age: “it was as though a curtain had been dropped before the stage of history, and the death of Krishna occurred. Science has discovered that for several thousands of years previous to this date that
a ‘climatic optimum’ existed during which the world climate was much warmer than at present.
Glaciers and Icebergs at Cape York
“Soon after the coming of Kali Yuga, all this was changed, and some 4,000 years ago, roughly speaking, the Arctic seas began to refreeze. Since then this cooling trend has advanced and retreated in minor cycles,
each accompanied by the wars and migrations of peoples which we know in history.
A Sacred Balance
American Adepts
Clearly, The Sacred Tribe of Adepts has been acutely interested in America for a very long time. H. P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical Glossary places the visit of Arjuna to America (Patala) at 5,000 years ago.
The Great Serpent Mound, Ohio, USA
Ohio’s Serpent Mound, an archaeological mystery, still the focus of scientific debate. For detailed information click here.
Blavatsky in her Secret Doctrine 2:214 explains in detail: “Arjuna, Krishna’s companion and chela, is said to have descended into Patala, the ‘antipodes,’ and therein married Ulupi —
a Naga (or Nagini rather), the daughter of the king of the Nagas [Serpents] Kauravya.
“The late Pundit Dayanand Saraswati, certainly the greatest Sanskrit and Puranic authority in India on such questions, personally corroborated that Ulupi was the daughter of the king of the Nagas at Patala, or America, about 5,000 years ago, and that the Nagas were Initiates.”
Ulupi
Describing the devotional classic of theosophy, which she titled “The Voice of the Silence,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote in the Preface: “The work from which I here translate
forms part of the same series as that from which the ‘Stanzas’ of the Book of Dzyan were taken, on which the Secret Doctrine is based.
Uktena design, a shell engraving found at the Spiro Site in Oklahoma
“Together with the great mystic work called Paramartha, which, the legend of Nagarjuna tells us, was delivered to the great Arhat…
by the Nagas or ‘Serpents’ (in truth a name given to the ancient Initiates), the ‘Book of the Golden Precepts’ claims the same origin.
A Buddha
“The ‘Watchers’ reign over man during the whole period of Satya Yuga and the smaller subsequent yugas… (SD 1:257)
“The Secret Doctrine teaches history—which, for being esoteric and traditional, is none the less more reliable than profane history,” she writes, “we are as entitled to our beliefs as anyone else, whether religionist or skeptic.”
A Guru and his Disciple
“The ‘Watchers’ or the ‘Architects,’ furnished the many and various races with divine kings and leaders,” she writes:
They taught humanity their arts and sciences, and the great spiritual truths of the transcendental worlds.
“Thus, the Watchers descended on Earth and reigned over men — ‘who are themselves.”
The Companions
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
– Shakespeare
“Crop Circles? Think they sound bizarre, improbable, other worldly? Think again, or think anew. Suzanne Taylor is a sensible cultural investigator, a thoughtful analyst, a visionary who goes outside the box of conventional and superficial wisdom to suggest other worlds of possibility.”
What on Earth
Occult history, writes Mme. Blavatsky, maintains there were “dynasties of divine beings.” They, explains The Secret Doctrine (2:194), were “Kings and Instructors in arts and sciences, compared with which our little modern science stands less chance than elementary arithmetic with geometry.”
We do not believe in the supernatural but only in the superhuman, or rather interhuman, intelligences.
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Esoteric America
The influence of the Adepts in America continues into our recent history. “More then is claimed for the Theosophical Adepts than the changing of baser metal into gold,” writes William Q. Judge in his article The Adepts In America in 1776, “or the possession of such a merely material thing as the elixir of life.”
They watch the progress of man and help him on in his halting flight up the steep plane of progress.
America
“They hovered over Washington, Jefferson,” Judge says, “and all the other brave freemasons who dared to found a free government in the West, which could be pure from the dross of dogmatism.
They cleared their minds, inspired their pens and left upon the great seal of this mighty nation the memorial of their presence.
“There are two distinct classes of thoughts; those produced by reflection, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a rule to treat these voluntary visitors with civility, and it is from them I have acquired all the knowledge that I have.”
– Thomas Paine, Age of Reason (Adepts in America in 1776).
A New Order of Ages
The Sacred Balance
During the filming of The Sacred Balance, visitors to the website were encouraged to ask David Suzuki questions which he answered as part of his webcasts from around the world.
Dr. Suzuki received The Right Livelihood Award “for his lifetime advocacy of the socially responsible use of science, and for his massive contribution to raising awareness about the perils of climate change and building public support for policies to address it.”
NARA
William Quan Judge
[Essays on the Bhagavad-Gita]
“Arjuna, called Nara, represents not only Man as a race, but also any individual who resolves upon the task of developing his better nature. What is described as happening in the [Bhagavad-Gita] to him will come to every such individual.
Nara
“Opposition from friends, and from all the habits he has acquired, and also that which naturally arises from hereditary tendencies, will confront him. Then it will depend upon how he listens to Krishna, who is the Logos shining within and speaking within, whether he will succeed or fail.”
Hit the Mark
“We see that the fight is to be fought by every human being, whether he lives in India or not, for it is raging on the sacred plain of our body.
Each one of us,
then, is Arjuna.
William Quan Judge
Let us hit the mark, O friend! – and that mark is the indestructible, the highest spiritual life we are at any time capable of.
Spiritual Life
Theosophy Watch 