The Extraordinary Life and Influence of H. P. Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call ‘White Lotus Day,’ theosophists all over the world meet to commemorate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the principal founder, and inspiration of the Theosophical Society.

“A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Mme. Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“An unsolved mystery to the Victorian mind and a timeless challenge to our own, she plowed deep into the strata of archaic truth, and called for the restitution of spiritual values and the recognition of man’s divine heritage, Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy, wrote.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

. . . some day, if not at once, the loftiness and purity of her aims, the wisdom and scope of her teachings, will be recognized more fully, and her memory will be accorded the honor to which it is justly entitled.

— Editorial, New York Daily Tribune, May 10, 1891

In her will, Blavatsky suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day, and May 8th became known as White Lotus Day among Theosophists ever since.

White Lotus Day

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” her friend and colleague William Q. Judge wrote:

…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

“So our old friend and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short time out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many ages ago — the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the shackles that enslave the human mind.”

— William Q. Judge
H. P. B. A LION-HEARTED COLLEAGUE PASSES.

The Evolution of Love: Many Chances to Get It Right

Edgar Degas, Dancers.

EVOLUTION, as defined in the teachings of Theosophy, is a multifaceted venture, a vast, complex dance of spirit,  mind, and matter.

In recurring lifetimes our human experience runs the gamut of pain to pleasure, material to spiritual.

The Secret Doctrine asserts this inescapable dance is an individualized expression of life’s eternal “triple evolutionary scheme — three separate schemes of evolution, which are inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.”

H. P. Blavatsky explains: “These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the intellectual, and the physical evolutions — the finite aspects or the reflections on the field of Cosmic Illusion of the ONE REALITY.”

“Each of these three systems has its own laws; each is represented in the constitution of man, and it is the union of these three streams in him which makes him the complex being he now is —’Nature,’ the physical evolutionary Power, could never evolve intelligence unaided.”

• H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine 1:181

True and lasting self-knowledge is acquired gradually in both loving and often painful experiences, through a prolonged, yet ultimately finite series of reincarnations in human form, as we know it. Such transitions occur within the triple evolutionary plan and are, as Blavatsky maintained, “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.” Think of Ubuntu, an African Philosophy: ‘I Am Because We Are.’

Ubuntu: I Am Because We Are

The key to our spiritual development lies in recognizing the unity and continuity of life, Theosophy further teaches — and that for the soul, there is really no such thing as final heaven or hell. We are first and foremost spiritual beings, the mind, and its forms being our field of inexorable human experiences.

But what happens to our ‘human self’ after death? Does everything important, our consciousness, love, hopes, and dreams die with the body? Mme. Blavatsky, writing in The Key to Theosophy, assures her readers that love and spirit are immortal. And further, that:

Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend.

Self-knowledge evolves gradually out of the recognition, as the philosopher-mystic Teilhard de Chardin famously said, that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the other way around. And that “Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child,” as taught in The Voice of the Silence.

• H. P. Blavatsky, The Voice of the Silence, Fragment 2.

Parent and child bonding.

Our afterlife, once the dissolution of the body and Earthly desire body is complete, is blissful. That state “consists in our complete conviction that we never left the earth,” Blavatsky writes in the Key to Theosophy, “and that there is no such thing as death at all.”

• H. P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy, Section 9

White Lotus Day: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of H. P. Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call ‘White Lotus Day,’ theosophists all over the world meet to commemorate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the principal founder, and inspiration of the Theosophical Society.

“A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Mme. Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“An unsolved mystery to the Victorian mind and a timeless challenge to our own, she plowed deep into the strata of archaic truth, and called for the restitution of spiritual values and the recognition of man’s divine heritage, Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy, wrote.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

. . . some day, if not at once, the loftiness and purity of her aims, the wisdom and scope of her teachings, will be recognized more fully, and her memory will be accorded the honor to which it is justly entitled.

— Editorial, New York Daily Tribune, May 10, 1891

In her will, Blavatsky suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day, and May 8th became known as White Lotus Day among Theosophists ever since.

White Lotus Day

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” her friend and colleague William Q. Judge wrote:

…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

“So our old friend and fellow-worker has merely passed for a short time out of sight, but has not given up the work begun so many ages ago — the uplifting of humanity, the destruction of the shackles that enslave the human mind.”

— William Q. Judge
H. P. B. A LION-HEARTED COLLEAGUE PASSES.

The Dance of Shiva, the Soul Traveler

The Dance of Shiva

SELF-DEVELOPMENT is defined by the degree to which one is able to activate their inner, or ‘all-seeing’ intuitive eye.

Eye of Siva is the Third Eye, physically the pineal gland in the brain, which when awakened into activity becomes the organ of the inner spiritual vision.

The pineal gland was in former ages an active physical exterior organ before the double eye system was developed.

The Third Eye was then the faculty both of physical vision and of interior illumination.

Our ability to reawaken the dormant spiritual ‘third eye’ ancient Eastern Adepts say, is the measure of our spiritual development. But this would be impossible without the assistance of Shiva to remove our personal illusions.

“The Dharma of the ‘Heart’ is the embodiment of Bodhi, [True, divine Wisdom], the Permanent and Everlasting.”

“The Lamp burns bright when wick and oil are clean. To make them clean a cleaner is required. The flame feels not the process of the cleaning. ‘The branches of a tree are shaken by the wind; the trunk remains unmoved.'”

(The Voice of the Silence, Fragment II)

The deeper we are able to penetrate our inner, permanent Self, and peer unobstructed into the heart of Nature, the more we become aware of the oneness of ALL, the inter-connectedness of life.

Crocodile and the Plover Bird

But, acquiring insight requires not just wishful thinking, but a commitment to action of the Krishna-Arjuna kind. “He who remains inert, restraining the senses and organs,” Krishna warns, “…yet pondering with his heart upon objects of sense, is called a false pietist of bewildered soul.”

“But he who having subdued all his passions performeth with his active faculties all the duties of life, unconcerned as to their result, is to be esteemed. Do thou perform the proper actions: action is superior to inaction.”

(Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. 3)

Shantala Shivalingappa

“Progressive Awakenings”

“Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in,” H. P. Blavatsky points out in The Secret Doctrine (1:40),

“…both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities.”

“As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed, we mistook shadows for realities — and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings.”

Click on the Lotus above for more details on Siva and the Third Eye from The Secret Doctrine, and you can also save the .pdf file to your computer.

However, each furthering wake-up has its own corresponding illusion cautioned the teacher, “the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality.”

“But only when we have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from delusions.”

Mme. Blavatsky also noted in The Secret Doctrine (2:475), that: “stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without a change.” This has many layers of meaning, not the least of which is the importance of achieving control over thoughts and feelings, noticeable most when we try to quiet the chattering ‘monkey mind,’ especially during meditation.

Monkey Mind

The Extraordinary Life and Influence of H. P. Blavatsky

H. P. Blavatsky

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call White Lotus Day, theosophists all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.

A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“The time had now come when it was necessary to speak plainly about the real interpretation of the spiritualistic manifestations,” wrote Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

“. . . some day, if not at once, the loftiness and purity of her aims, the wisdom and scope of her teachings, will be recognized more fully, and her memory will be accorded the honor to which it is justly entitled.” — Editorial, New York Daily Tribune, May 10, 1891

In her will, Blavatsky suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day. May 8th became known as White Lotus Day ever since.

White Lotus Day

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” wrote her friend and colleague William Q. Judge —

“…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.”

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

Changing Lives from Selfishness to Altruism

“But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.” -Shakespeare

TRUTH springs eternal, unstoppable as hope, love, and the universal life force.

The life-loving truths taught many centuries ago by the great saviors and reformers of humanity are still with us, but still not consistently practiced.

What the Master Krishna taught Arjuna in The Bhagavad-Gita, 2,500 years before Buddha, is a cautionary teaching about the spiritual self-mastery our humanity today most needs.

“The Self is the friend of self,” is how Lord Krishna explains the dual force to his disciple Arjuna (who symbolizes every person as applied to their daily life), but adding: “and also its enemy.” 

It is the old story of the ongoing struggle between our higher spiritual vs personal material selves. “In a garden of sunflowers every flower turns towards the light,” but Mme. Blavatsky asks: “Why not so with us?” (Article 1888)

Referring to Lord Krishna’s teaching about the Self in its title, Blavatsky’s colleague W. Q. Judge explains how “this sentence in the Bhagavad-Gita has been often passed over as being either meaningless or mysterious.”

But it is only this uniquely human duality which explains why so many religious sects, while publicly espousing harmony and peace, are at the same time

…so ready and willing to denounce, terrorize and murder non-believers!

†

The medieval Christian Crusades were rife with atrocities, just as certain extremist religious sects are today—priests, prophets, popes and kings all willing to kill for their God. Religious murders, intrigues, assassinations and wars, have disgraced human kind through history, and tragically are still with us, as the briefest glance at the world’s daily news media confirms.

Our Two Selves

Krishna’s doctrine positions two selves, each an enemy and friend of the other. The “push-me-pull-you” character of many modern sectarian religions that foster ethical and moral inconsistencies, the soulless face of modern-day fundamentalism.

“The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real,” declares the Book of the Golden Precepts, “let the disciple slay [purify] the Slayer.”

δ

One wonders what kind of feeling is evoked when the lower personal mind is purified, figuratively and literally, and the Spirit within released—when the Higher Self (‘voice of the silence’)  is heard for the first time? Let’s allow the Polish music masters Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec help us enjoy a joyful answer to the question.

The Angel Organ: The largest glass harp in the world, its range covers nearly 5 octaves.

“What revolution is experienced by the ear, which attempts to find associations with those tones?” ask Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec, the glass music duo from Poland. “What we try to capture, wanders somewhere,” they say, “is at the verge of our ideas of angelic music, a mythical world–and instruments which sound only in our dreams.”

H. P. Blavatsky: Her Extraordinary Life and Influence

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call White Lotus Day, theosophists all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.

A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“The time had now come when it was necessary to speak plainly about the real interpretation of the spiritualistic manifestations,” wrote Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day. May 8th became known as White Lotus Day ever since.

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” wrote her friend and colleague William Q. Judge —

“…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.”

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

Immortality: Kinship of the Human Spirit with God Spirit

The Dance of Siva

SPIRITUAL evolution is spiral, as described by Theosophy, and the path of spirituality “turns corkscrew-like, within and around physical, semi-physical, and supra-physical evolution.” (H. P. Blavatsky)

Cocooned, and preordained like the butterfly to be, our Soul potential waits “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point,” awaiting each new earthly reincarnation.

It is a dynamic and transformational soul evolution. A journey we have undertaken on this patient and resilient planet, a journey fraught with peril and promise. But this Path doesn’t have to be a long and painful one, if we understand and practice the secret.

Challenging religious and scientific dogmas, and wasting no time in her Preface to Isis Unveiled 1:vi, her first Theosophical book, Blavatsky immediately sets the bar to its highest level,  posing a key question:

“Who ever saw the Immortal Spirit of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man’s immortality?”

Man’s immortality and the existence of God, were the primary healing doctrines that H. P. Blavatsky, the acknowledged Mother of the New Age, was determined to explain and demonstrate to an often perplexed and confused humanity.

Usually it is the clear-eyed children, unfettered by man-made dogmas, who are the ones able to receive the soul of things, not their parents or teachers. The amazing story of James Leininger’s reincarnation offers dramatic proof of a child’s irrepressible soul insights.

H. P. Blavatsky: An Extraordinary Life and Influence

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call White Lotus Day, theosophists all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.

A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“The time had now come when it was necessary to speak plainly about the real interpretation of the spiritualistic manifestations,” wrote Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day. May 8th became known as White Lotus Day ever since.

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” wrote her friend and colleague William Q. Judge —

“…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.”

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

Soul Lessons of Love, Pain and Happiness

EVOLUTION as defined in the teachings of Theosophy is a multifaceted venture, a dance of spirit, soul, mind and matter.

True and lasting self-knowledge is acquired gradually in both loving and painful experiences, through a long, yet ultimately finite series of reincarnations in human form.

Such transitions occur within a triple evolutionary plan, Blavatsky wrote, and are “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.”

The key to our spiritual development lies in recognizing the unity and continuity of life, Theosophy says — and that for the soul, there is really no such thing as final extinction. We are first and foremost spiritual beings, and humanity is our field of necessary human experience.

But what happens to our human self after death? Does everything important, our consciousness and love, die with the body? Blavatsky, writing in The Key to Theosophy, assures her students that love and spirit are immortal. And further, that:

“Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend.”

Self-knowledge evolves gradually out of the recognition, as the philosopher-mystic Teilhard de Chardin famously said, we are “spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the other way around.

Our afterlife, once the dissolution of the body and Earthly desire body is complete, is blissful. That state “consists in our complete conviction that we never left the earth,” Blavatsky writes in the Key to Theosophy, “and that there is no such thing as death at all.”

Helena Blavatsky: An Extraordinary Life

EVERY year on May 8th, on what they call White Lotus Day, theosophists all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.

A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy, and the leading intellect behind the occult revival in the western world, Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888, her magnum opus.

“The time had now come when it was necessary to speak plainly about the real interpretation of the spiritualistic manifestations,” wrote Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day. May 8th became known as White Lotus Day ever since.

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” wrote her friend and colleague William Q. Judge —

“…a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.”

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

Humanity Living the Highest Spiritual Life

THE gods are not without employment, wrote the Greek bishop Synesius of Cyrene (c. 373 – c. 414) – but their “descent to this earth” is not continuous.

They descend according to orderly periods of time, he said, “for the purpose of imparting a beneficent impulse in the republics of mankind.”

“For this providence is divine and most ample,” quotes W. Q. Judge in his article Cycles —”which frequently one man pays attention to, and affects countless multitudes of men.”

Describing the Gods Synesius wrote: “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:-

“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.”

The Mahatmas

Mahatma

These “gods” are also known in India as Mahatmas. No better description of these sages can be pointed to than  W. Q. Judge explaining the Sanskrit terms in his article The Mahatmas as Ideals and Facts:

“The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the word Mahatma,” Judge 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.”

Be Cruelty Free, with a Universal Compassion for Life

THE spiritual sun of consciousness manifests by degrees, not in humans alone, but the  legacy of all kingdoms of nature as befits the plan of their particular hierarchy — from atoms to stars.

Samhain, origin of Halloween, for example, is similar to the Gothic samana, and the Sanskrit sámana — the Hindu God Krishna — all symbols of man’s Higher Diviner Nature.

It is such universal spiritual forces that manifest cyclically during mankind’s darkest times. And the whole of nature, visible and invisible, benefits from such cycles, it is taught in esoteric cycles — wisely appointed beneficent spiritual impulses.

It is no less than in the Bhagavad-Gita (IV:31), where Krishna, the Higher Self of all human beings, assures his disciple Arjuna that he is continually reborn as a a world benefactor.

ζ

It is only selfish Buddhas, the “Pratyekas”, he taught, who remain in the their selfish state of personal Nirvana and refuse to reach out to help others. Corresponding examples of such evil separateness can be found in all walks of life in every culture and clime.

“I produce myself among creatures whenever there is a decline of virtue and an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world,” says Krishna, “and thus  

I incarnate from age to age for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of righteousness.”

ξ

Our daily sleeping and waking cycles correspond to this universal impulse which daily transports us to our true home. Dreamless sleep is a state “in which even criminals commune through the higher nature with spiritual beings, and enter into the spiritual plane,” wrote W. Q. Judge in Three Planes of Human Life.

Animals have many dream states too, and dreamless states where they commune consciously or unconsciously in varying degrees, depending on the kingdom to which they belong, with the spiritual hierarchies of their particular degree.

“It is the great spiritual reservoir by means of which the tremendous momentum toward evil living is held in check. And because it is involuntary, it is constantly salutary in its effect.”

♥

In an ideal world, perfect harmony and balance between man and nature would be the norm. Thus, the keynote of Mme. Blavatsky’s worldview was the just and moral treatment of all the beings in nature, the First Object of the Theosophical Society, Universal Brotherhood.

This foundational teaching of Theosophy is expressed in The Secret Doctrine, Summing Up #5, which states that “everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious,” and

“…endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.”

‡

Consequently, Mme. Blavatsky was adamant in opposing animal cruelty. She spoke out forcefully against sport hunting, foxes, birds and big game, and most strongly against vivisection — animals in biological experiments.

“If these humble lines could make a few readers seriously turn their thoughts to all the horrors of vivisection,” Blavatsky wished, “the writer would be content.”

Halloween: the Eternal Spiritual Fire

“THE Sun and Venus align themselves this week with the Pluto/Chiron sextile that is arranged in the background of our lives.”

“This alignment is in preparation for the Taurus Full Moon,” explains Lauren at Astrology by Lauren — a Theosophy inspired website — “which culminates on the 6th of November.” 

“Full Moons often bring things to a head, or unveils truths,” she writes: “this one also brings healing, or at least the tools to relieve ourselves of some serious baggage. It’s up to us to use them.” To read the full essay and next week’s horoscopes, visit the Articles and Horoscopes page.

Halloween, an annual holiday observed on October 31, primarily in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, is importantly in Theosophy understood as a harvest festival.

It is called “Samhain” (Summer’s End), and is rooted in Celtic polytheism. The word is also the Irish and Scottish Gaelic name for November. 

The Halloween time was the beginning of a “darker” season on Earth, with less sunlight and shorter days. But instead of the usual psychic horrors and scary costumes, we choose instead to reflect upon an inner spiritual sun, symbolized by a flaming candle placed inside a hollow pumpkin.

Candlelight Vigil

“Today the season has morphed into a holiday celebrated with costumed children and treats, where children make their rounds like so many fairies and demons from beyond the veil,” Lauren writes:

“In ancient Ireland bonfires were lit in honor of the dying sun, and as a beacon to remind the Sun to return once more from the underworld, in order to light our days once again here in the North.

And so we continue to celebrate this most magical time of year with hope and anticipation of the returning light.”

Bonfire Dance

The spiritual sun consciousness manifests, by degrees, and is the inheritance of all kingdoms of nature as befits the plan of their particular hierarchy — from an atom to a star — not humankind alone.

Samhain, origin of Halloween, is similar to the Gothic samana, and the Sanskrit sámana — which is the Hindu God Krishna, a symbol of the Higher Self, who incarnates cyclically at mankind’s darkest times.

“Even though myself unborn, of changeless essence, and the lord of all existence, yet in presiding over nature — which is mine,” Krishna says in Ch. 4 of the Bhagavad-Gita: “I produce myself among creatures…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.”

In the Bhagavad-Gita (IV:31), Krishna assures his disciple Arjuna that as a world benefactor he is reborn to nature and humanity. It is only the selfish Buddhas, the “Pratyekas” who remain in the their selfish state of personal Nirvana and refuse to reach out to help others.

Our daily sleeping and waking cycles correspond to this universal impulse which daily transports us to our true home.

W. Q. Judge explains in The Three Planes of Human Life, that dreamless sleep is a state “in which even criminals commune through the higher nature with spiritual beings, and enter into the spiritual plane.” 

Animals have many dream states too, and dreamless states where they commune consciously or unconsciously in varying degrees, depending on the kingdom to which they belong, with the spiritual hierarchies of their particular degree. For humans

“… it is the great spiritual reservoir by means of which the tremendous momentum toward evil living is held in check. And because it is involuntary with them, it is constantly salutary in its effect.”

In an ideal world, perfect harmony and balance between man and nature would be recognized and practiced by all. Thus, the keynote of Mme. Blavatsky’s worldview was the just and moral treatment of all the beings in nature, the First Object of the Theosophical Society, Universal Brotherhood.

All Nature is Conscious

This foundational teaching of Theosophy is expressed in The Secret Doctrine, Summing Up #5, which states that “everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious,” and

“…endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.”

‡

Consequently, Mme. Blavatsky was adamant in opposing animal cruelty. She spoke out forcefully against sport hunting, foxes, birds and big game, and most strongly against vivisection — animals in biological experiments.

“If these humble lines could make a few readers seriously turn their thoughts to all the horrors of vivisection,” Blavatsky wished, “the writer would be content.”

Dreams Solve Problems the Conscious Mind Cannot

WHEN our thick brains get all heated up worrying about life’s complexities, that’s often  the best time to kick off our shoes, and give it a rest.

Faced with a critical decision, or stuck on a complex problem, dream researchers have discovered, sleeping or napping on them often led to a right solution.

“In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die,” Lewis Carroll wrote of children: “Ever drifting down the stream–Lingering in the golden gleam–Life, what is it but a dream?”

As adults the notes of a song, the smell of burning leaves, the babbling of a mountain stream, a day-dream — all may open doors to another realm of poetic mind. They also arouse unexpected vistas.

In Wordsworth’s haunting poem “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” reveries opened for him an unexpected awareness of past lives.

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“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar …”

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There is “a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy,” the poet Edgar Allan Poe wrote in Marginalia, “which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language.”

New Age Mother

EVERY year on what is called White Lotus Day, May 8th, theosophists all over the world celebrate the life and work of H. P. Blavatsky.

It is also the anniversary of the passing of Mme. Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society with Col. Henry S. Olcott and William Quan Judge.

A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy Blavatsky was a leading intellect behind the occult revival in the West.

More than any other person she was responsible for the introduction of Eastern religious and spiritual thinking to the Western world, and often acknowledged as the mother of the New Age.

Her wildly popular first book was Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, published in New York in 1877. It was followed in 1888 by her magnum opus The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, published in London.

There Mme. Blavatsky produced two other important works The Key to Theosophy, and The Voice of the Silence, indispensable guides to original Theosophy pure and simple.

“The time had now come when it was necessary to speak plainly about the real interpretation of the spiritualistic manifestations,” wrote Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day. May 8th became known as White Lotus Day ever since.

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” wrote her friend and colleague William Q. Judge —

“a short period of rest before one re-assumes another human frame in the world of mortals.”

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

White Lotus Day

EVERY year on what is called White Lotus Day, May 8th, theosophists all over the world celebrate the anniversary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society.

A world-famous figure of mystery and controversy and a leading intellect behind the occult revival in the West, Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine in 1888 as her magnum opus.

“The time had now come when it was necessary to speak plainly about the real interpretation of the spiritualistic manifestations,” wrote Charles J. Ryan, an early student of Theosophy.

“H. P. Blavatsky had gained the attention of the public by her brilliant intelligence, the charm of her striking personality, and her slashing attacks on materialism and other evils. Her voice would now be listened to and recognized as speaking with authority.”

In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from poet Sir Edwin Arnold‘s The Light of Asia, and from the ancient Hindu scripture The Bhagavad-Gita.

Lotuses grew in unusual profusion in India on that day. May 8th became known as White Lotus Day ever since.

“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame,” wrote her friend and colleague William Q. Judge —

“a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals.”

“The Lord of this body is nameless — dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go. But neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.”

Dance of Shiva

SELF-DEVELOPMENT is defined by the degree to which one is able to activate their inner, or ‘all-seeing’ intuitive eye.

Our ability to reawaken the dormant spiritual ‘third eye’ ancient Eastern Adepts say, is the measure of our spiritual development.

But this would be impossible without the assistance of Shiva to remove our personal illusions.

The deeper we are able to penetrate our inner, permanent Self, and peer unobstructed into the heart of Nature, the more we become aware of the inter-connectedness of life.

But, acquiring this insight requires not only wishful thinking, but a commitment to action of the Krishna-Arjuna kind. “He who remains inert, restraining the senses and organs,” Krishna taught in Bhagavad-Gita (Ch. 3), “…yet pondering with his heart upon objects of sense, is called a false pietist of bewildered soul.”

“But he who having subdued all his passions performeth with his active faculties all the duties of life, unconcerned as to their result,” he told Arjuna, “is to be esteemed. Do thou perform the proper actions: action is superior to inaction.”

“Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in,” Blavatsky wrote in The Secret Doctrine (1:40),

“…both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities.”

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“As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed, we mistook shadows for realities — and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings.”

Click on the Lotus above for more detailed info on Siva and the Third Eye, and you can save to your computer (.pdf)

However, each furthering wake-up has its own corresponding illusion cautioned the teacher, “the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality’ —

“…but only when we have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from delusions.”

Mme. Blavatsky also noted in The Secret Doctrine (2:475), that: “stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without a change.” This has many layers of meaning, not the least of which is the importance of achieving control over thoughts and feelings, noticeable most when we try to quiet the chattering ‘monkey mind,’ especially during meditation.

Love after Death

EVOLUTION as defined in the occultism of Theosophy, is a triple-faceted scheme — a blend of spirit, mind, and matter.

They are, Blavatsky wrote, “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.”

True and lasting self-knowledge is acquired gradually and lovingly — and painfully unawares at first — through a long, yet finite series of reincarnations in human form.

The key to spiritual development lies in recognizing the unity and continuity of life, Theosophy says — and that for the soul, there is really no such thing as death. We are first and foremost spiritual beings, and humanity is our field of experience.

But what happens to our human self after death? Does everything important, our consciousness and love, die with the body? Blavatsky, writing in The Key to Theosophy, assures her students that love and spirit are immortal. And further, that:

“Death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend.”

The Aeolian Harp

JANUARY the 4th is the day of Mercury, or Hermes-Buddha, the ancients taught. They also taught the birth of the year signals a unique energy upgrade.

“The astral life of the earth is young and strong between Christmas and Easter,” Blavatsky wrote, and “those who form their wishes now, will have added strength to fulfill them consistently.”

And Truth, like the Life Force, springs eternal. What was taught 2,500 years ago by Buddha is still studied today.

And what the Master Krishna taught his disciple Arjuna in The Bhagavad-Gita, 2,500 years earlier, is a cautionary teaching humanity needs most now.

“The Self is the friend of self,” Krishna tells Arjuna, and added paradoxically: “also its enemy.”

In an article with the same title, theosophical teacher W. Q. Judge explains: “this sentence in the Bhagavad- Gita has been often passed over as being either meaningless or mysterious.”

But it is this powerful human duality which helps explain why so many religious sects, while publicly espousing harmony and peace, are at the same time

…so ready and willing to denounce, maim and kill non-believers.

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