The Universe Had No Beginning

Bud of The Lotus

HERE’S what H. P. Blavatsky wrote concerning the ‘expansion’ of the universe. We compare it with what our modern physics has to say.

In The Secret Doctrine, to counter what was being forced on the world as the ‘standard scientific model’ for the origin of the universe, she put forward the following occult explanation:

“The expansion ‘from within without’ of the Mother, called elsewhere the ‘Waters of Space,’ ‘Universal Matrix,’ etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but, without reference to size or limitation or area, means the development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. … It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size  — for infinite extension admits of no enlargement  — was a change of condition.”

“It ‘expanded like the bud of the Lotus’ — for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from ‘Dawn’ to ‘Night’ during the Manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact in this objective Universe — from man down to mite, from giant trees down to the tiniest blades of grass.”

“The Waters of Life, or Chaos — the female principle in symbolism — are the vacuum (to our mental sight) in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, as ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’ according to the Peripatetics, and every ancient philosopher.”

Lotus

“In all Cosmogonies ‘Water’ plays the same important part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understood by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is used in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical composition.”

(H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine 1:63) 

And even in the most ordinary scientific speculations, contrary to the standard model modern science, water has now been proven to have “memory” — a fact that supports the occult concept of the “waters of space” as the preserver and container of all and everything that has ever existed.  (Learn the new scientific proof of this in the video below):

Our Hidden Karma and The Royal Talisman

“Adamo Eva”, Masaccio Masolino

BECAUSE all organisms are related through similarities in DNA sequences, the whole of nature could be really one family.

New insights of epigenetics have lead to a revolutionary view of human biology. Theosophy concurs with many of these new findings.

“The failures of science and its arbitrary assumptions,” Blavatsky says in The Secret Doctrine (2:670), “are far greater on the whole than any ‘extravagant’ esoteric doctrine.”

The traditional geneticist’s view of evolution “is from the animal,” she reminds us, and “mind in its various phases” is viewed, erroneously, as completely separate from matter.

Theosophy holds that mind is the mystical glue insuring that the identical genes that were in our ancestor’s bodies, what Blavatsky calls The Life Atoms —”are transmitted through their descendants for generation after generation…

…so that we are literally ‘flesh of the flesh’ of the primeval creature who has developed into man in the later period.

“Occultism teaches that the life-atoms [DNA] of our (Prana) life-principle are never entirely lost when a man dies.” And Blavatsky explains how: “The atoms [in the genes?] impregnated with the life-principle (an independent, eternal, conscious factor) — are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity…“They are partially drawn once more together,” she says, “and become the animating principle of the new body in every new reincarnation…”

The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, p.656

Beyond Death: Spiritual Holy Love is Immortal

Child Play

THE occultist and spiritual co-founder of the Theosophical Movement, Helena Blavatsky, was a tireless advocate of a wide range of social justice issues that are still conflicting society today.

Women’s rights, early childhood education, animal cruelty, environmentalism, industrial materialism, were some of the many concerns close to her heart.

Critical of early childhood education, and of the”infusion of (useless) intelligence,” Blavatsky declared: 

 “You have opened a subject on which we Theosophists feel deeply.”

A Washington Post article: “Report debunks ‘earlier is better’ academic instruction for young children,” confirms Mme. Blavatsky’s strong position on early childhood academics. 

The report, written by Lilian G. Katz, professor emerita of early childhood education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, titled “Lively Minds: Distinctions between academic versus intellectual goals for young children,” offers a new way to look at what is appropriate in early childhood education.

Happy Laughing Kids

Professor Katz, sounding like a modern Helena Blavatsky,  says that “intellectual dispositions” of young children may actually be “weakened or even damaged by excessive and premature formal instruction.”

They are “not likely to be strengthened by many of the mindless, trivial if not banal activities frequently offered in child care, preschool and kindergarten programs.” 

Mme. Blavatsky insisted in her Key to Theosophy that children should be “placed daily in a bright, clean school-room hung with pictures, and often gay with flowers.”

© The Washington Post

“They should be taught ‘to be clean, gentle, orderly …  learn to sing and to play; have toys that awaken its intelligence; learn to use its fingers deftly; is spoken to with a smile instead of a frown’ …

“All this humanises the children,” she wrote, “arouses their brains, and renders them susceptible to intellectual and moral influences. The schools are not all they might be and ought to be …”

And of the schools she complained: “your system deserves the worst one can say of it.” (Nothing much has changed!)  😦

A Happy and Healthy New Year: Recognizing the World as a Living System

Human Microbiome

HUMANS may be beginning to accept the idea of the interconnect of all life as being the keynote to saving themselves and the planet.

Climate change is only one of numerous examples of views heralding a new global awareness.

Setting the stage for such a worldview revolution, in his own time, was the theosophical pioneer William Q. Judge. In a public address given at given Mr. Judge at the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893 Universal Brotherhood a Fact in Nature he declared:

“We insist that universal brotherhood is a fact in nature. It is a fact for the lowest part of nature; for the animal kingdom, for the vegetable kingdom, and the mineral kingdom.

“We are all atoms, obeying the law together. Our denying it does not disprove it. It simply puts off the day of reward and keeps us miserable, poor, and selfish.”

It is known that even giant galaxies form groups, from a few to dozen up to large clusters composed of several thousand spiraled denizens in deep space. These vast star systems are called “Local Groups,” and all the galaxies they hold, like cells, are in mutual attraction and interaction with each other. All life, great and small, is interconnected with a common mission in the vastness of outer and inner space.

A Sea of Galaxies

On a more modest scale our solar system, the home of our Earth the other planets, calls the Milky Way Galaxy its home. Correspondingly, just as the Earth is home to us humans, so our human bodies are habitats and landscapes to trillions of living cells and microbes.

H. P. Blavatsky affirms (Kosmic Mind): “the whole body of man [is] composed of cells, and these cells are now being recognised as individual organisms and – quien sabe – will come perhaps to be recognized some day as an independent race of thinkers inhabiting the globe, called man! It really looks like it.”

Karma and Reincarnation Alone Can Save Humanity

Symbol of Rebirth

LOOKING beyond our relatively short physical lives on Earth, Theosophy teaches that the soul and spirit alone are eternal.

Further, the perennial wisdom tradition declares we don’t just ‘have’ a soul, we are Souls. (The Ocean of Theosophy, Chapter One)

Yet, there are many human beings who live physically to a ripe old age, and according to Wikipedia, the United Nations estimated in 2012 there were 316,600 living centenarians worldwide.

Methuselah is mentioned in the Bible as living 969 years. “But I have never heard of mortal man, layman, or Adept,”  H. P. Blavatsky wrote  in The Key to Theosophy, “who could live even half the years allotted to Methuselah.”

“Some Adepts do exceed, by a good deal, what you would call the ordinary age,” she said, “yet there is nothing miraculous in it, and very few of them care to live very long.” Mme. Blavatsky refers here only to the outward earthly physical body.

But the Spiritual and Astral Bodies that wise adepts have learned to occupy and control — achieving what is termed self-conscious immortality — have no expiration date.

Such Masters as Buddha remain fully alive while occupying their spiritual form (or Bodhisattvic Body). They are called Nirmanakayas, and remain invisible to the uninitiated. Such enlightened masters live a “secret life” of service to humanity.

One who selects the Path of Renunciation is described as a Bodhisattva, a “Buddha of Compassion.” The term literally means “one whose essence is wisdom” or “one of enlightened essence.”

A Buddha of Compassion

The Buddhist sage Aryasangha refers to Gautama Buddha as “the Supreme Nirmanakaya.” H. P. Blavatsky echoes his assertion, writing in a footnote: “The Esoteric School teaches that Gautama Buddha, with several of his Arhats, is such a Nirmânakâya, higher than whom, on account of the great renunciation and sacrifice for mankind, there is none known.”

(The Voice of the Silence, fn 34)

Gautama, the Buddha, after reaching the goal of enlightenment, refused its rewards and remained on earth as a Teacher-Reformer, it is explained, and esoteric tradition teaches that

“he remains in the world, invisibly watching over and protecting mankind.” 

And the Buddha is not alone. What is called a living, spiritual “Wall of Protection“ still exists established to protect humanity, built by the “accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis, Saints, and Adepts …

The Watcher

“… those  Buddhas of Compassion who have woven for themselves glorious bodies in which they remain invisibly in the world, contributing towards man’s salvation.”

The “Guardian Wall” may also be called the “Wall of Protection.” 

Those Masters are likened to ‘stones’ which go to form this spiritual Wall: “Built by the hands of many Masters of Compassion, raised by their tortures, by their blood cemented, it shields mankind, since man is man, protecting it from further and far greater misery and sorrow.”

The “Guardian Wall”

The “accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis, Saints, and Adepts, especially of the Nirmanakayas, have created, so to say, a wall of protection around mankind, which wall shields mankind invisibly from still worse evils.” (Voice, fn 28)

These advanced beings assist suffering humans “by influencing them to follow the Good Law and to tread the Path of Righteousness.” Silently they impress the invisible atmosphere of our earth with their Ideation, thus keeping the balance on the side of right.

 (The Voice of the Silence, fn 34)

There is No Beginning – The Big Bang Never Happened

Bud of The Lotus

HERE’S what H. P. Blavatsky wrote concerning the expansion of the universe. Compare it with what our modern physics has to say. In The Secret Doctrine, to counter what was being forced on the world as the standard model for the origin of the universe, she put forward the following occult explanation:

“The expansion ‘from within without’ of the Mother, called elsewhere the ‘Waters of Space,’ ‘Universal Matrix,’ etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but, without reference to size or limitation or area, means the development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. … It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size  — for infinite extension admits of no enlargement  — was a change of condition.”

“It ‘expanded like the bud of the Lotus’ — for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from ‘Dawn’ to ‘Night’ during the Manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact in this objective Universe — from man down to mite, from giant trees down to the tiniest blades of grass.”

“The Waters of Life, or Chaos — the female principle in symbolism — are the vacuum (to our mental sight) in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, as ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’ according to the Peripatetics, and every ancient philosopher.

Water Flowers

“In all Cosmogonies ‘Water’ plays the same important part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understood by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is used in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical composition.”

(Penned by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine 1:63) http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd1-1-04.htm

And even in the most ordinary scientific speculations, contrary to modern science, water has now been proven to have “memory” — a fact that supports the occult concept of the “waters of space” as the preserver and container of all and everything that has ever existed.  (Check out the video tape):

H. P. Blavatsky: Towards an Aquarian Humanity

Child Play

THE occultist and spiritual co-founder of the Theosophical Movement, Helena Blavatsky, was a tireless advocate of a wide range of social justice issues that are still conflicting society today.

Women’s rights, early childhood education, animal cruelty, environmentalism, industrial materialism, were some of the many concerns close to her heart.

Critical of early childhood education, and of the”infusion of (useless) intelligence,” Blavatsky noted: 

 “You have opened a subject on which we Theosophists feel deeply.”

 (Read the The Washington Post article confirming the relevance and importance of Mme. Blavatsky’s position: Early Childhood Academics.)

 

§

Outspoken as always, Mme. Blavatsky insisted in her Key to Theosophy that children should be “placed daily in a bright, clean school-room hung with pictures, and often gay with flowers.”

•

They should be taught “to be clean, gentle, orderly …  learn to sing and to play; has toys that awaken its intelligence; learns to use its fingers deftly; is spoken to with a smile instead of a frown …

♥

“All this humanises the children, arouses their brains, and renders them susceptible to intellectual and moral influences. The schools are not all they might be and ought to be … your system deserves the worst one can say of it.”

Hearts in Healthcare

THE ancient Wisdom Religion, now called Theosophy, provides a compelling basis for ethics and compassion.

The binding force lies in the realization that humanity shares one divine root, that all are united both in the natural world and at the deepest spiritual level.

The teaching shows that “compassion is no attribute” that it is the “Law of Laws,” (Voice of the Silence) — “the law of love eternal.”

The mutual brotherhood and altruism such compassion demands are the ideals we must follow if humanity is to survive and thrive. Fortunately, The Golden Rule is found in all the world’s faiths, and is more universal than most of us know or were taught.

“The ethic of reciprocity is found in the scriptures of nearly every religion,” says A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. The Golden Rule “is often regarded as the most concise and general principle of ethics, a condensation in one principle of all longer lists of ordinances.”

Charter for Compassion International

“The latest advances in neuroscience paint a rich picture of the deep interconnection between human beings: our feelings, sensations, thoughts, emotions, physiological responses, and visceral reactions are intimately linked.

“It’s as if we have a broadband network connection between our respective nervous systems.”

♥

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.”

Don’t Mess with Mother: Salmon Confidential

TODAY more than one billion people throughout the world will do their part to protect the Earth.

While we may not be able to plant a tree or ride a bike to work, we can all do something simple and significant – learn who and what are placing our planet at risk, and speak out about it.

Down the road even a few fired-up individuals can make a huge difference to the environment.

“Don’t Mess with Mother” (Nature) will be an ongoing, random series of posts on this important topic, starting today.

We will publicize the struggles of nature to survive against onslaughts by the money makers and soulless science, as H. P. Blavatsky often did.

This first post features Salmon Confidential, a new film on the government cover up of what is killing Canada’s wild salmon. It documents biologist Alexandra Morton’s attempt to overcome the huge government and industry roadblocks thrown in her path.

When Morton discovers BC’s wild salmon are testing positive for dangerous European salmon viruses associated with salmon farming worldwide, a chain of events is set off by government to suppress the findings.

Salmon Farm

Tracking viruses, Morton moves from courtrooms into British Columbia’s most remote rivers, Vancouver grocery stores and sushi restaurants.

The film documents her efforts to bring critical information to the public in time to save BC’s wild salmon.

“Many environmental experts have warned about the unsustainability of fish farms for a decade now,” writes Dr. Joseph M. Mercola an alternative physician and founder/editor of an alternative-medicine website. Mercola is the author of several books including The No-Grain Diet, and The Great Bird Flu Hoax.

Dr. Mercola

“We have documented those objections in many previous articles,” he notes, but “unfortunately nothing has yet been done to improve the system.”

“As usual, government agencies and environmental organizations around the world turned a blind eye to what was predicted to become an absolute disaster, and now the ramifications can be seen across the globe, including in British Columbia, Canada.”

Kangaroo Care

SCHOLARS and students of theoretical metaphysics tend to experience the world through squinting intellectual eyes as if blinded by a bright light..

They prefer the force of reason to hammer out truth, dismissing feelings and emotions as irrational and imperfect tools.

But as W. Q. Judge wrote in the Ocean of Theosophy, the intellect by itself is inherently “cold, heartless and selfish.”

This phenomenon is demonstrated by psychologist Mark Robert Waldman‘s research on the neurological correlates of compassion and spiritual practices, at the University of Pennsylvania. (More at the conclusion of this post, “Your Brain on God”.)

Everyday practical, evidence based intellectual data are processed through the brain, but do not appear to stimulate areas such as the pineal gland — an area recognized by occultists as the prime channel for spiritual impulses such as compassion and altruism.

Buried in the brain, the pineal gland, Blavatsky wrote, is nevertheless “the very key to the highest and divinest consciousness in man – his omniscient, spiritual and all embracing mind.”

“This seemingly useless appendage [pineal gland] is the pendulum which, once the clock-work of the inner man is wound up, carries the spiritual vision of the EGO to the highest planes of perception, where the horizon open before it becomes almost infinite.”

We are spiritual beings at core, but our behaviors on this physical plane — not unlike the relationship between a rider and her horse — are solely governed by how we have entrained our natures to perform seamlessly, as one mind, one heart. The inability to fully integrate these two demigods, leads unerringly to failure and disappointment.

Save the Bees, Act Now

Honey Bee

TW is posting this special appeal from Iain, Antonia, Mia, Luis, Ricken, Stephanie, Pascal, Alice, Ari and the whole Avaaz team.

Avaaz staff state they “don’t set an agenda and try to convince members to go along with it. It’s closer to the opposite: staff listen to members and suggest actions they can take in order to affect the broader world. Small wonder, then, that many of our most successful campaigns are suggested first by Avaaz members themselves. And leadership is a critical part of member service: it takes vision and skill to find and communicate a way to build a better world.”

Avaaz

“Because Avaaz is wholly member-funded, democratic accountability is in our DNA. No corporate sponsor or government backer can insist that Avaaz shift its priorities to suit some external agenda—we simply don’t accept funds from governments or corporations. (Read more about why it’s worth donating to Avaaz here, and chip in here.)

“Avaaz—meaning “voice” in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.”

Thou Art Buddha

Photo: barrywheeler.net

DEDICATED repetition is the foundation of all accomplishment in true art, science, and even spiritual development.

Yet success may entail much more than just ‘practice, practice’ to get to Carnegie Hall, as the saying goes.

Sweat, talent and technical skill are of course required. But the intuitive musician has a growing sense of  how a composition ought to be performed.

She is able to increasingly embrace the intent of the composer while shaping the music into a unique performance of her own.

Becoming ‘free of the keyboard’ an accomplished artist is untied from the written score and physical instrument.

The shift signals an artist who has the required technical mastery, plus an inspiration of her own.

Yet in large orchestras, the conductor communicates directions to musicians during a performance, becoming the authoritative guide, interpreter, and dedicated amanuensis of the composer.

Not unlike the Buddha following his enlightenment, an orchestra conductor, or music instructor, has transformed herself into a guru to the searchers, coaxing them through their envelope of inexperience, to ever increasing emancipation.

They say that when a student is ready, the teacher will appear. Spiritual knowledge and development does require commitment and dedication to an ideal, but on a grander scale. Achievement is more demanding any art, religion, science or philosophy for it is the synthesis of them all.

“Practical Theosophy is not one Science,” Blavatsky explained, “but it embraces every science in life, moral and physical. It may, in short, be justly regarded as the universal ‘coach,’ — a tutor of world-wide knowledge and experience.”

Dance of Destiny

KARMA is a beneficent and merciful law, relentlessly just, for true mercy is not a free lunch but impartial justice.

“My brothers! Each man’s life the outcome of his former living is,” said The Buddha.

Is Karma then only fate under another name, an already fixed formula from which no escape is possible?

They are unwise, the chorus tells Prometheus, who believe that the goddess Nemesis may be propitiated by sacrifices and prayers, or have her wheels diverted from the paths she has taken.

“Those paths are of our own making,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote, “for it is we, collectively or individually, who prepare them — an Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of Providence.”

“The only immutable decree of Karma,” she insisted, “is absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of Spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or break them.”

“Were no man to hurt his brother, two-thirds of the World’s evil would vanish into thin air. Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through. It is the constant presence in our midst of every element of strife and opposition, and

the division of races, nations, tribes, societies and individuals into Cains and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is the chief cause of the ‘ways of Providence.'”

“We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high road of respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways being so intricate and so dark.” Given this historical worldview, we need a fresh start. The roots of empathy and compassion must to be fostered in our children if there is to be any hope for the future of humanity.

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.”

Crossing Over

LOOKING past our relatively short physical lives on Earth, Theosophy views the soul as eternal. Further, we don’t just ‘have’ a soul, we are souls, the wisdom tradition says.

There are many human beings who live to a ripe old age, and according to Wikipedia, the United Nations estimated in 2009 there were 455,000 living centenarians worldwide.

Methuselah is mentioned in the Bible as living 969 years. “But I have never heard of mortal man, layman, or Adept,”  H. P. Blavatsky says in The Key to Theosophy, “who could live even half the years allotted to Methuselah.”

“Some Adepts do exceed, by a good deal, what you would call the ordinary age — yet there is nothing miraculous in it, and very few of them care to live very long.”

She refers here to the Earthly body, not the Spiritual Body that high adepts have learned to occupy and control, thereby achieving self-conscious immortality — albeit invisible to uninitiated mankind.

Gautama, the Buddha, after reaching the goal of enlightenment, refused its fruition and remained on earth as a Teacher-Reformer, it is explained, and esoteric tradition teaches that he still remains in the world, invisibly watching over and protecting mankind.

Not only Gautama, but a “Wall of Protection” is built by the “accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis, Saints and Adepts,those Buddhas of Compassion

who have woven for themselves glorious bodies in which they remain invisibly in the world, contributing towards man’s salvation.”

They do this “by influencing him to follow the Good Law and to tread the Path of Righteousness. Silently they impress the invisible atmosphere of our earth with their Ideation, thus keeping the balance on the side of right.”

Hidden Powers of Animals

THIS was such a popular post, we decided to republish it. Many people think that animals are just instinctual machines, but the assumption is false, and many controlled studies prove it.

Investigators discover that humans are not the only beings with self-aware minds, free will, and paranormal powers. There are powerful spiritual and intellectual forces hidden in animals.

Chimps, as will be shown, were found to be smarter than humans in computerized memory tests. But, in the 17th Century, René Descartes, dubbed the “Father of Modern Philosophy,” started everyone off on the wrong paw.

His materialism was not lost on H. P. Blavatsky. “Descartes held the living animal as being simply an automaton,” she noted in the article Have Animals Souls — “a ‘well wound up clock-work,’ according to Malebranche,” and she countered:

“One who adopts the Cartesian theory about the animal, would do as well to accept at once the views of the modern materialists.”

♥

Koko and Tabby

A woman who clearly did not subscribe to the Cartesian theory, found a young lion injured in the forest on the brink of death. She took it home with her and nursed it back to health.

Later she made arrangements with an animal rescue group to take the lion.

Some time passed before the woman had a chance to visit. A video was taken when she walked up to the lion’s cage to see how he was doing. Watch the lion’s reaction when he sees her!

A Mother’s Heart

WHEN mother welcomed us back in the house after a long day outside at play, we knew there would be caring and love waiting for us within.

There would  be food, a soothing bath and a bedtime story. Clean pajamas and sheets were as much Mother’s rule as her unconditional love.

But if correspondence and analogy are the rule that points to spiritual knowledge, how does the universe work in the way of loving Mothers?

Nature knows how to care for her human children, but perhaps in these modern, distracting times modern humans have strayed too far from their offspring, self-interestedly allowed children to play too long outside.

The awesome Mother nature has always waited patiently for our return home, healing and assuaging the self-created darkness of separation and materialism, assaulting the tender soul.

Is it because we forget that nature and humanity are really One Being, that we lose our way?

In these often dark times of spirit, we may have overlooked the Golden Rule, or resisted helping others, instead of living unselfishly and harmlessly for  humanity’s needy and down-trodden.

Disease, poverty, hunger and the rise of environmental blights are, it seems, the inevitable result of our separation from the natural, unified state.

The opening proposition of The Secret Doctrine reminds us of the most important Theosophical idea: the “fundamental One Existence, or Absolute Being, must be the REALITY in every form there is.”

“Existence is ONE THING, not any collection of things linked together. Fundamentally there is ONE BEING.”

Stepping Stones

Photo: barrywheeler.net

DEDICATED repetition is the foundation of all accomplishment in true art, science, and even spiritual development.

Yet success may entail much more than just ‘practice, practice’ to get to Carnegie Hall, as the saying goes.

Sweat, talent and technical skill are of course required. But the intuitive musician has a growing sense of  how a composition ought to be performed.

Because, through an inner  transformation, she can embrace the intent of the composer, and transform the music into an exhilarating inspiration of her own.

The accomplished performer is not tied to notes on paper, becoming what is called ‘free of the keyboard.’ That shift signals an musician who not only has the required technical mastery, but is also ready to shape a performance in her own inspired way.

Yet in large orchestras, the conductor communicates directions to musicians during a performance, becoming the authoritative guide, interpreter, and dedicated amanuensis of the composer.

Not unlike the Buddha following his enlightenment, an orchestra conductor, or music instructor, has transformed herself into a guru to the searchers, coaxing them through their envelope of inexperience, to ever increasing emancipation.

They say that when a student is ready, the teacher will appear. Spiritual knowledge and development does require commitment and dedication to an ideal, but on a grander scale. The stakes are higher than any one art or science.

“Practical Theosophy is not one Science,” Blavatsky explained, “but it embraces every science in life, moral and physical. It may, in short, be justly regarded as the universal ‘coach,’ — a tutor of world-wide knowledge and experience.”

Your Secret Karma

BECAUSE all organisms are related through similarities in DNA sequences, the whole of nature could be really one family.

New insights of epigenetics have lead to a revolutionary view of human biology. Theosophy concurs with many of these new findings.

“The failures of science and its arbitrary assumptions,” Blavatsky says in The Secret Doctrine (2:670), “are far greater on the whole than any ‘extravagant’ esoteric doctrine.”

The traditional geneticist’s view of evolution “is from the animal,” she reminds us, and “mind in its various phases” is viewed, erroneously, as completely separate from matter.

Theosophy holds that mind is the mystical glue insuring that the identical genes that were in our ancestor’s bodies, what Blavatsky calls The Life Atoms —”are transmitted through their descendants for generation after generation…

“…so that we are literally ‘flesh of the flesh’ of the primeval creature who has developed into man in the later period.”

§

This human interdependence is a spiritual law, and as such was never on any geneticist’s radar. These scientists should be getting the message, but are still limited by the standard model of gene theory.

Epigenetics is the new biological game-changer. This revolutionary theory has relatively recently been revived, and promoted successfully by the likes of frontier biologist Bruce Lipton.  He is “an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit.” Lipton discovered that environmental factors (which include mental and emotional states) –

…can alter the way the same genes are expressed, making even identical twins different.

This is only the beginning of an explosion in a new understanding of how biological systems really work. Transcending the standard mechanical gene theory, epigenetics proves the significance of thoughts and feelings, and how they imprint influences into physical life.