Volume VI, Number 2 Summer 2002

MonadS - The Views of Theosophists and Twetan Buddhists Compared

who Was the Reai]esus?

The One Life vs Separatism: A Look at Current Events in India

A Vehicle for the Ancient Wisdom Tradition This magazine is an invitation for followers of all traditions to enter into a dialogue whose goal is Truth and whose means is Universal Brotherhood.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FRANZ HARTMANN, M.D.

With an Addenda: His Stay in Georgetown, Colorado, USA. Compiled with Annotated English Translations from the German, French, Spanish and Italian by Robert Hütwohl. The German-born Medical Doctor, Franz Hartmann, was a student of H.P. Blavatsky, having travelled with and learned from her. An extensive bibliographic compilation of his articles and books, self-authored as well as those translated from other writers are brought together with adjoining annotations or translations into English. As well, as best as could be gathered, descriptive announcements about his works, mentions and notices by others, his lectures, letters and obituaries are included. The Appendix includes findings from old newspapers in Colorado. Numerous photo- graphs intersperse the text. 144 pp. Published 2001. ISBN 0-9651315-4-8. US $12.95

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GOLDEN DAWN STUDIES SERIES NO. 25.

The Serpent’s Path: The Magical Plays of Florence Farr and Shakespear. Edited with Introductory Note by Darcy Küntz. 48 pp. Containing the plays: 1: The Beloved of Hathor. 2: The Shrine of the Golden Hawk. 3: The Mystery of Time: A Masque. 4: A Dialogue of Vision. 5: Review of the Egyptian Plays by W.B. Yeats. Bibliography. $9.95 USD plus $1.50 shipping.

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Golden Dawn Trust P.O. Box 15964 Austin, TX. USA 78761-5964 E-mail: [email protected] Volume VI, No. 2 FOHAT Summer 2002 A Quarterly Publication of Edmonton Theosophical Society

Editor Robert Bruce MacDonald Contents Managing Editor JoAnne MacDonald

Assistant Editors Editorial...... 28 Rogelle Pelletier Dolorese Brisson LetterstotheEditor...... 29 Publisher Edmonton Theosophical WhoWastheRealJesus?...... 30 Society by David Pratt The pages of Fohat are an open forum dedicated to the pursuit of Monads in Theosophy and Tibetan Buddhism .....35 Truth, and consequently the views and opinions expressed by Gerald Schueler, Ph.D. herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher unless IndiaandPakistan:PoisoningbySeparatism.....39 otherwise specifically stated. Musings From a Secret Doctrine Class: Any articles or correspondence may be sent to: AQuestionofMotion...... 40 FOHAT by A Student Box 4587 Edmonton, Alberta Book Reviews ...... 41 Canada T6E 5G4 Algernon Blackwood: An Extraordinary Life E-mail: [email protected] by Mike Ashley Fax: (780) 438-1717 To Light a Thousand Lamps, A Theosophic Vision Subscription Rates: by Grace F. Knoche 1 year (4 issues) $15.00 Cdn in Canada $15.00 US in U.S.A. $20.00 US international To be featured in coming issues: Become an Associate of Edmonton TS and help support its efforts. Thoughts and Habits - Conquering Additional $10.00 our Cyclic Tendencies Associates receive: ETS Newsletter

Cover Design: Donna Pinkard Keep an eye out for our upcoming Judge issue.

ISSN 1205-9676 editorial Academics and Students of Theosophy

It is possible to criticize an institution or association we assent to the undermining of the value of honour whether it be political, religious, commercial or oth- and the moral good and pave the way for its replace- erwise because that group has a constitution that ment with “the world’s false standards and preju- describes its reason for existence, its goals, and the dice.” From the point of view of the Theosophist, the means to obtain those goals. The motivations of the Academic who tries to replace a moral heart with his group are open and not hidden. As spiritual beings intellectual “false standards” is an enemy of morality. we can criticize that institution and judge its motives against some inner moral light that we almost all Students of Theosophy, when writing on people from possess to some degree. For those who deny a spiri- the past, have to remember this. However, it must tual dimension they can judge, I suppose, against be remembered that it is better to justifiably criticize some moral code they have developed somehow and another for their words or actions than to stand by can express more or less perfectly. The motivations and let them destroy the honour of another. There of an individual are not so clear and, in fact, are most have been wrongs in the Society’s past that require often not clear at all. We can surmise possible moti- correcting. The names and honour of the Society’s vations but we must always remember that such founders have been unfairly blighted by some. David surmise is fiction not worthy of a public forum. With Pratt mirrors something similar to this when he looks individuals we do not try to judge motive but must at the life of Jesus in “Who Was the Real Jesus?” We stick to criticizing behavior which is public and in can see the life of the reformer made into something the end open to debate. However, there are times it was not and his teachings rewritten to suit the when the motive of the individual seems to become institution of the Christian Church in a way that clear and that is when the individual belongs to a Blavatsky and Judge could very well suffer if they are group with a clearly defined constitution and his not stood up for. This issue also features Gerald motives seem to be commensurate with the motiva- Schueler, Ph.D. writing on “Monads in Theosophy tions of the group. However, even in this situation we and Tibetan Buddhism.” Gerald Schueler continues must tread with care. People’s motives for joining a to do the hard work of making a bridge between group are not always due to absolute sympathies Theosophy and some of the other great world phi- with the agenda of that group. losophies. This work has to be done in order to save Theosophy from disfigurement at the hands of edi- A Student of Theosophy understands the above and tors who believe they know the minds of the founders is always careful about judging individuals and im- better than the founders knew it themselves. Aca- plying motive. In the Mahatma Letters, K.H. writes, demics write commentaries on original texts. The “We, my dear sirs, always judge men by their motives researchers of the Academic world want to work from and the moral effects of their actions: for the world’s original texts as much as possible so by making false standards and prejudice we have no respect” Theosophy an academic discipline, its writings will (p.386). For an adept, the motives of men and the moral be saved from the all-knowing editors of the future. effects of actions are clearly discernible. For the rest While the Student of Theosophy works at getting a of us who lack their wisdom, we must be careful. This deeper understanding of the One Life through study- is made clear in another letter where K.H. writes of ing Theosophy’s original texts, the Academic is inter- the words of the Arhat’s Lord and Master: ested in comparing these texts with other philoso- O ye Bhikkhus and Arhats — be friendly to the phies and looking for internal consistency or race of men — our brothers! Know ye all, that he, inconsistency. Blavatsky knew that the works would who sacrifices not his one life to save the life of his stand up for themselves and fully expected and fellow-being; and he who hesitates to give up more wanted this type of inspection for the Academics than life — his fair name and honour to save the would ensure the unaltered continuation of the lit- fair name and honour of the many, is unworthy of erature. Gerald Schueler’s treatment of monads is the sin-destroying, immortal, transcendent Nir- another step (and a brilliant one at that) along this vana. (p.387) road. We also go back to the beginning of the India It makes one wonder who is the worst criminal, he and Pakistan conflict and see how “false standards” who takes the life of another or he who destroys the can lead to the terrible mess we are now in in the name and honour of another. The name and honour article “India and Pakistan: Poisoning by Separa- of a man can live a lot longer than his physical body. tism.” In addition we have some book reviews and By allowing people to undermine a person’s honour, another “Musings”. Enjoy.

28 FOHAT Letters to the Editor:

Fohat This is my sixth year as a subscribing member to not read like a fantasy novel, although in the earlier Fohat and I would like to thank the Editor and team parts the author knits together a limited number of for putting together such an excellent magazine. traditions. In the main chapters about Paul, the Fohat is a refreshing read in a world where glossy, detail, geographical and administrative, is quite ac- distracting, over-advertised reading materials are curate, as scholars of ancient and law have found. rampant. It offers mindful, intelligent reading that I cannot easily find elsewhere. With so many inter- I was also concerned about the passage on Josephus esting, thought-provoking topics covered, one can- (page 8). About five years ago, I found myself unex- not help but be positively affected by the enlarged pectedly for a time a member of Kings College Lon- perspective that it brings — what a difference! I don library, and I took the opportunity over several always look forward to the delivery of my quarterly months to investigate Josephus, using various subscription and will continue to support such an monographs and literature surveys of whose pre- excellent communication vehicle that delivers such vious existence I was in the main unaware. My mindful content. particular interest was in the Slavonic Josephus manuscript and whether it might turn out to be more Hooray Fohat — Keep up the great work! reliable. (It didn’t.) But I also read a number of recent Lynne Chaisson assessments of the Jesus passages. It was quite Toronto, Canada clear that the majority view (by scholars of all or no beliefs) was that Josephus did mention Jesus but had been amended by Christians later.

Christian Origins In assessing Madame Blavatsky’s statements, I David Pratt’s extensive theosophical research, con- would suggest, we can usefully distinguish between veniently available on his web site, is an important core assertions (mainly metaphysical) and inciden- contribution. His restatement of the theosophical tal detail, on subjects where she was content to use attitude to Christianity (only a small part of it) secondary authorities to make a case. Thus in her combines the material passed down from HPB remarks on Neoplatonism in Key to Theosophy,as through the Point Loma tradition with some of the Dr Siemens has shown in his TH occasional paper, latest writings by secularists, New Agers and liberal she uses Wilder who in turn used Mosheim, and so biblical scholars. But the total effect is, I would her picture is not always correct. suggest, too negative. Similarly in her remarks about Christian origins, As David notes, the many theorists on Christian which were numerous from Isis Unveiled onwards origins interpret the data according to their beliefs. we have to ask to what extent she was using con- If they are militant Humanists or liberal scholars, veniently available material by Enlightenment they are likely to reject as myth anything “miracu- scholars and others to generally refute the Catholic lous”, knowing nothing of the powers latent in man. and Protestant orthodoxies of her day. In my edito- rial “Jesus in Theosophical History” in that maga- Giving very late dates to source material is also zine of July 1985, I considered that in relation to the common among polemicists. I find it helpful to keep Jesus lived 100 B.C. theory. I later wrote to Geza in mind that John Robinson, who wrote Honest to Vermes about this theory; he replied that Jesus God (1963) the famous English rejection of orthodox fitted into the first century time frame where he was theology, also wrote Redating the New Testament placed. It appears to be the case that no Jewish which explored the idea that all of the N.T. was scholar today puts this most famous of Jews in an completed before CE 70. Most biblical scholars do earlier era. not agree with this — they think a lot was written between 70 and 100, but there is no knock down The Theosophical exemplar I would suggest is G.R.S. argument to contradict Robinson who knew the Mead, for whom David and I both have high regard, material intimately. who was always ready to revise his views in the light of later research, and who managed to write about Dating Acts from 150-177 CE (page 9 of his first paper . . . continued on page 43 in Fohat) especially raises my eyebrows. No, it does

SUMMER 2002 29 Who Was the Real Jesus? David Pratt

[Reprinted with permission from David Pratt’s webpage http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/jesus.htm] Jesus as fiction every event related of him during the three years of the mission he is said to have accomplished, The story of Jesus as presented in the four gospels rests on the programme of the Cycle of Initiation, a cycle founded on the Precession of the Equi- of the New Testament is essentially a piece of fiction. 3 noxes and the Signs of the Zodiac. There are no authentic references to such a figure in the works of any historians of the early 1st century The gospel figure of Jesus is a Jewish adaptation of CE (common era). The pre-gospel writings of the early the mythical godman found under many different Christians also make no reference to the life and names in ancient pagan mystery religions: in Egypt teachings of a recent historical Jesus. Paul, for in- he was Osiris, in Greece Dionysus, in Asia Minor stance, was supposedly Jesus’ contemporary, yet he Attis, in Syria Adonis, in Italy Bacchus, in Persia never claimed to have met him in the flesh or to have Mithras. All the major elements of the Jesus story, met anyone else who had done so; he encountered from the virgin birth to the crucifixion and resurrec- him only in visions, as a spiritual being. The Chris- tion, can be found in earlier stories of pagan godmen. tian groups of the 1st century CE held extremely As G. de Purucker puts it: diverse theological views, and this would be hard to explain if they were the followers of a single, recent the ‘Gospel’ story is merely an idealized fiction, written by Christian mystics in imitation of eso- teacher. Remarkably, they showed no interest in the teric mysteries of the ‘Pagans,’ showing the initia- holy sites and relics associated with Jesus’ alleged tion trials and tests of the candidate for initiation; earthly career; it was not until the 4th century that and it is not very well done, there being much error pieces of the ‘true cross’ began to surface, and that and many mistakes in the ‘Gospels.’4 the first shrine was set up on the supposed mount of Jesus’ death. A historical Jesus? It is only in the four canonical gospels and certain other New Testament writings that the now orthodox The fact that key elements of the gospel story of Jesus story of Jesus is to be found. The gospels, however, are clearly mythical does not automatically mean were largely written in the 2nd century, have suffered that the entire portrayal is fiction. Over the past two numerous alterations and additions, and contain centuries scholars have produced many different significant contradictions and inconsistencies. Their reconstructions of the ‘real Jesus’. He has been shortcomings are recognized by Christian and non- depicted, for example, as a priestly zealot fomenting Christian scholars alike. Some theologians are now popular unrest against the Roman occupation, an prepared to question not only the virgin birth and apocalyptic prophet, a progressive Pharisee, a Gali- miracles, but even the much more fundamental doc- lean healer and miracle-worker, and a Hellenistic trine of the resurrection. Theology professor Burton sage. Commenting on the many ‘historical Jesuses’, Mack, for example, goes as far as to call the gospels’ Robert Price writes: portrayal of Jesus ‘fantastic’, ‘the result of a layered All tend to center on particular constellations of history of imaginative embellishments of a founder gospel elements interpreted in certain ways, leav- figure’.1 But even the very existence of a great Chris- ing other data to the side as spurious . . . What tian founder figure living at the start of the 1st one Jesus reconstruction leaves aside, the next takes up and makes its cornerstone. . . . Each 1 century is highly implausible, given the silence of sounds good until you hear the next one. contemporary historians and even 1st-century 2 Christians. The Jesus Seminar, an association of progressive biblical scholars based in California, was formed in H.P. Blavatsky stated that the story of Jesus was the 1980s and has played an important role in invented after the 1st century. Jesus, she says, exposing the unreliability of the early Christian re- is a deified personification of the glorified type of cord. Its members believe that Jesus was primarily the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his a sage who taught that the kingdom of heaven is story, as told in the New Testament, is an allegory, within. They dismiss the gospel stories of him work- assuredly containing profound esoteric truths, ing miracles, and regard him as too enlightened to but still an allegory. . . . Every act of the Jesus of the New Testament, every word attributed to him, have threatened his opponents with damnation on

30 FOHAT Judgement Day. In fact, they reject as inauthentic refer to this figure as ‘Jesus’, and it was they who some three quarters of the sayings attributed to introduced the idea that he was the messiah or Jesus in the gospels. But their selective portrayal saviour. He acknowledges that the Teacher of the tells us more about their own preconceptions and Scrolls differs in many ways from the Jesus of the preferences than about an historical Jesus.2 gospels, but stresses that the latter is largely a fictional figure. Mark’s Gospel, the shortest and simplest, is widely believed to have been the first of the four canonical There is disagreement as to whether Paul and his gospels to be written. The authors of the Gospels of fellow-believers saw Jesus as a man who had lived Matthew and Luke copied large chunks of it, but also on earth at some more distant time in the past or appear to have been in possession of another docu- whether they saw him entirely as a mythical figure, ment, now lost, known as ‘Q’ (standing for Quelle,a a spiritual being who lived and operated in the German word meaning ‘source’), which apparently ‘supernatural’ world, like all the other saviour gods contained the sayings of Jesus. Q is thought to have of the time. Although Paul makes it clear that he been written in three stages: Q1 contains wisdom himself had never met an historical Jesus, there are sayings, Q2 more sectarian, apocalyptic sayings, and a handful of passages in his writings that could be only Q3 refers to a founder figure called Jesus. This interpreted as referring to a previous earthly exist- legendary figure is depicted as a purely human ence of Jesus. Earl Doherty, however, argues that teacher, which is how early Christians such as the these are better interpreted in line with Platonic Ebionites and Nazoreans regarded Jesus; there is no thinking about counterpart realities in the higher mention of Jesus being the son of God, or of his spiritual world.7 In his view, pre-gospel Christian crucifixion and resurrection. records do not provide any evidence of a widespread tradition about a human founder who was a prophet, Some scholars, however, believe that even Q1 may teacher, miracle-worker and interpreter of scripture be based on the life of an actual itinerant Galilean — in either the recent or distant past. preacher of the 20s or 30s, who was one of the prototypes of the gospel Jesus.3 Opponents of this In a highly speculative reconstruction of the life of view argue that the sayings represent ideas widely the Teacher of Righteousness (who may have been held in various brotherhoods and mystery schools called Judah), Michael Wise argues that he was a long before Christianity was created. In particular, priestly prophet, a member of the elite, and rose to they bear ample marks of Cynic origin, with parallels preeminence around 105 BCE as a leader of the in the works of Seneca, Epictetus, Diogenes Laertius, political coalition that supported King Alexander etc. Robert Price states that the sayings convey ‘not Jannaeus (who reigned from c. 103 to 76 BCE).8 the personality of an individual but that of a move- Alexander was supported by the Sadducees and ment, the sharp and humorous Cynic outlook on oppressed the Pharisees, but when his wife, Alexan- life’.4 dra, became queen, she did an about-face and em- braced the Pharisees. Judah, who came to regard The Jewish historian Josephus mentions three char- himself as the messiah, defied the new regime, label- acters who people thought were messiahs and who ling it Satan’s dominion. He was arrested, charged were crucified by the Romans: Yehuda of Galilee (6 with false prophecy, and exiled around 74 BCE, and CE), Theudas (44 CE), and Benjamin the Egyptian within a few years he had been killed. Wise does not (60 CE). It is possible that the Jesus story is partly specifically link the Teacher with the Essenes. based on their lives.5 Robert Eisenman contends that the Dead Sea Scrolls G.A. Wells maintains that Paul regarded Jesus as a have been dated a century too early, and that they heavenly, preexistent figure who had come to earth should be seen as 1st-century CE works stemming perhaps one or two centuries before his own time. from the community led by James the Just. Accord- Alvar Ellegard has gone a step further and has ing to this view, it is the latter who was called the suggested that the main prototype for Jesus was the Teacher of Righteousness. The Teacher is said to Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea have been ambushed, betrayed and killed by a Scrolls (discovered in the late 1940s and early 50s).6 wicked priest, and this closely parallels the plot of Ellegard argues that this figure was the founder of Ananus the High Priest to trap and kill James.9 If this the Judaic reform movement known as the Essenes, theory is confirmed, it would rule out Ellegard’s and died around 100 BCE (before common era). He hypothesis that the Teacher of Righteousness was was looked upon as a great prophet and also as a the historical Jesus and undermine Wise’s attempted martyr, who had been harassed and eventually put reconstruction of his life. A more important candi- to death by the Jewish priestly hierarchy. According date for an historical Jesus is found in the Jewish to Ellegard, Paul and his colleagues were the first to Talmud.

SUMMER 2002 31 Jesus in the Talmud story that Jesus’ disciples stole his dead body and hid it). The Talmud contains a number of passages that refer to a certain Jeshu (or Joshua) ben Pandera, who lived The Talmud also speaks of a man named ben Stada around 100 BCE.1 Jeshu is said to have been the (‘strayed one’), who sometimes stands for Jesus, but disciple of Joshua ben Perachiah, who was certainly one of the passages implies that he lived around 100 an historical figure, being one of the most prominent CE — nearly 200 years after King Jannaeus’ death. rabbis of the time. During the persecution of the However, this should not be used as an excuse to Pharisees by Alexander Jannaeus, which began reject the whole rabbinical tradition about Jesus as around 94 BCE, Joshua ben Perachiah fled with unhistorical and unreliable, especially since ben Jeshu to Alexandria in Egypt, where Jeshu is said to Stada appears originally to have been a separate 7 have learned magic. Described as a learned man, character who was later confused with Jeshu. Jeshu was expelled for heretical tendencies from the G.R.S. Mead shows that the 100 BCE date is part of school over which Joshua presided. He became a the oldest deposit of the Talmud and predates the religious teacher, had several disciples, and stories containing the later date, which were devel- preached to ordinary people. He was accused of oped by the Lydda (or Lud) school of rabbis for 8 practising sorcery, deceiving Israel and estranging polemical purposes. people from God. After being tried and convicted, he was stoned to death and his body was then hung up The early Christians were well aware of the Jewish as a warning to others. stories about Jesus. The pagan philosopher Celsus, who was famous for his arguments against Christi- Some Jews still adhere to the 100 BCE date for Jesus anity, referred to the Jewish tradition current in his and argue that many gospel stories are specific re- own day (c. 170 CE) that Jesus went to Egypt where sponses to the Talmudic picture of Jeshu (‘Jesus’ is he learned magic and later returned home and the Latin form of ‘Jeshu’ or ‘Yeshu’).2 Christians, on started claiming he was a god. Jesus’ mother, Mary, the other hand, claim that the Talmud Jeshu is had allegedly been divorced by her husband, a car- partly based on the ‘real’, gospel Jesus, and that the penter, after it had been proved that she was an stories about Jeshu reflect the Jews’ intense hostility adulteress. She wandered about in shame and bore towards the Christians.3 Many writers who argue Jesus in secret, his real father being a soldier named that the gospel Jesus is a fictional character also Panthera (or Pandera). The 3rd-century church fa- deny the historical reality of the Talmud Jeshu.4 ther Origen found this story to be of sufficient impor- Theosophical writers such as H.P. Blavatsky and G. tance to go to the pains of arguing against it in his de Purucker, on the other hand, insist that there was book against Celsus. At the end of the 2nd century, an historical Jesus who lived around 100 BCE, on the fiery church father Tertullian, in a diatribe whom the gospel Jesus is partly based, and they give against the Jews, indicated that he was aware of credence to the Talmudic tradition.5 Blavatsky several elements of the Talmud Jesus stories, and writes: also several additional elements not mentioned in the Talmud but included in the Toldoth Jeshu, which was However cautious one ought to be in accepting 9 anything about Jesus from Jewish sources, it not written down until many centuries later. must be confessed that in some things they seem to be more correct in their statements (whenever In the 4th century the Christian saint Epiphanius their direct interests in stating facts is not con- gave a Christian genealogy in which Panthera is cerned) than our good but too jealous [Church] 6 mentioned as the grandfather of Jesus. He even Fathers. states that Jesus lived in the time of King Jannaeus, but then goes on to say that Jesus was born in 2 The Talmud was compiled between the 2nd and 6th BCE, some 70 years after Jannaeus’ death!10 centuries CE from earlier traditions. In the middle Epiphanius was trying to dispose of the Jewish ages, the scattered passages referring to Jeshu were tradition about Jesus by incorporating elements of it worked up, together with other material, into a book, into his own (clearly fictional) account, apparently the Toldoth Jeshu (Life of Jesus). Whereas the Tal- unconcerned by the blatant incongruity to which this mud is a fairly sober work, the Toldoth Jeshu is full gave rise. of wild tales, which are clearly not intended to be regarded as historical. The statements made about According to Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph and Mary Jesus in the Talmud and Toldoth are sometimes had to flee with the baby Jesus to Egypt because King rather confused, and some were probably written Herod had ordered all infant boys born in Bethlehem after the gospel story emerged in order to ridicule to be killed. As already mentioned, the Talmud says Christian beliefs (e.g. the story about Jesus’ mother that ben Perachiah fled to Egypt with Jeshu to escape being an adulteress and Jesus a bastard, and the being killed by King Jannaeus. In contrast to the Christian story of the ‘slaughter of the innocents’

32 FOHAT under Herod, for which there is no historical evidence equivalent of notzri is nazoraios (or nazaraios/nazi- whatsoever, the persecution of the Pharisees by Al- raios). The stem of this word means ‘to keep oneself exander Jannaeus is a historical fact.11 Jannaeus separate’ — an indication of the ascetic nature of this (supported by the Sadducees) overcame the Phari- sect. The early Christians conjectured that nazoraios sees around 88 BCE after six years of fighting. He (variously rendered Nazar/Nazarite, Nazorean or allegedly crucified 800 of them and had the throats Nazarene) meant a person from Nazareth and so it of their wives and children cut in front of them; was assumed that Jesus lived in Nazareth. However, another 8000 rabbis fled Judea. The ‘slaughter of the the original Hebrew for Nazareth is Natzrat and a innocents’ may be partly based on this fact (initiates person from Nazareth is a Natzrati. The expression were sometimes called ‘innocents’ or ‘infants’). How- ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ is therefore a mistranslation of ever, it should be noted that the theme of a divine or ‘Jeshu ha-Notzri’. semi-divine child who is feared by an evil king is very common in pagan mythology. At the time of the emergence of Christianity, the Middle East was the scene of great religious diversity, According to the gospels, Jesus was crucified. How- as has been confirmed by the Nag Hammadi writings ever, Paul and Peter, who were writing before the and Dead Sea Scrolls. Many of the various sects — gospels were composed, say he was ‘hanged on a tree’ e.g. Essenes, Therapeutae (lit. ‘healers’), Nazars, (Galatians 3:13; Acts 5:30, 10:39). The Talmud Jesus Nabatheans, Ebionites and Gnostics — were closely is said to have been stoned and hanged on a tree (in interrelated and often difficult to tell apart. As H.P. accordance with Jewish law). Jesus’ crucifixion is Blavatsky says, they ‘were all, with very slight differ- also, of course, symbolical. Christ represents both ences, followers of the ancient theurgic mysteries’.2 the spiritual sun (whose emblem is the physical sun) Several scholars have pointed to similarities between and the spiritual self in each individual. The cross eastern religious traditions (especially Buddhism represents the intersection of the ecliptic and the and Brahmanism) and the ideas of the Essenes, celestial equator, and also the interdependence of Nazars and Gnostics. Trade routes between the spirit (the vertical bar) and matter (the horizontal). Greco-Roman world and the Far East were opening Just as the sun is ‘reborn’ at the vernal equinox, up at the time Gnosticism flourished (80-200 CE), when it crosses the celestial equator and begins its Buddhists were in contact with gnostic Christians in northward journey along the ecliptic, so the aim of southern India, and for generations Buddhist mis- initiation is to end the ‘crucifixion’ of the higher self sionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria and in the world of matter by bringing about a second or elsewhere in the Middle East.3 spiritual birth, in which the lower nature is trans- muted and united with the higher. During the trials According to Blavatsky, the Essenes were ‘the con- of initiation the candidate often lay on a cruciform verts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun couch. Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign of Asoka’ (mid-3rd century BCE).4 She states The theme of a divine or semi-divine being who is that although Jesus was a pupil of the Essenes, he sacrificed against a tree, pole or cross and then was not a strict Essene as he disagreed with his early resurrected is frequently found in pagan mythology. teachers on several questions of formal observance. For instance, at the vernal equinox, pagans in north- [T]he Nazarene Reformer, after having received his ern Israel would celebrate the death and resurrection education in their [the Essenes’] dwellings in the of the virgin-born Tammuz-Osiris. In Asia Minor desert, and been duly initiated into the Mysteries, (where the earliest Christian churches were estab- preferred the free and independent life of a wan- lished) a similar celebration was held for the virgin- dering Nazaria, and so separated or inazarenized himself from them, thus becoming a travelling born Attis, who was shown as dying against a tree, 5 being buried in a cave and then being resurrected on Therapeute, a Nazaria, a healer. the third day.12 She describes the Nazars as ‘a class of Chaldean initiates’ and ‘kabalistic gnostics’.6 Regarding Jesus’ Jesus the Nazar mission, she writes: The motive of Jesus was evidently like that of The Hebrew name for Christians has always been Gautama-Buddha, to benefit humanity at large by notzrim, and although modern Christians claim that producing a religious reform which should give it Christianity only started in the 1st century CE, the a religion of pure ethics . . . 1st-century Christians in Israel considered them- In his immense and unselfish love for humanity, selves to be a continuation of the notzri movement, 1 he considers it unjust to deprive the many of the which had been in existence for about 150 years. In results of the knowledge acquired by the few. This the rabbinical tradition, Jeshu ben Pandera is also result he accordingly preaches — the unity of a called Jeshu ha-Notzri (Jesus the Nazar). The Greek

SUMMER 2002 33 spiritual God, whose temple is within each of us, created by an act of white magic at cyclical points in 7 and in whom we live as He lives in us — in spirit. human history for the purpose of introducing the spiritual influence of a divine being into human The Mandeans asserted that Jesus was Nebu, the affairs.5 The chosen child, even before it is born, is false messiah, and the destroyer of the old orthodox overshadowed by the soul of the Buddha, who religion, while other opponents said he was the watches over and strengthens the body concerned founder of a new sect of Nazars. The Hebrew word until it can receive the fuller incarnation of the naba means ‘to speak by inspiration’, and Nebo is Buddha’s spiritual and intellectual powers. Some- the god of wisdom and also the planet Mercury. The what later, usually when the borrowed body has Hindus call this planet Budha (‘wise man’), and it is reached adulthood, the soul of the Buddha rises closely connected with the Buddha (‘awakened one’). through the ether and links itself with the waiting Similarly, the Talmudists hold that Jesus was in- 8 divinity, and from that instant, which usually takes spired by the genius or regent of Mercury. According place during initiation at the time of the winter to the modern theosophical tradition, there is an solstice, the avatara exists as a complete entity and intimate link between Jesus and Buddha, connected goes about its work.6 Purucker writes: with Jesus’ status as an avatara. An avatara usually happens in our world when a divinity is passing through initiation, and a hu- Jesus as avatara man being provides the vehicle to enable it to descend into what is an underworld to the divine spheres. When a human being undergoes a corre- The term ‘avatara’ signifies the ‘descent’ of a divine sponding initiation, the man descends into the being who overshadows and works through a human underworld where a denizen thereof cooperates to vehicle. Mahatma KH stated that the man Jeshu was lend its thinking conscious vehicle to allow the 7 ‘a mortal like any of us, an adept more by his inherent human monad to manifest and work there. purity and ignorance of real Evil, than by what he had learned with his initiated Rabbis and the already The gospel Jesus appears to be a patchwork charac- (at that period) fast degenerating Egyptian Hiero- ter, partly mythical and partly based on a number of 1 phants and priests’. Jesus was chrestos (good and historical characters, including the Talmud Jeshu. holy), and became christos (‘anointed’, i.e. glorified) As for the avatara Jesus mentioned in the theosophi- only when the celestial power began to work through cal tradition, Purucker points out that there is no him. As Blavatsky explains: exoteric proof that such a figure did live and teach.8 9 Western Theosophists accept the Christos as did He is said to have been born around 107 BCE, and the Gnostics of the centuries which preceded Blavatsky quotes an obscure passage from a ‘secret Christianity, as do the Vedantins their Krishna: work’, which could be interpreted to mean that he they distinguish the corporeal man from the divine died in his 33rd year (i.e. in 75-74 BCE).10 * Principle which, in the case of the Avatara, ani- 2 mates him. In the Talmud, Balaam (a name meaning ‘destroyer or corrupter of the people’) — who sometimes denotes To make a complete avatara, a third element is Jeshu — is said to have died when he was 33 years necessary: the physical-astral body and the spiri- old. The Toldoth Jeshu indicates that Jeshu outlived tual-divine entity must be linked by a psychological Jannaeus, who died between 79 and 76 BCE. He was apparatus, which is provided by a master of wisdom succeeded by his wife, Salome, who reigned for some with the status of a buddha. Blavatsky and Purucker nine years and, unlike her husband, was favourable indicate that in the case of Jesus, it was the adept to the Pharisees. It may have been only after Jan- known in his last incarnation as Gautama Buddha 3 naeus’ death that both Joshua ben Perachiah and who provided this link. When the Buddha achieved Jeshu returned to Judea.12 enlightenment, his spiritual self is said to have en- tered the state of nirvana, while his intermediate self, The New Testament does not indicate how old Jesus the bodhisattva, remained after his death in the was when he died, though he is said to have begun earth’s ethereal atmosphere as a nirmanakaya so 4 his ministry at the age of 30. Some of the early that it could continue to help on human evolution. Christians gave the time of his ministry as one year. The church father Irenaeus dismissed this and Purucker explains that avataras are humans of ex- stated that Jesus’ ministry lasted 20 years. The traordinary spiritual and intellectual powers em- accepted opinion among Christians today is that his bodying a divine ray, who have no human karma mission lasted 3 years, and that he was crucified in because they are not the reincarnations of an ordi- his 33rd year.13 nary human soul evolving on this earth. They are . . . continued on page 45

* Shankaracharya, the great Vedantic teacher of India, is also said to have been overshadowed by the Buddha. Born in 510 BCE, he chose to die in his 33rd year. A commentary explains: ‘At whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at that age will he be made to die in his next incarnation against his will’.

34 FOHAT Monads in Theosophy and Tibetan Buddhism

Gerald Schueler, Ph.D.

Monad, Monas [from Greek monas a unit, individual, atom] A unit, a one; something nondivisible and which is therefore conceived of as real, in contradistinction to compound things which (as compounds) are not real. (http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/mi-mo.htm)

The Monad . . . is nothing else than a simple substance, which goes to make up composites; by simple, we mean without parts. (Leibniz, The Monadology)

The Monad in Theosophy explains the teaching that everything in the universe is alive. Blavatsky made the multi-functionality of The potential for development of the atoms, parti- monads clear when she wrote that monads cles, etc., which are required to create a universe, requires the development of a multiplicity of cells, may be separated into three distinct Hosts, which, all of which are the same essence. This is the counted from the highest planes, are, firstly, doctrine of the monad in The Secret Doctrine. “gods,” or conscious, spiritual Egos . . . Then come (Sellon, 1996, p.19) the Elementals, or Monads, who form collectively and unconsciously the grand Universal Mirrors of everything connected with their respective realms. The ancient doctrine of monads is used in modern Lastly, the atoms, or material molecules. . . (The Theosophy to explain the composition of material Secret Doctrine, Vol I, p.632) objects and how living beings and inanimate objects evolve. By definition, a monad is any indivisible unit. In the above quote, she uses the idea from Leibniz (1931) It can be composed of anything from divinity itself, that “every monad is a mirror of the universe” (p.265) through spirit down to matter so long as it is partless to describe monadic elementals standing half- or indivisible. According to Blavatsky’s presentation, way between gods and atoms. So, Theosophy recog- there is a close relationship between gods, monads, nizes a direct connection between spiritual partless and atoms. particles and physical atoms. Here she seems to be accepting physical atoms/molecules, but she is ac- The term ‘Monad’ is a generalizing term. There are tually referring only to these as the physical coun- divine Monads and spiritual Monads, intellectual terparts of monads (monads per se are subjective/ Monads and astral Monads, even physical Mo- nads. Then following another line of degrees, there spiritual consciousnesses that have objective/mate- is the Monad of our Home Universe. There is the rial bodies). While clearly alluding to this connection, Monad of a solar system which is its Sun. There G. de Purucker (1949) says that the “Elemental King- is the Monad of every planet. There is the Monad doms . . . are aggregates or groups of evolving mo- of every atom. (Purucker, 1948, p.413) nads” (p.50). These comprise what are called physical or mineral monads. The use of the term monad, a partless particle by definition, for so many different things on virtually Technically, it is difficult to see how spiritual unities all cosmic planes and systems can be confusing, and can form the compounded aggregates of the physical so we need to begin with some clear definitions of just atoms that comprise the elemental kingdoms (The- how Theosophy employs this term. According to G. osophy recognizes three separate elemental king- de Purucker’s Occult Glossary, “A monad is a spiri- doms rather than the one mineral kingdom tual entity which to us humans is indivisible; it is a recognized by modern science). Blavatsky hinted at divine-spiritual life-atom” (p.108) and “Monads are an answer to this puzzle when she wrote that “In- spiritual-substantial entities, self-motivated, self- stead of saying a ‘Mineral Monad,’ the more correct impelled, self-conscious, in infinitely varying de- phraseology . . . would of course have been to call it grees, the ultimate elements of the universe” (p.109). ‘the Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called Thus in one sense a monad is an “entity” and in the Mineral Kingdom’” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol I, p.178). another sense it is an “ultimate element” both being She suggests that physical atoms are not actually non-physical. The monad as a “life-atom” is ex- monads themselves, but rather the physical mani- plained in Theosophy as “the life-principle or vitaliz- festations or vehicles of monads. This would be in ing essence within the atomic particles that exist on keeping with Purucker’s insistence that all monads every plane” (Long, 1965, p.52). This is how Theosophy are actually spiritual.

SUMMER 2002 35 We may conclude then, that terminology such as idea of reflection, often using metaphors such as the ‘mineral monad’ and ‘human monad’ found through- jewels of Indra’s net: out Theosophical literature is a matter of conven- It is said in the Hwa Yen Sutra that high above in ience and should not be taken literally. This heaven, on the roof of the palace of the God Indra, conclusion is further substantiated when we con- there hang innumerable ornaments in the form of sider Purucker’s (1949) statement that “a monad small crystal marbles. They are interlaced in vari- never leaves its own plane; so when we say that the ous patterns forming a great complex network. earth-element is composed of concreted or dormant Because of the reflection of light, not only does monads, we do not mean the spiritual monads them- each and every one of these marbles reflect the entire cosmos, including the continents and selves; we mean the life-atoms, each life-atom being oceans of the human world down below, but at the the representative of a monad on this cosmic plane” same time they reflect one another, including all (pp.50-51). We see then that Blavatsky’s “Monad mani- the reflected images in each and every marble, festing in that form of Prakriti” is called a life-atom, without omission. (Chang, 1971, p.165) for convenience, to distinguish it from the physical atom itself. The Monad in Tibetan Buddhism

The doctrine of monads, as used in Theosophy, When the Buddha first began teaching, he gave suggests that all material objects are composed of teachings that were compatible to the under- such manifesting monads or life-atoms. But, as standing of his students. These became the Hinay- Blavatsky herself has pointed out, “Matter has exten- ana teachings and were intended for shravaka sion” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol I, p.251). This idea of the practitioners. In these teachings, the Buddha said physical extension of compounded atomic objects that there was no creator, instead everything was into three-dimensional space is a problem that trou- made up of minute particles like atoms. This was bles many Tibetan Buddhists, as we shall see later. the view of the Vaibhashika school. Another Hi- nayana teaching of the Buddha was that there To help clarify this, Blavatsky makes it clear that were small invisible particles which were “hidden” “Our Gods and Monads are not the Elements of from mind and from these the self and the external extension itself, but only those of the invisible reality world were created. This was the view of the which is the basis of the manifested Kosmos” (The Sautrantika school. (Thrangu Rinpoche in Rangjung Secret Doctrine, Vol I, p.614, her italics). Here again, she is Dorje, 2001, p.24) insisting on the inherent spirituality of monads. This idea was first formulated by Leibniz (1931) who wrote, The generally acknowledged founders of the Mahay- “Now, where there are no constituent parts there is ana school of Buddhism were Nagarjuna and his possibly neither extension, nor form, nor divisibility” chief disciple Aryadeva. From their time until today, (p.251). G. de Purucker (1974) expressly pointed out no Mahayana school has argued with the written that monads do not have physical extension or words of these two, and the various schools of the weight when he said, Mahayana were primarily founded on different inter- When we say monad, do we give it magnitude, pretations of their writings. Concerning monads, volume, or bulk? No, because our mind instinc- Aryadeva (in Tillemans, 1990) wrote, “One should ana- tively recognizes it as a point of consciousness, an lyze as to whether atoms do or do not have parts” infinitesimal, whose essence nevertheless is uni- (p.139). Here the Sanskrit word paramanu is trans- versal since it is a droplet of the universal con- lated as “atom” and it is this paramanu of Tibetan sciousness. A monad (literally ‘one’) cannot ever Buddhism that is equivalent to the monad of modern be divided; it is an individual, yet it is all-embrac- Theosophy, especially in its atomic sense, or what is (p.273) ing because its heart is Infinity. called a “mineral monad” which is directly expressed physically as an atom. Finally, Blavatsky emphatically differentiated atoms from monads when she wrote, In the Kalachakra Tantra system of Tibetan Mahay- the atoms (molecules, rather) of materialistic phi- ana Buddhism, we find that there are “subtle parti- losophy can be considered as extended and divis- cles that remain scattered during the period when ible, while the monads are mere mathematical the world-system has been emptied [of manifested points and indivisible. Finally . . . these monads are representative Beings. Every monad reflects form]. These particles are not perceived by the limited every other. Every monad is a living mirror of the eye [consciousness of an ordinary person] but appear Universe within its own sphere . . . the monads to the eye [consciousness] of a yogi. . . . The very are not mere passive reflective agents, but spon- subtle particles that remain scattered [after the de- taneously self-active. (The Secret Doctrine, Vol I, p.631) struction of a world-system] are termed emptied since they are merely a manifestation of mental In this passage she echoes Leibniz by suggesting that instincts and not the object of sense perception” (Taye, each monad is like a crystal. Crystals have been used 1995, p.177). These subtle particles are said to be extensively in Buddhist literature to demonstrate the indivisible or partless, and thus monadic.

36 FOHAT At least two Tibetan Hinayana schools teach the The idea of monadic or partless particles can also be existence of subtle partless particles (Sanskrit: found in the writings of some exponents of the paramanu) that form our material universe: Cittamatra or Mind-Only School, founded by Asanga Vaibhashikas assert partless particles that aggre- and his brother Vasubandhu. According to Dhar- gate into gross objects. According to the Kasmiri makirti, a later Mind-Only scholar and logician, our sub-school, the particles do not touch each other physical universe “is reducible to partless atoms but are held together by space. Others say that interacting with moments of consciousness” (Dreyfus, the particles surround each other without inter- 1997, p.85). Dharmakirti wrote that “when different stice, while others say that they touch each other. atoms are produced in combination with other ele- In any case, gross objects are formed through the ments, they are said to be aggregates” (pp.87-88). aggregation of partless particles, and thus exter- However, in accordance with Mind-Only teaching, he nal objects — objects which are entities external to a perceiving consciousness — are said to exist gave these partless particles only conventional exist- truly. (Hopkins, 1996, pp.338-339) ence with the idea that all phenomena are external projections of the mind. Rangjung Dorje (2001), the According to this Sautrantika explanation, only third Karmapa of the Kagyu school, wrote that “If the infinitesimal atoms and moments of conscious- wise examine well, they will know that nothing, such ness are real. (Dreyfus, 1997, p.85) as atoms and so on, exist externally, as anything other than cognition” (p.29). The Svatantika Madhyamika, a Middle-Way Mahay- ana school founded by Bhavaviveka, a student of But not all Tibetan Buddhist schools accept the Nagarjuna, also recognizes partless particles or mo- existence of partless particles or monads even con- nads. ventionally. Tzongkapa (1999), the founder of the Middle Way Gelugpa School, while discussing the In Tibetan Buddhism, the teaching of partless parti- Mind-Only School in his Essence of Eloquence, cles or monads is often accompanied by a corre- agrees with Vasubandhu’s rejection of the doctrine sponding teaching of partless moments of time so of partless particles as presented in Vasubandhu’s that both material objects and time are composed of Twenty Stanzas. But for Tzongkapa, who follows monadic infinitesimal indivisible units. In the Nagarjuna’s disciple Candrakirti, these partless par- Svatantrika chapter of Jang-Gya’s Presentation of ticles don’t even exist conventionally. Vasubandhu Tenets, Jang-Gya (1987) says that “we assert that a attacks the ultimate existence of building blocks of composite of conjoined minute particles is a substan- external objects — partless particles — by consider- tially existent thing” (p.309). Furthermore he explains ing that, if they are spacially dependent, then they that a composite is a collection of monads of similar must be surrounded by other particles. Thus the type, and that a collection is a group of dissimilar right side of one faces the left side of another, and so composites (he gives an army and a forest as exam- on so that they actually must have sides, and hence ples of collections). parts, and so cannot be truly partless. The only remaining possibility is that they are not spacially These partless particles or atoms (paramanu) com- dependent, but if so, then they would overlap each bine together to form aggregates or molecules other and there would be no spacial extension at all. (samghataparamanu). Each molecule is said to be This logical argument of Vasubandhu against par- composed of at least eight substances (dravya). tless particles being inherently existing atoms that These are the four elements of earth, water, fire, and aggregate to form conventionally existing material air, and the four bhautikas which include visual objects is echoed by several other prominent Tibet- form, smell, taste, and tactile sensations (the occa- ans, and has never been definitively refuted. Accord- sional accompaniment of sound makes a ninth sub- ing to Lopez (1987) “If it is admitted that the central stance). These molecules are said to be laid or spread particle has sides that face the surrounding parti- out (spharitva) in space to form three-dimensional cles, then it must be accepted that minute particles objects. have parts” (p.184). Echoing this logical argument, Tzongkapa’s disciple, Kay-drup (mKhas grubrje, 1992) Most Tibetan Buddhist schools teach the Doctrine of also refutes the existence of “atoms” (paramanu) in Two Truths. According to this doctrine, our everyday his A Dose of Emptiness where he says, “One should physical and mental world of causation is a conven- refute the special partlessness of physical composite tional truth, and its emptiness of inherent existence things, and the temporal partlessness of the non- is an ultimate truth. Thus phenomena have conven- physical” (p.149). tional existence, but no inherent or permanent exist- ence in that they only exist temporarily and they Furthermore, Tzongkapa (1999) thoroughly rejects totally depend upon causes and conditions. This the monads of Dharmakirti. In his Essence of Elo- teaching is important when we look at how Tibetan quence, Tzongkapa distinguishes two types of mis- Buddhism perceives partless particles or monads. conceptions: innate and non-innate. Innate miscon-

SUMMER 2002 37 ceptions are those that have resided in the mental sciousness, and therefore comparable to objects ex- continuum from beginningless time, and non-innate perienced in dreams” (p.180). According to Vasu- misconceptions are those due to improper learning bandhu, monads are purely theoretical in that we do during this life (i.e., from false religions or philoso- not actually experience them as such, either singly phies). One of the non-innate misconceptions that he or as aggregates. points out is the idea that “directionally partless minute particles exist” and that “objects of apprehen- Dharmakirti was a student of Dignaga, who was sion composed of directionally partless minute par- himself a student of Vasubandhu and it is Dignaga ticles exist” (p.339). who is credited with providing “the standard formu- lation of Buddhist logic and epistemology in India We also find great teachers like Santaraksita (1987), and Tibet” (Dreyfus, 1997, p.15). But it is from Dhar- said to be one of the founders of the Yogacara- makirti that we learn the significance of monads in Svatantrika-Madhyamika school (an eclectic combi- the Mind-Only School: nation of Mind-Only and Middle Way), writing Dharmakirti’s thinking concerning external ob- against the inherent existence of partless particles jects follows the same line of Dagnaga’s. He does using the same argument: not seem to distinguish an aggregate from a col- [Particles] either abide in contact, lection. For him, atoms remain what they are Circling, or without interstice. whether they are aggregated or not. How then does What is the nature of the central particle Dharmakirti account for our impression of exten- That faces an [other] particle? sion in external objects? Like Dignaga, he does so If you say that which faces other particles by maintaining that this impression does not re- Is the same [side of the central particle], flect the way things exist but the way we perceive How would earth, water, and so forth them. A material object is perceived through the Become extensive? intermediary of its representation or aspect (San- If the side facing another particle skrit: akara, Tibetan: rnam pa). Each of its atoms Is asserted to be other [than other sides] causes a perception that has such representation How could a particle to arise so that we see such an extended object. Be a partless unit? (p.367) Thus, the impression of extension is a result of the aspected perception, not a reflection of the way atoms exist. (Dreyfus, 1997, p.102) How can Santaraksita combine Mind-Only with Svantantrika while rejecting partless particles? He Dharmapala, a Mind-Only proponent of the conven- did so like Vasubandhu, by suggesting that monads tional existence of monads, wrote (in Tillemans, 1990) are a conventional truth. Monads are rejected in his “The universal character (samanyalaksana) of the school as having inherent existence, because the collection of the atoms is a designation and is not Mind-Only School sees all external phenomena as substantial. The individual particular characters [of being unreal mental projections. Only the mind has the atoms] are not objects of the physical senses . . . reality (which is where the school gets its name — If they do not lose their original characters when they Cittamatra literally means mind only.) cooperate together, then they cannot cooperate [to form a visible whole]. If [however] they do lose their Vasubandhu, after becoming a Mahayanist, actually original characters, then they cannot be atoms” criticized the monadic ideas of his former Hinayana (p.139). Here we see the Mind-Only school use of logic school. What Vasubandhu (1999) actually says in his to repudiate the idea of external existing atoms. Twenty Stanzas is as follows: External objects, including atoms/monads are men- The object is [experienced] tal projections, and not inherently real substantial Neither as a single entity, objects. Thus they cannot be “objects of the physical Nor as many discrete atoms, senses” even though they have that appearance. This Nor as an aggregate of them, was also clearly stated by Asanga (2001) himself when Because not a single atom is obtained [in experi- he wrote, ence at all]. Furthermore, it is said that a mass of matter One atom joined at once to six other atoms (rupasamudaya) is composed of atoms. Here the Must have six parts. atom (paramanu) should be understood as not On the other hand, if they are said having a physical body (nihsarira). The atom is To occupy the same plane, determined (vyavasthana) by means of ultimate Then their aggregate would mean analysis (paryantaprabhedatah) by the intellect Nothing more than a single atom (pp.175-176) (buddhya), with a view to the dispelling (vib- havana) of the idea of cluster (pindasamjna), and Kochumuttom (1999) calls this Vasubandhu’s rejec- with a view to the penetration of the non-reality of tion of the “theory of atomic realism.” He concludes, the substance (dravyaparinispattipravesa) of mat- “Vasubandhu’s thesis [is] that the objects insofar as ter. (p.91) they are experienced, are subjective forms of con- . . . continued on page 43

38 FOHAT India and Pakistan: Poisoning by Separatism

Ever since the partitioning of India and Pakistan, tism. I can tell you truly that any nation that does there has been a darkness growing ever more deep not understand that we are all merely aspects of the over the Indian subcontinent. As the reasons for One Life is destined to fight with his brothers again separation have never been addressed, this festering and again until this Truth is realized. I can tell you and poisoning wound can be used by the shadowy truly that any nation that does not know the Truth provocateurs for centuries to come. If millions are to of the One Life will give away all of its freedoms, one be destroyed in an insane war, then one can only by one, to others who promise them security in hope that the rest of the world watches closely and exchange for freedom. I can tell you truly that in the learns from this horrible sacrifice. It is certainly more same way that citizens are willing to trade away likely at this point that the wrong lesson will be freedom for security, nations that can be lured into learned and the shadowy provocateurs who profit war again and again will trade away the freedoms from fear and misery will gain another level of control they have collected (their sovereignty) for interna- over the freedom-fearing populace of the world. tional security. I can tell you truly that any nation that allows itself to be led by materialists, whether of At one time India knew that the divine was no more the crass commercial kind, or of the subtler religious Hindu than Buddhist, or Moslem, or Zoroastrian, or kind, its citizens will lose their freedom. I do not anything else. The divine was impersonal as were know a lot of things, but of the One Life I know. any effects felt here at the mundane level. It mat- tered not whether a temple built on a holy site was India and Pakistan were created by those who forgot Moslem, or Hindu, or Sikh. The site was not holy that the One Life is a fundamental Truth. India and because of the temple and was not going to be made Pakistan were created by separatists, by material- any more so because of it. Indians knew that the ists, by those who would trade freedom for security. divine would not be displeased if another religion India and Pakistan never had a chance. They were built a temple on the ruins of one of their temples created in relation to one another. A lie separated but rather that the divine would be displeased by them and continues to keep them apart and until hatred expressed by one brother towards another. that lie is addressed they will not find peace. India At one time Indians knew that the universe worked and Pakistan were created to fight. India and Paki- in cycles and that temples built on holy places would stan were modeled on the materialist Nations of the come and go like the religions that built them. They West. A war in India and Pakistan that is too horrible knew this so well at one time that it seems hundreds to imagine could cause enough fear in Western Na- of years after forgetting this they still felt strong tions that the will to trade the last of our freedoms enough about the symbol of the wheel that they put for security is realized. The sovereignty of Nations will it on the flag of one of the nations of the poisoned be lost to the tyranny of Multinational Corporations. Indian subcontinent. Theosophists should see this better than anyone. At one time Indians knew that the impersonal divine The Society’s First Object is derived from the funda- can never descend down to the mundane but rather mental Truth of the One Life. The Society fell prey to that the individual must lift his personal ego through separatism. The Society today exists as a fractured great effort into the impersonal regions of the divine. entity festering in darkness from the wounds of the At one time the Indians knew that there was no more past. The Society has refused to address the cause noble purpose for a nation than for the leaders to of the split and until it does it will never be able to inspire its citizens to follow this path of illumining move on to do what it was created for. Members of the personal ego through whatever means they felt the Society now see the survival of the Society (a most comfortable with. At one time Indians knew the materialist concern) more important than the sur- difference between paying lip service to religious vival of its Truths. At one time the Indian people dogmas and living a spiritual life. At one time the knew that as long as they showed the greatest respect Soul of the Indian subcontinent was Spiritual in for those who followed a spiritual path and its Truths nature but has allowed itself to be shadowed in based on the One Life, this was their best security darkness so that it now finds the empty promises of and the best protection of their peace and freedom. fanatical religious sects and the lure of materialism This I know, the only wealth is Spiritual and it is to as somehow promising of fulfilment. be found by embracing the One Life. The winds, the water, the earth, the plants, the animals, the moun- I can tell you truly that any nation that has lost its tains, the people of this earth, the stars in the sky, spiritual compass is open to the heresy of separa- and all else that exists are truly aspects of the One Life — we are Brothers.

SUMMER 2002 39 Musings From a Secret Doctrine Class A Question of Motion

If THAT (the Absolute) is unconditioned reality then tion is called in esoteric parlance the “Great it can have no qualities. To speak of motion as an Breath,” which is the perpetual motion of the aspect or quality of THAT would be wrong. Perhaps universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present motion is not a quality of Spirit or Matter. When we SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be Di- vine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality speak of qualities, we speak of the qualities of exist- absolutely motionless within the universal soul. ing things. Spirit can be spoken of in an abstract (Vol. I, p.2) sense — when it is looked at separated from being — or in a concrete sense — as a part of some existing In The Mahatma Letters we read that thing. So when we ask if motion is a quality of Spirit since motion is all-pervading and absolute rest or Matter, we seem to be talking in an abstract sense, inconceivable, that under whatever form or mask for in the concrete, Spirit and Matter are always two motion may appear, whether as light, heat, mag- netism, chemical affinity or electricity — all these aspects of an existing thing and can never exist must be but phases of One and the same universal apart. How does motion fit into this? Looking at omnipresent Force, a Proteus they bow to, as the Cosmogony as outlined in The Secret Doctrine, when Great “Unknown” . . . and we, simply call the “One does motion appear? Life” the “One Law” and the “One Element. (p.159) The “One Life” (Spirit-Matter or Second Logos) is Human intellect is unable to grasp the Absolute but identified as the “universal omnipresent Force”. It is one can ponder over Cosmic evolution following the the “Great Breath” and we see “eternal, ceaseless First Emanation. When we speak of the qualities of Motion” as the “one absolute attribute” of the Second matter, we are referring to matter made manifest, Logos — being one with IT. Further to the above, The that is, how does this particular existing en-mattered Mahatma Letters explain when writing on “light” that thing present itself to a particular quality of con- it “is not an independent principle” and according to sciousness? Similarly if we were to look at the evolu- Occult Science light, heat, etc. do not have “inde- tion of consciousness we could speak of its various pendent existences” but are “the effect of the diver- qualities depending on whether that consciousness sified motions of what we call Akasa” (p.166). Forces is more or less spiritual. Can we find qualities in the are the effects of stuff in motion. spiritual stuff emanating from the Absolute? In Vol. I, p.481 Blavatsky refers to the infinite Ocean of Light Without spirit or Force, even that which Science “. . . whose one pole is pure Spirit lost in the abso- styles as “not living” matter, the so-called mineral luteness of Non-Being, and the other, the matter in ingredients which feed plants, could never have which it condenses, crystallizing. . . .” We again see been called into form. . . . Matter, force, and this abstract sense of Spirit and Matter in which they motion are the trinity of physical objective nature, are used to define the continuum in which the as the trinitarian unity of spirit-matter is that of manifested universe exists, Spirit being the pole that the spiritual or subjective nature. Motion is eter- loses itself in the Absolute and Matter its opposite. nal because spirit is eternal. But no modes of Farther, in Vol. I, p.509, “Force or energy is a quality; motion can ever be conceived unless they be in a connection with matter. (ML p.142) but every quality must belong to a something, or a somebody.” Force or energy is a quality of some The fact that Force, however spiritual, must bring the existing thing but it is unclear how things possess universe into existence implies motion as we have force. Further on we read on p.510, “It is true that seen. In the unconditioned reality spirit-matter and pure force is nothing in the world of physics; it is ALL the motion that is an aspect of this emanation are all in the domain of Spirit.” Finally of force and motion, withdrawn into the unconditioned. Of this we can- occultism sees “no difference between the two, never not say a thing but when the universe emanates once attempts to separate them” (p.512). Blavatsky has again, motion will be there immediately guiding the outlined for us here that conditioned motion is a universe into its myriad of forms. It stands with quality of somethings or somebodies and also that Akasa behind the forces that bring all things into force and motion are in one sense not different. In being. It is in one sense the spirit of all manifested what way are they not different? things. Force, Matter, Motion, there is that about these three that makes of man a God if he would Of the Universal Soul, Blavatsky writes that develop the understanding. Matter and motion can be two dimensional, but force implies a spiritual It is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omni- present, without beginning or end, yet periodical dimension for a force is Akasa in a particular mode in its regular manifestations. . . . Its one absolute of motion, and Akasa is spiritual stuff. attribute, which is ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Mo- A Student

40 FOHAT BOOK REVIEWS

Algernon Blackwood: An Extraordinary Life, by Mike Ashley. New York, Carroll & Graf, 2001. (Also published in U.K. by Constable and Robinson with title Starlight Man.) xiii + 395 pp. $28.00 U.S.

Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a cation in her magazine Lucifer. From the nature of charter member of the Toronto Theo- the article, Mike Ashley concludes that “Blackwood sophical Society in 1891. On that basis, regarded himself as a Theosophist even though he he can be said to be one of the pioneers had not officially joined the organization” (50). But of Theosophy in Canada. It must be admitted how- until he reached Toronto he still had not taken this ever, that preoccupied with unsuccessful business step. Perhaps he had waited until this time to avoid enterprises, his love for the outdoors, and an early upsetting his parents, who were orthodox Chris- departure from Canada, his participation in the or- tians. Regardless, early in 1891 he applied for mem- ganization was short lived and not especially note- bership in the TS, addressing his application to the worthy. This incident, of significance to Canadian headquarters of the American Section in New York. Theosophists, is of course only a blip on the screen He received a reply from William Q. Judge, recom- of a long life, which is meticulously recorded in this mending that he join through the Toronto Branch, first rate biography. which Albert E.S. Smythe and others were then endeavouring to start. So it came about that he was Briefly stated, that life was one of a mystic who one of the five members named on the Toronto TS achieved fame as a writer. Indeed, he was one of the charter. most widely read authors of occult fiction in the first half of the 20th century. His gift for writing was The interests that led him to Theosophy in the first already evident by the time he reached Toronto, place remained with him for the rest of his life, and though more than a dozen difficult years would pass were also reflected in his writings. And the basic before he was able to give up trying to earn a living principles of Theosophy were always part of his in the world of business, for which he had little personal philosophy. He lived a theosophic life, and interest or aptitude. His short stories and articles lived it well. sold well, and in the following forty or so years he wrote hundreds, to say nothing of several full length His departure from Canada in 1892 was not the end novels. He also wrote children’s stories. of his association with the Theosophical Society, although he was probably never very active in it. The Blackwood was born into a distinguished English fact is, he was just not an organization person. On family and was brought up in the relative luxury that leaving Toronto, his membership was transferred to money and class provided in the 19th century. Edu- the Aryan TS in New York City. Later in the decade cated in private schools, in his teens he was enrolled when he returned to England to live and work he in a Moravian school in Germany. He then went to joined the London Lodge, and enrolled in the Golden university in Edinburgh, although he never stayed Dawn. He also attended meetings of the Quest Soci- to graduate. ety, which G.R.S. Mead had founded after he left the TS because of the Leadbeater scandal. He was only 21 when he arrived in Toronto in 1890 optimistic of starting a career there. He had already In 1923 Blackwood wrote an autobiography, Epi- developed a strong interest in eastern religions and sodes Before Thirty, in which he glanced back at the philosophy, and had read such books as the Bha- early years of his life. It is a good read, but the gavad Gita and Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms. Also, “episodes” are selective, and his memory was not according to Mike Ashley it is almost certain he had always accurate. Although he started on a sequel, it read The Secret Doctrine soon after its publication in never reached the publication stage. Fifty years after 1888. He was fascinated with “unexplained laws of his death, his life history was still crying out to be nature” and had even participated in psychical in- written at length, and this book is a fitting tribute to vestigations. his accomplishments. It could not have been an easy task, with so little documentation to go on. Black- In the last quarter of the 19th century people with wood shunned possessions, and the few papers he similar inclinations naturally gravitated to the Theo- had saved were destroyed in the London blitz. In- sophical Society and Blackwood was no exception. triguingly he himself is quoted as admitting that his Before he came to Canada Madame Blavatsky had books were “more or less autobiographical” (xvi).Itis already accepted an article of Blackwood’s for publi- a credit to Mike Ashley who, with his thorough

SUMMER 2002 41 knowledge of the published writings (fifteen years Mystic, successful writer, outdoors enthusiast: earlier he compiled an exhaustive Blackwood bibli- throughout most of his adult life Algernon Black- ography) was able to link incidents in the stories with wood could be so labelled. At one time or another, he actual events in Blackwood’s life and also fictional was also a failed entrepreneur, spy and a pioneer characters with real people with whom he was ac- television personality. It is no exaggeration to say quainted. that he lived an extraordinary life, as suggested in the subtitle of this excellent biography. Ted G. Davy

To Light A Thousand Lamps, A Theosophic Vision, by Grace F. Knoche. Published by Theosophical University Press, Pasadena, CA., 2001; 209 pages, $17.95 cloth, $11.95 softcover.

This book can in many ways be com- “occult arts”, a distinct change is under way. Due in pared to William Q. Judge’s The Ocean large measure to Eastern “philosophical and psycho- of Theosophy, with a modern perspec- physical disciplines” and interest in “the rites and tive. This title has been elsewhere de- lore of traditional peoples of the Americas, Aus- scribed as both an excellent introduc- tralasia and Africa”, the spirit/consciousness energy tion and a helpful guide for long-time students, to is being recognized (p.101). True occultism and self- which this reviewer fully concurs. transcendence are explored as well as the various types of yoga and meditation. The chapter on “Psy- The book consists of seventeen chapters. “What Is chism” touches upon the renewed interest in the Theosophy”, Chapter 1, is succinctly covered in “gift” of mediumship (p.117) — modern day channel- slightly more than eight pages. There it is defined, an ing — with warnings from theosophical and Bud- historical retrospective is presented and the three dhist writings against it. G.F. Knoche here makes an fundamental propositions outlined. The chapter important statement to keep in mind: “Physical war closes with the concept of universal brotherhood and is not nearly so hazardous as the control of wills and emphasis on the currently prevalent theme of one- of minds which increasingly is taking more subtle ness related to seeing “ourselves as participants in forms” (p.125). an eco-system of cosmic dimension” (p.11). “The Two Paths” (pratyeka versus boddhisatva) fol- Each topic/chapter flows smoothly into the next and lowed by “The Paramitas” provide both inspiration the straightforward presentation provides logical as and basic instruction for attainment of the ultimate well as inspirational information, for inquirers espe- goal. The tone then switches to “H.P. Blavatsky and cially. Evolution from the standpoint of “reciprocity The Theosophical Society” and “Who Will Save Us?”, of responsibility and caring” as the “dominant motif where responsibility is placed squarely upon the in nature’s economy” (p.18), and noting that the miss- individual to follow “the ‘path,’ the sacred way of ing link in scientific theory is consciousness,is inner mastery — not for oneself, but for the uplifting thought provoking for those individuals less familiar of all beings everywhere” (p.156). “The Daily Initiation” with theosophical concepts and is well-presented and “A New Continent of Thought” provide the en- here. couragement. “Sources” and the “Index” complete this concise presentation. Chapters follow on “The Quickening of Mind”, “Rein- carnation”, “Death, A Doorway to Light”, “Remem- Edmonton TS will be highly recommending this bering and Forgetting Past Lives” and “Karma”. In the book, to inquirers especially. Topics touched upon chapter on “Karma and/or Grace” the Christian are very relevant to aspirants seeking eastern inspi- belief of “God’s granting forgiveness for sin” with no ration on western terms. Much of the material origi- requisite atonement for wrongdoing simply “by ac- nally appeared in Sunrise magazine and the grand cepting Christ as his Savior” (p.76) is explored, as is ideas as well as the practical concepts are very well the true meaning of the oft-used phrase: born again. strung together here. It is a logical explanation which would not offend even the staunchest subscriber to this fundamental Grace F. Knoche was born at International Head- Christian notion. The following chapter “The Chris- quarters of the Theosophical Society when it was tian Message” covers genesis, original sin and paral- located at Point Loma, CA. She has been the Leader lels in the lives of world saviors. of the Theosophical Society (Pasadena) since 1971 and principal editor of Sunrise. This is followed by “Western Occultism” which states Rogelle Pelletier that although the emphasis has been largely on

42 FOHAT ...Letters continued from page 29 Christianity without believing in it, but likewise with- As regards the main passage about Jesus in out being unfair to it. Josephus, Bishop Warburton of Gloucester (1698- 1779) labelled it ‘a rank forgery, and a very stupid Recently the Adyar-affiliated Theosophical Society in one, too’. The passage interrupts the thread of America began a reassessment of the Theosophical Josephus’s narrative, and it was first mentioned in attitude to Christianity, as reported in Quest. David the 4th century by the notorious Bishop Eusebius – Pratt’s work, from another tradition, may contribute the ‘king of falsifiers’, as Blavatsky calls him. Some to this. Christian writers have conceded that Eusebius may Leslie Price have inserted the passage himself. Surrey, England The Acts of the Apostles is not quoted before 177 CE, As Leslie Price says, the accuracy of Blavatsky’s and was apparently not known to Justin Martyr a sources should be checked wherever possible. How- generation earlier. This suggests it was written be- ever, the 100 BCE date for Jesus cannot be disposed tween 150 and 177 CE. One Christian translator has of by attributing it to unreliable sources; KH, too, admitted that Acts often reads like a ‘drugstore pa- rejected the idea of a 1st-century CE Jesus (Mahatma perback’, and even the Protestant Encyclopedia Bib- Letters, 2nd ed., p.415) and endorsed the 100 BCE date lica admits it to be ‘untrustworthy’. That it contains (see C. Jinarajadasa, The Story of the Mahatma Letters, p.13). a great deal of fantasy is hard to deny. For instance, (Leslie himself mentions this in Theosophical History, ch. 5 tells of a Christian named Ananias who sold a July 1985.) Most Jewish scholars no longer support piece of property but kept some of the proceeds for the 100 BCE date mentioned in the Talmudic tradi- himself and his wife instead of giving all the money tion, but I give two sources that do. Hard evidence to the apostles. When Peter confronted him with his for a 100 BCE Jesus is, however, lacking. sinful deed, Ananias ‘fell down and died’. Shortly afterwards Peter confronted the man’s wife, and she The case against a 1st-century CE Jesus as de- too promptly dropped dead. Hardly one of the apos- scribed in the Bible and against early dating of the tles’ most inspiring ‘miracles’! New Testament seems to me to be absolutely over- David Pratt whelming. My articles only outline the arguments The Netherlands but a wealth of further details can be found in the six recent scholarly books I refer to and on the associated websites.

...Monads continued from page 38 From the above, we can conclude that (1) the Tibetan Blavatsky writes that “the Divine Ray (the Atman) Theravadin schools accept monads as partless par- proceeds directly from the One” (SD, Vol I, p.222) so that ticles that collect together to form real external enti- atma is a “divine ray” within this mayavic universe. ties that comprise physical objects, (2) the Mind-Only Throughout her writings she calls atma-buddhi, the School allows for the conventional existence of mo- “divine monad” but, curiously, she also says that nads, teaches that these partless particles do not as the spiritual Monad is One, Universal, Bound- exist as they appear to, which is to say that they are less and Impartite, whose rays, nevertheless, form not physical, and explains three-dimensional exten- what we, in our ignorance, call the “Individual sion as the way in which our consciousness inter- Monads” of men . . . The “Monad” is the combina- prets monadic aggregates, and (3) The Middle-Way tion of the last two “principles” in man, the 6th School does not even allow a conventional existence andthe7th....(SD, Vol I. pp.177-178) for monads, they are said to have only an imputa- tional nature in that their existence is merely im- The above suggests that while the Monad, the inner puted by the mind. spirituality of each and every living being, is atma- buddhi, a “ray,” there is a “spiritual Monad” above that from which the “ray” descends to fall “into the The Non-Physical Monad lap of maya” as the Stanzas of Dyzan have it. Echo- ing this idea, she says that “The ‘Seven Principles’ THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM; THE MATRIPADMA HAD are, of course, the manifestation of one indivisible NOT YET SWOLLEN.HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED spirit” (CW, Vol XIV, p.386). G de Purucker (1974) calls FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL, AS this “one indivisible spirit” paramatman (diagram, THREE INTO FOUR, INTO THE LAP OF MAYA. (Blavatsky, p.435) which he shows overshadowing the seven prin- H. P., trans., Stanzas of Dyzan, II, vs 3) ciples.

SUMMER 2002 43 One of the central texts of the Mind-Only School, the we have the analogies: Paramanu, jivanu, anu; mo- Uttaratantra, dictated by Arya Maitreya (2000) to nad, reimbodying ego, body; or, in the Christian Asanga, says, scheme, spirit, soul, body” (p.275). The divine monad The perfect buddhakaya is all-embracing, is in active mayavic expression while paramanu re- Suchness cannot be differentiated, mains in a potential or latent state, otherwise they And all beings have the disposition. are identical. Thus they always have Buddha nature. (p.23) Blavatsky tells us that “Nothing is permanent except According to this teaching, our Buddha Nature, the the one hidden absolute existence which contains in essence of our buddhakaya or spiritual body, the itself the noumena of all realities” (SD, Vol I, p.39) and “suchness” that cannot be differentiated, is likely also “Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter is equivalent to the “monadic essence” mentioned Spirit — on the lowest point of its cyclic activity; and throughout Theosophical literature and is, appar- both — are MAYA” (SD, Vol I, p.633). This strongly ently, a relatively pure monad that cannot be divided suggests that she places the entire seven cosmic up in any conceivable way. Thus, this monad would planes of manifestation, which includes the seven have an ultimate, not conventional, existence. principles and all monads, within maya.

As we have seen, Mahayana Buddhism either refutes The uniting of spirit and matter, as aspects of the monads as physical particles altogether or allows for same thing, suggests that the duality of monads as their conventional existence, and suggests that they partless particles has to do with spirit and matter are not truly physical particles because all physical being two aspects of the same monadic essence. In particles have parts. As we have seen, Theosophy this sense, a spiritual monad or “god” can be viewed agrees that monadic partless particles are not physi- as the spiritual counterpart of a material atom, while cal and have no special extension. G. de Purucker a life-atom is its living or self-animated counterpart, (1974) defines three types of atoms: and that these are three aspects of the same thing Thus we have anu, the atom; jivanu, the life-atom; during manifestation. In this way, evolutionary pro- paramanu, the supreme atom or atomic monad. gression can be viewed as cyclic pilgrimages in which The paramanu or atomic monad lasts through the monads self-express into material forms followed by whole cosmic manvantara without diminution of their return through the stage of life-atoms (living power or cessation of consciousness. The life- beings) all the way to full divine monads or gods. atom or jivanu lasts only for a certain period of time within the cosmic manvantara. Like our Both Theosophy and Tibetan Buddhism accept the physical body, the anu is even more transitory and fugitive. (pp.274-275) doctrine of maya and the idea that physical atoms can be viewed as conventional manifestations of Thus all three, the atom, the life-atom, and the monads, but not monads themselves. Tibetan Bud- atomic monad are temporary and thus conventional. dhism also agrees with Theosophy in positing an The paramanu, the partless particle described in absolute Monad having monadic essence, a funda- Tibetan Buddhism, is long-lasting but nonetheless mental non-dual indivisible nature, with the perma- temporary. According to G. de Purucker (1974), “Thus nency of ultimate existence.

References Arya Maitreya, The Uttaratantra, written down by Arya Asanga, in Fuchs, Rosemarie (trans), Buddha Nature: The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra, (Snow Lion, 2000). Asanga, Abidharmasamuccaya, in Rahula, Walpola (trans), Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching (Philosophy) by Asanga, (Asian Humanities Press, 2001). Chang, Garma, C. C., The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism, (Pennsylvania State Univer- sity Press, 1971). de Purucker, G., Dialogues of G de P, Vol II, (Theosophical University Press, 1948). de Purucker, G., Studies in Occult Philosophy, (Theosophical University Press, 1949, orig pub in 1945). de Purucker, G. Occult Glossary, (Theosophical University Press, 1972). de Purucker, G., Fountain Source of Occultism, (Theosophical University Press, 1974). Dreyfus, G. B. J., Recognizing Reality: Dharmakirti’s Philosophy and its Tibetan Interpretations, (State University of New York Press, 1997). Hopkins, Jeffery, Meditation on Emptiness, (Wisdom, 1996, orig pub in 1983). Jang-Gya, Presentation of Tenets, in Lopez, Donald. S. Jr. A Study of Svatantrika, (Snow Lion, 1987).

44 FOHAT Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics. Correspondence with Arnamuld. Monadology, Montogomery, Geo. R. (trans), (Open Court, 1931).

Long, J. A., Expanding Horizons, (Theosophical University Press, 1965). MKhas grub rje, in Cabezon, J. I., (trans) A Dose of Emptiness: An Annotated Translation of the sTong thun chen mo of mKhas grub dGe legs dpal bzang, (State University of New York Press, 1992). Rangjung Dorje, the Third Karmapa, Transcending Ego: Distinguishing Consciousness from Wisdom, Peter Roberts (trans), Thrangu Rinpoche (commentary), (Sri Satguru Publications, 2001). Santaraksita, Ornament for the Middle Way, in Lopez, Donald. S. Jr., A Study of Svatantrika, (Snow Lion, 1987). Sellon, E. B., The Pilgrim and the Pilgrimage, (Olcott Institute of the Theosophical Society in America and The Theosophical Publishing House, 1996).

Taye, Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro, trans. by International Translation Committee of Kunkhyab Choling, Myriad Worlds: Buddhist Cosmology in Abidharma, Kalachakra, and Dzog-chen, (Snow Lion, 1995). Tillemans, Tom, J. F., Materials for the Study of Aryadeva, Dharmapala and Candrakirti: The Catuhsataka of Aryadeva, Chap- ters XII and XIII, with the Commentaries of Dharmapala and Candrakirti, (Arbeitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Stu- dien Universitat Wien, 1990). Tzongkapa, Essence of Eloquence, in Hopkins, Jeffery, Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism: Dynamic Ressponses to Dzong-ka-ba’s The Essence of Eloquence: 1, (University of California Press, 1999). Vasubandhu, A Treatise in Twenty Stanzas (Vimsatika), in Kochumuttom, Thomas. A. A., Buddhist Doctrine of Experience: A new translation and interpretation of the works of Vasubandu the Yogacarin, (Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi), 1999, orig published in 1982).

...Jesus continued from page 34 In theosophical literature, Jesus is said to have been Purucker says that Jesus ‘came at a time of a down- the avatara for the Piscean Age, the age which is now wards-running cycle in order to sow some seeds at closing as we enter the Aquarian Age.14 Significantly, least of spiritual light, preceding a time which was the Jesus story contains a great deal of fish imagery. going to be spiritually dark’. His mission quickly The apostles were known as ‘fishers of men’. The proved to be a failure, because although the cyclic early Christians called themselves ‘little fishes’, and time for an avatara had come, everything was work- used the Greek word ichthys (‘fish’) as a code word ing against the spiritual forces for which he opened for Jesus, as it was seen as an acronym for ‘Jesus the way, and within less than a hundred years the Christ, Son of God, Saviour’. In John’s Gospel, Jesus teachings that he had left behind had degenerated.16 miraculously helps his disciples land a large catch of For instance, the doctrines of reincarnation and 153 fish. 153 is a sacred number associated with the karma were replaced by the irrational and unjust vesica piscis or ‘vessel of the fish’, an ancient Py- dogma that belief in Jesus is sufficient to absolve us thagorean symbol used by early Christians to repre- of all our sins and secure us an eternity of heavenly sent their faith.15 bliss, while unbelievers will suffer eternal torment in hell.

‘Christ’ refers to far more than a single man. In his Letter to the Colossians (1:25-8), Paul describes himself as having been assigned the task of an- nouncing ‘the secret hidden for long ages and through many generations’: ‘The secret is this: Christ in you!’ As Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy remark, this ‘is the perennial mysticism of Gnosticism and the Pagan Mysteries — that within each one of us is the one Soul of the Universe, the Logos, the Universal Daemon, the Mind of God’.17 The purpose of our .ECKHA. Two circles, symbolizing spirit and matter, are brought together in a sacred marriage. When the circumference of one evolutionary pilgrimage is to bring this inner christ touches the centre of the other they generate the fish shape or buddha nature to full expression over the course known as the LAIE?= FEI?EI. The ratio of height to length of this of numberless lives. As Blavatsky puts it: shape is 153:265, and is known as the ‘measure of the fish’. It is a powerful mathematical tool, being the nearest whole number Christ — the true esoteric SAVIOUR — is no man, approximation of the square root of three and the controlling ratio but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. He of the equilateral triangle. who strives to resurrect the Spirit crucified in him

SUMMER 2002 45 by his own terrestrial passions, and buried deep God there is no single record of him on this earth in the ‘sepulchre’ of his sinful flesh; he who has capable of withstanding the critical examination the strength to roll back the stone of matter from of science; as one of the greatest reformers, an the door of his own inner sanctuary, he has the inveterate enemy of every theological dogmatism, risen Christ in him. The ‘Son of Man’ is no child of a persecutor of bigotry, a teacher of one of the most the bond-woman — flesh, but verily of the free- sublime codes of ethics, Jesus is one of the grand- woman — Spirit, the child of man’s own deeds, and est and most clearly-defined figures on the pano- 18 the fruit of his own spiritual labour. rama of human history. His age may, with every day, be receding farther and farther back into Blavatsky relates that she was once in a large cave- the gloomy and hazy mists of the past; and his temple in the Himalayas with her Tibetan teacher, theology — based on human fancy and sup- Morya. There were many statues of adepts and, ported by untenable dogmas may, nay, must with every day lose more of its unmerited pres- pointing to one of them, her teacher said: ‘This is he tige; alone the grand figure of the philosopher whom you call Jesus. We count him to be one of the 19 and moral reformer instead of growing paler will greatest among us’. The importance of Jesus is become with every century more pronounced highlighted in the following passage: and more clearly defined. It will reign supreme all the civilized portion of the Pagans who knew of and universal only on that day when the whole Jesus honored him as a philosopher, an adept of humanity recognizes but one father — the UNKNOWN ONE above — and one brother — the whom they placed on the same level with 20 Pythagoras and Apollonius. . . . As an incarnated whole of mankind below.

References Jesus as fiction 1 Quoted in G.A. Wells, The Jesus Myth, Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1999, pp. ix-x. 2 See ‘The Origins of Christianity’, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/christian.htm [see also Fohat, Vol. VI, No. 1]. 3 H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1950-91, 9:225; see also 8:373, 11:495. See H.J. Spierenburg (comp.), The New Testament Commentaries of H.P. Blavatsky, San Diego, CA: Point Loma Publications, 1987. 4 G. de Purucker, Studies in Occult Philosophy, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1973, p. 679; see also Dialogues of G. de Purucker, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1948, 2:425. AhistoricalJesus? 1 Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000, pp. 15-6. 2 Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity begin with a mythical Christ?, Ottawa: Canadian Humanist Publications, 1999, pp. 26, 149, 294-5, 331 (http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus). 3 The Jesus Myth, pp. 102-3. 4 Deconstructing Jesus, p. 150; see also The Jesus Puzzle, pp. 169-70, 173, 177-8, 197-8. 5 Hayyim ben Yehoshua, ‘Refuting missionaries’, http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html. 6 Alvar Ellegard, Jesus: One hundred years before Christ, Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 1999. 7 See Earl Doherty’s review of Ellegard’s book and Ellegard’s reply, http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus/BkrvEll.htm. 8 Michael O. Wise, The First Messiah: Investigating the savior before Christ, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999. 9 Deconstructing Jesus, p. 59. Jesus in the Talmud 1 G.R.S. Mead, Did Jesus Live 100 BC? (1903), Kila, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company, n.d. (http://www.kessinger- pub.com); see ‘Jesus in the Jewish tradition’, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/hom epages/dp5/mead.htm. 2 ‘Refuting missionaries’; Christians for Moses, ‘Why we reject Jesus’, http://cfmbnainoach.freeyellow.com/Why.html. 3 Stephen G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 C.E., Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995, pp. 183-94; J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His life, times, and teaching, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1947, pp. 18-54; R. Travers Her- ford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, London: Williams & Norgate, 1903, pp. 35-96, 344-60. 4 Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the original Jesus a pagan god?, London: Thorsons, 2000, pp. 169-70, 192 (http://www.jesusmysteries.demon.co.uk); Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle, p. 204; Ellegard, pers. com., 19 May 2000. 5 H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled (1877), Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1972, 2:201-2, 386; Blavatsky Collected Writings, 4:361-2, 8:189, 380-2, 460-1, 9:224-6; G. de Purucker, Word Wisdom in the Esoteric Tradition, San Diego, CA: Point

46 FOHAT Loma Publications, 1980, pp. 142-8; G. de Purucker, The Esoteric Tradition, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 2nd ed., 1973, pp. 1088-90. 6 Isis Unveiled, 2:202. 7 Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, pp. 344-7; Related Strangers, p. 186; ‘Refuting missionaries’. 8 Did Jesus Live 100 BC?, pp. 414-9. 9 Ibid., pp. 127-33, 244, 281-3. 10 Ibid., pp. 388-412; Blavatsky Collected Writings, 4:361fn, 8:382fn. 11 Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?, pp. 138-9; Acharya S, The Christ Conspiracy: The greatest story ever sold, Kempton, IL: Adven- tures Unlimited, 1999, p. 326 (http://www.truthbeknown.com); H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (1888), Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1977, 2:504fn. 12 ‘Refuting missionaries’. Jesus the Nazar 1 ‘Refuting missionaries’. 2 Isis Unveiled, 2:143. 3 Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, New York: Vintage, 1981, pp. xx-xxi; The Christ Conspiracy, pp. 110-1, 322-3. 4 Isis Unveiled, 2:132, 42, 491; Blavatsky Collected Writings, 9:137. 5 Isis Unveiled, 2:144. 6 Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:123, 150. 7 Isis Unveiled, 2:133, 561. 8 Ibid., 2:132; Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:395. Jesus as avatara 1 A.T. Barker (comp.), The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 2nd ed., 1975, p.344. 2 Blavatsky Collected Writings, 8:374. 3 Ibid., 14:396fn; G. de Purucker, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 2nd ed., 1979, p. 320; G. de Purucker, Fountain-Source of Occultism, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1974, pp. 484, 496, 522. 4 Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:388-99; Fountain-Source of Occultism, pp. 521-8. 5 The Esoteric Tradition, pp. 990-4; Fountain-Source of Occultism, pp. 484-6. 6 Dialogues of G. de Purucker, 2:314; Fountain-Source of Occultism, pp. 495-6. 7 Ibid., p. 499. 8 Studies in Occult Philosophy, p. 64. 9 Letter from H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge, 23 Feb. 1887; Studies in Occult Philosophy, p. 427. 10 Blavatsky Collected Writings, 14:404-5. 11 Ibid., 14:405. 12 Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?, pp. 140-1, 188, 199-201. 13 Word Wisdom in the Esoteric Tradition, pp. 131-2. 14 The Esoteric Tradition, p. 1058fn; Fountain-Source of Occultism, p. 680. 15 David Fideler, Jesus Christ, Sun of God: Ancient cosmology and early Christian symbolism, Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1993, pp. 161-2; The Jesus Mysteries, pp. 48-9. 16 Dialogues of G. de Purucker, 2:213-5, 217-8; Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, pp. 485-7. 17 The Jesus Mysteries, p. 205. 18 Blavatsky Collected Writings, 8:173. 19 Ibid., 8:402. 20 Isis Unveiled, 2:150-1.

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,Jtis the "bridge" by which the ",Jdeas" existing in the "rnivine 71wught" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of ::Nature." 30hat is thus the dynamic eneroy of Cosmic ,Jdeation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power ofall mani~station.... 7hus from Spirit, or Cosmic ,Jdeation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains to self - or r4f.ective - consciousness; while 30hat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between ~ind and ~tter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. - Secret rnoctrine I, 16

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