Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Compassion - The Spirit of Truth
By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Avataras are our Watchers and Guardians
Divine Beings are born to protect humanity from materialism and decadence. Whenever humanity is about to merge into materialism and moral degradation, a Supreme Spirit incarnates himself in his creature selected for the purpose. The “Messenger of the Highest” links itself with the duality of matter and soul, and the triad being thus completed by the union of its Crown, a saviour is born, who helps restore humanity to the path of truth and virtue.
Whenever faith begins to die out in the world, Padmapani Chenrezi, the “lotus-bearer,” emits a brilliant ray of light, and forthwith incarnates himself in one of the two great Lamas, the Talay and Tashi Lamas; He is the supporter of Kalpas, the synthesis of all the preceding Races, and the progenitor of all human Races after the Third. Avalokiteshvara is the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men. Padmapani-Avalokiteshvara is called esoterically Bodhisattva (or Dhyani-Chohan) Chenrezi Jangchub, “the powerful and all-seeing.” He is considered now as the greatest protector of Asia in general, and of Tibet in particular. In order to guide the Tibetans and Lamas in holiness, and preserve the great Arhats in the world, this heavenly Being is credited with manifesting himself from age to age in human form.
The second Sun or Vishvakarman cuts off seven of his beams or rays, and replaces them with a crown of brambles, thus becoming Vikartana, “shorn of his rays.” He is the “Father” Principle, and seed of all future Initiate-Saviours of Man. Vishvakarman, a Mystery-God, is the Logos, the Demiourgos, one of the greatest Gods . . . He is the Omnificent, called the “Great Architect of the Universe” . . . Esoterically, He is the personification of the creative manifested Power; and mystically He is the seventh principle in man, in its collectivity. For He is the son of Bhuvana, the self-created, luminous Essence, and of the virtuous, chaste and lovely YogaSiddha, the virgin Goddess, whose name speaks for itself, since it personified Yogapower, the “chaste mother” that creates the Adepts. . . . Vishvakarman performs the “great sacrifice” i.e., sacrifices himself for the world;
Rebirths may be divided into three classes . . . [a] the divine incarnations called Avataras; [b] those of Adepts who give up Nirvana for the sake of helping on humanity — the Nirmanakayas; and
[c] the natural succession of rebirths for all — the common law.
The Avatara is an appearance, one which may be termed a special illusion within the natural illusion that reigns on the planes under the sway of that power, Maya; the Adept is reborn consciously, at his will and pleasure; the units of the common herd unconsciously follow the great law of dual evolution.
Having neither past nor future, Avataras are illusive forms of “individuality.” . . . It is a descent of the manifested Deity — whether under the specific name of Shiva, Vishnu, or Adi-Buddha — into an illusive form of individuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is objective, but it is not so in sober fact. That illusive form having neither past nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have subsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no hold on it.
They assume different names at different ages. Truly, “for the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,” the personalities known as Gautama, Shankara, Jesus and few others were born each in his age, as declared — “I am born in every Yuga” — and they were all born through the same Power.
It is not before the end of this cycle, the Kali-Yuga, that Kalki-Avatara, the Maitreya-Buddha of Northern Buddhism, will come. . . . whose name and characteristics are secret, who will come forth from Shambhala, the “City of Gods” . . . And this is the reason why, from the Indian Rishi to Virgil, and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl, all have, since the beginning of the Fifth Race, prophesied, sung, and promised the cyclic return of the Virgin — Virgo, the constellation — and the birth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden Age.
Esoterically, all Avataras are one and the same, . . . the Sons of their “Father,” in a direct descent and line, the “Father,” or one of the seven Flames becoming, for the time being, the Son, and these two being one — in Eternity. What is the Father? Is it the absolute Cause of all? — the fathomless Eternal? No; most decidedly. It is Karanatman, the “Causal Soul” which, in its general sense, is called by the Hindus Ishvara, the Lord, and by Christians, “God,” the One and Only. From the standpoint of unity it is so; but then the lowest of the Elementals could equally be viewed in such case as the “One and Only.” Each human being has, moreover, his own divine Spirit or personal God. That divine Entity or Flame from which Buddhi emanates stands in the same relation to man, though on a lower plane, as the Dhyani-Buddha to his human Buddha. Hence monotheism and polytheism are not irreconcilable; they exist in Nature.
Trees of salvation grown out of one seed. There is a mysterious Principle in Nature called “Maha-Vishnu,” which is not the God of that name, but a principle which contains Bija, the seed of Avatarism or, in other words, is the potency and cause of such divine incarnations. All the World-Saviours, the Bodhisattvas and the Avataras, are the trees of salvation grown out from the one seed the Bija or “Maha-Vishnu.” Whether it be called Adi-Buddha (Primeval Wisdom) or Maha-Vishnu, it is all the same. Understood esoterically, Vishnu is both Saguna and Nirguna (with and without attributes). In the first aspect, Vishnu is the object of exoteric worship and devotion; in the second, as Nirguna, he is the culmination of the totality of spiritual wisdom in the Universe — Nirvana, in short — and has as worshippers all philosophical minds. In this esoteric sense the Lord BUDDHA was an incarnation of MahaVishnu.
Born from the Heart of the Universe, In ancient Symbolism it was always the SUN (though the Spiritual, not the visible, Sun was meant), that was supposed to send forth the chief Saviours and Avataras. Hence the connecting link between the Buddhas, the Avataras, and so many other incarnations of the highest SEVEN. The closer the approach to one’s Prototype, “in Heaven,” the better for the mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh principle), as its terrestrial abode. For, with every effort of will toward purification and unity with that “Self-god,” one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the first, until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into the one and highest beam of the Parent-SUN. Thus [humanity coordinates numerically with and proceeds from] — the central and its shadow, the visible SUN.
They are the Nursery and fountainhead of human beings. . . . that group of celestial Beings who are universally called the seven Primeval Gods or Angels — our Dhyani-Chohans — the “Seven Primeval Rays” or Powers, adopted later on by the Christian Religion as the “Seven Angels of the Presence.” Arupa, formless, at the upper rung of the ladder of Being, materializing more and more as they descend in the scale of objectivity and form, ending in the grossest and more imperfect of the Hierarchy, man — it is the former purely spiritual group that is pointed out to us, in our Occult teaching, as the nursery and fountainhead of human beings. Therein germinates that consciousness which is the earliest manifestation from causal Consciousness — the Alpha and Omega of divine being and life forever. And as it proceeds downward through every phase of existence descending through man, through animal and plant, it ends its descent only in the mineral.
They are the Guardians and Protectors of our manvantaric world and period. 1 The reader may now . . . see what is meant by the “Watchers,” there being one placed as the Guardian or Regent over each of the seven divisions of regions of the earth, according to old traditions, as there is one to watch over and guide every one of the fourteen worlds or Lokas.
Presiding over each RootRace and Region on Earth, . . . in each of the seven Root-Races, and in every one of the seven regions into which the Occult Doctrine divides our globe, there appears from the dawn of Humanity the “Watcher” assigned to it in the eternity of the Æon. He comes first in his own “form,” then each time as an Avatara.
They remain with us until the last pilgrim soul has returned home safely. The “Secret Way” leads also to Parinirvanic bliss — but at the close of Kalpas without number; Nirvanas gained and lost from boundless pity and compassion for the world of deluded mortals.
Our mind is the connecting link with Them. But we are too sinful to assimilate Them. . . . Gautama, the human Buddha, who had, exoterically, Amitabha for his Bodhisattva and Avalokiteshvara for his Dhyani-Buddha — the triad emanating directly from Adi-Buddha — assimilated these by his “Dhyana” (meditation) and thus became a Buddha (“enlightened”). In another manner this is the case with all men; every one of us has his Bodhisattva — the middle principle, if we hold for a moment to the trinitarian division of the septenary group — and his Dhyani-Buddha, or Chohan, the “Father of the Son.” Our connecting link with the higher Hierarchy of Celestial Beings lies here in a nutshell, only we are too sinful to assimilate them.
