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Compassion - The Spirit of Truth

By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

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Jesus was a martyred Adept, not an Avatara

Theosophists deny most emphatically the divinity of the Biblical Christ. Those Theosophists who have studied the Christian Ecclesiastical history and literature, and have read upon the subject, with the exception of a few Christians, deny most emphatically not only the divinity but even “the possibility of the divinity of the [Biblical] Christ.

Jesus was a mere actor in the drama of Initiation. I, as a Theosophist and an Occultist of a certain school, accepting my proofs on data which he rejects — i.e., esoteric teachings — we can hardly agree upon every point. But the question is not whether there was or never was an historical Christ, or Jesus, between the years 1 and 33 A.D. — but simply were the Gospels of the gnostics (of Marcion and others, for instance) perverted later by Christians — esoteric allegories founded on facts, or simply meaningless fictions? I believe the former, and esoteric teachings explain many of the allegories.2

The real Christ is First Logos. It lives in the heart of every man from the time when Prometheus endowed the first man with the soulspark. Its aim is to assist those who are qualified to resurrect their spirit and thus die no more. The first key that one has to use to unravel the dark secrets involved in the mystic name of Christ, is the key which unlocked the door to the ancient mysteries of the primitive Aryans, Sabeans and Egyptians. The Gnosis supplanted by the Christian scheme was universal. It was the echo of the primordial wisdom-religion which had once been the heirloom of the whole of mankind; and, therefore, one may truly say that, in its purely metaphysical aspect, the Spirit of Christ (the divine logos) was present in humanity from the beginning of it. The author of the Clementine Homilies is right; the mystery of Christos — now supposed to have been taught by Jesus of Nazareth — “was identical” with that which from the first had been communicated “to those who were worthy,” as quoted in another lecture.3 . . .

How can sublime ethics restore man to his rightful place, used to be a closely guarded secret among Initiates. Lord Buddha was the first to embody them to his public teachings and Christ echoed the same message to the West. Humaneness is now better understood than ever and the import of principled conduct, common knowledge. No one has the right to monopolise them. We may learn from the Gospel according to Luke, that the “worthy” were those who had been initiated into the mysteries of the Gnosis, and who were “accounted worthy” to attain that “resurrection from the dead” in this life . . . “those who knew that they could die no more, being equal to the angels as sons of God and sons of the Resurrection.” In other words, they were the great adepts of whatever religion; and the words apply to all those who, without being Initiates, strive and succeed, through personal efforts to live the life and to attain the naturally ensuing spiritual illumination in blending their personality — the “Son” — with the “Father,” their individual divine Spirit, the God within them. This “resurrection” can never be monopolised by the Christians, but is the spiritual birth-right of every human being endowed with soul and spirit, whatever his religion may be. Such individual is a Christ-man. On the other hand, those who choose to ignore the Christ (principle) within themselves, must die unregenerate heathens — baptism, sacraments, lip-prayers, and belief in dogmas notwithstanding.1

The real Christ is Sol-omon or the Christ-Sun. His real temple is the awakened soul. [True Theosophy is] the temple of Solomon’s wisdom,2 in building which “there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building”; 3 for this “temple” is made by no human hand, nor built in any locality on earth — but, verily, is raised only in the inner sanctuary of man’s heart wherein reigns alone the awakened soul.

The Biblical Christ is linked with the solar mysteries of Initiation. The words above quoted will explain much to those who are searching for truth and for truth only. They will show the origin of certain rites in the Church inexplicable hitherto to the simple-minded, and will give the reason why such words as “Our Lord the Sun” were used in prayer by Christians up to the fifth and even sixth century of our era, and embodied in the Liturgy, until altered into “Our Lord, the God.” Let us remember that the early Christians painted Christ on the walls of their subterranean necropolises, as a shepherd in the guise of, and invested with all the attributes of Apollo, driving away the wolf, Fenris, who seeks to devour the Sun and his Satellites.1

Among Israelites and Greek wanderers, 2 the trunk of a candlestick was symbol of the Christ-Sun. There is poetry and grandeur in the sun when it is made to symbolise the “Eye of Ormuzd,” or of Osiris, and is regarded as the Vahana (vehicle) of the highest Deity. But one must for ever fail to perceive that any particular glory is rendered to Christ by assigning to him the trunk of a candlestick, in a Jewish synagogue, as a mystical seat of honour.3 But symbol for symbol we prefer the sun to a candlestick.4

The pure monad or “god” incarnating in man becomes Chrestos (Χρηστος) or virtuous man in his trial of life. A series of those trials will lead Chrestos to the crucifixion of flesh, and finally admit him into the Christos (Χριστος) condition. Christos and Kri-shna meant the Anointed One. 5 [Chrestos and Christos] exist as abstractions on the higher plane, as manifested ideas on the astral, and become males, females and androgyne powers on this lower plane of ours. Scorpio, as Chrestos-Meshiac, and Leo, as Christos-Messiah, antedated by far the Christian era in the trials and triumphs of Initiation during the Mysteries, Scorpio standing as symbol for the latter, Leo for the glorified triumph of the “sun” of truth. The mystic philosophy of the allegory is well understood by the author of The Source of Measures, who writes: 6

Jesus-Chrestos, born a simple mortal and humiliated on the cross of his own passions, rose to JesusChristos through personal merit and virtue, exactly as another human Buddha had triumphed five centuries earlier in the East. One [Chrestos], as causing himself to go down into the pit [of Scorpio, or incarnation in the womb], for the salvation of the world; this was the sun shorn of his golden rays, [Vishvakarman] and crowned with blackened 1 ones (symbolizing this loss), as the thorns: The other was the triumphant Messiah, mounted up to the summit of the arch of heaven, personated as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. In both instances he had the cross; once in humiliation (or the son of copulation), and once holding it in his control, as the law of creation, He being Jehovah. . . . 2

Apollo, Son of Light and Life, and the Christ in man are one and the same. Now God says, through Malachi [iii, 20], that the Sun shall arise for those who fear his name. What Malachi meant by “the Sun of Righteousness” the Kabbalists alone can tell; but what the Greek, and even the Protestant, theologians understood by the term is of course Christ, referred to metaphorically. Only, as the sentence, “I will send my Son from the Sun,” is borrowed verbatim from a Sibylline Book, it becomes very hard to understand how it can be attributed to, or classed with any prophecy relating to the Christian Saviour, unless, indeed, the latter is to be identified with Apollo. Virgil, again, says, “Here comes the Virgin’s and Apollo’s reign,” and Apollo, or Apolouon, is to this day viewed as a form of Satan, and is taken to mean the Antichrist. [The Latin Church is brave, and had the courage of her opinions at all times. Why does she not try to be logical, as she is daring? [WMS.143] If the Sibylline promise, “He will send his Son from the Sun” applies to Christ, then either Christ and Apollo are one — and then why call the latter a demon? — or the prophecy had nothing to do with the Christian Saviour, and, in such a case, why appropriate it at all? 1

Christ was a martyred adept, not the Avatara invented by the Church. A curious fact, one that throws a flood of light on the claim that Jesus was an Initiate and a martyred Adept, is given in the work . . . which may be called “a mathematical revelation.” 2

He was the highest adept of his time. “Christ had in view to reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the Wisdom of the ancients.” 3 We leave it to every impartial mind to judge whether Jesus is not more honoured by the Theosophists, who see in him, or the ideal he embodies, a perfect adept (the highest of his epoch), a mortal being far above uninitiated humanity, than he is by the Christians who have created out of him an imperfect solargod, a saviour and Avatara, no better, and in more than one detail lower, than some of the Avataras who preceded him.4

The Erythræan Sibyl’s prophecy provides further evidence that the name Christos is Pagan, not Christian. ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΕΙΣΤΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΥΙΟΣ ΣΩΤΗΡ ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ. Read esoterically, this string of meaningless detached nouns, which has no sense to the profane, contains a real prophecy — only not referring to Jesus — and a verse from the mystic catechism of the Initiate. The prophecy relates to the coming down upon the Earth of the Spirit of Truth (Christos), after which advent — that has once more nought to do with Jesus — will begin the Golden Age;

True Theosophists will never accept either a Christ made Flesh, according to the Roman dogma, or an anthropomorphic God, still less a “Shepherd” in the person of a Pope. 1 Judge for yourself. I write in every letter that a divine Christ (or Christos) has never existed under a human form outside the imagination of blasphemers who have carnalised a universal and entirely impersonal principle. For me Jesus Christ, i.e., the Man-God of the Christians, copied from the Avataras of every country, from the Hindu Krishna as well as the Egyptian Horus, was never a historical person. He is a deified personification of the glorified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story, as told in the New Testament, is an allegory, assuredly containing profound esoteric truths, but still an allegory. It is interpreted by the help of the seven keys, similarly to the Pentateuch. 2

But they do accept that a living man can assume the Christ-Principle, “Christ made flesh,” would be a claim worse than imposture, as it would be absurdity, but a man of flesh assuming the Christ-condition temporarily, is indeed an occult, yet living, fact.3 . . . The “Christ principle,” the awakened and glorified Spirit of Truth, being universal and eternal, the true Christos cannot be monopolised by any one person, even though that person has chosen to arrogate to himself the title of the “Vicar of Christ,” or of the “Head” of that or another State-religion.4

And that there is no Saviour of our sins, other than our own actions, and no “end of the world” to be saved from. Millenarians and Adventists of robust faith, may go on saying that “the coming of (the carnalised) Christ” is near at hand, and prepare themselves for “the end of the world.” Theosophists — at any rate, some of them — who understand the hidden meaning of the universally-expected Avatars, Messiahs, Sosioshes and Christs — know that it is no “end of the world,” but “the consummation of the age,” i.e., the close of a cycle, which is now fast approaching.5

Says HP Blavatsky: unless we succeed in placing the T.S. before 1898 on the safe side of the spiritual current, it will be swept away irretrievably into the cold waves of oblivion and thus will have perished the only association whose aim and purpose answer in every particular and detail to the innermost, fundamental thought of every Adept Reformer, the beautiful dream of a Universal Brotherhood of Man. 1 There are several remarkable cycles that come to a close at the end of this [19th] century. First, the 5,000 years of the Kaliyuga cycle; again the Messianic cycle of the Samaritan (also Kabbalistic) Jews of the man connected with Pisces (Ichthys or “Fish-man” Dag). It is a cycle, historic and not very long, but very occult, lasting about 2,155 solar years, but having a true significance only when computed by lunar months. It occurred 2410 and 255 B.C., or when the equinox entered into the sign of the Ram, and again into that of Pisces. When it enters, in a few years, the sign of Aquarius, psychologists will have some extra work to do, and the psychic idiosyncrasies of humanity will enter on a great change.

Yet, Christos will always remain with us and help us if we are worthy enough to hear its Voice. [The ideal of Christos living within man is not Christian], it was the apotheosis of the Mysteries of Initiation. As to the “Word made Flesh,” it is the heritage of the whole of humanity, received by man the moment the universal Soul incarnated in him, i.e., from the appearance of the first perfect man [who was not Adam]. 3

Gnostics left the Church of Rome in droves because they could not accept a Christ made flesh. The Church of Rome was Gnostic just as the Marcionites were. — until the beginning and even the middle of the second century; Marcion, the famous Gnostic, did not separate from it until the year 136, and Tatian left it still later. And why did they leave it? Because they had become heretics, the Church pretends; but the history of these cults contributed by esoteric manuscripts gives us an entirely different version. These famous Gnostics, they tell us, separated themselves from the Church because they could not agree to accept a Christ made flesh, and thus began the process of carnalizing the Christ-principle. It was then also that the metaphysical allegory experienced its first transformation — that allegory which was the fundamental doctrine of all the Gnostic fraternities.4

Gnostic Jesus was an Adept Reformer of his time as was the case of His Eastern predecessor. The Gnostics were actually divided into various fraternities, such as: Essenes, Therapeuts, Nazarenes or Nazars (from which Jesus of Nazareth); “James,” the Lord’s brother, head of the Church of Jerusalem, was a Gnostic to his fingertips, an ascetic of the old Biblical type, i.e., a Nazar dedicated to asceticism from his birth. The razor had never touched his head or beard. He was such a one as Jesus is represented to be in legends or pictures and such as are all the “Brother-Adepts” of every country; from the yogi-fakir of India to the greatest Mahatmans among the Initiates of the Himalayas.1

The “mysteries” of the Catholic Church are those of the Brahmanas masquerading under other names. What the Brahmanas were doing when Siddhartha Buddha came to deliver the people from the yoke of that caste, the Roman Church has done to this very day in the West; Theosophists will bring to light the mysteries of the Catholic Church, which are really those of the Brahmanas, although under other names; in doing so, they will merely follow the commandments of the two great Mahatmans: Gautama of Kapilavastu and Jesus of Judæa. Both of them had found their “Christos,” the eternal Truth, and both, being Sages and Initiates, proclaimed the same truths.2

The real founder of Christianity was Paul, not Jesus. . . . it is also true that the New Testament, the Acts and the Epistles . . . all are symbolical and allegorical sayings, and that “it was not Jesus but Paul who was the real founder of Christianity”; 3 but it was not the official Church Christianity, at any rate. “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,” the Acts of the Apostles [xi, 26] tell us, and they were not so called before, nor for a long time after, but simply Nazarenes.

Paul was, undeniably, a Master Mason and Initiate. The real reason why Paul is shown as “abrogating the law” 1 can be found only in India, where to this day the most ancient customs and privileges are preserved in all their purity, notwithstanding the abuse levelled at the same. There is only one class of persons who can disregard the law of Brahmanical institutions, caste included, with impunity, and that is the perfect “Svamis,” the Yogis — who have reached, or are supposed to have reached, the first step towards the Jivanmukta state — or the full Initiates. And Paul was undeniably an Initiate. We will quote a passage or two from Isis Unveiled, for we can say now nothing better than what was said then:

Take Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the writings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see whether anyone can find a word therein to show that Paul meant by the word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the personal divinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ is not a person, but an embodied idea. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation,” 2 he is reborn, as after initiation, for the Lord is spirit — the spirit of man. Paul was the only one of the apostles who had understood the secret ideas underlying the teachings of Jesus, although he had never met him.

But Paul himself was not infallible or perfect.3