Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Compassion - The Spirit of Truth
By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Our Watchers and Guardians
This “Mystery” is found, for him who understands its right meaning, in the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, in the Bhagavad-Gita, ch. iv, 5-9. Says the Avatara:
Many births of mine have passed, as also of yours, O Arjuna! All those I know, but you do not know yours, O harasser of your enemies.
Although I am unborn, with exhaustless Atman, and am the Lord of all that is; yet, taking up the domination of my nature I am born by the power of illusion.
Whenever, O son of Bharata, there is decline of Dharma [the right law] and the rise of Adharma [the opposite of Dharma] there I manifest myself.
For the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness, for the establishment of the law, I am born in every yuga.
Whoever comprehends truly my divine birth and action, he, O Arjuna, having abandoned the body does not receive rebirth; he comes to me.
— Bhagavad-Gita
HP Blavatsky’s understated steadfastness in completing The Secret Doctrine amidst worsening physical afflictions was made more valiant by the pangs of previously closely guarded secrets being “given out.” Her anguish has been captured by Countess Constance Wachtmeister:
. . . I have felt as though either paralysis or a split in the heart would occur. I am cold as ice and four doses of digitalis in one day could not quiet the heart. Well, let me only finish my Secret Doctrine. Last night, instead of going to bed I was made to write till 1 o’clock. The triple Mystery is given out — one I had thought they would never have given out — that of . . .
What might this “Triple Mystery” be? There is no evidence to suggest that what has been given out was the triple hypostases of Avatars but, on ac count of the magnitude of Their sacrifice for Humanity, Their continuous presence in the world of mortals must rank high among all mysteries. This is how Blavatsky explains the triune essence of a Bodhisattva:
Buddhists of the Mahayana mystic system teach that each BUDDHA manifests Himself (hypostatically or otherwise) simultaneously in three worlds of Being,1 namely, [a] in the world of Kama (concupiscence or desire — the sensuous universe or our earth) in the shape of a man; [b] in the world of Rupa (form, yet supersensuous) as a Bodhisattva; and [c] in the highest Spiritual World (that of purely incorporeal existences) as a Dhyani-Buddha. The latter prevails eternally in space and time, i.e., from one Maha-Kalpa to the other — the synthetic culmination of the three being Adi-Buddha, the Wisdom-Principle, which is Absolute, and therefore out of space and time. Their interrelation is the following: The Dhyani-Buddha, when the world needs a human Buddha, “creates” through the power of Dhyana (meditation, omnipotent devotion), a mind-born son — a Bodhisattva — whose mission it is after the physical death of his human, or ManushyaBuddha, to continue his work on earth till the appearance of the subsequent Buddha. . . . Thus, while the Buddha merges back into Nirvana whence it proceeded, the Bodhisattva remains behind to continue the Buddha’s work upon earth.
The divine, purely Adi-Buddhic monad manifests as the universal Buddhi (the Maha-Buddhi or Mahat in Hindu philosophies), the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent root of divine intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos. This descends “like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end” of the cycle of existence, and becomes universal life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light (the Logoi of Life); then the Dhyani-Buddhas of contemplation, the concrete forms of their formless Fathers — the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves, to whom may be applied the Brahmanical mystic phrase: “Thou art ‘THAT’ — Brahman.” It is from these Dhyani-Buddhas that emanate their chhayas (shadows), the Bodhisattvas of the celestial realms, the prototypes of the super-terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The “Seven Sons of Light” are also called “Stars.”
This breathtaking narration of the Hierarchy of Compassion’s majestic procession from Darkness to Light is illustrated on the next page and further elaborated in our Masque of Love Series.
