ANCIENT KARMIC EVENTS

The following words of the Tibetan Master were given out during the period between the First and Second World War. In esoteric circles this is looked upon as One War. Our Ancient Karma is as relevant today as then and as it will be in the future. While we are ignorant of it we will newer understand the present or the future; or even life itself. WE NEED TO KNOW OUR OWN HISTORY.

It is not my intention to explain or elaborate the subject of Karma. This occult yet fundamentally exoteric theme, the Law of Cause and Effect, evokes a general recognition when called by this name. When called the Law of Karma, it is immediately regarded as mysterious, Oriental and new. Called (as it sometimes is) the Law of Retribution, an entirely erroneous connotation has become attached to it. Today, the karma of humanity is descending upon it. I would remind you, however, that the continuous emphasis laid upon the malevolent aspects of karma conveys a wrong impression and negates the full grasp of the truth. There is as much good karma as there is bad; even

in the present world situation, the good karma emanating from the soul of humanity balances the evil which comes from the material aspect and is continuously over-emphasised. It is the rhythm of matter in contradistinction to the rhythm of the soul, and these constitute the initiating causes of the present conflict, both in individual lives and in the general world situation. When this is properly grasped, the true picture may emerge in your hearts and minds with greater clarity.

In my effort to make clear the picture, I shall have to overlook many essential details; I shall also be forced to take the always debatable position of making statements which cannot be checked and which find their sole arguments (as far as the average thinker is concerned) in deduction from the effects produced by causes that do not appear to the occultly unenlightened. In time to come, man will develop that mental attitude which will consider causes of greater importance than effects; he will then learn to consider with care the first steps taken in initiating any line of action, pondering upon and deducing the probable effects before committing himself to any specific deed. Only through pain, error and consequent price-paying will this salutary stage be reached.

Today, all that is taking place is due, first of all, to the essential duality of man; in the second place, it is due to certain major lines of cleavage which were brought by this essential dualism in an early stage of about human history, and thirdly, to the growing tendency towards synthesis which the inflow of the Shamballa force is producing at this time. This is the simplest statement I find it possible to make anent this complex problem. With broad generalities I cover the past, indicate the effects which are now being experienced in the present, and forecast the future.

It was the coming into incarnation of the spiritually self-conscious human being which is the inciting cause of the present conflict. Had the sons of God not "come in unto the daughters of men" (which is the Biblical and symbolic way of expressing the great relationship between spirit and matter which was established in the human kingdom), had the spiritual entities which are humanity itself not taken unto themselves material forms, and had the positive spiritual element not attached itself to the negative material aspect, the present world conflict would not be taking place. But the divine plan of evolution was based upon the production of this relationship between spiritually conscious man and the form aspect, and thus the great Law of Duality came into action, bringing about the "fall of the angels," as they descended from their sinless and free state of existence in order to develop full divine awareness upon earth, through the medium of material incarnation and the use of the principle of mind. This was the divine plan, emanating from the Mind of God and swept into activity and progressive unfoldment by an act of His Will. At its inception, there took place the original "war in the heavens," when the sons of God who responded to the divine urge to experience, to serve and to sacrifice, separated themselves from the sons of God who responded to no such inspiration but who chose to stay in their original and high state of being. To this truth, Christ Himself bore witness in the story of the Prodigal Son and his relationship to his elder brother, who had not left the Father's home. It is obvious, is it not, from this parable, where the approbation of the Father lay; a careful study of this story and an intuitive understanding of its implications may evoke some day a response to the "sin of experience," as it has been called, and a comprehension of the two major laws governing the process: the Law of Evolution and the Law of Rebirth. Here lies the prime initiating cause of what is taking place today.

The second cause arose slowly out of the first. Matter and spirit, focussed in the human family and expressing their basic qualities and essential nature, were eternally in conflict. In the early stages and during the long Lemurian cycle, infant humanity steadily evolved and yet in spite of this the lines of cleavage, though present, were not recognised. The latent spark of mind served only to bring a relative enlightenment to the five senses and their purely physical application. The physical life was strong; the deductive or self-registering life was practically nil. The life of humanity was then focussed within the physical body, thus fortifying and stimulating the animal nature and developing the physical organism and the various internal organs through the unfoldment of the five senses; man became primarily a selfish and a fighting animal with, however, at times, vague tendencies towards something dimly sensed as better and with moments of high grade desire which was not aspiration and the urge to progress, as we know it, but their embryonic forms.

It is not possible for modern man to vision or understand such a state of consciousness, for he has left it too far behind. The focus of the life force was also in the region of the adrenal glands, producing animal courage and resistance to shock. But the dualism of man's essential nature was, as always, present and the lines of cleavage gradually appeared; slowly yet steadily, the pioneering souls (a very small minority) shifted their consciousness gradually higher into the solar plexus and a recognition of the factor of desire for that which was material and a capacity for emotional reaction began to develop. Hitherto, in Lemurian times, desire and instinct were identical. Ponder on this, for it is interesting because it concerns a state of consciousness of which modern man knows practically nothing. But, in Atlantean times, the lines of demarcation between what constituted purely physical life and that which—though still material—could be the goal of effort and thus acquired, began to control the purely animal nature; man began to be acquisitive and to surround himself with that which he wanted. The lines of cleavage between the instinctual animal and acquisitive man began to be more clearly defined.

Gradually the mental element unfolded among these pioneers just as the intuitive element is today unfolding among the mental types; men began to acquire some form of mental perception and to bring what little mind they had to the processes of increasing their material possessions. The stage of civilisation (which is basically a recognition of group relation) began. A period of urban existence superseded that of a pure nomadic and agricultural existence. Men began to congregate together for their greater material comfort and protection, and the rhythmic processes of concentration and their world-wide extension began. These cycles are similar to the inbreathing and the outbreathing of the physical organism of man. Some day a study will be made of these basic and controlling factors of human existence, dispersion or decentralisation, and community life or the expression of the herd instinct on a higher or lower turn of the spiral of existence. The past few hundred years have seen a major problem arise in the present tendency of humanity to collect together in great cities and to congregate in vast herds, leaving the countryside denuded of its population and creating serious problems of sustenance, of health and also of crime. Right before our eyes this rhythm is today changing and a serious problem is being solved; cities are being evacuated and—as men and women are driven forth for one reason or another into the country—the lords of evolution are forcing the breaking up of the rhythm of concentration and substituting for it the rhythm of dispersion. This will do much for the race and will facilitate the unfoldment of a subjective synthesis which will greatly enrich humanity and give new values to living.

The lines of cleavage between the animal, instinctual nature and some form of desire (embryonic aspiration) steadily grew during Atlantean times and this early civilisation began to demonstrate its own note and to set new standards of material comfort and of selfish control on an increasingly large scale as the urban existence developed. It is perhaps difficult for us to visualise a world as densely populated then as is the modern world but so it was. The animal nature, being dominant, the tendency was towards sexual relationship and the production of large families, just as it is among the lower orders in our civilised areas today, for the peasantry and the slum dwellers produce more children than do the intelligentsia. In those far-off times, the only people who had any true measure of intelligence were the disciples and initiates; they guided and guarded infant humanity, much as modern parents guide and guard their children, and as the state assumes responsibility for the welfare of the nation. The Hierarchy was, in those days, present upon the earth as the priest-kings and they acted as focal points of attractive energy, drawing to themselves those in whom the more intangible values were slowly assuming a vague control, thus making the lines of cleavage between materialism and spirituality still more clear and definite.

We must remember that the spirituality of that time was of a very different quality from that which now goes under that name. It was in the nature of an aspiration towards a sensed hereafter, for a satisfying beauty and for emotional completion. There was no thought—as we know thought—in this attitude but only a reaching out after a sensed unattainable and for that which was desirable. This was fostered in the people by the Hierarchy through the gift of various inventions and by the use of the instinctual masses of men in building great and beautiful cities and stupendous structures, the remnants of which persist until today.  This was done under the expert guidance of the initiates and adepts who employed their knowledge of the nature of matter and energy to produce much that today man is gropingly endeavouring to discover and make possible. All that the modern processes of civilisation have made possible, and much more than that which today comes under the name of scientific discovery were known in old Atlantis, but they were not developed by men themselves but given to them as a free gift, much as people today give to a child beautiful and wonderful things which the child uses and enjoys but which he does not understand in any way. Great and beautiful cities, full of temples and great buildings (of which the Chaldean and Babylonian remains are the degenerate remnants, and the modern skyscraper the child) were everywhere to be found. Most of our modern scientific knowledge was possessed by these priest-kings and constituted in the eyes of the masses a form of wonderful magic. Sanitation, hygiene, means of transportation and air machines were developed and of a very high order; these were not the result however of man's achievement but gifts from the Hierarchy, developed or constructed under a wise guidance. There was command of air and water because the guides of the race knew how to control and master the forces of nature and of the elements, but none of it was the result of human understanding, knowledge or effort. The minds of men were undeveloped and not adequate to such a task, any more than is the mind of a little child.

The cleavage between the two groups (the one expressing the forces of materialism and the other the energy of light) grew gradually wider until towards the close of the Atlantean Age it was so wide, and the lines of demarcation between the two schools of life and thought were so clear, that a crisis was precipitated in the then civilised world of which the present conflict is a definite effect. Let us also hope that it constitutes a climax which will never again occur. Then took place the great war between the Lords of Form and the Lords of Being, or between the Forces of Matter and the Great White Lodge. A careful study of volume two of The Secret Doctrine will prove enlightening to students, if they will study with particular care pages 275-466. To our understanding, this account may seem vague and obscure, but the issues at the time were clear. The Forces of Light triumphed because the Hierarchy was forced to intervene potently, and, with the aid of certain great Lives extraneous to our planetary life, They brought the Atlantean civilisation to an abrupt end after a long period of chaos and disaster. This took place through the medium of a culminating catastrophe which wiped hundreds of thousands of human beings off the face of the earth. This historical event has been preserved for us in the universal legend of the great flood.

Those who survived are symbolically spoken of in the Bible as those who were saved in Noah's ark, and in the ancient writings it is expressed in the following terms:

"Like as a dragon snake uncoils slowly its body, so the sons of men, led on by the Sons of Wisdom, opened their folds and spreading out like a running stream of sweet waters.... Many of the faint- hearted among them perished on their way. But most were saved."

A close study of the tale as given in The Secret Doctrine will reveal the state of immature development (from the angle of our modern standards) and of the basically emotional and physical focus of the humanity of the period; it will show also man's magical ability to subdue and control the subhuman kingdoms and the elemental forces of the planet. These are two angles which have been but little studied.

Emphasis has, however, been rightly placed upon divine interference and intervention; this succeeded in salvaging an ethically sound minority (the word "spiritual" would not yet apply, except relatively) and in destroying those who were wrongly focussed or oriented and, therefore, dedicated to the life of material aspiration and perception.

This nucleus which was saved, formed the basis of our present root race, the Aryan. The whole theme of the Old Testament is built around the development and growth of this nucleus. Symbolically speaking, the inhabitants of the ark and their descendants and the Jewish race stand for the salvaged remnant of humanity—salvaged in spite of themselves and in face of stupendous difficulties by the Great White Lodge.

Two points warrant attention here. The first and least important from the standpoint of the soul is the disappearance off the earth of practically all signs of the wonderful Atlantean civilisation except for those few archaeological treasures which intrigue and interest modern research workers, plus those dim memories of ancient scientific achievement which lead the modern student to investigation and invention, and which incite him to discovery and the production of what we call the triumphs of modern science.

The second point is that for the good of humanity, the Hierarchy withdrew into the background, leaving man to find his own way out of the mirage and illusion of materialism in right ways and eventually to bring to an end the ancient cleavages. War must be brought to its final consummation and expression with a view to its final discarding as a means of arriving at desired ends.

The Modern Era

I would like to pause here and remind you of one or two points which should be recognised as we approach this modern era in which all these culminating effects are taking place. Let me state them concisely and clearly.

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[THE EXTERNALISATION OF THE HIERARCHY. pp117-137]