The Key to Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been FoundedBlavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Religion
The Key to Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science and Philosophy for the Study of Which the Theosophical Society Has Been Founded
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Theosophy
THEO. No doubt. The spiritual Ego of man moves in eternity like a
pendulum between the hours of birth and death. But if these hours,
marking the periods of life terrestrial and life spiritual, are
limited in their duration, and if the very number of such stages
in Eternity between sleep and awakening, illusion and reality,
has its beginning and its end, on the other hand, the spiritual
pilgrim is eternal. Therefore are the hours of his _post-mortem_
life, when, disembodied, he stands face to face with truth and
not the mirages of his transitory earthly existences, during
the period of that pilgrimage which we call “the cycle of
rebirths”—the only reality in our conception. Such intervals,
their limitation notwithstanding, do not prevent the Ego, while
ever perfecting itself, from following undeviatingly, though
gradually and slowly, the path to its last transformation, when
that Ego, having reached its goal, becomes a divine being. These
intervals and stages help towards this final result instead of
hindering it; and without such limited intervals the divine
Ego could never reach its ultimate goal. I have given you once
already a familiar illustration by comparing the _Ego_, or the
_individuality_, to an actor, and its numerous and various
incarnations to the parts it plays. Will you call these parts or
their costumes the individuality of the actor himself? Like that
actor, the Ego is forced to play during the cycle of necessity,
up to the very threshold of _Paranirvana_, many parts such as
may be unpleasant to it. But as the bee collects its honey from
every flower, leaving the rest as food for the earthly worms, so
does our spiritual individuality, whether we call it Sutratma or
Ego. Collecting from every terrestrial personality, into which
Karma forces it to incarnate, the nectar alone of the spiritual
qualities and self-consciousness, it unites all these into one
whole and emerges from its chrysalis as the glorified Dhyan
Chohan. So much the worse for those terrestrial personalities
from which it could collect nothing. Such personalities cannot
assuredly outlive consciously their terrestrial existence.
ENQ. Thus, then, it seems that, for the terrestrial personality,
immortality is still conditional. Is, then, immortality itself
_not_ unconditional?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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