Theosophy - The World-Mother as Symbol and Fact - by C.W.Leadbeater
THE
WORLD MOTHER
AS SYMBOL AND FACT
by
C. W. LEADBEATER
1975 Centenary
Printing
First Edition 1928, Reprinted
1949, 1968
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING
HOUSE
ADYAR, CHENNAI [MADRAS] 600020, INDIA
IT will be best
for me to begin with a definite statement as to what I personally know with
regard to the World-Mother, dealing with the facts as they are, and with
the way in which they concern us and the work which we have to do - leaving
aside for the time all the myths which have gathered around Her.
The World-Mother,
then, is a mighty Being who is at the head of a great department of the organization
and government of the world. She is in truth a mighty Angel, having under
Her a vast host of subordinate Angels, whom She keeps perpetually employed
in the work which is especially committed to Her. That work has so many and
such wonderful ramifications that it is not easy to give even the most general
idea of it in a few sentences. Let it suffice for the moment to say that
in a very real sense all the women of the world are [Page
2] under Her charge, and most especially so at the time of their
greatest trial, when they are exercising the supreme function given to them
by God, and thus becoming mothers in very deed.
Many stories
are told, more especially among the peasantry, of women who have seen the
World-Mother standing beside them in those terrible hours, and many who have
not been privileged to see have yet felt the help and the strength which
She outpours. Why should it be the peasants who see, and not the more intellectual
people? Just because those who have intellectual development have so often
thrown themselves into that part of their consciousness that they have largely
lost the impressionability of the others, who live closer to Nature. Nevertheless,
sometimes those more developed people see also. I was myself told by a member
of the English nobility that under similar circumstances she saw standing
beside her bed a great Angel, who marvelously poured a kind of unconsciousness
into her, a dulling of the pain at certain times.
This is perhaps
Her greatest and most impressive function; but She has yet another [Page
3] which brings Her into the very closest connection with humanity,
for She has made it a part of Her work to try to mitigate the suffering of
the world, to act as the Consoler, the Comforter, the Helper of all who are
in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity. To those to whom
this train of ideas is unfamiliar I would recommend the perusal of a touching
story entitled "Consolatrix Afflictorum" in Monsignor R. H. Benson's
book ‘The Light Invisible’, and also a little volume, ‘The Call
of the Mother’, by the Lady Emily Lutyens.
All students
of Theosophy are aware of the existence of the mighty and glorious Hierarchy
which is the inner and spiritual Government of the world. One who wishes
to understand something of the organization of this Government would do well
to consult a very clear and useful diagram which appears in Mr. C. Jinarajadasa's ‘First
Principles of Theosophy’ (Fig. 118). From that diagram we see
that while the Spiritual King, the Lord of the World, stands supreme above
all, and the Lord Buddha stands next to Him as the spiritual Head of the
Second Ray, the other five Rays [Page 4] (though
each is directed by its own special Ruler or Chohan) are all under the management
of a high Official called the Mahachohan. We see then that the Lord Vaivasvata
Manu, the Lord Maitreya Bodhisattva and our Lord the Mahachohan stand at
a certain definite level as the representatives, as far as work on these
lower planes is concerned, of the Three Aspects of the Solar Logos; and we
know of no other Great Ones who stand at this level except some who, having
held high office in the past, are now working elsewhere.
The grades of
the Hierarchy being thus clearly laid down, and the arrangement of the different
rays and their Leaders or Chohans tabulated, it will at once be seen that
the work of the World-Mother could not be entered upon such a list, for the
work does not belong to anyone Ray, but deals in a protective way with women-folk
on all Rays. Furthermore, the list there given to us indicates the lines
of activity of what we may call the human part of the Hierarchy only. But
it will be remembered that the Lord Maitreya is the Teacher of Angels as
well as of men, and just in the same way the great Lord of the World is the [Page
5] Spiritual King not only of the human evolution, but also of
the Angelic kingdom on this planet as well. We know that there is an Angelic
side of the Hierarchy, but we have not as yet any information which would
enable us to compile a similar table for that.
We know that
just as Adepts have divided the world into parishes, so that all nations
have some sort of Adept guidance, so also has each nation its presiding Deva
or Angel. We know furthermore that the Angels take a very great part in the
direction of evolution - that they also preside over certain districts, and
that there is an elaborate scheme of lesser and greater Devas, coming down
even to the local spirit who acts as guardian to a wood, a valley, a lake.
But our knowledge along all these lines is limited and fragmentary, and the
political geography of the world from the point of view of the Angelic Hosts
has yet to be written. It is probably rash therefore to attempt any comparison
between highly-advanced people of two evolutions; but I think we shall not
be far wrong if we regard the World-Mother, Our Lady of Light, as being [Page
6] of equal dignity with the Chohans who are Heads of the Rays.
I am afraid that
in most English-speaking countries the principal difficulty that we shall
find in our way in endeavouring to explain the office and work of the World-Mother
will be the extraordinarily bitter and unreasoning prejudice of the average
Protestant against the Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We shall
inevitably be accused of trying to introduce Mariolatry, of secretly attempting
to influence our readers in the direction of the teaching of the Roman Church;
for there is a vast amount of misconception connected with this subject.
The Roman and Greek Churches hold the name of the Blessed Virgin in deep
reverence, although many of their members know little of the real meaning
of the beautiful and poetic symbolism connected with that name. The Church
of England has curtailed somewhat the reverence paid to Her, while those
Christians who do not belong to her communion usually remark that it is idolatrous
to worship a woman - an attitude of mind which is merely the result of narrowness
and ignorance. [Page 7]
If we want really
to understand the truth in these matters, we must begin by freeing our minds
altogether from prejudice; and the first point to realize is that no one
ever has worshipped a woman (or a man either) in the sense in which
the rabid Protestant means the word. He is incapable of comprehending - he
does not want to comprehend - the Catholic attitude towards Our Lady or the
saints. We who are Theosophical students, however, must adopt a fairer position
than that, and try to discover what the Catholic position really is before
we condemn it. Let us quote from ‘The Catholic Encyclopedia’ (article "Worship")
what may be taken as an approved and authoritative statement of the Roman
view on the subject:
There are several degrees of worship; if it is addressed directly
to God, it is superior, absolute, supreme worship, or worship of adoration,
or, according to the consecrated theological term, a worship of latria. [ This
word is an amphibrach. Accentuate the second syllable pronouncing it exactly
like the English word "try"] This sovereign worship
is due to God alone; addressed to a creature, it would become idolatry.
When worship
is addressed only indirectly to God - that is, when its object is the veneration
of martyrs, of angels, or of saints, it is a subordinate worship, dependent
on the first, and relative, in so far as it honours the creatures of God
for their [Page 8] peculiar
relations with Him. It is designated by theologians as the worship of dulia [ Again
an amphibrach. Accentuate the second syllable, pronouncing it like the
English "lie". The first syllable is pronounced like the English
word "do"], a term denoting servitude, and implying,
when used to signify Our worship of distinguished servants of God, that
their service to Him is their title to our veneration.
As the Blessed
Virgin has a separate and absolutely super-eminent rank among the saints,
the worship paid to her is called hyperdulia
.
That seems to me to make the whole
matter admirably clear, and to present a correct and defensible attitude. Much
confusion has arisen from the translation of those three Greek words, with their
delicate shades of meaning, by the one English word "worship". I think
that this mistake, coupled with the blank ignorance of most people of the niceties
of theological distinctions, and their fatal readiness to believe ill of those
from whom they differ, has been responsible for much of the misunderstanding
and the consequent hatred. I suggest that among ourselves and in our literature
we make the distinction clearly by translating only latreia [ Here
the true Greek spelling is given; the Encyclopedia uses the medieval Latin] as
worship; douleia [ Here the true Greek spelling is given;
the Encyclopedia uses the medieval Latin] might be rendered
as reverence or [Page 9] veneration,
and hyperdouleia [ Here the true Greek spelling is given;
the Encyclopedia uses the medieval Latin] as deep reverence.
But the point for us to bear in mind is that no instructed person has ever, anywhere
or at any time, confused such reverence as may duly and properly be offered to
all great and holy beings with that higher worship which may be given to God
alone. Let there be no mistake about that fact.
Much nonsense
has been talked about idolatry, chiefly by people who are too anxious to
force their own beliefs upon others to have either time or inclination to
try to understand the point of view of wiser and more tolerant thinkers.
If they knew enough of etymology to be aware that the word idol means an
image or representation, they might perhaps ask themselves of what this
thing is an image, and whether it is not that reality behind which these
much-maligned savages are worshipping, instead of the wood and stone about
which missionaries prate so glibly.
The image, the
picture, the cross, the lingam of the Saivite, the sacred book of
the Sikh - all these things are symbols; not in [Page
10] themselves objects of worship, but reverenced by those who
understand, precisely because they are intended to remind us of some aspect
of God, and to turn our thoughts to Him. In India these aspects are called
by many different names, and the missionary makes haste to revile the Hindu
as a polytheist; yet the coolie who works in his garden could tell him that
there is but one God, and that all these are but aspects of Him, lines of
approach to Him, divided and materialized in order to bring infinity a little
nearer to the grasp of out very finite minds.
There is great
need for charity and understanding, for a kindly and sympathetic attitude
towards those who are travelling along another road to the feet of the God
in whom all alike believe - the loving Father of whom the Christ tells us,
the one true God who said through another of His manifestations: "All
true worship comes to Me, through whatsoever name it may be offered ";
and again: "By whatsoever path men approach Me, along that path do I
meet them; for the paths by which men come from every side are Mine." [Page
11]
There is nothing
but God; and for whomsoever we feel reverence, adoration, love, it is to
the God manifesting through him (however partially) that that reverence,
adoration or love is offered. "Many sheep I have which are not of this
fold; them also will I bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall
be one fold, and one shepherd."
Having thus endeavoured
to rise above the miasma of ignorance and bigotry into the purer air of justice
and comprehension, let us in that spirit approach the consideration of the
beautiful and wonderful manifestation of the divine power and love which
is enshrined within the name of the World-Mother.
I do not think
that anyone with our Western education finds it easy to understand the wealth
of symbolism which is used in Oriental religions; and people forget that
Christianity is an Oriental religion, just as much as Buddhism, Hinduism
or Zoroastrianism. The Christ took a Jewish body - an Oriental body; and
those to whom He spoke had the Oriental methods of thought, and not ours
at all. They have a wonderful and most elaborate method of symbolism in all
these religions, and they [Page 12] take
great delight in their symbols; they weave them in and out and combine, them,
and treat them lovingly in poetry and in art. But our tendency is towards
what we call practicality, and we are apt to materialize all these ideas,
and often greatly degrade them in consequence.
Let us never
forget that our religion comes from the East, and that if we want to understand
it, we must look at it first of all as an Oriental would look at it, and
not apply our modern scientific theories until we are able to see how they
fit in. They can be made to fit in, but unless we know how, we are likely
to make shipwreck of the whole thing, and we run a serious risk of assuming
that the people who hold the allegory know nothing whatever, and are hopelessly
wrong. They are not wrong at all. Those beautiful old myths convey the meaning,
without necessarily putting the cold scientific facts before those who have
not developed their minds sufficiently to grasp them in that form. That was
well understood in the early Church.
There is always
much more behind these quaint and poetical thoughts of the men of old [Page
13] than most people believe. It is foolish to be filled
with ignorant prejudice; it is better by far to try to understand. Whatever
in religion anywhere has been artistic and helpful to man has always behind
it a real truth. It is for us to disinter that truth; it is for us to clear
away the crust of the ages and to let the truth shine forth.
That is true
with regard to the beautiful Christian glyph of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
There are three distinct ideas involved in the ordinary thought of Her:
1. The story
of the mother of the disciple Jesus; what She was and what She afterwards
became.
2. The sea of
virgin matter, the Great Deep, the water over the face of which the Spirit
of God moved.
3. The feminine
Aspect of the Deity.
These ideas have
in the course of centuries been confused, degraded, materialized, until in
the form in which the story is now presented, it has become impossible for
any thinking man. But that is not so if we analyze it and understand its
real meaning, if we separate the myth and the symbol from the chronicle of
the living person. [Page 14]
The Roman Church
teaches her children of the Virgin Birth of Jesus and of the Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin Herself from Her mother St. Anne. The first of these events
is contrary to the laws of Nature (which are the laws of God, the expression
of His will) and therefore cannot possibly have happened. The second is,
I think, usually supposed (by those at least who have not made a special
study of theology) to mean that Our Lady was conceived, like Her divine Son,
by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost; but on referring to authorized Roman
Catholic publications I see that this is not so, for the teaching is that
She was conceived in the ordinary manner, like the rest of mankind, Her parents
being St. Joachim and St. Anne. It is explained that the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception means only that the mythical primal curse of what they
call original sin (supposed to have been inherited from Adam) was not imposed
by God upon the embryo of Our Lady.
I wish to be
absolutely fair in my statement of this remarkable doctrine; but I must admit
that it seems to me an unnecessary and even fantastic theological invention.
I have never [Page 15] found the slightest
historical evidence for the grotesque story of Adam and Eve and the apple;
and I believe that the whole theory of original sin is simply a clumsy way
of stating the fact that man brings over with him from his previous birth
a certain amount of karma. If one tries to interpret it along that line,
perhaps this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception might be taken as amounting
to a statement that Our Lady had already worked out all evil karma and consequently
entered upon Her life in Palestine practically karma-less. On that subject
I have no information.
To present these
ideas as actual occurrences in the life of a Jewish lady is an error; they
could not have been so, therefore they were not so. But if we understand
them as symbols of a certain stage in the process of creation, of the evolution
of a solar system, they fall quite naturally into place, and are seen to
be beautiful and significant. Divested of them, the life-story is coherent
and credible.
The same Church
represents the Festival of the Assumption as commemorating the carrying up
of a physical body into the heaven-world - once more a manifest impossibility; [Page
16] but when we realize that this is but a poetic description
of the entry of a triumphant Adept into the Angelic kingdom, we see at once
the appropriateness of much that has been written about it, and of the wonderful
paintings which it has inspired.
Let us then first
of all consider the last physical life of Our Lady of Light, and the consequences
which followed it and led up later on to Her acceptance of the Office which
She at present holds.
THE
MOTHER OF JESUS
It must be understood
that the disciple Jesus was born precisely as other men are born. This strange
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, an attempt to explain which we have
just made, the story of the overshadowing of the Blessed Virgin by the Holy
Ghost, and of the Virgin Birth - all that group of ideas refers to the myth,
to the symbol; it has a real meaning and a beautiful interpretation, as I
shall presently try to show, but it is not concerned with the physical body
of the disciple Jesus. The mother of that physical [Page
17] body
was a Jewish lady of noble birth, but, if tradition is to be believed, of
no great wealth. We need not think of Joseph (who, remember, was also of
the seed of David) as a carpenter, because that is part of the symbolism,
and not of the history. In that symbolism Joseph is the guardian of the Blessed
Virgin - of the soul in man. He represents the mind; and because the mind
is not the creator of the soul, but only its furnisher and its decorator,
Joseph is not a mason, like the Great Architect of the Universe, but a carpenter.
We need not think of Our Lord as working in a carpenter's shop; that is simply
an instance of the confusion and materialization introduced by those who
do not understand the symbolism.
The mother of
Jesus, then, was a noble-woman of Judea, a descendant of the royal house
of David. Truly She who was chosen for so high an honour must have been pure
and true and of flawless character - a great saint; for none but such could
have given birth to so pure, so wonderful, so glorious a body. A saintly
and a godly life She led; one of terrible suffering (which She bore with
marvellous patience and nobility of soul) yet with [Page
18] wondrous consolations. We know but little of its details;
we glimpse it only occasionally in the scant contemporary narrative; but
it was a life which it will do us good to imagine to ourselves, an example
for which we may well thank God. It carried Her far along the upward path
- far enough to make possible a curious and beautiful later development,
which I must now explain.
Students of the
inner life know that when man has reached the end of the purely human part
of his evolution - when the next step will lift him into the superhuman condition
of the Adept - into a kingdom as definitely above humanity as man is above
the animal kingdom -
When he has wrought
the purpose through
Of that which made him man
- several lines
of growth lie open before him, and it is left to him to choose which he will
take. Occasionally, too, there are conditions under which this choice may
be to some extent anticipated. This is not the place to discuss the alternative;
let it suffice here to say that one of the possibilities is to become a great [Page
19] Angel or messenger of God - to join the Deva evolution, as
an Indian would put it. And this was the line which the Lady Mary chose,
when She reached the level at which human birth was no longer necessary for
Her.
Vast numbers
of Angels have never been human because their evolution has come along another
line, but there are Angels who have been men, who at a certain stage of this
development have chosen to follow the Angel line; and a very glorious, magnificent
and helpful line it is. So She, who, two thousand years ago, bore the body
of Jesus in order that it might later on be taken by the Christ, is now a
mighty Spirit.
Much beautiful enthusiasm and devotion
has all through the centuries been poured out at Her feet; thousands upon thousands
of monks and nuns, thousands upon thousands of suffering men and women, have
come before Her and poured out their sorrows, and have prayed to Her that She
in turn would present their petition to Her Son. This last prayer is a misconception,
because He who is the Eternal Son of God and at the same the Christ within everyone
of us, needs none to [Page 20] intercede
with Him for us. He knows before we speak far better than we what is best for
us. We are in Him, and through Him were we made, and without Him was not anything
made which was made, neither we nor the smallest speck of dust in all the universe.
"Closer is He than breathing,
nearer than hands and feet."
One does not
pray to great Angels for intercession if one understands, because one knows
that He, in whom all Angels live and move and have their being, is already
doing for every one of us very best that can be done. But just as one may
ask help from a human friend in the flesh - as, for example, one may ask
of him the encouragement of his thought - so may one ask aid from the same
human friend when he has cast aside his robe of flesh; and in the same way
one may ask the same kind of help from these great Spirits at their higher
level.
There is nothing
unreasonable or unscientific in this. I myself have often had letters from
people who know that I have studied these matters, telling me that at such-and-such
a time they would be going through some [Page
21] difficulty - a surgical operation perhaps, or some other specially
trying experience - and asking me to think of them at that moment, and to
send them helpful thought. Naturally I always do it. And as I know there
can be no effect without a cause, and in exactly the same way there can be
no due cause which does not produce its effect, I know that if I (or if any
of you) take the trouble to fix our thought upon anyone in sorrow or difficulty,
and try to send him helpful ideas, try to put before him something which
will strengthen him in his troubles, we may be perfectly sure that that thought-force
does produce its effect, that it goes and reacts upon that person. To what
extent it will help him depends on his receptivity, upon the strength of
the thought, and upon various other circumstances; but that some effect
will be produced we may be absolutely sure. And so when we send a request
for kindly, helpful, strengthening thought to one of these great ones - whether
it be a saint now in the flesh, or one who has laid aside that flesh, or
one of the great Angels - assuredly that help will come to us, and will strengthen
us. [Page 22]
That is the case
with the World-Mother; yet there are those who would have us believe that
all that splendid good feeling, all that love and uttermost devotion, have
run to waste and been useless. Incredible as it appears to us who are used
to wider and saner thought, I really think that in their curious ignorance
the more rabid enemies of the Church actually believe this. They even go
further still, and say that it is wrong, wicked and blasphemous for a man
to feel that love and devotion towards Her! It sounds like madness, but I
am afraid it is true that there are such people. Of course the truth is that no devotion, no love, no good
feeling has ever been wrong, to whomsoever it has been sent. It may have
been wrongly directed. Devotion and affection have often been lavished on
unworthy objects, but it has not been a wrong act on the part of
the lavisher - only a lack of discrimination; always it has been good for him that
he should pour himself out in love, and develop his soul thereby.
Remember that
if we love any person, it is the God within that person that we are loving;
the God within us recognizes the God within [Page
23] him; deep calleth unto deep, and the recognition of the Godhead
is bliss. The lover often sees in the beloved qualities which no one else
can discern; but those good qualities are there in latency, because
the Spirit of God is within everyone of us; and the earnest belief and strong
affection of the lover tend to call those latent qualities into manifestation.
He who idealizes another tends to make that other what he thinks him to be.
Could we suppose
then that all the wonderful and beautiful devotion addressed to the World-Mother
has been wasted? Any man who thinks so must understand the divine economy
very poorly. No true and holy feeling has ever been wasted since time began,
or ever will be; for God, who knows us all, so arranges that the least touch
of devotion, the least feeling of comprehension, the least thought of worship,
shall always be received, shall always work out to its fullest possibility,
and shall always bring its response from Him. . In this case in His loving-kindness
He has appointed the Mother of Jesus as a mighty Angel to receive those prayers
- to be a channel for them, to accept that devotion, and to forward [Page
24] it to Him. Therefore the reverence offered to Her, and the
love poured out at Her feet have never for one moment been wasted; they have
brought their result, they have done their work.
Century after
century the richest treasures of art have drawn their inspiration from the
beauty of Her divine motherhood; Her glories have been hymned in the measured
tones of the most magnificent music; Her wisdom has inspired the great doctors
and teachers of the Church, for She is the Heart of Wisdom, the Mother of
fair love, of patience and perseverance and of holy hope - She who kept all
the sayings of Jesus in Her heart.
If we try to
understand it, we shall see how very far grander is that reality than the
barren conception that all high thought, all worship, all praise not directed
through a particular Name must inevitably go astray. Why should God limit
Himself by our mistakes as to names? He looks at the heart; not at the words.
The words are conditioned by outer circumstances - by the birthplace of the
speaker, for example. We are Christians because we happen to be born in England,
or America, or some other Christian land - not because we [Page
25] have examined and compared all religions, and deliberately
chosen Christianity. We are Christians because it was the faith amidst which
we found ourselves, and so we accepted it.
Did it ever occur
to you that if we had been born as natives of India we should have been Hindus
or Muhammadans just as naturally, and should have poured out our devotion
to God under the name of Shiva, Krishna; Allah, instead of the name of Christ?
If we had been born in Ceylon or Burma we should have been ardent Buddhists.
What do these local considerations matter to God? It is under His law of
perfect justice, under His scheme of evolution, that one of His creatures
is born in England and another in India or Ceylon, according to his needs
and his deserts. When devotion is poured out by any man, God receives it
through the channel which He has appointed for that man, and so every one
alike is satisfied, and justice is done. It would be a gross and glaring
injustice if any honest devotion should be thrown aside or rejected. Never
has the least mite of it been rejected. God's ways are other than ours, and
His [Page 26] grasp of these
things is wider and greater than ours. As Faber wrote:
For we make
His love too narrow
By false limits of our
own,
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not
own.
The stories that
we hear about the World-Mother may well have a basis of fact. We hear of
Her appearing in various places to various people - to Joan of Arc, for example.
It is exceedingly probable that She did - that this great Angel did so show
Herself or Himself (for there is nothing that we can call sex at such a height
as that). There is no antecedent improbability in this, and it is most unlikely
that all the people who testify to these apparitions were deluded or hypnotized,
or under some strange error. All students know that earnest thought upon
any subject produces strong thought-forms, which are very near the edge of
visibility; many thousands of such thought-forms have been made of the Lady
of Light, and we may be sure that She has never failed to respond, and most
thoroughly and effectually to fill them. It is certain that, out of all these,
some would under [Page 27] favourable
circumstances become physically visible; and even when they remain astral,
sensitive people are often able to see them. The terrible and unexampled
strain and stress of the war made many people sensitive to psychic impressions
who were never so before.Thus
it happens that we hear many stories of apparitions just now, and visions
or manifestations of the World-Mother take a prominent place among them.
It is said, too,
that wonderful cures have been produced at Lourdes and other places by faith
in Her. Probably they have. There is nothing in the least unscientific, there
is nothing outside reason and common sense in supposing that. We know perfectly
well that a strong down-pouring of mesmeric force will produce certain cures;
we have no knowledge as to the limit of such power, but it is well to remember
that all these things have truth behind them.
Such then is
She, the Lady of Light, who has sent forth through our President that wonderful
Call to the women of the world. In ‘The Brotherhood of Angels and of
Men’, Geoffrey Hodson writes of Her: [Page
28]
She labours ever for the cause of human motherhood, and even now
is bending all Her mighty strength and calling all Her Angel court to labour
for the upliftment of motherhood throughout the world. Through Her Angel messengers
She Herself is present at every human birth - unseen and unknown, it is true,
but if men would open their eyes She would be revealed. She sends this message
through the Brotherhood to men:
"In the Name of Him whom long ago I bore, I come to your
aid. I have taken every woman to my heart, to hold there a part of her, that
through it I may help her in her time of need. Uplift the women of your race
till all are seen as Queens, and to such Queens let every man be as a King,
that each may honour each, seeing the other's royalty. Let every home, however
small, become a court, every son a knight, every child a page. Let all treat
all with chivalry, honouring in each their royal parentage, their kingly
birth; for there is royal blood in every man; all are the children of the
King."
It remains now
for us to consider how we can avail ourselves of this privilege of serving
Her which She offers to us; and also to treat of the symbolic aspects of
the World- Mother.
THE
WORK OF TODAY
We have to turn
now to modern history and to consider the work of the World-Mother today,
and the opportunity which She has recently offered to us of taking a certain
part [Page 29] in it. It is
now some three years since She first spoke to some of us of this matter;
in fact, I believe that it was to me that the honour fell of introducing
the subject to the notice of a select group of our brethren, in consequence
of an audience which the World-Mother was so gracious as to accord to me.
In Her capacity
as guardian of womankind She naturally works in especially close collaboration
with the agents of the Lipika, the Lords of Karma, whose business it is to
find suitable births for the vast host of egos waiting to come into incarnation.
This is often a matter of considerable difficulty, requiring the most delicate
adjustment in reconciling conflicting claims, for of course the karma operates
in both directions. If it be the karma of the incoming ego to have such-and-such
parents, who will give him (or withhold from him) the opportunities which
he has earned, so is it also the karma of those parents to have such-and-such
a child, who may obviously affect their lives very seriously, and bring to
them much joy or much sorrow.
At this particular
point of history the Manu of our Fifth Root-Race is working towards [Page
30] the development of a new sub-race, the sixth, which is to
possess a number of new characteristics, considerably in advance of those
commonly exhibited by the average man of the present day. How is He working
to bring His new sub-race into existence?
Remember, there
is no miracle about the thing. The new sub-race is not created by a single
stroke; it must grow up by slow degrees from that which already exists. I
suppose that, if the Lord Vaivasvata chose so to do, He might seize upon
a number of people and say: "You shall be the new sub-race"; and
He might arrange some changes in their bodies and brains which would make
it possible. But Nature does not work in that way; and when we say: "Nature
does not work in that way", we mean: "That is not how the Will
of the Logos acts." All change is gradual, and we can see why that
must be so.
We are living
entities, all of us, and therefore we can be changed fundamentally only very
slowly. You can take what you call the inanimate matter - of course it is
not really inanimate - you can take metal and you can melt it and you can
mould it into any shape [Page 31] comparatively
quickly. But if you are a gardener, and you want to train a plant or a tree
into a certain shape, you cannot seize it and change its shape all at once,
as you did with the metal. If you did, you would probably destroy the tree.
You have gradually to persuade it to grow in this direction or in that. It
is the same with all living organisms. I
know that all organisms are living, but some are more alive than others.
It is certainly
the same with ourselves. We have within us the possibility of unfolding all
the characteristics which are needed for this new sub-race. I have no doubt
we have, everyone of us - at least I hope we have. So it is also with your
children. They have within them the necessary capacity, but they do need
development, and the development must be gradual, if you are to preserve
the unity and the sanity of the living being. And so the method of the Manu
and of His lieutenants (for there are thousands upon thousands of Devas and
men working under Him) is that of gradual development.
Sometimes you
hear us speak of promising children or young people. What do we mean [Page
32] by that? At least at this particular time, what we mean is
that there are children who are already showing some of the characteristics
of that new sub-race. Not all of them; it would be an exceedingly rare thing
to find a child showing all the characteristics of the new sub-race. If there
were such an one, he would grow up into Adeptship perhaps, or at least Arhatship;
but such manifestations are as yet very rare. You might find a child born
among you who showed twenty-five per cent of the characteristics of the new
sub-race.Even then you are
very fortunate, for even that is very unusual, and it is worth while giving
- nay, it is a solemn duty to give - every opportunity for growth in the
right direction.
So it comes that
Our Lady the World-Mother is just now much preoccupied with this matter of
providing suitable incarnations for well-developed egos, and it is by no
means an easy task. Many thousands of advanced egos are ready for incarnation
and anxious to take it, in order that they may help in the work of the World-Teacher;
but the difficulty of finding suitable bodies is very great. For example, [Page
33] we have the case of those who died in the great war, who laid
down their lives on the field of battle in defence of truth and righteousness.
The war was indeed
a terrible thing; on the part of its aggressors it was perhaps the greatest
crime in human history; but since it had to be, Those who direct evolution
utilized it as a means for sorting out Their material, for winnowing the
wheat from the chaff. All the noblest men of its generation took part in
it in one way or other; it was a tremendous test which was applied to them.
They rose to the emergency, they passed the test, they seized the opportunity.
Therefore they earned wonderfully good karma, therefore they won for themselves
an amount of progress which under more ordinary conditions they could not
have obtained in a dozen incarnations. They gained for themselves the boon
of birth in the sixth sub-race.
They were of
all types and at all levels - some refined and artistic, some rough and rude;
but they all had this one great quality in common, that they were ready to
make the supreme sacrifice, ready to risk their lives for [Page
34] an ideal. The change into the new sub-race will not suddenly
polish them all; it cannot alter their main characteristics. They are heroes,
but they have not necessarily become saints, nor highly refined and cultured
men. But the sixth sub-race will not be composed entirely of Adepts, as some
people seem to suppose! We cannot all be priests, physicians, artists: we
shall need carpenters, blacksmiths, agriculturists then, as we do now. That
new race will contain men of all classes, just as does our present sub-race
out of which it evolves. We shall be at various levels of advancement, then
as now; but I hope and believe that we shall all have certain great qualities
in common which only a few have had in the fifth sub-race. We shall be far
more liberal, less prejudiced, freer in thought and action, more brotherly
and compassionate. The Rev. T. W. Chignell well expressed this:
See what triumphs
are before us
As the years and ages move!
Error banished by true knowledge,
Coldness by the breath of
love.
Till of men a nobler pattern
Sun and earth at length behold –
Broader-minded, broader-hearted,
Tender, manly, reverent, bold. [Page 35]
So there will
eventually be a place for all. But here and now decent bodies are needed
for this vast host, and as far as possible among new and progressive peoples;
where are they to be found in sufficient numbers? The private soldiers are
gradually, though slowly being accommodated; the officers present a serious
problem. In consequence of foolish and wasteful ostentation, an evil tradition
is growing up in the Western world that men and women cannot afford to marry,
and that large families are too expensive to be practically possible. Not
understanding the wonderful opportunity which their sex gives them, women
desire to be free from the restraints of marriage in order that they may
ape the lives and actions of men, instead of taking advantage of their peculiar
privileges. Such a line of thought and action is obviously disastrous to
the future of the race, for it means that many of the better class parents
take no part in its perpetuation, but leave it entirely in the hands of the
more undesirable and undeveloped egos.
From the occult
standpoint the greatest glory of a woman is not to become a leader in [Page
36] society, nor is it to take a high university degree and live
in a flat in scornful isolation, but to provide vehicles for the egos that
are to come into incarnation, and to preside over a home in which her children
can be properly and happily trained to live their life and to do their appointed
work in the world. And that function of hers is regarded not as something
to hide and to put away, something of which one should be half-ashamed; it
is the greatest glory of the feminine incarnation, the great opportunity
which women have and men have not. Men have other opportunities, but that
really wonderful privilege of motherhood is not theirs. It is the women who
do this great work for the helping of the world, for the continuance of the
race; and they do it at a cost of suffering of which we who are men can have
no idea.
It is just because
this is so - because of the great work done and the terrible suffering which
it entails - that there is this special department of the government of the
world; and the duty of its
officials is to look after every woman in the time of her suffering and give
her such help and strength as her [Page
37] karma allows. The World-Mother has at Her command vast hosts
of Angelic beings, and at the birth of every child one of these is always
present as Her representative; so that we may quite truly say that in and
through that representative, the World-Mother Herself is present at the bedside
of every suffering mother. Her ministrations are extended to all alike; She
makes no distinction between rich and poor, between saint and sinner, between
the married and the unmarried; She is the very embodiment of the divine pity
and compassion, and it is sufficient for Her that a child-body is coming
into the world, that a mother needs the service which it is Her joy to provide.
What the World-Mother
wishes is to achieve the spiritualization of the whole idea of motherhood
and of marriage, and those of us who wish to serve Her must endeavour to
use in that direction whatever influence we may have. Some of us perhaps
can deliver lectures; others can write articles. She is by no means satisfied
with the general position of public opinion in Europe on this subject. She
says that motherhood is not really understood at [Page
38] all by most people in Western countries; it is not regarded,
as it should be, as a high and wondrous privilege, but is rather considered
as almost degrading. She fully sympathizes with those women who quite truly
and properly rebel against the idea of being slaves to the lusts of men,
but says that nevertheless the general view on the subject is not at all
what it should be.
She asserts that
people marry for all sorts of wrong and material reasons - sometimes merely
through lust and desire, sometimes for reasons of expediency, such as to
unite two estates which happen to adjoin, sometimes to obtain position and
title, and sometimes merely for money. She maintains that the only real reason
for marriage is when a true and spiritual love of great intensity exists
between the two parties, because it is only under that condition that they
can provide suitable vehicles for highly developed egos. Hindu ideas on these
points are usually very far better, but even there they are not put thoroughly
into practice.
Just now She
considers it of vital importance to try to convert the Western world to the
more spiritual point of view, because it is [Page
39] chiefly from parents of the fifth sub-race that the children
of the sixth must be born. In many ways it seems that a new age is opening
before us - that there are signs of the dawn of a new day. That age, that
day should be the woman's age and the woman's day; for, as one of our Masters
long ago pointed out, it is not until the woman takes her rightful place
in the world that she can bear bodies fit for the Buddha or the Christ. In
a note at the end of ‘The Paradoxes of the Highest Science’,
by Eliphas Levi, we find the following:
The authors of The Perfect Way are
right; woman must not be considered as only an appanage of man, since she was
not made for his mere benefit or pleasure any more than he for hers: but the
two must be realized as equal powers though unlike individualities.
Until the age
of seven the skeletons of girls do not differ in any way from those of
boys, and the osteologist would be puzzled to discriminate them. Woman's
mission is to become the mother of future occultists - of those who will
be born without sin.
On the elevation
of woman the world's redemption and salvation hinge. And not till woman
bursts the bonds of her sexual slavery, to which she has ever been subjected,
will the world obtain an inkling of what she really is arid of her proper
place in the economy of nature. Old India, the India of the Rishis, made
the first sounding with her plummet-line in this ocean of Truth, but the [Page
40] post-Mahabaratean India, with all her profundity of learning,
has neglected and forgotten it.
The light that
will come to it and to the world at large, when the latter shall discover
and really appreciate the truths that underlie this vast problem of sex,
will be like “the light that never shone on sea or land," and has to
come to man through the Theosophical Society. That light will lead on and
up to the true spiritual intuition. Then the world will have a race of Buddhas
and Christs, for the world will have discovered that individuals have it
in their own power to procreate Buddha-like children or - demons. When that
knowledge comes, all dogmatic religions, and with these the demons, will
die out. - E. O. [ E. 0. signifies ‘Eminent Occultist’. It was a pseudonym
given by Mr. Sinnett to the Master Kuthumi.]
In connection
with these ideas Our Lady the World-Mother naturally attaches the greatest
importance to the upbringing of children. The requirements of the present
time force Her to seek for prospective parents principally among the cultured
classes; but ladies in high society so often shirk their responsibilities,
and leave their children almost entirely to nurses-nurses who are probably
quite kind and good to them, but are usually lower in the social scale than
the parents, and consequently surround the children with thoughts and feelings
of a less refined character [Page 41] than
the father and mother would give them. I have heard a lady say: "I am
engaged all day in philanthropic work; I have no time to think about my children,
but I employ a most excellent nurse." She apparently did not grasp the
obvious fact that if the Logos had intended to confide the care of those
children to that most excellent nurse, they would have been born as the nurse's
offspring, and not as hers!
In India the
conditions are different, for every one marries as a matter of course; but
even in the higher castes there is often a lamentable lack of supervision,
and the surroundings provided are very unfavourable for the production of
sound and healthy bodies. This is a very serious matter, earnestly to be
commended to all students of occultism, who should assuredly do everything
in their power to bring about a more satisfactory state of affairs.
It is the earnest
desire of the World-Mother that every woman in her time of trial should have
the best possible surroundings - that she should be enfolded in deep and
true affection, that she should be filled with the holiest and noblest thoughts
so that none but the highest [Page 42] influences
may be brought to bear upon the child who is to be born, so that he may have
the best possible chance of a favourable start in life. Nothing but the purest
and best physical magnetism should await him, and it is imperatively necessary
that the most scrupulous physical cleanliness should be observed in all particulars.
Only by the strictest attention to the rules of hygiene can such favourable
conditions be obtained as will permit of the birth of a noble and healthy
body fit for the habitation of an advanced ego.
It would indeed
be well that women in all countries should band themselves together in an
endeavour to spread abroad among their sisters accurate information on this
most important subject. Every woman should fully realize the magnificent
opportunities which the feminine incarnation gives her; every woman should
be taught the absolute necessity for proper conditions before, during and
after her pregnancy. Not only the most perfect cleanliness and the most careful
attention should surround the baby body, but also it should be encompassed
by perfect astral and [Page 43] mental
conditions, by love and trust, by happiness and holiness. In this way the
work of the World-Mother would be immensely facilitated and the future of
the race would be assured.
Of course I do
not say that it is the absolute duty of every woman to marry, any more than
it is for every man. There are souls who need to learn the lesson of the
celibate life, who in a given incarnation can do better work under its conditions.
This is a matter in the decision of which every individual must be left entirely
free; for an unsuitable or loveless marriage is obviously far worse than
no marriage at all. But it should be fully recognized that the wedded life
is a noble state, a high and honourable vocation, and that it offers magnificent
opportunities for the most valuable altruistic work.
It is to help
in promoting such recognition that we are just now drawing special attention
to the existence of this great and splendid Being who holds the office of
the Universal Mother, and to the fact that She needs many recruits for Her
world-wide band of helpers, many channels through which Her wonderful [Page
44] love and compassion can be outpoured upon the world which
owes so much to Her care.
For the love
her heart o'erflowing,
‘Mid the Angels, splendid,
glowing,
Now she reigneth, evermore
Giving from her endless
store.
Of the afflicted chief Consoler,
Of a thousand hearts Controller,
Queen of heaven, the ocean's
Star
She hath shed her rays afar.
Another point
in which the World-Mother naturally takes the very keenest interest is that
of the education of children. Just as She maintains that the whole attitude
of Western civilization to the question of wifehood and motherhood is mistaken,
so does She also warn us that we have entirely missed the mark in our clumsy
attempts to educate the future generation. The Latin word educere means
to lead out, and the primary object of all education should be to develop
the latent capacities of the child - to discover what he can do well, and
then to help him to learn how to do it. But we are only now beginning to
understand this, and for centuries the method of those to whom we have entrusted
the training of the young has been to repress [Page
45] all individuality and to force them all into the same mould,
to fill their brains with vast masses of undigested and largely useless facts,
instead of explaining to them the real intention of life, and showing them
how best to fulfil it.
We are placed
in this world that we may learn to live our lives therein with credit to
ourselves and with benefit to our fellow-men, yet hardly any effort is made
by our schoolmasters to instruct our children as to how this is to be done.
The way in which each man spends this incarnation will affect his future
progress through the ages, will help or hinder his growth as a soul; yet
on this most important of all subjects, how little help is given to him by
those who undertake to prepare him for it!
Putting aside
for the moment the admirable methods adopted by the Kindergarten and the
Montessori systems for the development of very young children it is hardly
an exaggeration to say that the only training at present available for those
a little older which is moving at all in the right direction is that given
by the Boy-Scout and the Girl-Guide movements, or by the Round Table. The [Page
46] motto of the latter body: "Live pure, speak true, right
wrong, and follow the King," covers all that is most important in life.
And the Scout's promise to do his duty to God and the King, and to help other
people at all times, is only another presentation of the same idea, elaborated
a little further in the Scout Law which instructs him to be honourable, loyal,
useful, courteous, thrifty, clean in thought, word and deed, and a friend
to all - to animals as well as to men.
This is the true
education - the education which makes life worth while; if a boy has this
training, it matters little whether he passes examinations or takes University
degrees. The examination is one of the greatest curses of modern life; in
many cases and in many countries a boy is debarred even from applying for
a situation in Government service, or for any position worth having - not,
mark you, unless he can show some aptitude for the work which he will have
to do in that situation, but - unless he has passed a wickedly severe examination
in a number of subjects which have no connection whatever with practical
life. To prepare for that examination often [Page
47] means years of unnatural and unhealthy life of mental overstrain,
of lack of proper exercise and sleep, of confinement indoors, of weary work
by insufficient artificial light, of all that is most undesirable for a growing
physical body.
One of our Masters,
in giving us minute directions for the training of a young person whom He
had committed to our care, said: "Five hours a day, carefully distributed
and with frequent intervals for relaxation, is the utmost that should ever
be devoted to mental work by a growing boy or girl; what cannot be learnt
in that time should be left unlearnt." The World-Mother , speaking recently
on this subject of education, said: "I do not object to book-learning;
a certain amount of it is good, and even necessary for successful work;
but I do object
to the imposition of incessant strain and slavery upon a young life which
ought to be full of happiness. The harm done by that far outweighs any possible
hypothetical benefit which might be derived from the cramming of the brain
with alleged facts."
Every year these
examinations are becoming more and more difficult, more and more [Page
48] soul-destroying. It will soon be necessary for sensible, far-seeing
parents to make a determined strike against this disastrous system, and to
say: "You may keep your college degrees; we do not want them; the price
exacted is too high, and the result too meagre." This can be done, however,
only when Governments relax their unnecessary restrictions, or when a large
band of practical common-sense employers join together and agree to accept
applicants who show capability, eagerness and aptitude for their work, without
reference to the labels with which they happen to be ticketed.
Also the World-Mother
strongly urges that the spiritual view of parentage, love, marriage, motherhood
and the relation of the sexes generally should be tactfully and delicately
but quite clearly impressed upon children, so that they may learn such facts
of life as are necessary for them in the right way instead of in the wrong,
from the highest point of view and not from the lowest.
If, then, we
wish to join the glorious band of those who work for the World-Mother, there
are several lines of activity open to us. [Page
49] By lecturing, by writing, or by using private influence among
friends, we may try our best to promote and to expound the great idea of
the spiritualization of love and marriage, to put before all, young and old,
the highest ideals in these matters, urging them to accept nothing less.
Or we may try to assist in the instruction of women in the hygiene of childbirth,
and in the necessity of both spiritual and physical preparation for it; or
again, in the provision of suitable conditions for poor women both before
and after the time of parturition. Yet again, we may devote ourselves to
anyone of the branches of work connected with the furthering of the right
sort of education for children of various ages. We should bear in mind the
great function of the World-Mother as Consolatrix Afflictorum, the Consoler
of the Afflicted; so that any help whatever that we can give to a neighbour
in distress may be given in Her name, thereby drawing down upon the sufferer
Her benign influence and blessing.
Now at last let
us turn to a brief consideration of the symbolism which through all the ages
has been associated with the knowledge [Page
50] and with the cult of the World-Mother; for the attempt to
mingle this symbolism with the facts already described has been responsible
for much of the confusion which has surrounded the central idea and often
seem to make it incredible.
THE
VIRGIN MATTER
God in the Absolute
is eternally One; but God in manifestation is twain - life and substance,
spirit and matter - or, as science would say, force and matter. When Christ,
alone-born of the Father, springs from His bosom, and looks back upon that
which remains, He sees as it were a veil thrown over it - a veil to which
the philosophers of ancient India gave the name of Mulaprakriti, the
root of matter; not matter as we know it, but the potential essence of matter;
not space, but the within of space; that from which all proceeds,
the containing element of Deity, of which space is a manifestation.
But that veil
of matter also is God; it is just as much part of God as is the Spirit which
acts upon it. The Spirit of God moved [Page
51] upon the face of the waters of space; but the waters of space
are divine in their making just as much as the Spirit that moves upon them,
because there is nothing but God anywhere. That is the original substance
underlying that whereof all things are made. That in ancient philosophy is
the Great Deep, and then, because it surrounds and contains all things, so
is it the heavenly wisdom which encircles and embraces all. For that in speech
the philosophers used always the feminine pronoun; they speak of that Great
Deep - of the eternal wisdom - as "She". She is thus the soul,
macrocosmic and microcosmic, for what is true above is also true below.
These ideas are
somewhat complex and foreign to our modern thought, but if we want to understand
an Oriental religion we must give ourselves the trouble to grasp this Oriental
way of looking at things. And so we realize how it is that She, this other
aspect of the Deity, is spoken of as Mother, Daughter and Spouse of God.
Daughter, because She also comes forth from the same Eternal Father; Spouse,
because through the action of the Holy Ghost upon the virgin matter the [Page
52] birth of the Christ into the world takes place; Mother,
because through matter alone is that evolution possible which brings the
Christ-spirit to birth in man.
Above and beyond
the Solar Trinity, of which we usually think, there is the First Trinity
of all, formed when out of what seems to us nothing there came the First
Manifestation. For in that First and highest of all Trinities God the Father
is the Absolute - what we may with all reverence call the Static Mode of
the Deity. From that leaps forth the Christ, the Second Aspect truly of the
Godhead and yet the First Manifestation, for God the Father is "seen
of none".
Then through
the interaction of the Deity in His next Aspect - that of the Holy Ghost,
who represents the Dynamic Mode of the Deity (Will in action) - from that
essence, that root of all matter, come all the worlds and all the further
manifestations at lower levels, of whatever kind they may be, including even
the Holy Trinity of our own solar system.
The Mother-Aspect
of Deity thus manifests as the aether of space - not the ether which conveys
vibrations of light to our eyes, for [Page
53] that is a physical thing; but the aether of space which in ‘Occult
Chemistry’ [ now out of print] we
call koilon, without which no evolution could be, and yet it is virgin
and unaffected after all the evolution has passed.
Into that koilon
or finer aether, the Christ, the energizing Logos or Word of God, breathes
the breath of life, and in breathing it He makes those bubbles of which all
that we call matter is built; (because matter is not the koilon, but the absence of
koilon); and so when He draws in that mighty Breath the bubbles cease to
be. The aether is absolutely unchanged; it is as it was before – virgin -
after the birth of matter from it; it is quite unstirred by all that has
happened; and because of this, Our Lady of Light is hailed as Virgin, though
Mother of All.
She is thus the
essence of the great sea of matter, and so She is symbolized as Aphrodite,
the Sea-Queen, and as Mary, the Star of the Sea, and in pictures She is always
dressed in the blue of the sea and of the sky. Because it is only by means
of our passage through [Page 54] matter
that we evolve, She is also to us Isis the Initiator, the Virgin-Mother of
whom the Christ in us is born, the causal body, the vehicle of the soul in
man, the Mother of God in whom the divine Spirit unfolds itself within us;
for the symbol of the womb is the same as the Cup of the Holy Grail. She
is represented as Eve, descending into matter and generation; as Mary Magdalene
while in unnatural union with matter, and then when She rises clear of matter,
once more as Mary the Queen of heaven, assumed into life eternal.
While we are
in the lower stage of our evolution, and subject to the dominion of matter,
She is to us truly the Mater Dolorosa - the sorrowful Mother, or the Mother
of Sorrows, because all our sorrows and troubles come to us through our contact
with matter; but as soon as we conquer matter, so soon as for us the triangle
can never again be obscured by the square, then She is for us Our Lady of
Victory, the glory of the Church triumphant, the Woman clothed with the sun,
and having the moon under Her feet, and around Her head a crown of twelve
stars. [Page 55]
If we look at
it along this line of symbolism, the doctrine of the final drawing up of
the root of matter into the Absolute, so that God may be all in all, is what
is typified by the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The great festivals
of the Christian Church are all meant to show its members stage by stage
what it is that happens in the work of the Great Architect of the Universe,
in the evolution of the cosmos as well as in the development of man. In studying
these mysteries we must never forget the rule of the philosophers of old: "As
above, so below." So that whatever we see taking place in that mighty
world-evolution we shall also find repeated at this far lower level in the
growth of man; and conversely, if we are able to study the methods of the
unfoldment of the God in man down here, we shall find that study of invaluable
assistance in helping us towards a comprehension of that infinitely more
glorious development which is God's will for the universe as a whole. And,
learning thus, we must not fail to put the lesson into practice. As a poet
has written: [Page 56]
I must become
Queen Mary,
And birth to God must
give,
If I in heavenly blessedness
For evermore would live.
Note also, for
the better understanding of the symbolism, that Christ the Spirit, being
deific in nature, ascends by His own power and volition, even as of His own
will He sprang forth in the beginning from the bosom of the Father; but Mary
the soul is assumed, drawn up by the will of Him who is at the same time
Her Father and Her Son; for the first Adam (said St. Paul) was made a living
soul, but the last Adam, the Christ, is Himself a quickening or life-giving
Spirit. So in following Adam, who typifies the mind, all die; but in Christ
all are made alive.
THE
FEMININE ASPECT OF THE DEITY
We must realize
also that our highest conception of Deity combines all that is best of the
characteristics of the two sexes. God, containing everything within Himself,
cannot be spoken of as exclusively male or female. He cannot but have many
aspects, and in the Christian religion there has been a great [Page
57] tendency to forget that cardinal fact of manifold manifestation.
In the perfection of the Godhead all that is most beautiful, all that is
most glorious in human character is shown forth. In that character we have
two sets of qualities, some of which we attach in our thought chiefly to
the male or the more positive side of man, and others which we attach more
generally in our thought to the feminine side. For example, strength, wisdom,
scientific direction, and that destroying power which is symbolized in the
Hindu religion by Shiva - all that we usually regarded as masculine. But
love, beauty, gentleness, harmony, tenderness, we consider as more especially
feminine.
Yet all these
characteristics are equally envisaged for us in the Deity, and it is natural
that men should have separated those two aspects of Him, and should have
thought of Him as Father-Mother. In all the great religions of the world
until quite recently those two aspects have been brought out; so that their
followers recognized not only gods but also goddesses. In India we have Parvati,
Lakshmi, Uma, Sarasvati; in Greece we had [Page
58] Hera, Aphrodite, Demeter, Pallas Athene; in Egypt, Isis and
Nephthys; in China Kwan-yin; in Rome, Juno, Venus, Minerva, Ceres, Diana,
Bellona. In yet other religions we find Astarte or Ashtaroth, the Queen of
heaven. Images of Isis with the Infant Horus in her arms are exactly like
those of the Blessed Virgin carrying the Infant Jesus; indeed, it is said
that the old Egyptian statues are still in use in several Christian churches
today.
Ignorant Christians
accuse those old religions of polytheism - of the worship of many gods. That
is simply a misunderstanding of what is meant. All instructed people have
always known that there is but One God; but they have also known that that
One God manifests Himself in divers manners, and in every respect as much
and as fully through the feminine as through the masculine body - through
what is called the negative side of life as well as through the positive.
We who have been
brought up in the Christian ideas sometimes find it a little difficult to
realize that we have narrowed down the teaching of the Christ so much that
in many [Page 59] cases what
we now hold is only a travesty of what He originally taught. We have been
brought up, as far as religion goes, non-philosophically. We have never learnt
to appreciate the value of comparative religion and comparative mythology.
Those who have been studying it for many years find that it throws a flood
of light on many points which are otherwise incomprehensible. We see that
if all be God, and if there be nothing but God, then matter is God as well
as spirit, and there is a feminine and a passive side or aspect to the Deity
as well as a masculine side, and yet that God is One, and there is no duplication
of any sort in Him.
All that is,
is God; but we may see Him through many differently coloured glasses and
from many different points of view. We may see Him as the mighty Spirit informing
all things; but those things which are informed - those forms - they are
no less God, for there is nothing but God. And so we see what we may call
the feminine side of the Godhead; and
just as the masculine side of the Deity has many manifestations, so has the
feminine side many manifestations. So in those earlier days [Page
60] there were many gods and goddesses, each representing an aspect,
and the gods had their priests, and the Goddesses their priestesses, who
took just as important a part in religion as did the priests. But in the
last great religions, Christianity and Muhammadanism (both coming forth from
Judaism, which ignored the feminine side), the World-Teacher has not chosen
to make that division prominent; therefore in Christianity and in Muhammadanism
we have the priest only; and the forces which are poured down through the
services of the Church, although they include all the qualities, are yet
so arranged, so directed, as to run through the male form only - at present
at least.
In ancient Egypt
we divided those forces, because that was the will of the World-Teacher when
He founded the Egyptian religion, so some of them ran through the manifestation
of Osiris, and some through the manifestation of Isis. Therefore some of
them were administered by the priests of Amen-Ra, the Sun-God, and others
by the priestesses of Isis. And Isis was in every way as deeply honoured,
and considered as high in every [Page 61] respect
as any of the male aspects. She was the great beneficent Goddess and Mother,
whose influence and love pervaded all heaven and earth.
It is time that
those who are Christians learnt to understand the symbolism of their Church
- learnt to see how many-sided it is, so that each idea which is put before
us calls up a host of useful and elevating thoughts, and not one only. Reference
has already been made to that other line of symbols in which the different
stages in the earth-life of the Christ typify the four great Initiations,
and His Ascension represents the fifth. Into that line also the story of
Our Lady Mary enters, for in it Her Nativity represents the first appearance
of matter in connection with the ego at his individualization, while the
Annunciation stands for what is commonly called conversion, that which turns
the man in the right direction, and makes the birth of the Christ within
him a necessary result, when the long gestation period shall be over. In
the same scheme the Assumption means the full and final drawing up of the
ego or soul into the Monad. [Page 62]
If we take the
other form of the symbology, that which refers to the descent of the Christ
into matter at His Birth, Her Nativity is the formation of Mulaprakriti by
the leaping forth of the Second Person, as before mentioned, while the Annunciation
is the First descent of the Holy Ghost into matter. The Holy Spirit descends
and overshadows the maria, the seas of virgin matter; the Spirit of
God moved over the face of the deep, and so the Annunciation is that First
Descent which in other phraseology we call the First Outpouring, which brings
the chemical elements into existence. But only after a long period of gestation
is the matter prepared for the Second Outpouring which comes from the Second
Person of the Trinity, and Christ is born in matter (as on Christmas Day).
Later still comes the Third Outpouring, when each man individually receives
into himself the divine spark, the Monad, and so the soul or ego in man is
born. But that is at a much later stage.
In older faiths,
as we have said, there were several presentations of the Feminine Aspect.
For the Romans, Venus typified it as love, [Page
63] Minerva as wisdom, Ceres as the earth-mother, Bellona as the
defender. Our Lady the World-Mother does not exactly correspond to any of
these, or rather perhaps, She includes several of them raised to a higher
plane of thought. The nearest approximation in antiquity to our conception
of Her is probably the figure of Kwan-yin, the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge,
in Northern Buddhism, as promulgated in China and Tibet. Our Lady is essentially
Mary the Mother, the type of love, devotion and pity; the heavenly Wisdom
indeed, but most of all Consolatrix Afflictorum, the consoler, comforter,
helper of all who are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity.
For not only is She a channel through which love and devotion pass to Christ,
Her Son and King, but She is in turn a channel for the outpouring of His
love in response.
So that, both
from the point of view of symbolism and from that of fact, the Christian
has good reason to keep the festivals of Our Blessed Lady, and to rejoice
in and be thankful for the wisdom and the love that have provided for us
this line of approach – [Page 64] thankful
to Christ who gives this, and to Our Lady through whom it is given. So we
all may join in the world-wide chorus of praise; and repeat the words of
the Angel Gabriel: "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
blessed art Thou among women."
Ave Maria!
Thou whose name,
All but adoring love may
claim,
Yet may we reach Thy shrine;
For He, Thy Son, our Leader,
vows
To crown all lowly, lofty
brows
With love and joy like
Thine.
BOOKS BY
C. W. LEADBEATER INCLUDE:
The Astral Plane
Australia and New Zealand
The Chakra
Clairvoyance
The Devachanic Plane
Dreams
The Hidden Life in Freemasonry
The Hidden Side of Things
Invisible Helpers
Life after Death
Man Visible and Invisible
The Masters and the Path
The Monad
The Other Side of Death
An Outline of Theosophy
The Perfume of Egypt
The Science of the Sacraments
Some Glimpses of Occultism
A Textbook of Theosophy
To Those Who Mourn
JOINTLY
WITH ANNIE BESANT:
Creating Character
Man: Whence, How and Whither
The Noble Eightfold Path
Talks on the Path of Occultism
Thought-Forms.
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