They of the flaming sword [or animal passions] had put to flight the Spirits of Darkness.
Yet it is the latter who fought for the supremacy of the conscious and divine spirituality on Earth and failed, succumbing to the power of Matter. But in theological dogma we see the reverse. It is Michael, “who is like unto God,” the representative of Jehovah, who is the Leader of the Celestial Hosts—as Lucifer, in Milton's fancy, is of the Infernal Hosts—who has the best of Satan. It is true that the nature of Michael depends upon that of his Creator and Master. Who the latter is, one may find out by carefully studying the allegory of the “War in Heaven” with the astronomical key. As shown by Bentley, the “War of the Titans against the Gods” in Hesiod, and also the War of the Asuras, or the Târakâmaya, against the Devas in Purânic legend, are identical in all save the names. The aspects of the stars show—Bentley taking the year 945 b.c. as the nearest date for such conjunction—that:
All the planets, except Saturn, were on the same side of the heavens as the Sun and Moon.
And hence were his opponents. And yet it is Saturn, or the Jewish “Moon-God,” who is shown as prevailing, both by Hesiod and Moses, neither of whom was understood. Thus it was that the real meaning became distorted.
Stanza II.—Continued.
8. The Flames came. The Fires with the Sparks; the Night-Fires and the Day-Fires (a). They dried out the turbid dark Waters. With their heat they quenched them. The Lhas[136]of the High; the Lhamayin[137] of Below, came (b). They slew the Forms, which were two- and four-faced. They fought the Goat-men, and the Dog-Headed Men, and the Men with fishes' bodies.
(a) The “Flames” are a Hierarchy of Spirits parallel to, if not identical with, the “burning” fiery Saraph (Seraphim), mentioned by [pg 067] Isaiah[138] those who, according to Hebrew Theogony, attend the “Throne of the Almighty.” Melha is the Lord of the “Flames.” When he appears on Earth, he assumes the personality of a Buddha, says a popular legend. He is one of the most ancient and revered Lhas, a Buddhist St. Michael.
(b) The word “Below” must not be taken to mean Infernal Regions, but simply a spiritual, or rather ethereal, Being of a lower grade, because nearer to the Earth, or one step higher than our Terrestrial Sphere; while the Lhas are Spirits of the highest Spheres—whence the name of the capital of Tibet, Lha-ssa.
Besides a statement of a purely physical nature and belonging to the evolution of life on Earth, there may be another allegorical meaning attached to this shloka, or indeed, as is taught, several. The “Flames,” or “Fires,” represent Spirit, or the male element, and “Water,” Matter, or the opposite element. And here again we find, in the action of the Spirit slaying the purely material form, a reference to the eternal struggle, on the physical and psychic planes, between Spirit and Matter, besides a scientific cosmic fact. For, as said in the next verse: