Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....
Hail, true son of Jove, glory added to the Gods.[257]
Orpheus seeks, in the kingdom of Pluto, Eurydice, his lost Soul; Krishna goes down into the infernal regions and rescues therefrom his six brothers, he being the seventh Principle; a transparent allegory of his becoming a “perfect Initiate,” the whole of the six Principles merging into the seventh. Jesus is made to descend into the kingdom of Satan to save the soul of Adam, or the symbol of material physical humanity.
Have any of our learned Orientalists ever thought of searching for the origin of this allegory, for the parent “Seed” of that “Tree of Life” which bears such verdant boughs since it was first planted on earth by the hand of its “Builders”? We fear not. Yet it is found, as is now shown, even in the exoteric, distorted interpretations of the Vedas—of the Rig Veda, the oldest, the most trustworthy of all the four—this root and seed of all future Initiate-Saviours being called in it the Visvakarmâ, the “Father” Principle, “beyond the comprehension of mortals;” in the second stage Sûrya, the “Son,” who offers Himself as a sacrifice to Himself; in the third, the Initiate, who sacrifices His [pg 143] physical to His spiritual Self. It is in Visvakarmâ, the “omnificent,” who becomes (mystically) Vikkartana, the “sun shorn of his beams,” who suffers for his too ardent nature, and then becomes glorified (by purification), that the keynote of the Initiation into the greatest Mystery of Nature was struck. Hence the secret of the wonderful “similarity.”
All this is allegorical and mystical, and yet perfectly comprehensible and plain to any student of Eastern Occultism, even superficially acquainted with the Mysteries of Initiation. In our objective Universe of Matter and false appearances the Sun is the most fitting emblem of the life-giving, beneficent Deity. In the subjective, boundless World of Spirit and Reality the bright luminary has another and a mystical significance, which cannot be fully given to the public. The so-called “idolatrous” Pârsîs and Hindus are certainly nearer the truth in their religious reverence for the Sun, than the cold, ever-analysing, and as ever-mistaken, public is prepared to believe, at present. The Theosophists, who will be alone able to take in the meaning, may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of the Seventh Principle of our Planetary System, while the Moon is its Fourth Principle, shining in the borrowed robes of her master, saturated with and reflecting every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly material body, Earth. The whole cycle of Adeptship and Initiation and all its mysteries are connected with, and subservient to, these two and the Seven Planets. Spiritual clairvoyance is derived from the Sun; all psychic states, diseases, and even lunacy, proceed from the Moon.
According even to the data of History—her conclusions being remarkably erroneous while her premises are mostly correct—there is an extraordinary agreement between the “legends” of every Founder of a Religion (and also between the rites and dogmas of all) and the names and course of constellations headed by the Sun. It does not follow, however, because of this, that both Founders and their Religions should be, the one myths, and the other superstitions. They are, one and all, the different versions of the same natural primeval Mystery, on which the Wisdom-Religion was based, and the development of its Adepts subsequently framed.
And now once more we have to beg the reader not to lend an ear to the charge—against Theosophy in general and the writer in particular—of disrespect toward one of the greatest and noblest characters in the History of Adeptship—Jesus of Nazareth—nor even of hatred to the Church. The expression of truth and fact can hardly be regarded, [pg 144] with any approximation to justice, as blasphemy or hatred. The whole question hangs upon the solution of that one point: Was Jesus as “Son of God” and “Saviour” of Mankind, unique in the World's annals? Was His case—among so many similar claims—the only exceptional and unprecedented one; His birth the sole supernaturally immaculate; and were all others, as maintained by the Church, but blasphemous Satanic copies and plagiarisms by anticipation? Or was He only the “son of his deeds,” a pre-eminently holy man, and a reformer, one of many, who paid with His life for the presumption of endeavouring, in the face of ignorance and despotic power, to enlighten mankind and make its burden lighter by His Ethics and Philosophy? The first necessitates a blind, all-resisting faith; the latter is suggested to every one by reason and logic. Moreover, has the Church always believed as she does now—or rather, as she pretends she does, in order to be thus justified in directing her anathema against those who disagree with her—or has she passed through the same throes of doubt, nay, of secret denial and unbelief, suppressed only by the force of ambition and love of power?
The question must be answered in the affirmative as to the second alternative. It is an irrefutable conclusion, and a natural inference based on facts known from historical records. Leaving for the present untouched the lives of many Popes and Saints that loudly belied their claims to infallibility and holiness, let the reader turn to Ecclesiastical History, the records of the growth and progress of the Christian Church (not of Christianity), and he will find the answer on those pages. Says a writer:
The Church has known too well the suggestions of freethought created by enquiry, as also all those doubts that provoke her anger to-day; and the “sacred truths” she would promulgate have been in turn admitted and repudiated, transformed and altered, amplified and curtailed, by the dignitaries of the Church hierarchy, even as regards the most fundamental dogmas.
Where is that God or Hero whose origin, biography, and genealogy were more hazy, or more difficult to define and finally agree upon than those of Jesus? How was the now irrevocable dogma with regard to His true nature settled at last? By His mother, according to the Evangelists, He was a man—a simple mortal man; by His Father He is God! But how? Is He then man or God, or is He both at the same time? asks the perplexed writer. Truly the propositions offered on this point of the doctrine have caused floods of ink and blood to be shed, in turn, on poor Humanity, and still the doubts are not at rest. In this, as in everything else, the wise Church Councils have contradicted [pg 145] themselves and changed their minds a number of times. Let us recapitulate and throw a glance at the texts offered for our inspection. This is History.