Cyclic Evolution and Karma: From Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Secret Doctrine,” Part 2 of 2

“[…] According to the teachings, Maya – the illusive appearance of the marshalling of events and actions on this Earth – changes, varying with nations and places. But the chief features of one’s life are always in accordance with the ‘Constellation’ under which one is born, or, we should say, with the characteristics of its animating principle or the Deity that presides over it, whether we call it a Dhyân Chohan, as in Asia, or an Archangel, as with the Greek and Latin Churches. In ancient Symbolism it was always the Sun – though the Spiritual, not the visible, Sun was meant – that was supposed to send forth the chief ef Saviours and Avatâras. Hence the connecting link between the Buddhas, the Avatâras, and so many other incarnations of the highest Seven.

The closer the approach to one’s Prototype, in ‘Heaven,’ the better for the mortal whose Personality was chosen, by his own personal Deity (the Seventh Principle), as its terrestrial abode. For, with every effort of will toward purification and unity with that ‘Self-God,’ one of the lower Rays breaks, and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the Ray that supersedes the first, until, from Ray to Ray, the Inner Man is drawn into the one and highest Beam of the Parent-Sun. Thus, ‘the events of humanity do run coordinately with the number forms,’ since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the same source – the Central Sun and its shadow, the visible. […]

Yes; ‘our destiny is written in the stars!’ Only, the closer the union between the mortal reflection Man and his celestial Prototype, the less dangerous the external conditions and subsequent reincarnations – which neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of all is it fatalism. The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder power, but man is a free agent during his stay on Earth. He cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that lead him in that direction, and he can reach the goal of misery – if such is decreed to him […]; for there are external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two. […]”