SECRET OF
THE ELEMENTS, TABERNACLE’S MEANING, DRAGONS OF SECRET WISDOM
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Gracious day! May the Glad Tidings of divine wisdom pour unto thy
minds and buddhis!
For this note, let us augment our understanding of the secret of the
elements. To aid us in this process, we have the symbolisms of the ‘tabernacle’
and the ‘dragons of secret wisdom’ unveiled in their hidden meanings.
The spiritually Perfected Ones declared in Sloka 5 of Stanza 5, Book of Dzyan, the following:
FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES (having already taken the first three)
(a), AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE FOR THE FOUR
HOLY ONES . . . . . . AND THEIR ARMIES (hosts) (b).
HPBlavatsky, magnanimous
chela of the mahatmas & chohans, substantiated the sloka in her
commentaries, Volume I, Secret Doctrine,
as follows:
(a) The “strides,” as already explained (see
Commentary on Stanza IV.), refer to both the Cosmic and the Human
principles— the latter of which consist, in the exoteric division, of three (Spirit,
Soul, and Body), and, in the esoteric calculation, of seven principles—three
rays of the Essence and four aspects.* Those who have studied Mr.
Sinnett’s “Esoteric Buddhism” can easily grasp the nomenclature. There are two esoteric schools—or rather one
school, divided into two parts—one for the inner Lanoos, the other for the
outer or semi-lay chelas beyond the Himalayas; the first teaching a septenary,
the other a six-fold division of human principles.
From a Cosmic point of view, Fohat taking “five
strides” refers here to the five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the
sixth and the seventh (counting downwards) being the astral and the
terrestrial, or the two lower planes.
(b) “Four winged wheels at each corner .
. . . . for the four holy ones and their armies (hosts)” . . . . . These
are the “four Maharajahs” or great Kings of the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas who
preside, each over one of the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule
over the Cosmical Forces of North, South, East and West, Forces having each a
distinct occult property. These
BEINGS are also connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material
agents to carry out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance,
professedly admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent
influences upon the health of Mankind and every living thing. There is occult philosophy in that Roman
Catholic doctrine which traces the various public calamities, such as epidemics
of disease, and wars, and so on, to the invisible “Messengers” from North and
West. “The glory of God comes
from the way of the East” says Ezekiel; while Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the
Psalmist assure their readers that all the evil under the Sun comes from the
North and the West—which proposition, when applied to the Jewish nation, sounds
like an undeniable prophecy for themselves.
And this accounts also for St. Ambrose (On Amos, ch.
iv.) declaring that it is precisely for that reason that “we curse the
North-Wind, and that during the ceremony of baptism we begin by turning towards
the West (Sidereal), to renounce the better him who inhabits it; after which we
turn to the East.”
Belief in the “Four Maharajahs”—the Regents of the
Four cardinal points—was universal and is now that of Christians,* who call
them, after St. Augustine, “Angelic Virtues,” and “Spirits” when
enumerated by themselves, and “Devils” when named by Pagans. But where is the difference between the
Pagans and the Christians in this cause?
Following Plato, Aristotle explained that the term FJ@4P,Ã" was understood only as meaning the incorporeal
principles placed at each of the four great divisions of our Cosmical world to
supervise them. Thus, no more
than the Christians did, do they adore and worship the Elements
and the cardinal (imaginary) points, but the “gods” that ruled these
respectively. For the Church
there are two kinds of Sidereal beings, the Angels and the Devils. For the Kabalist and Occultist there is
but one; and neither of them makes any difference between “the Rectors of
Light” and the Cosmocratores, or “Rectores tenebrarum harum,” whom the Roman
Church imagines and discovers in a “Rector of Light” as soon as he is called by
another name than the one she addresses him by. It is not the “Rector” or “Maharajah” who
punishes or rewards, with or without “God’s” permission or order, but man
himself—his deeds or Karma, attracting individually and collectively (as in the
case of whole nations sometimes), every kind of evil and calamity. We produce CAUSES, and these awaken the
corresponding powers in the sidereal world; which powers are magnetically and
irresistibly attracted to—and react upon—those who produced these causes;
whether such persons are practically the evil-doers, or simply Thinkers who brood
mischief. Thought is matter,* we
are taught by modern Science; and “every particle of the existing matter must
be a register of all that has happened,” as in their “Principles of Science”
Messrs. Jevons and Babbage tell
the profane. Modern Science is drawn
more every day into the maëlstrom of Occultism; unconsciously, no doubt, still
very sensibly. The two main
theories of science—re the relations between Mind and Matter—are Monism
and Materialism. These two cover
the whole ground of negative psychology with the exception of the quasi-occult
views of the pantheistic German schools.†
(1.)
MATERIALISM, the theory which regards mental phenomena as the product of
molecular change in the brain: i.e.,
as the outcome of a transformation of motion into feeling (!). The cruder school once went so far as to
identify mind with a “peculiar mode of motion” (!!), but this view is now
happily regarded as absurd by most of the men of science themselves.
(2.) MONISM, or the Single Substance
Doctrine, is the more subtle form of negative psychology, which one of its
advocates, Professor Bain, ably terms “guarded…
In the Egyptian temples, according to Clemens
Alexandrinus, an immense curtain separated the tabernacle from the place for
the congregation. The Jews had the
same. In both, the curtain was
drawn over five pillars (the Pentacle) symbolising our five senses and five
Root-races esoterically, while the four colours of the curtain represented the
four cardinal points and the four terrestrial elements. The whole was an allegorical symbol. It is through the four high Rulers over
the four points and Elements that our five senses may become cognisant of the
hidden truths of Nature; and not at all, as Clemens would have it, that it is
the elements per se that furnished the Pagans with divine Knowledge or
the knowledge of God.* While the Egyptian emblem was spiritual, that of
the Jews was purely materialistic, and, indeed, honoured only the blind
Elements and the imaginary “Points.” For what was the meaning of the
square tabernacle raised by Moses in the wilderness, if it had not the same
cosmical significance? “Thou shalt make
an hanging . . . of blue, purple, and scarlet” and “five pillars of
shittim wood for the hanging . . . four brazen rings in the four corners
thereof . . . boards of fine wood for the four sides, North, South,
West, and East . . . of the Tabernacle . . . with Cherubims of
cunning work.” (Exodus, ch. xxvi., xxvii.) The
Tabernacle and the square courtyard, Cherubim and all, were precisely the same
as those in the Egyptian temples. The
square form of the Tabernacle meant just the same thing as it still means, to
this day, in the exoteric worship of the Chinese and Tibetans—the four cardinal
points signifying that which the four sides of the pyramids, obelisks, and
other such square erections mean. Josephus
takes care to explain the whole thing.
He declares that the Tabernacle pillars are the same as those raised
at Tyre to the four Elements, which were placed on pedestals whose four angles
faced the four cardinal points: adding
that “the angles of the pedestals had equally the four figures of the Zodiac”
on them, which represented the same orientation (Antiquities I.,
VIII., ch. xxii.).
The idea may be traced in the Zoroastrian caves, in
the rock-cut temples of India,
as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this
day. This is shown definitely by
Layard, who finds the four cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in
the religion of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four
sides of the pyramids, etc., etc.
Of these elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the
regents and the directors.
If the student would know more of them, he has but
to compare the Vision of Ezekiel (chap. i.) with what is known of
Chinese Buddhism (even in its exoteric teachings); and examine the outward
shape of these “Great Kings.” In the opinion of the Rev. Joseph
Edkins, they are “the Devas who preside each over one of the four continents
into which the Hindus divide the world.”* Each leads an army of
spiritual beings to protect mankind and Buddhism. With the exception of favouritism towards
Buddhism, the four celestial beings are precisely this. They are the protectors of mankind and
also the Agents of Karma on Earth, whereas the Lipika are concerned with
Humanity’s hereafter. At the same
time they are the four living creatures “who have the likeness of a man” of
Ezekiel’s visions, called by the translators of the Bible, “Cherubim,”
“Seraphim,” etc.; and by the Occultists, “the winged Globes,” the “Fiery
Wheels,” and in the Hindu Pantheon by a number of different names. All these Gandharvas, the “Sweet
Songsters,” the Asuras, Kinnaras, and Nagas, are the allegorical descriptions
of the “four Maharajahs.” The Seraphim are the fiery Serpents of Heaven
which we find in a passage describing Mount Meru
as: “the exalted mass of glory,
the venerable haunt of gods and heavenly choristers . . . . not to be reached by sinful men . . .
. because guarded by Serpents.”
They are called the Avengers, and the “Winged Wheels.”
Their mission and character being explained, let us see what the
Christian Bible-interpreters say of the Cherubim:—“The word
signifies in Hebrew, fullness of knowledge; these angels are so called from
their exquisite Knowledge, and were therefore used for the punishment of men
who affected divine Knowledge.” (Interpreted by Cruden in his
Concordance, from Genesis iii., 24.) Very well; and vague as the
information is, it shows that the Cherub placed at the gate of the garden of
Eden after the “Fall,” suggested to the venerable Interpreters the idea of
punishment connected with forbidden Science or divine Knowledge—one that
generally leads to another “Fall,” that of the gods, or “God,” in man’s
estimation. But as the good old
Cruden knew nought of Karma, he may be forgiven. Yet the allegory is suggestive. From Meru, the abode of gods, to Eden,
the distance is very small, and from the Hindu Serpents to the Ophite Cherubim,
the third out of the seven of which was the Dragon, the separation is still
smaller, for both watched the entrance to the realm of Secret Knowledge. But Ezekiel plainly describes the four
Cosmic Angels: “I looked, and
behold, a whirlwind, a cloud and fire infolding it . . . also out of the
midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures . . . they had
the likeness of a man. And every
one had four faces and four wings . . . the face of a man, and the face
of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle . . . ” (“Man” was
here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the “Ophite Spirits.”*
) . . . “Now as I beheld the living creatures behold one wheel upon the
Earth with his four faces . . . as it were a wheel in the middle of a
wheel . . . for the support of the living creature was in the wheel .
. . their appearance was like coals of fire . . .” etc. (Ezekiel,
ch. i.)
There are three chief groups of Builders and as
many of the Planetary Spirits and the Lipika, each group being again divided
into Seven sub-groups. It is
impossible, even in such a large work as this, to enter into a minute
examination of even the three principal groups, as it would demand an extra
volume. The “Builders” are the
representatives of the first “Mind-Born” Entities, therefore of the primeval
Rishi-Prajapati: also of the
Seven great Gods of Egypt, of which Osiris is the chief: of the Seven Amshaspends of the
Zoroastrians, with Ormazd at their head:
or the “Seven Spirits of the Face”: the Seven Sephiroth separated from the
first Triad, etc., etc.*
They build or rather rebuild every “System” after
the “Night.” The Second group of the Builders is the Architect of our
planetary chain exclusively; and the third, the progenitor of our Humanity—the
Macrocosmic prototype of the microcosm.
The Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of
the Stars in general, and of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies of men who are
all born under one or other of their constellations; the second and third
groups pertaining to other systems have the same functions, and all rule
various departments in Nature. In
the Hindu exoteric Pantheon they are the guardian deities who preside over the
eight points of the compass—the four cardinal and the four intermediate
points—and are called Loka-Pâlas, “Supporters or guardians of the World”
(in our visible Kosmos), of which Indra (East), Yama (South), Varuna (West),
and Kuvera (North) are the chief; their elephants and their spouses pertaining
of course to fancy and afterthought, though all of them have an occult significance.
The Lipika (a description of whom is given in the
Commentary on Stanza IV. No. 6) are the Spirits of the Universe,
whereas the Builders are only our own planetary deities. The former belong to the most occult
portion of Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here. Whether the Adepts (even the highest)
know this angelic order in the completeness of its triple degrees, or only the
lower one connected with the records of our world, is something which the
writer is unprepared to say, and she would incline rather to the latter
supposition. Of its highest grade
one thing only is taught: the
Lipika are connected with Karma—being its direct Recorders.†
[Philippines, 27
March 2012]
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