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A Treatise on Cosmic Fire - Section One - Division B - The Personality Ray and Fire by Friction
III. The Personality Ray and Karma It might be wise here to recapitulate a little so that in the refreshing of the memory may come the basis of further knowledge. We dealt first with the three fires of the system, macrocosmic and microcosmic, and having laid down certain hypotheses we passed to the consideration of the first of the fires, that which is inherent in matter. Having studied it somewhat in its threefold manifestation in the various parts of the system, including man, we took up the matter of the personality Ray and its relationship to this third fire. We must recall here that all that has been dealt with has been in relation to matter, and for the whole of this first section this thought must be borne carefully in mind. In our second section we will consider all from the standpoint of mind, and in the final from the standpoint of the Divine Ray. Here we are dealing with what H.P.B calls the primordial ray and its manifestations in matter (see S. D., I, 108; II, 596). All these Rays of Cosmic Mind, Primordial Activity, and Divine Love-Wisdom are but essential quality demonstrating through the agency of some one factor. The Primordial Ray is the quality of motion, demonstrating through matter. [74] The Ray of Mind is the quality of intelligent organization, demonstrating through forms, which are the product of motion and matter. The Ray of Love-Wisdom is the quality of basic motive that utilizes the intelligent organization of matter in motion to demonstrate in one synthetic whole the great Love aspect of the Logos (S. D., I, 99, 108; II, 596). This line of thought can be worked out also correspondingly in the Microcosm, and will show how individual man is engaged in the same type of work on a lesser scale as the solar Logos. At this point in the treatise we are confining our attention to the Ray of Active Matter, or to that latent heat in substance which underlies its activity and is the cause of its motion. If we think with sincerity and with clarity we will see how closely therefore the Lipika Lords or the Lords of Karma are associated with this work. Three of Them are closely connected with Karma as it concerns one or other of the three great Rays, or the three fires, while the fourth Lipika Lord synthesizes the work of his three Brothers and attends to the uniform blending and merging of the three fires. On our planet, the Earth, They find Their points of contact through the three "Buddhas of Activity," 30 (the correspondence should be noted here) and the fourth Kumara, the Lord of the World. Therefore, we arrive at the realization that the personality Ray, in its relation to the fire of matter, is directly influenced and adjusted in its working by one of the Buddhas of Activity. [75] The karma 31, 32, 33 of matter itself is an abstruse subject and has as yet scarcely been hinted at. It is nevertheless indissoluble mixed up with the karma of the individual. It involves a control of the evolution of the monadic essence, the elemental essence and of the atomic matter of the plane; it is concerned with the development of the four spirillae, with their activity, with their attachment to forms when atomic, and with the development of the inner latent heat and its gradual fiery increase until we have within the atom a repetition of what is seen within the causal body: the destruction of the periphery of the atom by the means of burning. It deals with the subject of the building of matter into form by the interaction of the two rays, the Divine and the Primordial, producing thereby that fire by friction which tends to life and fusing. The karma of form is likewise a vast subject, too [76] involved for average comprehension but a factor of real importance which should not be overlooked in connection with the evolution of a world, a synthesis of worlds, or of a system when viewed from higher levels. Every thing is, in its totality, the result of action taken by cosmic Essences and Entities in earlier solar systems which is working out through the individual atoms, and through those congeries of atoms which we call forms The effect of the personality Ray upon the internal fires is therefore, in effect, the result of the influence of the planetary Logos of whatever ray is implicated, as He works out that portion of Karma which falls to His share in any one cycle, greater or lesser. He thus brings about and eventually transmutes, the effects of causes which He set in motion earlier in relation to His six Brothers, the other planetary Logoi. We get an illustrative parallel in the effect which one individual will have upon another in worldly contact, in molding and influencing, in stimulating or retarding. We have to remember that all fundamental influence and effects are felt on the astral plane and work thence through the etheric to the dense physical thereby bringing matter under its sphere of influence, yet not itself originating on the physical plane. [77] 30 "Buddhas of Activity." The 'Pratyeka Buddhas.' This is a degree which belongs exclusively to the Yogacharya School, yet it is only one of high intellectual development with no true spirituality... It is one of the three paths to Nirvana, and the lowest, in which a yogi - "without teacher and without saving others" - by the mere force of will and technical observances, attains to a kind of nominal Buddhahood individually." - Theosophical Glossary. 31 "From the view taken of Karma as I have done it, you will see that no plane of the highest spirituality, be that the plane of the nirvanees, is outside the karmic wheel and when it is said in the Sanskrit writings and even in the Bhagavad Gita that men cross the karmic ocean, it must be understood with some allowance. The entities that have now succeeded in going outside the karmic wheel, have done so, only if that wheel be taken as the one that turns now. The cosmos is not going in one groove all the days of Brahma, but it is going on a higher and higher status as it fulfils its mission. Those who have attained unto a rest in a state of spirituality not reachable now, will therefore in a future day come within the action of the wheel, with perhaps a punishment for the great duties neglected for long ages." - Some Thoughts on the Gita, p. 40. 32 The Lipika are the Spirits of the Universe. They are connected with the Law of Cause and Effect (Karma) and its recorders. Lipika comes from "Lipi" writing. For information concerning the Lipika Lords see S. D., I, pp. 152, 153. The Buddhas of Activity, are the Triad Who stands closest to Sanat Kumara, The Lord of the World. They are the planetary correspondences to the three Aspects of the logoic third Aspect and are concerned with the force behind planetary manifestation. Monadic Essence, the matter of the atomic (or highest) subplane of each plane. Elemental Essence, the matter of the six subplanes which are non atomic. It is molecular matter. 33 "Karma may be defined to be the force generated by a human center to act on the exterior world, and the reactionary influence that is in turn generated from the exterior world to act on him may be called karmic influence and the visible result that is produced by this influence under proper conditions may be called karmic fruit." - Some thoughts on the Gita, p. 53.
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