KALKI MAITREYA
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Starting upon the long journey immaculate; descending more
and more into sinful matter, and having connected himself with
every atom in manifested Space -- the Pilgrim, having
struggled through and suffered in every form of life and being,
is only at the bottom of the valley of matter, and half through
his cycle, when he has identified himself with collective Humanity.
This, he has made in his own image. In order to progress
upwards and homewards, the 'God' has now to ascend the weary uphill
path of the Golgotha of Life. It is the martyrdom of self-conscious
existence. Like Vishvakarman he has to sacrifice himself to
himself in order to redeem all creatures, to resurrect from
the many into the One Life. Then he ascends into heaven
indeed; where, plunged into the incomprehensible absolute Being
and BIiss of Paranirvana, he reigns unconditionally, and whence
he will redescend again at the next 'coming', which one portion
of humanity expects in its dead-letter sense as the second
advent and the other as the last 'Kalki Avatar'
The Secret Doctrine, i 268
If any one among you thinks that he
Is wise in this age,
Let him become a fool
That he may become wise.
For the wisdom of this world
Is folly before God.
I Corinthians 3:18-19
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Everyone who has the priceless privilege to enter the ancient
Path to the Divine Mysteries is the recipient of a sacred trust.
It can be transmitted only through a life of unremitting sacrifice
and striving for the sake of universal enlightenment. Entry into
the far-flung orbit of the Avatar may be seen as an approach,
even if unintentional, to the antechamber or the threshold of
the inward spiritual Path leading to the true Mysteries. A few
fortunate souls are able to avail themselves of the sacred Teachings
concerning the hiranyagarbha, the golden sphere of the
Cosmic Egg, the brahmanda, and its mirroring in the immortal
individuality of human souls. It is the basis of the sutratmic
thread, the luminous link binding together all the incarnations
of the pilgrim-soul and the divine vesture within which is gestated
the possibility of spiritual birth into self-conscious immortality.
It is the hallowed vessel within which the eternal seed of divine
humanity is sown and fructified, the pristine medium of the potent
current flowing between the higher Triad overbrooding man and
the Logos in the cosmos.
The initial self-awakening in the earnest seeker for wisdom is
the starting-point of the 'longest journey', the arduous Path
pointing not merely to individual enlightenment, which is an extremely
sublimated form of exalted selfishness, but even more to ultimate
reunion and total identification with the Self of all, the Logos
in the Cosmos and the God in Man. The true life of the indwelling
Spirit in Man and Nature is a life of eternal Wisdom-Sacrifice,
jnana yajna, ceaselessly enacted on each plane of being
and in all worlds of differentiated subjects and objects. The
spiritual seeker is invited to participate self-consciously in
this primordial Sacrifice, adhiyadna, through self-purification
and self-correction, mystic meditation and joyous initiation into
the realm of cosmic ideation. In order to do this effectively,
it is essential to withdraw allegiance to the outer shell of the
composite personality. One must separate entirely one's sense
of being from the epiphenomenal activity of the external form
with an assumed name, the namarupa.
Like the Self-governed Sage in the second discourse of the
Bhagavad Gita, one must withdraw all the powers of perception
and conception from the outer organs and objects, reconsecrating
them for a noumenal task within the inmost chamber of contemplation.
This withdrawal is certainly not a selfish retreat into what The
Voice of the Silence calls "the carapace of selfhood".
Rather, it is the complete realization of contentment in the universal
Self alone, within the omnipresent paramatman, the unmanifest
source of all creativity, inward illumination and spiritual self-regeneration.
When the soul withdraws into the inmost Holy of Holies, the sacred
ark of the Mystery Fires, it becomes as "an everlasting lode-star,
that beams the brighter in the heavens the darker here on earth
grows the night".
Ever and always, from its distant dawn down to the present historical
moment, the spiritual pilgrimage of Humanity has been
presided over by the highest and holiest of beings, the sacrificial
servers of Arghyanath, the mysterious Lord of Libations, the chief
custodian of the sacred Mysteries. Arghya Varsha is the Land of
Libations or the sanctuary of divine Hierophants, which stretches
from Mount Kailas to the Shamo Desert. This is the spiritual home
and birthplace of Io, the mother of physical humanity. It is also
the real Argos, the fountain-head of the ancient lineages of divine
dynasties of King-Initiates. Mount Meru, the navel of the world
and the abode of Mahavishnu and Mahashiva, is the magnetic centre
of the preservative and regenerative forces in the invisible cosmos.
It is the Sacred Lha – the sanctuary of those whose destiny is to
last from the commencement to the ending of the manvantara
during each Round. It is the dwelling-place of the last divine
mortal chosen as the sishtha or sacred germ for the future
seed of humanity. It is also the spiritual realm from which the
divine descent of Kalki Maitreya takes place.
All spiritual life on earth is encompassed in the Religion of
Humanity, the sacrificial service of the Spirit of Divine Truth,
SAT, and Absolute Compassion, mahakaruna. Perpetually sweeping
away everything that is moribund and morbid in human nature, all
the incrustations of falsehood and mummery stifling the human
soul, the eternal Lord of the Mysteries, Dakshinamurti, Hari-Hara,
the True Saviour of Humanity and the Good Gardener of Nature,
guides and nurtures with perfect gnosis and divine impartiality
the potent seeds of human futurity, including all, excluding none
except the self-excluded. Every sacred tradition revolves around
the seminal utterances, the abounding grace and magnanimous benediction
of God-men, all of whom are accredited reflections of Him who
was in the beginning, the Ancient of Days and the Initiator of
Initiates. Those who comprehend this central truth in their hearts
and minds, to whatever degree, are able to come closer in consciousness
to the Supreme Source of Divine Wisdom, to Brahma Vach.
Such souls are readily willing to purify themselves, practise
the quintessential ethics of the immemorial Teachings, meditate
on the metaphysics which lies at the basis of true theurgy, and
elevate themselves with deep, unconditional devotion to lokasangraha,
the welfare of the whole world. Unfortunately, there are also
those who, inherently incapable of resonating to the anti-élitist
and universal keynote of the timeless Teachings, compensate for their
own insecurities and failures by attempting to limit access to
the Philosophia Perennis. That is why it is so vital to
the present epoch and the future of humanity that no motive even
a shadow less than a sincere, all-absorbing desire to serve the
universal enlightenment of all beings should concern any seeker
of wisdom. Nothing less will do, and nothing else will work as
a substitute or stimulus. Lord Krishna stated in the Bhagavad
Gita that "in whatever way men approach Me, in that way
do I accept them". As the Qur'an teaches, there are as many
ways to God as there are breaths of the children of men. There
is room for each and all under the mighty banyan Tree of Divine
Wisdom, the Tree of Immortality and Life Eternal.
Gupta Vidya takes its starting-point and also attains its
summit in the same transcendental and absolute Divine Ground,
THAT (TAT) which is beyond all differentiations of spirit and
matter, all dimensions of space and time, all rates and quanta
of motion. This is the Divine Darkness, the Supreme Silence or
maunam which is the eternal source of both light and sound.
The archetypal mode of pristine creativity at the basis of the
cosmos and Man lies hidden in the mystery of the Soundless Sound,
the Eternal AUM throughout the ages. The Sacred Word, Vach, the
Verbum, is the original and enduring vibration in akasha behind
the myriad reverberations that bring into being myriad worlds
and vast hosts of sentient creatures belonging to all the seven
kingdoms of Nature. The living presence of the sound in the silence
is the invisible and inaudible core of every monad, divine and
human, solar and lunar. As the sound in the light and the light
in the sound, it is the fecund source of all the supernal and
sublunar, celestial and terrestrial, manifestations of embodied
intelligence and concentrated wisdom, for all these are the sacred
progeny of the sublime Vach.
In its subtlest and highest meaning, this is realized in its fullness
by that unseen tribe of casteless and classless Magi, the Sages
and Seers, the Initiators and Instructors, of the elect of all
peoples and societies, cultures and civilizations. It is impossible
to draw closer to Them without rediscovering and rebecoming the
Sacred Word that is the Rootless Root of all immortal monads,
all souls who are like multi-hued rays of the hidden Spiritual
Sun. Through the Word, one recovers one's true stature as one's own
master and inner god, attuning oneself to the currents of divine ideation
that flow forth from the primal source, the fons et origo of each
and all. Every form of partisanship and partiality, all concern for the
lesser self, every element in oneself that is bound up with the part
and does not flow with the whole, must be let go. Anything less leaves
one unworthy of the great gift of the manasa, the priceless
potency of pure self-consciousness, the supreme inheritance of the
whole of the human family. This is the true spirit in which one must and
can prepare to draw closer to the sacred threshold of the Holy of Holies,
the adytum of the Mysteries, in which one may be reborn and reclaim
one's divine birthright. Thus one may relearn how to live in that light and
sound which suffuses, sustains and regenerates the human tabernacle of
the self-realized, self-existent godhead.
One must come to comprehend fully the complex set of solar and lunar
forces in the cosmos as in the human constitution. One must thereby learn
to pay one's deep debt of gratitude to all the elements and principles, essences
and hosts, that have created the varied vestures of the divine monad and the
hallowed temple of the human form. Inevitably, this means repaying
unacknowledged debts and engaging in wise self-correction and the
alchemical transmutation. To rebecome the Egg, to live in it self-consciously and
continuously, one must reduce oneself to a zero. Then one may come into the
presence of the pristine flame within the forty-nine fires, the all-presence which
is no-thing, the ever unmanifest ground of all Nature and Humanity. Thus one
may constitute oneself an authentic co-worker with Nature, a true servant of Humanity,
a silent worshipper of the Divine in all its noumenal radiations. This is the meaning
of daily self-purification (tapas), self-surrender (bhakti) and
self-sacrifice (yajna), the abiding basis of intuitive (buddhic) perception
and noetic action.
There is certainly nothing wrong in the creative use of pure reason, the consistent
application of the principle of ratio in the service of the progressive
understanding of divine ideas and symbols. How else would it be possible to
perceive and apprehend, much less engage in constructive self-correction in
relation to errors and omissions? If one is going to be an authentic devotee of
Divine Wisdom, then one must certainly be prepared to think, and to think deeply,
about every aspect of human life, including birth and death, decay and sickness,
illusion and delusion. Naturally, such concentrated reflection must be accompanied by
the profoundest feelings of universal gratitude towards all Teachers, magnanimity to
all beings and effortless, unconstrained compassion. The finest feelings are the
inevitable concomitants of any abiding realization of Sat, the truth in all
things. The highest understanding and the deepest love are inseparably
interwoven in genuine meditation upon abstract glyphs and concrete symbols
of the diffusion of the divine Life-Force in the cosmos and in all Humanity.
Everything has its dharma, which can be described from the standpoint
of the lower kingdoms as the laws of Nature, and which works in the animal
kingdom with the unerring precision of instinct. For the self-conscious human
monad, however, deliberation, choice and commitment constitute the appropriate
terms of discourse within which to formulate human obligation, duty and destiny.
Svadharma, which is one's self-chosen, self-renewed and self-exemplified
duty, that which is due from each individual to the whole of Nature and Humanity,
is not a personal possession or a private, cloistered arena. Since each soul is self-
conscious to some degree, dharma becomes the svadharma of
each, sui generis, unique, incomparable and inalienable, that which none
can delegate or transfer to another. At the same time, since all human selves are
essentially rays of the Self of all, and as all human beings are like limbs in the collective,
composite organism of Vaivasvata Manu or Adam Kadmon, svadharma
cannot be construed in exclusively separatist terms or individualistic language.
Any person can only individuate truly to the extent to which he or she can universalize
consciousness, and svadharma has to be understood in the context of the
universal dharma of the human family in any age or epoch. Svadharma
is the deft application of dharma to the karmic conditions of the moment in any
situation, with its limits, parameters and possibilities. The Bhagavad Gita (III.35)
affirms: "Better is one's own duty, though imperfectly done, than the duty of another well
done. Better is death in doing one's own duty (svadharma); the duty of another
brings danger." The perverse refusal or pathetic inability to translate dharma into
the appropriate thought and action in the present moment is indeed
adharma, unrighteousness, the source of all sordid confusion
and culpable wrongdoing, as well as moral backsliding. No doubt,
none can, without the self-validating universal vision of the
Adept, judge the duty of another. This makes it all the more vital
that each and every one enacts svadharma with the modicum
of courage needed to act on one's deepest convictions and fullest
understanding. Given the inevitability of falling short of these
time and again, it is an elementary requirement of the Golden
Rule to show genuine tolerance and empathy for the frailties of
others.
Conflicts between individuals, groups, societies and nations are
all too often the outgrowth of militant self-righteousness and
fearful intolerance, whilst reflecting abysmal lack of clarity
or fidelity in regard to one's own svadharma. Human beings
exist today in the most spiritually straitened or diminished circumstances.
They are mentally diminished in an age of immense proliferation
of information; they are psychically diminished at a time when
there is an involuntary recognition of universal interdependence,
at least in the economic and ecological spheres; they are emotionally
diminished in a generation which has received a succession of
emotional shocks in regard to human depravity, duplicity and cruelty;
they are even physically diminished in an era of mass consumption
and compulsive multiplication of wants; above all, they are spiritually
impoverished in an age of unprecedented access to the world's
sacred texts and spiritual manuals. And yet, at rare moments of
harmonic convergence of human hopes and desperate longings for
a safer and saner world, there are poignant tokens and gestures
of suppressed feelings of universal solidarity in distress, even
a collective outpouring of cries and appeals for the visible appearance
of a Secret Saviour, a New Revelation, the Day of Final Reckoning
or Divine Judgement, and a new Elysium on a new earth.
As pilgrim-souls, all human beings are essentially integral parts
of a single monadic stream of evolution and a vast collective
spiritual odyssey, the limits and contours of which cannot be
conceived by ordinary temporal consciousness. Each and every individual
is inescapably involved in a set of composite vestures which reflect
the complex karma of a long history of thought and
conduct, in a world which each one's karma has inexorably determined
to be suitable for spiritual self-correction and further progress
or retardation, according to one's willingness to learn and unlearn.
Owing to deep-rooted ignorance, lack of mental clarity and moral
resolution, age-old proclivities and persisting habits formed
in this life, much of one's involuntary involvement in the world's
malaise can become inverted and deflected. As a result, all too
many weak-willed persons exacerbate and intensely react to much
that is unnecessary, behaving like moral serfs with mindless and
slavish tendencies, entangling themselves in messes of their own
making. They are terrified to assume the burden of responsibility
for themselves and others. Since all true learning requires patient
assimilation and skilful practice, mere theoretical knowledge
and mechanical techniques cannot reverse this tropism, let alone
the strange infatuation with the insufferable pride in spiritual
failure.
If one thinks seriously in terms of the striking metaphors of
The Voice of the Silence, seeing oneself and others as
immaculate rays of light with opaque clay material on the outer
surface, no amount of scrutiny of the dense covering can release
any insight into light-energy. One must show the courage to turn
aside from externals and look within the seeming darkness. Since
'inner' and 'outer', 'within' and 'without', are relative terms,
one will in no time discover that one's initial notions of what
is within will be displaced by deeper awareness. The very postulation
of the spiritual Path to self-enlightenment implies that one must
begin where one is, rather than waiting for others before making
a start in self-scrutiny. So one must retire in secret to converse
with the imprisoned soul, to consider the plight of the greater
self one has pushed aside into the abyss of non-being, leaving
oneself in a sorry state of self-alienation, impotence and bondage
to delusion. The more one contemplates one's role as a callous
jailer of one's own better self, the more one will notice the
complicity of others, with all their compulsive verbiage and mediocre
rationalizations, in the profanation of the sacred and in the
downward path of self-destruction. This wretched condition is
due to cowardly neglect and diabolical abuse in the past. In the
realm of the sacred, even neglect is a form of abuse and every
abuse is an act of perfidy and self-betrayal.
The only way out is to acknowledge one's forgotten pact with the
legions of the demoniac and to proceed to ask for a permanent
divorce. One must show that one is in earnest by invoking the
Holy Light and the Holy Power of the imprisoned Christos. One
must seriously strive to meditate upon the Spiritual Sun, the
most potent of all healers, and upon Agathon, Universal Good.
It does not matter that one's conception of dhyana or deep
meditation, and one's ability to initiate and sustain it, are
woefully inadequate, muddled and pitiable. Like ghee drawn from
heated butter, practice clarifies, chanting aloud helps, and the
act of abject self-surrender may itself be converted into the
posture of redemptive humility. As one works persistently and
patiently to establish a more intimate relation with one's imprisoned
splendour, one's exiled alter ego, Pollux, the banished
brother of Castor, one's frail conceptions of meditative stillness
and one's feeble attempts at sustained practice will undergo change.
The temple of the tortured body can be cleansed and purified,
even now, as with the daily act of taking a shower. At this stage
it helps enormously to take a brief holiday from one's sordid
self-preoccupation, and to reflect upon human souls in distress.
One simple form of preliminary meditation is known in the Tibetan
tradition as 'taking and giving'. This consists of consciously
and imaginatively breathing in the sufferings and sins of others,
their self-suffocating distress and immeasurable ignorance, which
are like black rays of pollution, and breathing out white rays
of hope and faith, love and charity, fellowship and compassion.
Done repeatedly, especially before a deep sleep of innocence,
it can help on waking up to think about benevolent breathing before
going out into the world. It would now help to intensify and deepen
this daily practice by calming the mind and making a bold attempt
to develop the power of clear visualization, whether of the boundless
sky or of omnipresent space, of the fathomless ocean of life or
of the subterranean streams of life-giving elixirs in the Himalayan
mountain ranges, of pure white light or the rainbow bridge between
the earth and the empyrean, of the evening star or the midnight
sun, of the radiant hosts of enlightened Buddhas and compassionate
Bodhisattvas seated around the central figure of the healing Maitreya
Buddha, as in many a Tibetan tanka, or even of the all-conquering
Rider on the White Horse (Kalki) of the Book of Revelation of St. John
of Patmos.
Vishnu-Soshios-Lakshminarayana leads the Legions of Light and
the toilers of Maitreya, unseen by all who would be blinded by
the radiant vision, joyously greeted by myriads of perceptive
souls in the silence of their grateful hearts, rural exemplars
of Himalayan patience, supremely confident that Truth will triumph
in the fullness of days; that the armies of Belial and Moloch
and the host of lesser demonic chiefs will be frustrated in their
designs to set up a global robotocracy and to convert this entire
planet into a necropolis of the damned; that the meek shall yet
inherit the earth; and the decisive victory of Shamballa will
light up the Mystery Fires in hallowed places, in groves of good
goblins and wizened gremlins, in the humble huts and haunts of
innocent fools and inspired children, revelling in sacred chants
and hymnodies of divine rhapsody. In the words of the mystic Hallaj,
"Now, brightly blazing forth, Truth's luminary hath driven
out of sight each flickering, lesser light." In the incantatory,
initiatory language of The Voice of the Silence, "the
Dhyana gate is like an alabaster vase, white and transparent;
within there burns a steady golden fire, the flame of Pradna
that radiates from Atma. . . . Behold! thou hast become
the Light, thou hast become the Sound, thou art thy Master and
thy God."
It is foretold in the ancient Puranas that Kalki will come not
once, but over and over again, each time the world passes through
another catastrophic cycle of precipitous decline in righteousness
and the earth groans with its insupportable burden of demonic
cacophony and spiritual barrenness. It now seems to many tortured
souls that our own epoch, in the most barbaric of centuries in
recent recorded history, is marked and mauled by the most appalling
and pervasive desecration of the Holy of Holies, in thought and
speech, emotion and action, in so-called religious sanctuaries,
in the chancelleries and capitals of nations, in secular forums,
in schools and in streets, in divided homes and blood-stained
battlefields, in the mass media and on the lips of pseudo-sophisticates,
in the perverted minds and poisonous hearts of well-disguised
"murderers of souls", in the moral plagues sweeping
the countryside as well as the drug-infested cities, let alone
the massive corruption in the reeking corridors of power
and paper money, in the citadels of selfish leaders and in the
market-places of the demoralized and the doomed.
So long as the heavy karma of the desecration of the Holy of Holies
remains as a sinister albatross casting its nefarious shadow over
the stormy sea of samsara, so long will the Kalki function
be a paramount concern and inescapable facet of the mysterious
work of all Divine Incarnations, spiritual reformers and World-Teachers,
who are both light-bringers and fire-bringers. Yet, awful and
execrable as this profanation of the sacred is in its impact upon
the astral light, Nature's 'infinite negative', it is not the
entire truth about the contemporary epoch or indeed about any
century or civilization, including even the Atlanteans five million
years ago. If, as ancient Sages hint, the real difficulty extends
back about eleven million years ago, there still reverberates
in the akasha the golden vibration inscribed in the 'antique
heart' of mankind over eighteen and three-quarter million years
ago, in the dawn of human self-consciousness.
Five thousand years ago, on the eve of the commencement of Kali
Yuga, Lord Krishna struck the sacred keynote of svadharma,
nishkama karma and jnana yajna, of self-chosen duty,
disinterestedness and wisdom-sacrifice, in an age of accelerated
change, wherein there is varnashankara, the confounding
of all the social orders. There is no reliable clue in the world
of externals to the inward journey and spiritual growth of the
human soul; there are no institutionalized guarantees for human
progress whilst Karma-Nemesis does its necessary work of destruction
of old modes and codes in the midst of universal social chaos
and psychological disintegration. This was also the deeper meaning
of the Mahabharata War, wherein to look behind to the annals of
historical memory was to be lost.
Now, more than ever before, as courageous individuals gain the
clarity of philosophic insight (vijnana), rooted in deep
meditation (dhyana), they can reconnect themselves with
the primordial vibration of the Mysteries, "the eternal thought
in the eternal mind", the authentic source of the abundant
creative potentials in themselves and in all Humanity. The irreversible
tidal wave of the present historical moment will sweep away many
of the relics and monuments of moribund traditions and the monstrosities
of modern, so-called civilization. Divine Wisdom is immensely
vaster and much more ancient than can remotely be sensed within the perspectives
of present-day humanity. It is inconceivable that anything can
stand in its way, that even the accumulated sins and crimes of
fallen sorcerers and their myriad vampirized victims can resist
the mighty onrush of the New Cycle, which, working mostly in the
realm of akasha, acts as a potent alchemical solvent in
the astral light and in the inmost consciousness of hosts of souls,
both embodied and awaiting incarnation. It would be a costly illusion
for any group of monads, for any religious sect or social coterie,
for any nation or continent, to transfer its own sense of doom
to the whole of the human family, or to imagine that any power
on earth can resist the rising tide of the progressive enlightenment
of the humanity of the future.
In a very real sense, all human souls are always exiles in this
world, but this is poignantly true of so many in a time of colossal
karmic precipitation, widespread sifting between the 'quick' and
the 'dead', and the dawning of a new global civilization, rising
phoenix-like out of the ashes of the older orders. Porphyry's
profound words on self-exile have a peculiar appositeness to our
age:
We resemble those who enter into or depart from a foreign region,
not only because we are banished from our intimate associates,
but in consequence of dwelling in a foreign land, we are filled
with barbaric passions, and manners and legal institutes, and
to all these have a great propensity. Hence, he who wishes to
return to his proper kindred and associates should not only with
alacrity begin the journey, but, in order that he may be properly
received, should meditate upon how he may divest himself of everything
of a foreign nature which he has assumed, and should recall to
his memory such things as he has forgotten, and without which
he cannot be admitted by his kindred and friends. After the same
manner, also, it is necessary, if we intend to return to things
which are truly our own, that we should divest ourselves of everything
of a mortal nature which we have assumed, together with an adhering
affection towards it, and which is the cause of our descent; and
that we should excite our recollection of that blessed and eternal
essence, and should hasten our return to the nature which is without colour and without quality, earnestly
endeavouring to accomplish two things: one, that we may cast aside
everything material and mortal; but the other, that we may properly
return, and be again conversant with our true kindred, ascending
to them in a way contrary to that in which we descended hither.
All the outward forms and manifestations that constitute the clutter
and outworn furniture of physical existence and psychic fantasy
obscure and suppress the spiritual intuitions and intimations
in human consciousness. By becoming caught up in the region of
ephemera, true inward perception, buddhic awareness, is blocked.
Authentic depth perception is a perception of essences, a laserlike
clarity in regard to primary causes, a bringing together of the
centripetal, concentrated ideation of manas and the centrifugal,
expansive empathy of buddhi, until there emerges a radiation
of buddhi-manas-taijasi which can flow downward and illumine
the brain, the heart and the sensorium. As a human being learns
to live progressively and increasingly in the divine egg of sat-chit-ananda,
a deeper sense of being, of ideation and eros, is awakened
in all the vestures; there is a clarification and purification
of all perception, and the awakening of an eye for essentials,
the eye of transcendental synthesis fusing the standpoints of
eternity and time. To light up the promise and possibility of
such a radical reorientation of human consciousness in as many
souls as possible is the awesome task and the noble prospect of
the Aquarian Age, as well as the humanity and civilization of
the future.
There is no learning, no acquisition of Divine Wisdom, no spiritual
enlightenment without a life consecrated by sacrifice. The true
mark of the authentic member of the Army of the Voice is instantaneous
responsiveness to the law of sacrifice, without reservation, let
or hindrance. The willingness to suffer and sacrifice separates
the Lords of Light from the legions of darkness, the right-hand
Path from the left-hand, the Sage from the sorcerer. We would
all gladly suffer for those we love, like the mother for her newborn
child. Much more is needed: to suffer for all others means to
become a compassionator and creator of beneficent ideation, a
theurgist who breathes benevolently and effortlessly radiates streams of light-energy and selfless love.
A familiar line from Edwin Markham's poem is often cited: "But
Love and I had the wit to win", pointing to the vital connection
between readiness and ripeness, love and wisdom, rooted in self-knowledge.
Wisdom penetrates and clarifies; love expands and includes, it
does not expel and exclude. As more and more sensitive souls come
to grasp fully that everyone is an integral part of a whole, which
is now enacting a decisive drama that involves the Mysteries and
cannot be understood in less than cosmic terms, profound currents
of magnetic love-energy may be released that can act in and through
many an unseen actor on the contemporary scene.
Mahavishnu, whilst reclining upon Shesha (the cosmic serpent eating
its tail, floating upon the crystalline waters of Aditi-Akasha,
noumenal Space in Eternal Duration), emanates this entire cosmos
and yet remains in supreme repose. Kalahansa is the Swan of Everlasting
and also the Eternal Saviour in the realm of Time. The Purna Avatar
is fully incarnated on earth as the decisive determinant of the
destinies of all monads, in the context of all karmic sum-totals
displayed on the cosmic computer of mahat, and yet he stands
apart from all manifestation, with a mere amsha or fragment
of his divine splendour ensouling the fullest possible embodiment
in the materials of contemporary humanity. As Kalki, he is the
manvantaric harbinger of the Day of Reckoning for each and all;
as Maitreya, he is linked with Hermes-Mercury as the Avatar of
unconditional love and universal mercy.
As the anonymous author of a French work on the Tarot and Hermeticism
prophesied in 1967:
Since it is a question of the work of the fusion of revelation
and knowledge, of spirituality and intellectuality, it is a matter
throughout of the fusion of the Avatar principle with the Buddha
principle.... On the historical plane the Maitreya Buddha and
the Kalki Avatar will be one. . . . He will not merely teach the
way of salvation, but he will advance the course of this way;
he will not be solely a witness of the divine and spiritual world,
but he will make human beings into authentic witnesses of this
world; he will not simply explain the profound meaning of revelation,
but he will bring human beings themselves to attain to the illuminating experience
of revelation, . . . bringing human beings to first-hand experience
of the source itself of all revelation ever received from above
by mankind, as also of all essential truth ever conceived by mankind....
It will not be popularity and general acclaim which will characterize
the work of the Avatar, but rather the fusion of spirituality
and intellectuality, no matter whether this pleases or not. . . .
He will be the guide in the transformation of potential schizophrenic
madness into the wisdom of the harmony of the two worlds and of
their experience. He will be the example and living model of realization
of the Arcanum which occupies us. . . . Logic becomes transformed
into formal logic – passing through the intermediary stage of 'organic
logic' – into 'moral logic'. . . . His intellectuality -- his 'horse's
head' – will be moved solely by revelation from above. Like the
horse, it will be directed by the Rider. This is the Arcanum at
work on the historical plane.
Almost forty years earlier, in his Heart of Asia, Nicholas
Roerich, the mystic painter and explorer, conveyed the esoteric
teaching he received in trans-Himalayan monasteries concerning
the work of Kalki Maitreya before the end of the twentieth century:
It is predicted that the manifestations of Maitreya shall come
after the wars. But the final war shall be for the cause of the
True Teaching. But each one rising up against Shamballa shall
be stricken in all his works. And the waves shall wash away his
dwellings. And even a dog shall not answer to his call. No clouds
but lightning shall he see on the final night. And the fiery messenger
shall rise up on pillars of Light. The Teaching indicates that
each warrior of Shamballa shall be named the Invincible. The Lord
Himself hastens. And his banner is already above the mountains.
Thy Pasture shall reach the Promised Land. When thou tendest thy
flocks, dost thou not hear the voices of the stones? These are
the toilers of Maitreya, who make ready for thee the treasures.
Hermes, November 1987
Raghavan Iyer
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