A COMPILATION FROM THE THEOSOPHICAL TEACHINGS

FROM “OUR SUN AND THE TRUE SUN”

By William Q. Judge

“Considering how little is known of the sun of this system, it is not to be wondered at that still more is this the case respecting the true sun. Science laughs, of course, at the mystic’s “true sun,” for it sees none other than the one shining in the heavens. . . .

“My object, however, is to draw your attention to the doctrine that there is a true sun of which the visible one is a reflection, and that in this true one there is spiritual energy and help, just as our own beloved luminary contains the spring of our physical life and motion. It is useless now to speculate on which of the many stars in the heavens may be the real sun, for I opine it is none of them, since, as I said before, a physical center of attraction for this system may only be a grade higher than ours, and the servant of a center still farther removed. We must work in our several degrees, and it is not in our power to overleap one step in the chain that leads to the highest. Our own sun is, then, for us the symbol of the true one he reflects, and by meditating on “the most excellent light of the true sun” we can gain help in our struggle to assist humanity. Our physical sun is for physics, not metaphysics, while that true one shines down within us. The orb of day guards and sustains the animal economy; the true sun shines into us through its medium within our nature. We should then direct our thought to that true sun and prepare the ground within for its influence, just as we do the ground without for the vivifying rays of the King of Day.”

THE GAYATRI MANTRA

From the Rig Veda scripture of Hinduism

The Gayatri Mantra, also known as the Savitri, is the most ancient mantra known to man. In Sanskrit, it is “Om bhur bhuvah svaha! Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.” One English translation is “OM. We meditate on the effulgent glory of the true Divine Sun that pervades earth, sky, and the heavens, from whom all proceed and to whom all must return. Shine as the light of Consciousness in our intellects and burn away our ignorance with the wisdom of the highest Truth.”

The following is a translation adopted by William Judge:

“Unveil, O Thou who givest sustenance to the Universe, from whom all proceed, to whom all return, that face of the true Sun now hidden by a vase of golden light, that we may see the truth and do our whole duty on our journey to thy sacred seat.”

FROM “A COMMENTARY ON THE GAYATRI”

By William Q. Judge

“The request made in the verse to unveil the face of the True Sun is that the Higher Self may shine down into us and do its work of illumination. This also spreads forth a natural fact unknown to moderns, which is that the Sun we see is not the true sun, and signifies too that the light of the intellect is not the true sun of our moral being. Our forefathers in the dim past knew how to draw forth through the visible Sun the forces from the True one. We have temporarily forgotten this because our evolution and descent into the hell of matter, in order to save the whole, have interposed a screen. . . .

“Which is now hidden by a vase of Golden Light. That is, the light of the True Sun – the Higher Self – is hidden by the blood contained in the vase of the mortal body. The blood has two aspects – not here detailed – in one of which it is a helper to perception, in the other a hindrance. But it signifies here the passions and desires, Kama, the personal self, the thirst for life. It is this that veils from us the true light. So long as desire and the personality remain strong, just so long will the light be blurred, so long will we mistake words for knowledge and knowledge for the thing we wish to know and to realize.

“The object of this prayer is that we may carry out our whole duty, after becoming acquainted with the truth, while we are on our journey to thy Sacred Seat. This is our pilgrimage, not of one, not selfishly, not alone, but the whole of humanity. For the sacred seat is not the Brahmanical heaven of Indra, nor the Christian selfish heaven acquired without merit while the meritorious suffer the pains of hell. It is that place where all meet, where alone all are one. It is when and where the three great sounds of the first word of the prayer merge into one soundless sound. This is the only proper prayer, the sole saving aspiration.”

For more from Theosophy about the Gayatri Mantra and its uses, including more textually accurate translations, please see Theosophical Light on The Gayatri Mantra.

FROM “THE SECRET DOCTRINE”

By H. P. Blavatsky

“The Eastern Initiates maintain that, as the supra-divine Essence of the Unknown Absolute is equally in every domain and plane, the “Central Sun” is simply the centre of Universal life-Electricity; the reservoir within which that divine radiance, already differentiated at the beginning of every creation, is focussed. Though still in a laya, or neutral condition, it is, nevertheless, the one attracting, as also the ever-emitting, life Centre.” (Vol. 2, p. 240)

“The Spirit, beyond manifested Nature, is the fiery BREATH in its absolute Unity. In the manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial god.” (Vol. 2, p. 114)

“There are two “Fires” and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely Formless and invisible Fire concealed in the Central Spiritual Sun, is spoken of as “triple” (metaphysically); while the Fire of the manifested Kosmos is Septenary, throughout both the Universe and our Solar System.” (Vol. 1, p. 87)

“The Occult Sciences . . . say that it is the sun, and all the suns that are from it, which emanate at the Manvantaric dawn from the Central Sun.” (Vol. 1, p. 527)

“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 co-ordinately with the number forms,” since the single units of that humanity proceed one and all from the same source – the central and its shadow, the visible SUN. For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases of the Solar course, astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols of the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to uninitiated mortals.” (Vol. 1, p. 638-639)

FROM “TWO LOST KEYS: THE BHAGAVAD GITA – THE ZODIAC”

By William Q. Judge

“Man is himself a zodiacal highway through which his own particular sun makes a circuit. . . .

“As our acquaintance, through devotion and endeavor, with the journey of our own sun through our own human zodiac grows better, we will learn the meaning of the great pilgrimage of the earthly luminary. For it is impossible in this study to learn a little of ourselves without knowing more of the great system of which we are a copy.

“For Atman is the sun,

The moon also it is;

And the whole collection of stars

Is contained within it.”

FROM “EXTRACTS FROM A PRIVATE COMMENTARY, HITHERTO SECRET”

“The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 289-290

(xx.) “Matter or Substance is septenary within our World, as it is so beyond it. Moreover, each of its states or principles is graduated into seven degrees of density. SURYA (the Sun), in its visible reflection, exhibits the first, or lowest state of the seventh, the highest state of the Universal PRESENCE, the pure of the pure, the first manifested Breath of the ever Unmanifested SAT (Be-ness). All the Central physical or objective Suns are in their substance the lowest state of the first Principle of the BREATH. Nor are any of these any more than the REFLECTIONS of their PRIMARIES which are concealed from the gaze of all but the Dhyan Chohans, whose Corporeal substance belongs to the fifth division of the seventh Principle of the Mother substance, and is, therefore, four degrees higher than the solar reflected substance. As there are seven Dhatu (principal substances in the human body) so there are seven Forces in Man and in all Nature.

(xxi.) “The real substance of the concealed (Sun) is a nucleus of Mother substance.* It is the heart and the matrix of all the living and existing Forces in our solar universe. It is the Kernel from which proceed to spread on their cyclic journeys all the Powers that set in action the atoms in their functional duties, and the focus within which they again meet in their SEVENTH ESSENCE every eleventh year. He who tells thee he has seen the sun, laugh at him as if he had said that the sun moves really onward on his diurnal path . . . .

(xxiii). “It is on account of his septenary nature that the Sun is spoken of by the ancients as one who is driven by seven horses equal to the metres of the Vedas; or, again, that, though he is identified with the SEVEN “Gaina” (classes of being) in his orb, he is distinct from them, as he is, indeed; as also that he has SEVEN RAYS, as indeed he has . . . .

(xxv.) “The Seven Beings in the Sun are the Seven Holy Ones, Self-born from the inherent power in the matrix of Mother substance. It is they who send the Seven Principal Forces, called rays, which at the beginning of Pralaya will centre into seven new Suns for the next Manvantara. The energy from which they spring into conscious existence in every Sun, is what some people call Vishnu, which is the Breath of the ABSOLUTENESS.

“We call it the One manifested life – itself a reflection of the Absolute . . . . .”

* “Or the “dream of Science,” the primeval really homogenous matter, which no mortal can make objective in this Race or Round either.”

FROM “ISIS UNVEILED”

By H. P. Blavatsky

“Far from us be the thought of the slightest irreverence – let alone blasphemy – toward the Divine Power which called into being all things, visible and invisible. Of its majesty and boundless perfection we dare not even think. It is enough for us to know that It exists and that It is all wise. Enough that in common with our fellow creatures we possess a spark of Its essence. The supreme power whom we revere is the boundless and endless one – the grand “CENTRAL SPIRITUAL SUN” by whose attributes and the visible effects of whose inaudible WILL we are surrounded – the God of the ancient and the God of modern seers. His nature can be studied only in the worlds called forth by his mighty FIAT. His revelation is traced with his own finger in imperishable figures of universal harmony upon the face of the Cosmos. It is the only INFALLIBLE gospel we recognize.” (Vol. 1, p. 29)

“In the shoreless ocean of space radiates the central, spiritual, and Invisible sun. The universe is his body, spirit and soul; and after this ideal model are framed ALL THINGS. These three emanations are the three lives, the three degrees of the gnostic Pleroma, the three “Kabalistic Faces,” for the ANCIENT of the ancient, the holy of the aged, the great En-Soph, “has a form and then he has no form.” The invisible “assumed a form when he called the universe into existence,” says the Sohar, the Book of splendor. The first light is His soul, the Infinite, Boundless, and Immortal breath; under the efflux of which the universe heaves its mighty bosom, infusing Intelligent life throughout creation. The second emanation condenses cometary matter and produces forms within the cosmic circle; sets the countless worlds floating in the electric space, and infuses the unintelligent, blind life-principle into every form. The third, produces the whole universe of physical matter; and as it keeps gradually receding from the Central Divine Light its brightness wanes and it becomes DARKNESS and the BAD – pure matter, the “gross purgations of the celestial fire” of the Hermetists.” (Vol. 1, p. 302)

“The Rosicrucian theory, that the whole universe is a musical instrument, is the Pythagorean doctrine of the music of the spheres. Sounds and colors are all spiritual numerals; as the seven prismatic rays proceed from one spot in heaven, so the seven powers of nature, each of them a number, are the seven radiations of the Unity, the central, spiritual SUN. “Happy is he who comprehends the spiritual numerals, and perceives their mighty influence!” exclaims Plato. And happy, we may add, is he who, treading the maze of force-correlations, does not neglect to trace them to this invisible Sun!” (Vol. 1, p. 514)

FROM “MENTAL DISCIPLINE” IN “CONVERSATIONS ON OCCULTISM II”

Published by William Q. Judge from a conversation between himself as “Student” and H. P. Blavatsky as “Sage.”

Student. – Can you mention some of the relations in which the sun stands to us and nature in respect to Occultism?

Sage. – It has many such, and all important. But I would draw your attention first to the greater and more comprehensive. The sun is the center of our solar system. The life-energies of that system come to it through the sun, which is a focus or reflector for the spot in space where the real center is. And not only comes mere life through that focus, but also much more that is spiritual in its essence. The sun should therefore not only be looked at with the eye but thought of by the mind. It represents to the world what the Higher Self is to the man. It is the soul-center of the world with its six companions, as the Higher Self is the center for the six principles of man. So it supplies to those six principles of the man many spiritual essences and powers. He should for that reason think of it and not confine himself to gazing at it. So far as it acts materially in light, heat, and gravity, it will go on of itself, but man as a free agent must think upon it in order to gain what benefit can come only from his voluntary action in thought.

Student. – Will you refer to some minor one?

Sage. – Well, we sit in the sun for heat and possible chemical effects. But if at the same time that we do this we also think on it as the sun in the sky and of its possible essential nature, we thereby draw from it some of its energy not otherwise touched. This can also be done on a dark day when clouds obscure the sky, and some of the benefit thus be obtained. Natural mystics, learned and ignorant, have discovered this for themselves here and there, and have often adopted the practice. But it depends, as you see, upon the mind.

~ BlavatskyTheosophy.com ~

Discover more in the full list of over 300 articles relating to all aspects of Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement on the Articles page. One relating closely to this is Three Statements about The Sun.