Students of the original Theosophical teachings – i.e. those presented by H. P. Blavatsky and her closest colleague and co-founder William Q. Judge – may have noticed the following memorable passages in Mr Judge’s writings and wondered what exactly they are referring to:

“The cyclic progress is assisted, or the deterioration further permitted, in this way; at a time when the cycle is ascending, developed and progressed Beings, known in Sanscrit by the term “Jnanis,” descend to this earth from other spheres where the cycle is going down, in order that they may also help the spiritual progress of this globe. In like manner they leave this sphere when our cycle approaches darkness. These Jnanis must not, however, be confounded with the Mahatmas and Adepts mentioned above. The right aim of true Theosophists should, therefore, be so to live that their influence may be conducive for the dispelling of darkness to the end that such Jnanis may turn again towards this sphere.” (“An Epitome of Theosophy” p. 19)

“It is from kindness and love that Masters do not blind us with the electric flash of truth complete. But concretely there is a certain object for our general work. It is to start up a new force, a new current in the world, whereby great and long-gone Gnanis, or wise ones, will be attracted back to incarnate among men here and there, and thus bring back the true life and the true practices. Just now a pall of darkness is over all that no Gnani will be attracted by. Here and there a few beams strike through this. Even in India it is dark, for there, where the truth is hid, the thick veil of theological dogma hides all; and, though there is a great hope there, the Masters cannot pierce through to minds below. We have to educate the West so that it may appreciate the possibilities of the East, and thus on the waiting structure in the East may be built up a new order of things for the benefit of the whole. We have, each one of us, to make ourselves a centre of light – a picture gallery from which shall be projected on the astral light such scenes, such influences, such thoughts, as may influence many for good, shall thus arouse a new current, and then finally result in drawing back the great and the good from other spheres, from beyond the earth.” (“Letters That Have Helped Me” p. 73)

“The spread of the knowledge of the laws of Karma and Reincarnation and of a belief in the absolute spiritual unity of all beings will alone prevent this drift [i.e. “the present drift towards materialism”]. The cycle must, however, run its course, and until that is ended all beneficial causes will of necessity act slowly and not to the extent they would in a brighter age. As each student lives a better life and by his example imprints upon the astral light the picture of a higher aspiration acted in the world, he thus aids souls of advanced development to descend from other spheres where the cycles are so dark that they can no longer stay there.” (“The Kali Yuga – The Present Age” article)

Re-reading very closely and attentively, these facts become apparent and clear:

(1) The Jnanis or Gnanis (pronounced “Nyaanees” and which literally means “Knowers”) spoken of are not the same as Those we call the Adepts, Mahatmas, and Masters of Wisdom.

(2) They are currently active on “other spheres,” spheres “beyond the earth.” Those other spheres are subject to both ascending and descending cycles, suggesting that other actual planets are meant.

(3) For whatever reason – perhaps partly a vibrational one – they are unable to remain on a sphere or planet once its cyclic evolution goes downwards into a “dark” cycle. They are only present wherever “the cycle is ascending.”

(4) They have been here on this Earth in the very distant past, being described as “long-gone Gnanis” and the wording is that they “may turn again towards this sphere” and “will be attracted back to incarnate among men.”

(5) Although they can only go where cyclic evolution permits, they can in some sense be “attracted back” and “drawn back” more easily as a result of a large number of people living and thinking in a truly spiritual way, which thus eventually transforms the world and humanity for the better. This is not likely to be until quite some time from now but it seems it can be to some extent hastened by present actions. Once here, they “bring back the true life and the true practices” . . . which suggests that these Jnanis are some of those great beings who H. P. Blavatsky describes in “The Secret Doctrine” as incarnating as the “Divine Dynasties” who, as the earliest rulers of self-conscious humanity on our globe, instructed those earlier Root Races in the true laws and principles of life. Those beings, it is implied, are even higher and more evolved and advanced than those who we call the Masters or Theosophical Mahatmas on this Earth.

There are too many references in “The Secret Doctrine” to the Divine Dynasties to reproduce even a quarter of them here but the following are several which seem to relate particularly to this subject.

“. . . the Secret Doctrine teaches history – which, for being esoteric and traditional, is none the less more reliable than profane history . . . And that Doctrine says that the Dhyani-Buddhas of the two higher groups, namely, the “Watchers” or the “Architects,” furnished the many and various races with divine kings and leaders. It is the latter who taught humanity their arts and sciences, and the former who revealed to the incarnated Monads that had just shaken off their vehicles of the lower Kingdoms – and who had, therefore, lost every recollection of their divine origin – the great spiritual truths of the transcendental worlds.” (Vol. 1, p. 267)

“These were governed by the DIVINE DYNASTIES, i.e., kings and rulers who had of mortal man only his physical appearance as it was then, but who were Beings from spheres higher and more celestial than our own sphere will be, long Manvantaras hence.” (Vol. 2, p. 328)

“. . . the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first who had a dynasty of Spirit-Kings, not of Manes, or “ghosts,” as some believe . . . but of actual living Devas (or demi-gods or Angels, again) who had assumed bodies to rule over them, and who, in their turn, instructed them in arts and sciences. Only, as they were rupa or material Spirits, these Dhyanis were not always good. Their King Thevetata was one of the latter, and it is under the evil influence of this King-Demon that . . . . the Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked magicians.” (Vol. 2, p. 221-222; Thevetata is mentioned further by HPB in “Isis Unveiled” Vol. 1, p. 593, and “Five Years of Theosophy” p. 340-341, “Leaflets from Esoteric History.”)

“Not less suggestive are the qualities attributed to Rudra Shiva, the great Yogi, the forefather of all the Adepts – in Esotericism one of the greatest Kings of the Divine Dynasties. Called “the Earliest” and the “Last,” he is the patron of the Third, Fourth, and the Fifth Root-Races.” (Vol. 2, p. 502; see also The Great Sacrifice and The Mystery-Land of Shambhala.)

“. . . the great struggle between the “Sons of God” and the Sons of the Dark Wisdom – our forefathers; or the Atlantean and the Aryan Adepts. The whole History of that period is allegorized in the Ramayana, which is the mystic narrative in epic form of the struggle between Rama – the first king of the divine dynasty of the early Aryans – and Ravana, the symbolical personation of the Atlantean (Lanka) race. The former were the incarnations of the Solar Gods; the latter, of the lunar Devas. This was the great battle between Good and Evil, between white and black magic, for the supremacy of the divine forces, or of the lower terrestrial, or cosmic powers.” (Vol. 2, p. 495; see also Theosophical Light on The Ramayana.)

Speaking of the region of the North Pole: “. . . Pliny, names it Osericta (Book xxxvii, c. 2), a word, according to Rudbeck (Vol. I., p. 462-464), having had “a significance in the northern languages, equivalent to the Island of the divine Kings or god-Kings,” or again the “royal island of the gods,” because the gods were born there, i.e., the divine dynasties of the kings of Atlantis proceeded from that place. . . . it was the birth-place of Apollo, who was the brightest of gods, in heaven – astronomically – as he was the most enlightened of the divine kings who ruled over the early nations, in his human meaning. The latter fact is borne out in the Iliad IV., 239-62, vide “The Greater gods” – wherein Apollo is said to have appeared four times in his own form (as the god of the four races) and six times in human form, i.e., as connected with the divine Dynasties of the earlier unseparated Lemurians.” (Vol. 2, p. 773-774)

“It is with the advent of the divine Dynasties that the first civilizations were started. And while, in some regions of the Earth, a portion of mankind preferred leading a nomadic and patriarchal life, and in others savage man was hardly learning to build a fire and to protect himself against the Elements, his brothers – more favoured than he by their Karma, and helped by the divine intelligence which informed them – built cities, and cultivated arts and sciences.” (Vol. 2, p. 318)

“The Atlanteans . . . the “gods” and the Divine Dynasties had forsaken them,” (Vol. 2, p. 756)

And finally, from Vol. 2, p. 423-427, which can be read more fully in the article The Destruction of Atlantis:

“The one special MS. [i.e. manuscript] from which the fragments which follow are extracted, and then rendered into a more comprehensible language, is said to have been copied from stone tablets which belonged to a Buddha of the earliest day of the Fifth Race, who had witnessed the Deluge and the submersion of the chief continents of the Atlantean race. The day when much, if not all, of that which is given here from the archaic records, will be found correct, is not far distant. . . .

“This is what is written in one passage: –

““THE KINGS OF LIGHT HAVE DEPARTED IN WRATH. THE SINS OF MEN HAVE BECOME SO BLACK THAT EARTH QUIVERS IN HER GREAT AGONY. . . . THE AZURE SEATS REMAIN EMPTY. WHO OF THE BROWN, WHO OF THE RED, OR YET AMONG THE BLACK (races), CAN SIT IN THE SEATS OF THE BLESSED, THE SEATS OF KNOWLEDGE AND MERCY? WHO CAN ASSUME THE FLOWER OF POWER, THE PLANT OF THE GOLDEN STEM AND THE AZURE BLOSSOM?”

“The “Kings of Light” is the name given in all old records to the Sovereigns of the divine Dynasties. The “azure seats” are translated “celestial thrones” in certain documents. The “flower of power” is now the Lotus; what it may have been at that period, who can tell.

“The writer proceeds, like the later Jeremiah, to bewail the fate of his people. They had become bereft of their “azure” (celestial) kings, and “they of the Deva hue,” the moon-like complexion, and “they of the refulgent (golden) face” have gone . . .

“‘Let their destiny be accomplished. We are the servants of the great Four. [“The four Karmic gods, called the Four Maharajahs in the Stanzas.”] May the Kings of light return.’”

~ BlavatskyTheosophy.com ~

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