“The Occultists do not accept the doctrine of “guardian angels,” for reasons heretofore fully explained, in these pages. They do, however, believe most firmly in the personal, divine spirit in man, the source of his inspiration and his all-sufficient “angel” and “guardian.””
~ H. P. Blavatsky ~

There is no such thing as “guardian angels” or “protecting angels.” It is our own HIGHER EGO which guards and protects us, to the extent, and in the way, that our own individual Karma – which is the product of our own making – permits.

There exists “an almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings” (Dhyan Chohans or Angels) but “individuality is the characteristic of their respective hierarchies, not of their units.” (H. P. Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 274, 275)

No individual angelic being has any personal qualities of its own whatsoever as it has outgrown and abandoned all elements of personality in ages past, when working its way up from humanhood to angelhood. No angel can or does think to itself, “That person is in trouble . . . I’ll intervene!” or “That person is praying for an angel to help him . . . I’ll respond to his prayer and give him what he wants!”

To imply that an angel has the human feeling of personality and also the emotional or sentimental nature appears ludicrous from the perspective of logic, philosophy, and esotericism.

Such qualities are earthly and human characteristics and are not present in the Beings of the Angelic Hierarchies, since they have evolved far beyond such things long ago.

“Every “Spirit” so-called is either a disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel (Dhyan Chohan) down to the last conscious “Builder” (the inferior class of Spiritual Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras, on this or other Spheres; so the inferior, semi-intelligent and non-intelligent Elementals – are all future men. That fact alone – that a Spirit is endowed with intelligence – is a proof to the Occultist that that Being must have been a man, and acquired his knowledge and intelligence throughout the human cycle.” (H. P. Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 277)

Contrary to the popular Christian notion that angels are “created conscious, intelligent, and perfect by God,” Theosophy maintains that knowledge, intelligence, and self-consciousness is something which has to be acquired. It cannot just be given to someone. To do so would be to contravene the entire Law of Evolution!

It is acquired only through passing through the human stage of evolutionary progress. There is no other way. To quote again from “The Secret Doctrine”:

“As the doctrine teaches, there are no such privileged beings in the universe, whether in our or in other systems, in the outer or the inner worlds [a very precise, definite, categorical, and unequivocal statement, leaving no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation!], as the angels of the Western religion and the Judean. A Dhyan Chohan has to become one; he cannot be born or appear suddenly on the plane of life as a full-blown angel. The Celestial Hierarchy of the present Manvantara will find itself transferred in the next cycle of life into higher, superior worlds, and will make room for a new hierarchy, composed of the elect ones of our mankind. . . . Gods, created as such, would evince no personal merit in being gods . . . would be the symbol of an eternal injustice quite Satanic in character, an ever present crime. It is an anomaly and an impossibility in Nature.” (Vol. 1, p. 221-222)

Yet if we were to give credence to the descriptions and details of so-called “angels” that are so readily proffered today by many people who claim to be in contact with them, we would have to accept that many angels are in fact highly sentimental and emotional beings, not to mention more immature and profoundly unintelligent and ignorant in most cases than many human beings.

People who think they are in communication with an angel are invariably mistaken. They may indeed be in contact and communication with something – with the exception of those cases when they are merely in contact with their own uncontrolled imaginations – but the actual nature and identity of that “something” would most likely fill them with horror were they to see it for what it actually is. For further explanation on this point, please see such articles as The Psychic is Not The Spiritual, Beware of The Star Rishis, and The Danger and Deception of Channelling.

These Beings – angels, or Dhyan Chohans as Theosophy prefers to call them – operate solely as Hierarchies, never as individual units. And their work in the universe – which is an absolutely impersonal work, involving and contributing to the WHOLE and not the part – is governed by the immutable Law of Karma, as is everything else.

Madame Blavatsky went on to say, “They are neither “ministering” nor “protecting” angels; nor are they “Harbingers of the Most High” still less the “Messengers of wrath” of any God such as man’s fancy has created. To appeal to their protection is as foolish as to believe that their sympathy may be secured by any kind of propitiation; for they are, as much as man himself is, the slaves and creatures of immutable Karmic and Kosmic Law.” (Vol. 1, p. 276)

That is to say, the Law of self-created destiny which is known as Karma (the law of cause and effect, action and reaction, sequence and consequence) is the means whereby the universe maintains its constant balance, harmony, and equilibrium.

Nothing can ever happen outside of Karma. Everything that happens to us in life is either karmically destined or karmically permitted. It cannot be otherwise. Thus all petitionary prayer – whether for ourselves or for others – is ultimately vain and futile as Buddha taught.

Everything proceeds according to the Law of Karma, whether we like it or not, whether we believe and accept it or not, and no amount of praying, crying, pleading, begging, interceding, affirming etc. – regardless of how sincere and filled with faith it may be, or how desperate the situation may seem – can interrupt or interfere with the Law of the Universe.

One of many proofs of this is the fact that the vast majority of all prayers go forever unanswered, as any honest and sane religious minister will readily admit. To say, as some do, that “God answers every prayer but often His answer is no answer,” is just a way of evading the harsh and admittedly uncomfortable reality of the situation.

The Law knows what it is doing and everything proceeds perfectly and in divine order, as it should, although many times it may not appear that way to our currently limited perception.

As Buddha says in the beautiful classic poem “The Light of Asia”:

Pray not! the Darkness will not brighten! Ask
Nought from the Silence, for it cannot speak!
Vex not your mournful minds with pious pains!
Ah! Brothers, Sisters! seek

Nought from the helpless gods by gift and hymn,
Nor bribe with blood, nor feed with fruits and cakes;
Within yourselves deliverance must be sought;
Each man his prison makes.

Each hath such lordship as the loftiest ones;
Nay, for with Powers above, around, below,
As with all flesh and whatsoever lives,
Act [i.e. Karma] maketh joy and woe.

Guardian angels, protecting angels, and so forth, belong to the illusory realm of Christian-based fantasy.

As said, our “Guardian” is not any type of angel but is our own Higher Ego. This must not, by the way, be confused with the Higher Self. Our Higher Self – pure eternal Spirit, the Atman – is not individual or separate in any way whatsoever. It is neither my Higher Self nor your Higher Self but is the SELF . . . the One Universal Self of all.

Our Higher Self never does anything. There is nothing for It to do, except to BE, for It alone is the One Supreme and Ultimate Reality. It is literally the Divine Allness itself. “This Atman is Brahman,” as the Upanishads of Hinduism so clearly and repeatedly state.

The Higher Ego, on the other hand, is something distinctly individual. Our Higher Egos are referred to variously in the teachings of Theosophy as the Sons of Wisdom, the Lords of the Flame, the Manasaputras, the Agnishvattas, the Kumaras, the Solar Pitris, Fire Dhyanis, etc. They are highly advanced beings, “high Intelligences” from long past cycles of evolution. In the middle of the Lemurian Root Race they descended to our plane and took up residence, so to speak, in the otherwise mindless Lemurians, and made of man a thinking, self-conscious, and intelligent human being capable of realising and actualising his true divine nature and perceiving the oneness and divineness of all life.

They became the minds, the Egos, the individual souls, of humanity. The soul, the self-conscious individuality of each human being, is one of those entities although most of the time we fail to realise or recognise it and instead just identify ourselves with our evanescent personal and bodily nature. These “Sons of Wisdom” or “Sons of Mind” became the reincarnating Manas Principle within the human being.

The Higher Ego is the connecting, cementing, intermediate link between brute animal man below and the Higher Self – the One Spirit – above.

Many people who have NDEs (Near Death Experiences) or who actually die and are then resuscitated, describe being met by a “being of light” with whom they seemed to feel a wonderful sense of identity and oneness and whose nature seemed to be one of perfect love, compassion, and acceptance.

The “being of light” is not a “guardian angel,” nor is it Jesus, least of all God, who does not exist according to the teachings of Theosophy.

It is your own Higher Ego, the permanent spiritual individuality of whom your personal individuality is the current, impermanent, and karmically imperfect reflection on the physical plane of existence.

This is a complex, highly metaphysical, and mysterious teaching, “one of those subjects upon which very little may be said to the general public.” Nevertheless, it is this Higher Ego, the Higher Manas, which guards and protects us when it can and in the way it can but this is always determined in exact accord with the Law of Karma. It does not respond to prayers, pleas, or presumptuous commands.

Karmic Law is “the ultimate Law of the Universe,” as H. P. Blavatsky puts it in “The Key to Theosophy.” Thus there is never any actual injustice, since we alone are the sole makers and fashioners of our own destiny and future.

As HPB and the Masters state, he or she who wishes to make progress on the path of esoteric spirituality, the path of the Ancient and Ageless Wisdom, must abandon and discard such fantastical notions as we have discussed and, in the words of the Master K.H., “cross over from your land of dream and fiction to our Truth land of stern reality and fact.”

~*~

This article may have raised more questions about various things. Please make use of the site search function (the magnifying glass symbol at the top of the page) and visit the Articles page to see the complete list of over 300 articles covering all aspects of Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement.

~ BlavatskyTheosophy.com ~