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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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PRAGÂPATI RELAXED, AND AFTERWARDS RESTORED
A symbol of the Archetypal Man, who, having lost
the Divine Life of Involution, afterwards receives, that of
Evolution, and is restored in the souls of humanity.
"Pragâpati created whatsoever exists. Having created creatures, he,
having run the whole race, became relaxed, the vital air went out
from within. When it had gone out of him the gods left him." - Sata.
Bráh., VI. 1, 2, 12.
The Self, having produced the archetypal world with all its forms
and qualities perfect on the higher planes, ceased to manifest in
Involution. The life, or spiritual energy, operating upon the mental
plane, subsided, and the higher qualities became latent.
"The gods said to Agni, 'In thee we will heal this our father
Pragâpati.' - Then I will enter into him, when whole,' he (Agni)
said. So be it,' they said. Hence while being Pragâpati, they yet
call him Agni." - Ibid., v. 21.
The higher qualities look to the birth of the Self within the soul,
for the restoration of the greater self-involved in matter of the
lower planes. The lesser Self will enter as a divine seed "when
whole," i.e. when the lower nature is evolved complete. The greater
Self and the lesser Self are yet the same.
“Here now they say, 'Wherefore is Agni (the fire-altar) built of
this earth?' But, surely, when that deity (Pragâpati) became relaxed
(fell asunder), he flowed along this earth in the shape of his
life-sap; and when the gods restored him (put him together) they
gathered him up from this earth." - Ibid., v. 29.
Wherefore is the Divine nature to be built up of the lower
nature-the quaternary? Because it is through perfecting the lower
nature that the Divine nature arises from it. This is shown in the
fact of the dismemberment of the Archetypal Man and the shedding of
his blood (life sap), which is the Life permeating the lower nature
(earth), and which is gathered up when the higher qualities put his
members together for his resurrection and ascension in the souls of
humanity.
"By offering up his own self in sacrifice, Pragâpati becomes
dismembered; and all those separated limbs and faculties of his come
to form the universe. ... It requires a new and ever new sacrifice
to build the dismembered Lord of creatures up again." - J. EGGELING,
S. B. of E., Vol. XLIII. Intro.
“The Son of God came from the fullness of the Godhead into a human
life. For having emptied Himself, and taken upon Him the form of a
slave, He was restored again to His former perfection and dignity.
For He, being humbled, and apparently degraded, was restored again
from His humiliation and degra. dation to His former completeness
and greatness, having never been diminished from His essential
perfection.” – METHO DIUS, Banquet, etc., Ch. XI.
"Nobertcher, i.e. the Lord of all.' In the Book of the Dead' Osiris
is frequently called by this name, the allusion being to the
complete reconstruction of his body after it had been hacked to
pieces by Set." - BUDGE, Book of the Dead, Vol. I. p. 19.
“Hence the state of the inward man. His remaking or regeneration
appears to them (mystics) as the primal necessity, if he is ever to
obtain rights of citizenship in the country of the soul.' We have
seen that this idea of the New Birth, the remaking or transmutation
of the self, clothed in many different symbols, runs through the
whole of mysticism and much of theology. It is the mystic's
subjective reading of those necessary psychological changes which he
observes taking place within himself as his spiritual consciousness
grows. His hard work of renunciation, of detachment from the things
which that consciousness points out as illusory or impure, his
purifications and trials, all form part of it. If that which is
whole or perfect is to come, then that which is in part must be done
away: For in what measure we put off the creature, in the same
measure are we able to put on the Creator; neither more nor less
(Theol. Germ., Ch. I.)." - E. UnderhiLL, Mysticism, p. 167.
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