Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy — G. de Purucker

Chapter Thirty-Six

Interpenetrating Spheres of Being. Lokas and Talas: Bipolar Kosmical Principles and Elements. The "Heresy of Separateness"

All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing. For things have been co-ordinated, and they combine to form the same universe (order). For there is one universe made up of all things, and one god who pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, (one) common reason in all intelligent animals, and one truth; if indeed there is also one perfection for all animals which are of the same stock and participate in the same reason. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7, 9 (George Long, trans.)

Nature has linked all parts of her Empire together by subtle threads of magnetic sympathy, and, there is a mutual correlation even between a star and a man; . . . — The Mahatma Letters, p. 267

If through the Hall of Wisdom, thou would'st reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy of separateness that weans thee from the rest. — The Voice of the Silence, pp. 8-9

IN THE JEWISH Talmud there is a quaint old story, full of the profound wisdom of the ancient teachers, about four candidates for wisdom. It tells how they entered into the Garden of Delights, a name which the Jews used, especially the Qabbalists, to designate the realm of occultism, of the occult sciences; and the names of these four candidates for wisdom were as follows: Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Ahher, and Rabbi Aqiba. As the story goes, "Ben Asai looked — and lost his sight; Ben Zoma looked — and lost his reason. Ahher went into the Garden of Delights and committed depredations therein; but Rabbi Aqiba entered in peace and left in peace. And the Holy One, whose servants we are — blessed be his name — said: 'This old man is worthy of serving us with glory.'"

Here are the four general types of students of the ancient wisdom. Ben Asai, who lost his sight, was one who was attracted by the doctrines and teachings and, like another case mentioned in the Greek legends, looked upon the face of naked truth and was "blinded." He became, that is, a worse exotericist than he was before. He was unprepared, unready. He had forced his way into the place where he did not belong. And he incurred one of the penalties awaiting those who enter into the holy places with an unpure heart and an unprepared mind.

And Ben Zoma looked and lost his reason; he was one whose nature was so essentially selfish that he looked only for that which he himself might gain therefrom. And his nature being unsteady, weak, self-centered and selfish, he lost his "reason," that is to say, he became the slave instead of the master. You know the old medieval saying that the magician who evokes the so-called "spirits of the vasty deep," and is not in complete control of them, is made away with by them, which is a saying teaching the same doctrine that we teach of the utter necessity of spiritual preparation, moral preparedness. "For the pure in heart see God," and have naught to fear, which is the Christian method of expressing the same idea.

Ahher, who made depredations in the Garden, was one who had will power and daring, but likewise was he one who considered self first of all, and he misused the sacred sciences for self-advancement and personal gain, for position, and all the rest of it. He is the type of the black magician, as it is called. Such a one destroys himself by entering into a place for which he is not fitted, that is, Ahher who made "depredations"; and so likewise did Ben Zoma.

But Rabbi Aqiba, who entered in peace, and went out in peace, was the type of the man inwardly fully prepared and ready, whose nature was so purified by discipline, by self-discipline, so purified by self-forgetfulness and a recognition of the beauties of self-abnegation in the true sense, that through him could stream the rays coming from the divine heart of Being, from the spiritual sun.

Now, what does this allegory teach us? This parable shows us first, that in order to be faithful disciples, and, second, in order to gain that which we are supposed to gain, the first lesson for us is discipline, self-discipline, ethics. We continually recur in our studies to this point, because it is of the first importance. Every man thinks he is ethical and moral. Is he? Ask yourself what you or I would do under real temptation. The French have a rather cynical saying that "every man has his price." Is it true? If it is, then neither you nor I, not one of us, is fit to sit here this evening. Only when we have passed beyond the point where anything on earth can move us or sway our will, or buy us, then only are we fit to enter into the Garden of Delights, like the old man Rabbi Aqiba, who entered in peace and left in peace — a Master.

We open our study tonight by referring once more to the extract from the second volume of The Secret Doctrine, page 492, which we have read at several meetings, because around it circles the theme of our present study. Please note every word.

The Secret Doctrine points out, as a self-evident fact, that Mankind, collectively and individually, is, with all manifested nature, the vehicle (a) of the breath of One Universal Principle, in its primal differentiation; and (b) of the countless "breaths" proceeding from that One BREATH in its secondary and further differentiations, as Nature with its many mankinds proceeds downwards toward the planes that are ever increasing in materiality. The primary Breath informs the higher Hierarchies; the secondary — the lower, on the constantly descending planes.

We are going tonight to make a great step forward, to make a leap, as it were, over many things that might have been considered, such as the enormously important problems of death, and of the left-hand path, to mention two subjects only. But we are going to do our best (although we have not laid the foundation fully for it yet) to point out what the ancient wisdom meant when it spoke of spheres of being. The common term for such a sphere is "plane," which has its value, because we are accustomed to it; and yet we must remember that this word plane is a loose word, because it may mean almost anything as vulgarly used, and it does not carry the fundamental thought that these inner worlds are actually fields of action, spheres of being, actual entitative worlds, in fact.

You will remember that at our last study we drew seven parallel lines, diagrammatical, illustrating the seven kosmic elements, in which work the seven kosmic forces or principles — the energy-consciousness side of being. Please note this evening carefully that these elements, the kosmical elements, are worlds. Call them planes if you like, but really they are worlds. I do not mean globes, necessarily, that is, solid spherical bodies. They are around and in globes, yet they are truly worlds, spheres of action, spheres of consciousness; and each one of these kosmical elements, in addition to being a world, is infilled with its own "humanities," countless, numberless, innumerable, beyond all human computation. The human stirps, the human lineage, race, class, is but one among many of them.

The ancient wisdom tells us that there are seven main classes of such humanities or stirpes on every planetary chain, and that on this earth, globe D of our chain, man stands at the head of the classes below him. These classes are recognized in ordinary parlance, in the parlance of our science, as kingdoms: the human kingdom (which is confused wrongly with the beast kingdom) first; the beast kingdom second; the vegetable kingdom third; the mineral kingdom fourth; and below that the three kingdoms of the elementals — call these last nature spirits, or substirpes or sublineages, subraces, sublife-waves of being. And you will have noticed at our last meeting that in the diagram we figured a triangle, representing the three higher or arupa or formless worlds which thus, with the seven below, make the ten of a complete hierarchy.

Now these kosmical elements or worlds or spheres are divided more particularly into lokas — a Sanskrit word meaning "places" in the sense of worlds — and into talas. And these are as given below, using the names found in the Brahmanical literature of Hindustan, names which we have adopted for convenience because they are in that literature and are more or less known; but this does not necessarily mean that we accept all the ideas connected therewith in the Brahmanical works. We use these names because they show that there are actually seven worlds or lokas, and seven inferior worlds or talas, which we shall begin to define and briefly to describe this evening.

Note that these seven kosmical principles and elements are in fact these fourteen lokas, or rather lokas and talas, seven of each. Let us first enumerate them, name them in order:

Satya-loka —— 1 — Atala

Tapar-loka — 2 — Vital

Janar-loka —— 3 — Sutala

Mahar-loka — 4 — Rasatala

Swar-loka —— 5 — Talatala

Bhuvar-loka - 6 — Mahatala

Bhur-loka —— 7 — Patala

First the lokas. Beginning with the highest, that is, the inmost, we find satya-loka, a word meaning "reality-world"; tapar-loka, the next, is a Sanskrit compound word meaning "devotion-world" in the sense of "meditation," "contemplation," "introspection"; next, janar-loka from the Sanskrit root meaning "birth"; mahar-loka meaning "great"; swar-loka meaning "heaven"; bhuvar-loka, an ancient word coming from the Sanskrit root bhu, meaning "to grow" or "develop"; and lastly bhur-loka, the lowest. The corresponding talas are, counting downwards from the higher to the more material, atala, vitala, sutala, rasatala, talatala, mahatala, patala.

Now the first thought which we must concentrate our attention upon is this, that these lokas and talas are not one above the other like the rungs of a ladder; they interpenetrate, they interblend; they do not merely commingle, but interblend. A man's thought, for instance, is not necessarily perfectly divine or perfectly evil. It is composite, blended, of both qualities, but not merely mixed. There is nothing so mechanical as that about this fact. We are studying ethereal and spiritual matters. These lokas and talas blend together. For instance, electricity, whether we call it matter or force, is bipolar. There is a positive pole and a negative pole. We may call a loka one of the poles and its corresponding tala the other, for these correspond to each other in twos, a loka and a tala, each to each. Satya-loka to atala, tapar-loka to vitala, and so on down the scale, until we come to the lowest, bhur-loka and patala.

It is commonly said in the Brahmanical literature that the lokas are the "heavens" and the talas are the "hells." Now that is one way of expressing a profound truth, but we must beware of these words heavens and hells on account of wrong European religious ideas, associated ideas. The actual, esoteric meaning is that the lokas are the luminous arc, or rather that procession of nature and of beings in which spirit or the luminous arc predominates. And the talas are the arc of shadows, the shadowy arc, or rather that procession of nature and of beings in which matter predominates. Each one of the lokas works with its corresponding one of the talas. Here is a root-thought. You cannot separate them.

Each of the seven kosmical elements corresponds, each to each, with the lokas and, each to each, with the talas. In other words, the seven lokas and the seven talas work correspondentially on each one of the kosmical elements or worlds. Furthermore, each one of the seven globes of our planetary chain has its own seven lokas and seven talas by "reflection." You know the old esoteric principle lying at the basis of all our thought, expressed in the so-called Hermetic axiom, "As above, so below; as below, so above." The meaning is that our universe, and every part of it, is not an anarchical universe. Everything is inchained with everything else, and the higher is reflected or rather reflects itself in the lower, the lower being actually the expression of the higher; or, as expressed in our former three or four meetings, the lower worlds are the garments (or expressions, or reflections) of the higher. Nothing is separate from anything else. You know the greatest heresy in Buddhism (and this is likewise our own teaching) is the so-called separateness, the idea or belief that anything is or can be considered apart from the whole. That is also what the Christians meant when they spoke of the "crime against the Holy Ghost." The few early Christians who were initiated considered this crime as the most heinous of iniquities, and they were right.

Now then, having gone thus far, we may see that these talas or inferior worlds are, each to each, each in each, actually the kosmical elements. Is this thought clear? Next, the forces working through these talas or worlds, through these fields of action — forces material, ethereal, psychical, spiritual, divine, and so on — are the principles of the kosmos, the consciousnesses which infill space and are, in fact, space itself; and these latter are the lokas.

We have pointed out that these elements may be considered serially somewhat after the fashion of the skins of an onion. This is a far better illustration, as being more suggestive, than the "Plane"-system, although this system was used too in ancient times; and we also pointed out that these skins of the earth, these skins of the kosmos, grow more ethereal, grow more spiritual, as they proceed inwards. But we do not mean — please mark this very carefully — that these more spiritual or inner worlds or spheres are smaller, i.e., inferior in volume to the outermost rind. Size has nothing whatsoever to do with ethereal or spiritual bearings. Mere bulk or volume has nothing whatsoever to do with consciousness. How then can we reconcile these two apparently contradictory statements, this paradox: that the more you approach the material center of a thing, the denser it is; the more you approach the spiritual center of a thing the diviner it is? You know that the old Greek philosophers, the Atomistic Philosophers so called, such as Democritus, Leucippus, Epicurus, etc., followed by the great Roman poet, Lucretius, said for instance in their Atomistic theories that heaven was composed of the finer, the more subtil atoms, and that the earth and the planetary and stellar bodies were composed of those which were coarser and heavier and therefore fell together, meaning that they were more strongly attracted together. That is true enough, for it is a statement made from the tala-side, that is to say, the matter-side. But now listen.

We have often spoken of a laya-center, a laya-center being the seventh or highest degree of matter (or the first degree of spirit), the vanishing-point of matter into higher realms, the nirvana of matter, the nirvana of any entity of which it is the heart, the center. Our laya-center as human beings is our atman, our universal self. Each globe is likewise an atom or a monad, or a god, according to the plane or world which we consider it as being in. Now this laya-center is at the center or heart of our being; it is, in fact, that core of our being, and from it radiate, as the rays from the sun radiate outwards, these forces, these elements, these skins of being; these forces and elements or skins growing grosser, in one sense, as they proceed farther from the center. But the more ethereal the original plane is, or the original world or sphere is, or the original field of action is, the more spiritual the originating center is, and the wider is its outflow of radiation. You catch that thought? The spiritual entity continuously flowing through the laya-center has rays which reach far beyond the more material coatings, and which in the lowest, radiate scarcely more than beyond its own circumscribed limits. To change somewhat the illustration, the spiritual, inner realms of man or of globe are the various "planes" or degrees, or spheres, of the auric egg — one of the most sacred of our teachings, and the one concerning which the least has been said.

Let us illustrate this again by an exoteric statement with regard to the three lowest of the lokas respectively, bhur-loka, bhuvar-loka, and swar-loka. Bhur-loka is said to be, in the exoteric, Brahmanical books, our earth. Its field of influence reaches little farther than the atmosphere. Bhuvar-loka, they say, has rays (or an atmosphere) which reach to the sun, although actually it is the world or loka next within the earth — not another physical world within the physical earth, skin-of-onion fashion, but an ethereal world within the physical earth. And swar-loka is a world still more ethereal or spiritual, within bhuvar-loka, that has rays (or an atmosphere) which reach even to Dhruva, or the polar star. This may illustrate the point.

And mark you, as a natural fact deduced from this, we could have no connection with beings outside ourselves, or beyond ourselves, or with other planets, or our sun or others, unless there were these atmospheric bearers or carriers, these auric rays, these atmospheres by which we come into touch with other beings and globes and worlds — both on our plane and on other planes. Is that clear? A magnet has its magnetism or magnetic atmosphere reaching beyond itself, which will illustrate the point. It has its limits of reach, of course; and in the same sense all these lokas and talas have their atmospheres. The inner ones have the atmospheres which reach farther than the outer lokas and talas; and so progressively more so as we go inwards.

Now patala, the lowest of the talas, is also said to be our earth. That statement also is correct from the point of view of the kosmical planes. Note also that these lokas and these talas are the bipolar elements of nature, the bipolar worlds of being, the ascending and the descending: the involving or the talas, and the evolving or the lokas. By the action of the talas being dominant over the action of the lokas, we "descend," to use the popular phrase, along the shadowy arc, into manifestation at the beginning of a manvantara, and having reached our earth, which is the turning point, we then ascend along the luminous arc, the lokas then becoming the dominant, and the talas the recessive, to use modern biological phraseology.

Satya-loka could not exist without atala as its vehicle or nether pole. Tapar-loka could not exist without vitala as its nether pole; and so forth down the scale. This is one of the most difficult of things to explain in European words; and yet really it is one of the simplest of conceptions. We must cleanse our minds first of mechanical suggestions. We must understand that we are here dealing with spiritual and psychological and ethereal matters and things. There could be no luminous arc without the lokas, and no shadowy arc without the talas, as bases respectively — and when we say luminous or shadowy arc we do not mean an actual arc, for it is a figure of speech. We mean those worlds and those processes and those processions of beings in nature by which, or in which, or through which we descend into manifestation or, on the other hand, by which we rise and grow into spiritual greatness.

Such are the two arcs respectively. Virtue, purity, kindness, compassion, pity, mercy, etc. — all these things are signs that the entity possessing them is evolving the spirit within, and is rising, ascending, along the luminous arc. And where we see selfishness and impurity and unkindliness and cruelty and deception, hypocrisy, etc., they are the signs that the entity possessing them is under the influence or dominance of the descending or shadowy arc, the talas. Nevertheless, from the very beginning and in either direction, the lokas and talas are interblended and work together, for they are spirit and matter.

These two, lokas and talas, therefore work each within the other. For instance, our earth, our planet Terra, our globe, on and in which we live, has its own particular seven lokas and seven talas. As seen from the kosmical viewpoint, the physical loka and tala to our present physical eyes are bhur-loka and patala, or our earth. It is patala if we look at it from the material standpoint; and it is bhur-loka if we look at it from the energy-consciousness side, from the nobler or better side, towards the rising side. Remember always that lokas and talas work and exist invariably two by two — by twos, one of each, and on every plane.

In addition to the seven kosmical principles being respectively these lokas, as said before, and the kosmical elements the seven talas, all fourteen, seven of each, are reflected in each one of the seven globes of our chain. "As above, so below; as below, so above." The little is as the great; the microcosm is but a representation or copy in small of the macrocosm.

Suppose that we were to ask ourselves with regard to these lokas and talas: Where do we stand in the scale? Where are we in loka and tala? We are in the fourth globe of our chain, as we know. Let us then take the fourth loka and the fourth tala, i.e., mahar-loka corresponding in scale with rasatala. But, again, we are in the fourth round of our planetary chain. Therefore we have this bipolar principle emphasized by the fourth round quality, i.e., mahar-loka and rasatala again. We are, furthermore, in the fifth root-race of the fourth globe on the fourth round. Therefore our root-race, though evolving on that fourth globe and in that fourth round, is represented by the fifth of each column: swar-loka and talatala. "Wheels within wheels," as Ezekiel, the Hebrew prophet, nobly said.

Furthermore, where are we as regards the kosmic elements? We have stated this a few moments ago. H. P. Blavatsky, in her diagram of these in The Secret Doctrine, which we reproduced at our last meeting, shows that our globe Terra stands in the lowest of the kosmic elements, the seventh counting downwards. Therefore the kosmical element in which we and this globe are, is bhur-loka and patala, kosmically speaking.

It is these actions and interactions, these interblendings of lokas and talas, of these various elements and forces and principles, which render any exposition of them so complicated. However, it makes knowledge of them precious, for knowledge of these things is not cried from the housetops, but, as said before, is given as the reward of merit to those found worthy and well qualified.

Let us approach these questions from another standpoint. Where are we on the kosmical worlds or planes? We are told that Brahma lives one hundred of his years. Brahma, remember, is a Sanskrit word standing for the spiritual energy-consciousness side of our solar universe, i.e., our solar system, and the Egg of Brahma is that solar system. We are further told that his life is half ended, fifty of his years are gone — a figure which we express in fifteen figures of our years, i.e., 155 trillions, 520 billions (155,520,000,000,000) of years have passed away since our solar system, with its sun, first began its manvantaric course. There remain, therefore, fifty more such years to pass before the system sinks into rest, or pralaya. As only half of the evolutionary journey is accomplished, we are, therefore, at the bottom of the kosmic cycle, i.e., on the lowest plane, as the diagram above mentioned shows.

And where are we on this planet? We are on the lowest plane here also, because being in the fourth round, we have run our course only by half. The lowest kosmical plane, as said above, is bhur-loka and patala. As a matter of fact, however, as said at another study, we have advanced a little on the ascending arc, because our planetary chain is the child of the lunar chain, and the lunar chain was on the exact lowest degree.

Now these thoughts are laid before you tonight as suggestive propositions for further consideration. Understand first that the universe, according to the ancient system, is divided into seven grades or degrees of being, which are worlds, lokas and talas, that is, these worlds are polarized into lokas and talas, two by two throughout. Our earth shows them as bipolar, because it is the only planet on this plane, in this kosmic element, or world, in this particular degree or sphere. It is the turning point of our planetary chain where matter-spirit equilibrates, rendering it bipolar. Next, that each one of the seven globes of our chain has its own seven lokas and seven talas. As said before, they are popularly called heavens and hells. Not that they are heavens and hells in the European sense of the word, but they represent the two sides of being, the duality of manifestation, the higher and the lower natures, if you like, as well of the planet as of the human being.

Let us go a little farther. In the seven lokas and seven talas of our world, working together as they do, two by two, one of each, one loka and one tala: in each of these there are innumerable hosts of beings. In the higher ones of the lokas and talas are thinking and conscious entities, as our own human stirps (that is, race, lineage, life-wave) is. These lokas and talas interpenetrate each other. As H. P. Blavatsky says in a very noble passage in The Secret Doctrine, they have each one their own "geographical" spheres; the respective inhabitants of the different lokas and talas live in their own world, pursue their own vocations, work out their own karmic destiny, even as we do in our world. It is but human egoism that claims so foolishly that ours is the only race of intelligent beings in the boundless kosmos, and which goes so far as even to deny intelligence and consciousness to beings even on other physical planets. It is a position which is intolerable to the mind of really thinking men, because it is based on nothing but ignorance and folly. Nothing can be said for the claim whatsoever; and everything — logic, intellect, analogy, comparing thought, intuition — all speak loudly to the contrary, and proclaim that there is not an atom of the infinite realms of space which is not fully infilled with its own appropriate and proper lines or races of beings.

I beg you to bear these lokas and talas in mind. Please think of them always by twos, one of each, one loka and one tala, its correspondence in the scale, ever working together, as inseparable as positive and negative are, as inseparable as good and evil are, as inseparable as spirit and matter. They represent and in fact are the two sides of being, not necessarily the body-side and the spirit-side, but the two contrasting forces, the two contrasted sides of nature, the night-side and the light-side, the shadowy side and the bright side.

Tao symbol

The three diagrams to which I now call attention are of three very ancient symbols coming to us from old Atlantean times, and full of suggestive meaning along the lines of our study tonight. Let us take first this one: a circle divided by the twice curved line. Rising out of the circumference and reentering into the circumference, the line proceeds around, forming a figure, of which one side is shaded and the other is left blank. This is a favorite Buddhist symbol. It is found all over the Orient, but particularly in Buddhist countries, and furnishes one of the favorite motifs of Buddhist art. All Buddhist art is religious art, of course. Will you please note here that in taking one side, the shaded side, we find the line leaving the circumference at the top, curving around, then recurving itself, and then at the bottom reentering the circumference. And where it reenters the circumference we find the side left blank or void, moving forth in the opposite direction, forming part of the circumference of the circle, ascending until it reaches the summit, and then joining the other line which first went down from that point in the twice curved line to rejoin the point after forming the other side of the circumference. These represent the lokas and talas, or the involution of spirit and the evolution of matter; and, again, the rising one the evolution of spirit, and the involution of matter, joined and inseparable, forming one figure; the circle also suggesting the boundless All; and the shadowy side suggesting the talas, the dark side or the matter-side, and the side left void suggesting the spirit-side, the great illimitable Void of the boundless All, of the boundless Self.

I think that this design, this symbol, is one of the most beautiful, one of the most suggestive, that I have ever known. The more you study it the more it suggests thought. It shows, as said before, our lokas and our talas inseparable and interworking. It shows the descent of spirit, so to say, and the ascent of matter, coordinately and contemporaneously; and it shows the evolution of spirit, and the involution of matter back again into spirit, from which it came and which it fundamentally is.

Let us turn next to another old symbol. It is the swastika, another favorite Buddhist symbol and otherwise found all over the Orient, and even all over the world. It first suggests motion, evolution; the broken arms bent at right angles suggest life, movement, and forward progress, and many other things.

swastika

Next, note the cross figure. We have here — and now we come to the symbol-meaning of the cross upon which we must lightly touch tonight — first the vertical line, so called the spirit, and then the horizontal line, the matter which it enters and traverses. The two work together. Take away either arm, or either part of the two lines which make the swastika, and you no longer have a swastika. This also suggests, though less violently, if I may use the expression, the lokas and talas inseparably joined.

And the third of our symbols is what is known to scholars today as the Egyptian tau or ansated or handled cross, also a very old symbol dating from Atlantean times, and found on the backs of some of the statues on Easter Island.

Egyptian tau

Note the circle at the top of the cross, and the vertical line descending from it, symbolic of the descent of the spirit into matter — the horizontal line — from the sphere of the divine. Its meaning is similar to that of the swastika. The latter, however, emphasizes the movements and circulations of consciousnesses in space, or evolution; while the ansated cross represents a higher plane — the primordial movements and states of kosmic being.

These symbols are really very beautiful. There is no need to sully our thought by adverting to questions of phallic meaning into which they have been degraded. They can bear that interpretation, because you can degrade anything. All life is one, and one general design runs through all. But we shall not speak of this. The main thing we wish to point out now is that in these age-old symbols and particularly in this bipolar, bi-vital, loka-tala Buddhistic figure, the first we discussed, we find the suggested outline, the symbolic or paradigmatic form, of the entire doctrine of the higher and lower spheres of being, kosmical or human, i.e., of the lokas and talas.

There is one more thing to bring to your attention, if you please, and that is to point out at least by suggestion, the perfect coherence of all the limbs of life. How can one otherwise express it, the perfect unity of the mechanism of being? The circulations of the kosmos are carried on not in haphazard form, but from sphere to sphere, from world to world, from plane to plane, by and through consciousnesses, whether they be gods, monads, souls, or atoms, working in the various elements; and more particularly in our solar system this is done through the sun and planets, especially by and through the respective inner atmospheres of their lokas and talas.

In occultism there are seven sacred planets. We recognize many more in our solar system than seven, many more than our scientists do, but only seven planets are held sacred. And why? We can at least say this much, that these seven planets are sacred for us, inhabitants of this globe, because they are the transmitters to us from the sun of the seven primal forces of the kosmos. Our seven principles and our seven elements spring originally from this-sevenfold life-flow.

Let us put this matter in another light. On this plane, our physical globe, Terra, is alone, but on the three other planes of being, the globes of our planetary chain, two by two, are not the seven principles of our earth. That would be a false analogy, false analogical reasoning. We must be careful not to be led astray by such false analogies. The seven principles of our globe are the seven lokas and seven talas belonging especially to earth; and the seven principles of each one of the other six globes of our planetary chain are the respective lokas and talas belonging to each one of them. Now these two other globes on each plane of the three planes above ours, making thus the other six globes of our planetary chain, receive their respective life force, receive their respective inflow of intellectual and spiritual energies and beings, from the respective lokas and talas of the sun. There are seven suns, but only one sun on this plane, as our globe is but one on this plane, the lowest of the seven kosmical planes.



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