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short time the god he was, before, in compliance with Karmic law, he first
descended into matter and incarnated in the first man of flesh. The "golden
thread" sees all its "pearls" and misses not one of them.
-oOo-
What is Really Meant by Annihilation
Q. I have heard some Theosophists speak of a golden thread on which their
lives were strung. What do they mean by this?
A. In the Hindu Sacred books it is said that the part of us which undergoes
periodical incarnation is the Sutratman, which means literally the "Thread
Soul." It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego-Manas conjoined with
Buddhi-which absorbs the Manasic recollections of all our preceding lives.
It is so called, because, like the pearls on a thread, so is the long series
of human lives strung together on that one thread. In some Upanishad these
recurrent rebirths are likened to the life of a mortal which oscillates
periodically between sleep and waking.
Q. This, I must say, does not seem very clear, and I will tell you why. For
the man who awakes, another day commences, but that man is the same in soul
and body as he was the day before; whereas at every incarnation a full
change takes place not only of the external envelope, sex, and personality,
but even of the mental and psychic capacities. The simile does not seem to
me quite correct. The man who arises from sleep remembers quite clearly what
he has done yesterday, the day before, and even months and years ago. But
none of us has the slightest recollection of a preceding life or of any fact
or event concerning it & I may forget in the morning what I have dreamt
during the night, still I know that I have slept and have the certainty that
I lived during sleep; but what recollection can I have of my past
incarnation until the moment of death? How do you reconcile this?
A. Some people do recollect their past incarnations during life; but these
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The Key To Theosophy - HP Blavatsky.txt
are Buddhas and Initiates. This is what the Yogis call Samm -Sambuddha, or
the knowledge of the whole series of one's past incarnations.
Q. But we ordinary mortals who have not reached Samm -Sambuddha, how are we
to understand this simile?
A. By studying it and trying to understand more correctly the
characteristics and the three kinds of sleep. Sleep is a general and
immutable law for man as for beast, but there are different kinds of sleep
and still more different dreams and visions.
Q. But this takes us to another subject. Let us return to the materialist
who, while not denying dreams, which he could hardly do, yet denies
immortality in general and the survival of his own individuality.
A. And the materialist, without knowing it, is right. One who has no inner
perception of, and faith in, the immortality of his soul, in that man the
soul can never become Buddhi-Taijasi , but will remain simply Manas, and for
Manas alone there is no immortality possible. In order to live in the world
to come a conscious life, one has to believe first of all in that life
during the terrestrial existence. On these two aphorisms of the Secret
Science all the philosophy about the postmortem consciousness and the
immortality of the soul is built. The Ego receives always according to its
deserts. After the dissolution of the body, there commences for it a period
of full awakened consciousness, or a state of chaotic dreams, or an utterly
dreamless sleep undistinguishable from annihilation, and these are the three
kinds of sleep. If our physiologists find the cause of dreams and visions in
an unconscious preparation for them during the waking hours, why cannot the
same be admitted for the postmortem dreams? I repeat it: death is sleep.
After death, before the spiritual eyes of the soul, begins a performance
according to a program learnt and very often unconsciously composed by
ourselves: the practical carrying out of correct beliefs or of illusions
which have been created by ourselves. The Methodist will be Methodist, the
Muslim a Muslim, at least for some time-in a perfect fool's paradise of each
man's creation and making. These are the postmortem fruits of the tree of
life. Naturally, our belief or unbelief in the fact of conscious immortality
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