Books like The Secret Doctrine

When I first considered reading the The Secret Doctrine, I thought I had a pretty good back ground in the understanding of esoteric interpretations of nature. I quickly realized that if I read the material at that point, I would only attain a C-average understanding. This for me would be unacceptable. I knew that there would need to be a lot of mental upgrading. I first picked out 10 books that would get me from where I was, to where I needed to be, here are the books in the order that I read them - The Astral plane, This Dynamic Universe , The solar system , A Geometry of Space Consciousness , Eckankar, The key to Secret Worlds , How you can explore Higher dimensions of Space & Time, The Evolution of Consciousness, The Secret Doctrine-The abridge version. Along with this mental preparation came a fair amount of physical preparation. There was the every other day 5 mile bike ride, the in between days of various fitness training, as well as a reduction in my intake of stress. I looked at these books as my intellectual Mt-Everest. One would not try to climb Mt. Everest without adequate preparation. I had to get used to the sentence structure, the phraseology , as well as the profoundness of the material. I found the volume on Cosmogenesis to be the most interesting. The postulate that the universe existed before it was aware of itself brought a tear to my eye. The belief that God had to figure out a way to create itself from "nothing", was a high non-pareil. Also when you begin to study the mechanics of non-being, this can only hasten ones journey back to the source (non-being). The reading of the text, The solar system by A.E Powell, really helped me to understand vol two, Anthropogensis. The concepts, the wording, and the time line were very similar. Volume two allowed me to unite all the mythologies of all the cultures into one homogeneous whole. I will have more to say in part two of my review. I want to detail more of the ideals expressed. The first volume Cosmogenesis deals with the mechanics of how God created itself. Like all of us , God had existence before it was aware of itself. We had life after conception, but we did not have self awareness until around the age of 3 or 4. The same is true for all entities, and non entities. The treaties on Cosmogenesis goes into detail as to how God created itself from the great potential. Before anything can exist the "potential" has to exist first, even when it comes to God. Before God could actualize itself, it had to create the tools of existence. It first had to create space, and then it had to create time, and then it had to create form (geometry) or matter, (which is just folded space). Imagine space as a flat table cloth, now imagine that you twist up a little piece of the table cloth, there you have a disturbance, and that disturbance or "change" is matter. Matter is to space, what Ice is to water. Oh yes, what say you. From these manifestations God poured itself into its newly created universe, and this act represented a type of self awareness for God. I liked how the author interpreted the more arcane text,(stanzas) of the various religions into a practical explanation for a contemporary audience. The section on non-being which predates existence, starts on page 44. It was the non-beings that yearned to exist that caused creation to "be". It was because these non-existence creatures of nothing, seeking to understand the absent of reality, that a potential God brought forth a secondary reality to give them expression in the great actualization we call the Metaverse. The reading is slow and tedious, but when that ah moment of intellectual illumination surges through your being, the time invested is a small price to pay. I could not find any holes in the logic of her presentations, and the route she takes the reader on shows the mark of a true teacher. Another section that tickled my fancy was that on the subject of sacred geometry. The first "thing" that was created, were patterns in the void. These shapes define what is in the shape, and what is outside. This sets up a differentiation in the symmetry of nothing. From there the phenomenon of motion was introduce, and that became the bases for a type of life. Pythagoras was a great teacher of sacred geometry, and I would recommend his teachings to further your understanding of the subject. I cannot say enough about the debt humanity owes to Madam Blavatsky. "Her" ideals as they are expressed in the text are a great boom to our understanding of what is, and a profound boost to aid us in our journey home. The text on anthropogenesis deals mainly with human consciousness, and the forms it has had to function through. It talks about the different changes and rounds as well as the root races, and sub races, and how those races brought out different characteristics of awareness, that the developing consciousness had to unfold to become aware of the laws of nature, which is called evolution. The text states that as consciousness dabbled in physical reality it became more engrossed in the forms it began to inhabit. At some point this consciousness began to forget its true home, because in the physical form they could feel more alive, if only in a limited physical sense . At this stage the young consciousness cannot function on its own plane (the 5th dimension) it must work its way up. Its like being able to do more under the influence of some substance, and you come to think that is normal, and the old dull way is abnormal and is to be avoided. To some schools of thought this came to be known as the "fall" of mankind, as the soul (consciousness) became enmeshed in physical reality, which was the natural course of evolution. When the young consciousness or souls saw the quagmire they had made, some of them refused to complete the cycle of their curriculum of learning, this was known as the rebellion, or the war in heaven. It would be like a child refusing to complete the rest of the school year, because of one rough day. These young souls supposedly were lead by one entity who sought to "modify" the plan of nature. This entity was known as the bringer of knowledge (choice). Why, it thought, should we be giving free will, and we can't use it ? This adventurous young soul came to be known as Lucifer in the various religions and myths. If I'm to understand the readings this being was one of the saviors of humanity by being the first to "use" free will as compare to just intellectualizing it. We see this being bringing choice to other human creations. In the "story" of Adam and Eve they were just automatons who were basically robots with no chance for advancement. Ask yourself, what did Adam and Eve do in the garden all day, remember they had all eternity to do it!! Could they feel pain ? mentally or physically ? could they get bored ? could they leave the garden ? did they have hunger pangs, if so then it wouldn't be paradise. Lucifer/Satan as the parable goes, offered Adam and Eve a "choice" stay here and remain ignorant, or exercise your free will and explore the wonders of existence, with responsibilities and consequences. The only true freedom is to be more than that which created you. One ideal the text ends with is describing the next race (not skin color) that will bring about other traits of consciousness, that of intuition and empathy . This round, or period will last about 700 years. The secret Doctrine does a good job in explaining these scenarios from a Theosophical point of view. Whether you agree with such esoteric views is secondary to the fact that at least you're open minded enough to at least considered them. For this we should be thankful that Madam Blavatsky presented these interpretations in what I think are a very lucid and pragmatic way, and for this I give her all the stars.