A Paper on Freedom , Sacrifice and the Nirmanakayas

HPB states in the Voice of the Silence that there are two paths:

The PATH is one, Disciple, yet in the end, twofold. At one end - bliss immediate, and at the other - bliss deferred. Both are of merit the reward: the choice is thine.

The One becomes the two, the Open and the Secret. The first one leadeth to the goal, the second, to Self-Immolation.

The first Path is LIBERATION.

But Path the Second is - RENUNCIATION, and therefore called the "Path of Woe."

Renunciation is not meant here as the rejection of the lower for the higher but the rejection of the enjoyment of the higher for the sake of the suffering of those still ensnared in the lower. The best example of this would be Sanat Kumara who, under the Law of Freedom is known as the Great Sacrifice.

The paths might represent the essential duality of the first and second rays. When balanced the path is one.

We are at the stage of evolution however where it is the second and third rays – that of the planetary soul and personality that are most dominant and so I have asked myself how these two might combine to shed light on some of the mysteries of our planetary history. In particular the moon chain failure and the so called ‘failure’ of the Buddha.

In the first case it is said that ‘premature compassion’ awoke in the breast of our Planetary Logos who has yet to master fully his astral body and he took pity on the lives in the moon chain , gathering them into the earth chain rather than leaving them to suffer till another later cycle.

In the second case it is said that the Buddha refused to take the cosmic path that he was expected to take and chose instead the path of earth service out of his great love for humanity. At the six initiation it is expected that the initiate choose his path and then, if Sanat Kumara considers him too important to the current planetary evolution he is asked to delay moving forward on his choice for a time. In a way it could be said that the Buddha ‘second guessed’ the Lord of the World by choosing Earth Service. It is ironic but certainly understandable that the Buddha, who taught on detachment, should ‘fail’ out of undue attachment to Humanity.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for the whole is ‘move on’ and other times the best thing to do is ‘delay our progress’ for the sake of others. The question is how to decide? Perhaps one moral from the above episode in the life of the Buddha is to trust the higher authority to rectify any errors in our judgement!
Another key point here is the realization that one has to actually be free BEFORE one can truly sacrifice or renunciate.

A nirmanakaya is a being who has earned nirvarna but given it up to stay functioning on the atmic plane so that they are still able to help humanity in the five worlds. To understand this better it is necessary to make a distinction between the three manifestations or bodies of the Buddha. In Buddhism it is said that each human being has both a bodhisattva and a Buddha. When these three aspects are aligned and integrated then the man on the physical plane becomes an incarnated Buddha. Just as the personality has three vehicles, so does the bodhisattva and so does the Buddha aspect. They are the same as the triadal soul and the monad.

Dharmakaya

Buddha

Sambhogakaya

Nirmanakaya Atma

Boddhisattva

Buddhi

Human Being Mental Manas

Astral

Physical

Just as at the third degree the initiate turns his back on light supernal to serve in the three worlds and yet at the same time is freed in consciousness, so at a higher level a Master may choose to stay in service to the five worlds. It is these choices that move the identity from the identification with the lower sphere on the mental and atmic planes to identification with the higher one. A nirmanakaya could be said to be a monad working through its third vesture – the atmic body. A causal soul would be a bodhisattva working through its third vesture, the manasic plane.

Just as a human personality is synthesized on the three higher manasic planes, the bodhisattva is synthesized on the three highest atmic planes and the Buddha is synthesized on the three highest logoic planes. This highest synthesis is the Adi-Buddha.

It is said that Gautama Buddha reincarnated as Shankarâchârya but the mystery is that only his vestures or middle principles were used. In other words Shankaracharya had his own personality and his own Buddha but the triadal vehicles that were used by the Buddha were attracted to form the middle principle in a similar way that the solar angels offer themselves to form the triad in the normal human being. They are thus already imbued with intelligence.

It is absolutely necessary to study the doctrine of the Buddhas esoterically and understand the subtle differences between the various planes of existence to be able to comprehend correctly the above. Put more clearly, Gautama, the human Buddha, who had, exoterically, Amitâbha for his Bodhisattva and Avolokiteshvara for his Dhyâni-Buddha—the triad emanating directly from Ädi-Buddha—assimilated these by his “Dhyâna” (meditation) and thus become a Buddha (“enlightened”). In another manner this is the case with all men; every one of us has his Bodhisattva—the middle principle, if we hold for a moment to the trinitarian division of the septenary group—and his Dhyâni-Buddha, or Chohan, the “Father of the Son.” Our connecting link with the higher Hierarchy of Celestial Beings lies here in a nutshell, only we are too sinful to assimilate them.

It was said a few pages back that an Adept who thus sacrifices himself to live, giving up full Nirvâna, though he can never lose the knowledge acquired by him in previous existences, yet can never rise higher in such borrowed bodies. Why? Because he becomes simply the vehicle of a “Son of Light” from a still higher sphere, Who being Arûpa, has no personal astral body of His own fit for this world. Such “Sons of Light,” or Dhyâni-Buddhas, are the Dharmakâyas of preceding Manvantaras, who have closed their cycles of incarnations in the ordinary sense and who, being thus Karmaless, have long ago dropped their individual Rûpas, and have become identified with the first Principle. Hence the necessity of a sacrificial Nirmânakâya, ready to suffer for the misdeeds or mistakes of the new body in its earth-pilgrimage without any future reward on the plane of progression and rebirth, since there are no rebirths for him in the ordinary sense. The higher Self, or Divine Monad, is not in such a case attached to the lower Ego; its connection is only temporary, and in most cases it acts through decrees of Karma. This is a real, genuine sacrifice, the explanation of which pertains to the highest Initiation of Gñâna (Occult Knowledge). It is closely linked, by a direct evolution of Spirit and involution of Matter, with the primeval and great Sacrifice at the foundation of the manifested Worlds, the gradual smothering and (Page 384) death of the spiritual in the material. The seed “is not quickened except it die.” [ I. Corinth., xv. 36]

SD III 384

And from Cosmic Fire

That Monad can—at a certain very advanced stage in evolution, and one far beyond that of the Adept—have its triple simultaneous manifestation, and show forth as a Master in the three worlds, as a Bodhisattva on His own plane and as the emancipated Dhyani Buddha; yet these Three will be but One, will be the result of a great spiritual vibration and will perform the triple work which may (from the standpoint of the three worlds) appear as the work of three separate great Existences. They are forms of three monadic "vestures," worn by the one Monad as a man wears his three bodies simultaneously, and functions in them separately TCF 1193

These three - in – one have a relationship to the triangle of Shamballa Hierarchy and Humanity in a planetary sense. When the Logos is able to function through this triangle then His Purpose will by revealed.

We could say that this threefoldness was centred on the monadic, buddhic and astral planes. There is another triangle however that is to be found on the intermediary planes. This is the triangle of the NGWS ( mental ) Nirmanakayas ( atmic ) and Buddhas of Activity (Logoic )

the three Buddhas of Activity are to Shamballa what the Nirmanakayas - the group of divine Contemplatives - are to the Hierarchy and the New Group of World Servers is to humanity. It is correct to state therefore that:
1. The Buddhas of Activity are Themselves impressed by the WILL of God as it energizes the entire planetary life.

2. The Nirmanakayas are impressed by the LOVE of God

3. The New Group of World Servers are impressed by the active INTELLIGENCE of God. TEV 46
These two triangles form a six pointed star  - the upright triangle could be said to be Mercury while the downward triangle is Venus.

Notice that the Buddhas of Activity link Shamballa and Humanity in the same way that the Nirmanakayas link Shamballa and Hierarchy and the NGWS link Hierarchy and Humanity.

After the second degree it is the Buddhas who form the triangle of electrical force in which the initiate stands at the third fourth and fifth degree.

They have a vital connection with the applicant for initiation, inasmuch as They each embody the force or energy of one or other of the three higher subplanes of the mental plane. Therefore at the third initiation one of these Kumaras transmits to the causal body of the initiate that energy which destroys third subplane matter, and thus brings about part of the destruction of the vehicle; at the fourth initiation another Buddha transmits second plane force, and at the fifth, first subplane force is similarly passed into the remaining atoms of the causal vehicle, producing the final liberation. HIS 108

The eventual aim of the Lord of the World is to, like the Adi Buddha , synthesise the three planetary centres by having His representative triangle in each centre.

Each of these three Centres has a governing and controlling Triangle or central Triangle of Energies. In relation to Shamballa, this Triangle is composed of the three Buddhas of Activity Who represent conscious intelligent life, conscious, intelligent and active wisdom, and conscious, intelligent and active creation.

In connection with the Hierarchy, the central Triangle is composed of the Manu, representing loving intelligent life, the Christ, representing loving intelligent consciousness, and the Mahachohan, representing loving intelligent activity, and therefore between Them representing every phase of group livingness, group expression and group action; these qualities focus through the Mahachohan, primarily because He is the Lord of Civilisation and the civilisations of humanity represent progressive growth and unfoldment.

Only in the final root-race of men upon our planet will the essential central Triangle make its appearance and function openly in the third planetary Centre, that of Humanity. Men are not yet ready for this, but the areas of conscious creative activity, out of which this triangle of functioning embodied energies will emerge, is already in preparation. One point of this future triangle will emerge out of the field of world governments, of politics and of statesmanship; another will appear out of the world religions, and a third out of the general field of world economics and finance. Today no such men of spiritual will, of spiritual love and of] spiritual intelligence are to be found upon Earth;

In connection with Shamballa, the central point is Sanat Kumara Himself; when the right time comes (though the hour is not yet) He will place His Representatives as the central points in both the Hierarchy and in Humanity. For this relatively distant event the doctrine or the theory of Avatars, of Mediators or of Inter-Mediaries is preparing the way, thus enabling men to think in these representative and inclusive terms. Not even in the Hierarchy is the time yet ripe for the "residence in state of the divine Representative." Each year, the Buddha comes and carries the force of Sanat Kumara to the Hierarchy but—He cannot stay. The "units of energy," the Members of the Hierarchy, cannot bear for long the strong quality of the incoming vibration, except after due preparation and in group form, and then only for a few scant minutes; nevertheless the "period of dynamic potency" is being prolonged during this century from one day to five; the next century may see an even longer period of registration instituted. TEV 186

Thus there will eventually be a ninefold synthesis that occurs when each of the three centres are coordinated around a triangle the members of whom are direct representatives of the Lord of the World.

At the close of the age, the three major Centres will be in complete, unified and synchronised activity, with Sanat Kumara in Shamballa overshadowing and informing His Representatives in the hierarchical and human Centres; then the central Triangle in each Centre will not be only actively functioning, but they will be working together in the closest rapport, thus forming symbolically a "Star with nine points, ever revolving";

The star with nine points would seem to have relevance to the nine-fold initiation process. The three aspects of the planetary life have their reflection in the three aspects of the human being – monad, soul and personality or Buddha, Bodhisattva and Incarnate human. The first, third and fifth planes of the cosmic physical is where the paths of freedom and sacrifice at-one. It is on the mental plane where freedom from the personality is effected but this is also the plane of sacrifice for the solar angel representing the triad. It is on the atmic plane where freedom from the five worlds is effected but this is also the plane of sacrifice for the Nirmanakaya. It is on the logoic plane where freedom from the whole cosmic physical plane is effected but this is also the plane of sacrifice for Sanat Kumara. Thus the third aspect of a higher trinity sacrifices itself ( or a part of itself ) to form the coordinating principle of a lesser trinity. We might consider then that Sanat Kumara forms part of a trinity that expresses on the lower three cosmic planes and encompasses both the causal body of the planetary logos on the cosmic mental plane as well as his lesser identity polarized on the cosmic astral plane.

Thus the path of sacrifice or renunciation by the higher is what enables the freedom of the lower identity. Once free then the newly liberated identity is able to choose to limit or subscribe a portion of that freedom for the sake of the whole in which it forms a part.

Bruce Lyon