To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

36 / TO LIGHT A THOUSAND LAMPS
HPB speaks of sūtrātman, the ‘‘thread of radiance,’’ as
being imperishable throughout the great world cycle and
disappearing or dissolving only in nirvana, the great rest
period, after which it will reemerge ‘‘in its integrity on the
day when the Great Law calls all things back into action.’’*
This opens up a marvelous vista. Just as Jesus told the Jews
in the temple, ‘‘Before Abraham was, I am’’ (John 8:58), so
humanity as a life-wave of monads was there as essences,
particles of divinity, of life, of consciousness, awaiting the
cyclic moment when the universe was to come forth again
in a new birth, a new flowering. When it manifests, we do
also, numberless seed-logoi, seeds of life, each with its distinctive
character or svabhāva; and at the close of its active
cycle, when it enters another rest period, we do likewise, for
we are part of and one with all — there is no separation. Yet
every spark of godhood, though reabsorbed into non-being
when the drama of a life-period ends, retains its inherent
mark of selfhood. This is its mark, and no one else’s: the
whole purpose of its being is to develop its characteristic
essence to the full.
How does this vast picture of reimbodiment of worlds
and human beings and all life forms relate to the scientific
views of heredity? Obviously, physical mechanisms for
heredity exist, but could the body be formed without any
connection with the part of us that outlasts many deaths?
In his writings, G. de Purucker goes into the subject of
reincarnation extensively, emphasizing that the process of
rebirth starts long before the moment of conception. When
*The Secret Doctrine 2:80.