Devas and angels - the builders of all forms in the created worlds:

Introduction:

Theosophy describes the world as divided into septenaries. Man's personality, according to Theosophy, is composed of the physical and etheric body, the astral and mental body, and consequently made up from matter from the physical, etheric, astral and mental levels. As he evolves, the matter becomes more refined, the vibration rate increases and the mental body grows and develops more and more qualities and skills, also the astral body changes its colours to more beautiful and luminous ones. This process is described in C. W. Leadbeater: "Man visible and invisible", and in many other Theosophical books.

(insert scan from Leadbeater's book)

Even if our personality is thus a quaternity, materialistic science deals only with the purely physical part of it, the gross physical body, and not with the other parts which structure and vivify the physical body (the role of the etheric body), gives us the ability to feel and sense and make moral judgments based on our level of compassion and empathy (the astral body), and enables us to think concretely and abstractly, memorize and be creative (mental body). Thus, if we look at this scheme of the sevenfold vision of the solar system (from Alice A. Bailey: Letters on Occult Meditation), we can see that natural science and the materialists really only deal with the three sub-planes of the physical-etheric plane, namely the dense, liquid and gaseous states of matter.

       THE SEVEN COSMIC PLANES                           THE SEVEN PLANES OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Above it and encompassing it lie the four ethers (chemical ether, warmth ether, life ether and light ether) which composes our etheric body and the etheric bodies of all other physical life forms (there are no physical living beings without etheric counterparts, even minerals have an etheric counterpart), and then comes the seven astral planes, the seven mental planes, seven buddhic planes (the home of man's Higher Self and of the Earth's spiritual Hierarchy, the Earth's heart centre), the seven atmic planes (the home of Shamballa, the Centre where the Will of God is known, the planetary crown centre), seven monadic planes (home of man's Spirit) and the seven Adi planes - and these seven planes with each their seven sub-planes are but the seven sub-planes of the cosmic physical plane.....So physical science deals with the three sub-planes of the 7th sub-plane of the cosmic physical plane.....

This is just to give a view of the scope of the Theosophical cosmology and to illustrate the planes - for: Devas or angels are the beings who control the forces and energies on all planes in all worlds, they are the builders and agents of the Creative Source in the creation, sustenance and destruction of the worlds that unfold within time and space and beyond. There are angels who help to built man's physical, etheric, astral and mental body before the incarnation starts, and angels who follow us while in incarnation, ready to help us by sending us energies of light and love. Other angels oversee the evolution of a local area, a landscape, a region, a country, a continent, a planet, a solar system, a galaxy - and on in infinity, and others again embody divine energies like electric fire, the kundalini force, will force, love, wisdom, light, purity, truth etc. etc. Some angels work with animals and plants, stimulating them in their growth, others with human beings, protecting and healing them - angels have many specialised functions towards the kingdoms of nature - mineral, plant, animal and human -and they are very willing and eager to co-operate with humanity and share their knowledge with us if we open up to them and learn to co-operate with them in respect for the law of love.

The devas or angels who can be contacted by human beings usually reside on the mental, astral and etheric planes and are there contacted by clairvoyants and sensitives. There have always been such sensitive persons, and the doctrine of angels in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism proves that humanity's religious leaders have found it important that humanity be aware of the existence of the angels.

But in this century, knowledge of the angels and their work has become accessible to the great public outside the secret mystery school through the works of great initiates and sensitives like Rudolf Steiner and Geoffrey Hodson. At Findhorn, there has been a period of co-operation between humans and angels, building a fertile garden on barren earth, and even in my small country of Denmark we have people who can see and co-operate with the angels. Theosophy teaches, that in 2025 the 4th ray of harmony through conflict which governs the work of the deva kingdom, will come into incarnation on the Earth, and this will accelerate the co-operation between the angels and humanity and open wide the doors to the inner planes for humanity, but as always, the work is prepared long ahead, and therefore already this century has given humanity much information about the devas, angels and nature spirits and their work.

These are the books about devas, angels and nature spirits that I have found most illuminating and which I encourage the reader to study to gain a deeper insight into this "other side" of nature which keeps everything alive and without which humanity and the other physical kingdoms could not exist one single day.

Geoffrey Hodson:
The Kingdom of the Gods
Clairvoyant Investigations
The Brotherhood of Angels and Men
The Angelic Hosts
Fairies at Work and at Play

Findhorn Community: The Findhorn Garden

Eskild Tjalve: Devas - the world of the angels and nature spirits

Finally, some quotes and pictures from the books to inspire the reader:

The introduction to "The Kingdom of the Gods", by Geoffrey Hodson:

One day as, on a hillside at the edge of a beech forest in a secluded valley in the West of England, I was seeking ardently to enter the Sanctuary of Nature's hidden life, for me the heavens suddenly became filled with light. My consciousness was caught up into a realm radiant with that light which never was on land or sea. Gradually I realized the presence of a great Angelic Being, who was doubtless responsible for my elevated state. From his mind into mine there began to flow a stream of ideas concerning the life, the force and the consciousness of the universe and their self-expression as angels and as men. This description is not strictly accurate, however, because during such communication, the sense of duality was reduced to a minimum. Rather did the two centres of consciousness, those of the angel and myself, become almost co-existent, temporarily forming one "being" within which the stream of ideas arose. This, I believe, is essentially true of all interchanges which occur above the level of the formal mind, and especially at those of spiritual Wisdom and spiritual Will (the buddhic and atmic planes. red). In the latter, duality virtually disappears and oneness, uttermost interior unity remains. Daily entering that realm of light, I found that the great ocean of the life, the force and the soul of the universe had its myriad denizens. These are the Spiritual Selves of men and Super-men and the vast company of the Angelic Hosts, of which the being who "addressed" me was a member. He was supernally beautiful, majestic, god-like, and impassive and impersonal to the last degree. As teacher to pupil, he began to tell of - and to enable me, with gradually increasing clarity, to perceive - the Angelic Hosts, their Orders and degrees. He told of their communion with men, as in ancient Greece, Egypt and Eastern lands, their place in Nature as Ministers of the Most High and of that great dawn of creation when, metaphorically, as the Morning Stars they sang together and as the Sons of God they shouted for joy. He spoke of the creative process as the composition and performance of a celestial symphony, of the Logos as Divine Musician and of His universe as a manifestation of celestial harmony. He told of the great Gods who assimilate the mighty creative chords in their ranks from the highest spiritual worlds to the realm of everlasting Archetypes. the great sound-forms upon and by which the physical universe is modeled. Therefrom, he said, the music of the Creative "Word" passes on to the lower worlds, where lesser Hosts formatively echo and re-echo it, thereby building all Nature's varied forms. Since the Great Artist of the Universe perpetually creates, the Creative Symphony is ever being composed and ever performed. Angels and men live amidst celestial harmonies, the everlasting music of the spheres. Such, in part, is the vision which once I had and which still lives with me. With it there has come  the knowledge that, in their real existence, the Gods who once were so near to men were none other than the Angelic Hosts, that through-out the great racial darkness they have still been near, though un-perceived, and that the time approaches when again the Major Creative Powers and Beings, the laws by which Cosmos emerges from chaos and the place of humanity in the vast process of divine manifestation will become apparent to mankind. For that day, it was intimated, man may well prepare. Ugliness must be banished, war must be outlawed, brotherhood must reign, beauty must be enshrined in human hearts and revealed through human lives. Then to a humanity united in one fraternity the High Gods will reveal their immortal loveliness and lend their aid in building a new world in which all men may perceive and serve the Supreme as Beauty and as Truth.

GEOFFREY HODSON, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand 1952..

The Creative Word and the Creative Hierarchies, from p. 24-26:

The "Word"

In chapter I presented the concept of the Logos as Musician and the continuous process of creation as the performance of a great symphony. This, "the Great Work", He conceived and developed in earlier creative "Days", and perchance perfected it in the silence and darkness of intermediate, creative "Night". When once more there is to be light, He "speaks" and by the power of His "Word" brings all things into being. This first expression of the "motif" of the new universe is "heard" or responded to by virgin matter, and the planes of Nature with their forms and in habitants gradually appear. Into these the Logos pours forth perpetually His Life that they may live, this being His continuous sacrifice, His everlasting oblation. The Logos or Verbum is, in reality, no word or voice of any "Being". It is pure Will expressive of the presumed purpose or intent of the divine Father-Mother in bringing forth the Universe. It is the irresistible, all-pervasive, inherent impulse to self-expression, expansion (hence the nature of Brahma, from the Sanskrit word brih, to expand and grow) and fullness which reigns at the heart of all Nature and all Creation from the highest to the lowest. It is the will to fullness which "sounds forth" at that Cosmic moment when divine Ideation is first emanated as Will-Light from the Absolute. Throughout the Cosmic Days and Years which follow, that Will-Light calls into existence suns, planets, beings, in obedience to law. Level after level and plane after plane of increasing density come into existence and gradually embody and show forth the Will-Light. Monads flash forth their Rays. Beings are emanated and inhabit the planes. Deeper and deeper penetrates the Cosmic Will-Thought-Word, awakening the sleeping substance, forcing its atoms to answer, to embody and echo, or re-sound, the Cosmic Word. His Light shines forth from the Centre to illumine the darkness and render visible the hitherto invisible robes in which the All-Mother is wrapped. The Will becomes more potent. The Sound of the Word becomes louder and the Light becomes brighter as the Eons pass. The Monads become more radiant and their forth-flashed Monadic Rays wider and more brilliant. The denser regions assume the intended forms. The outer darkness give way to Light, and where once there was Chaos, divine Order rules. In each and every being thus called into existence as dweller and toiler in the created worlds, the Cosmic processes are, microcosmically, reproduced and fulfilled to parallel. As the whole responds so does every part. In man, as one such dweller and toiler in the worlds, the inertia and silence inherent in matter give place to rhythmic motion and to the "heard" and "answered" creative Voice. In man, as in universe, darkness is displaced by light. The universal "Word" when uttered becomes manifest as myriads of chords, each a coherent, self-existent sound with its force and light manifestations. Each chord appears as a relatively changeless, abstract form, Archetype or divine idea, in the higher worlds of each of the planets. These Archetypes in their turn sounds their "word", "relaying" into the lower worlds the primal Word-force. Magnetic fields are set up therein, matter is drawn into them and, with the aid of the Gods, is molded into evolving forms. These forms, vivified by divine Life, become the abode of intelligences (the Monads) at the mineral, plant, animal, human and superhuman phases of development. As a result of experience in the forms, these intelligences, assisted by the Gods, gradually unfold their innate faculties and powers until the degree of development set both for them and for the forms has been attained. The Gods are thus conceived both as builders of form and assistants in the evolution of consciousness. When this standard has been reached by all beings and, in obedience to the law of cycles, the time limit of objective manifestation has been attained, the whole Solar System is withdrawn into the subjective state. In this condition it remains until under the same cyclic law it reappears and the process of development or ascent is continued from the point reached at the close of the preceding period of objective manifestation. Occult philosophy sees this process as continuing indefinitely, there being no limit to the evolutionary possibilities. This orderly progression has no conceivable beginning and no imaginable end.

A message from a Mountain Deva Raja received by Geoffrey Hodson:

"The Gods await the conscious re-union of the mind of man with the Universal Mind. Humanity awakens slowly, Matter-blinded through centuries, few man as yet perceive the mind within the substance, the life within the form. In search for power and wealth, men have traversed the whole earth, have penetrated the wilds, scaled the peaks and conquered the polar wastes. Let them now seek within the form, scale the heights of their own consciousness, penetrate its depth, in search of that inner Power and Life by which alone they may become strong in will and spiritually enriched. He who thus throws open his life and mind to the Universal Life and Mind indwelling in all things will enter into union therewith and to him the Gods will appear".                                                                                                                      - A Mountain God.

Click here to see some pictures of the devas which Hodson met: Hodson's Pictures

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