Theosophical Jewels: Live in the Ideal

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Living the Life Series · 2 pages

A two-page plate from the Theosophical Jewels sequence — the photograph on one page and, unusually, a full explanatory table on the other, which is what the section list means by “+ notes.” The head-note records that it was inspired by E.S. Instruction No. IV in Blavatsky Collected Writings Vol. XII, page 671 and its footnote. It is also linked from the section list a second time as a JPEG image, and that link has been left untouched.

The photograph shows a string of large beads curving round against a dark ground, with a second strand of small millefiori beads running below it and a long orange-and-white ellipse anchoring the whole at the right, tied off with red cord. The facing table explains that the arrangement is a diagram rather than an ornament, and gives each stone a meaning. Black onyx stands for the Ineffable, flanked by crystal-clear quartz with an iridescent yellow-green tint for Atman and yellow chalcedony for Buddhi; indigo lapis lazuli is Higher Manas, and these together make the immortal upper triad, the Divine Self. Citrine quartz — described in a footnote as two shallow cones joined at the base — is Antahkarana, the link between impersonal and personal Manas, the former being the reincarnating Ego. Emerald green is Lower Manas, glossed as the false individuality of the common man and the same as selfishness. The outer constitution follows: a spindle of yellow-green agate for the latent duality of spirit-matter made a living trinity by Fohat, whom the red cord symbolises; and two opposing quartets of millefiori beads for the lower tetrad — red beads with green jade for descending consciousness, the Path of Action and egoism, and blue beads with yellow jade for ascending consciousness, the Path of Renunciation and altruism.

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