The
Hard Lesson We Can Learn
From
Widespread Disease and Suffering
Steven
H. Levy
“Astral Light - The invisible region that surrounds
our globe, as
it does every other, and corresponding as the second
Principle of
Kosmos (…) to the Linga
Sharira or the Astral Double in man. A
subtle Essence visible only to a clairvoyant eye, and
the lowest but
one (viz.,
the earth), of the Seven Akashic or Kosmic Principles.
Eliphas Lévi calls it the great Serpent and the Dragon
from which
radiates on Humanity every evil influence. This is so;
but why not
add that the Astral Light gives out nothing but what
it has received;
that it is the great terrestrial crucible, in which
the vile emanations
of the earth (moral and physical) upon which the
Astral Light is fed,
are all converted into their subtlest essence, and
radiated back
intensified, thus becoming epidemics - moral, psychic
and physical.”
(“The Theosophical
Glossary”, H.P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., p. 38)
By March 2020 the new
2019 coronavirus, officially named
Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), has spread to dozens of countries
across the world. The WHO says the world should be prepared for a pandemic.
The physical consequences alone of a viral pandemic
are very serious. In February 1957, a new influenza virus emerged in East Asia
causing a pandemic, the so-called Asian Flu. Some 1.1 million deaths were
estimated to be caused worldwide.
Officially, a pandemic is the easy transmission from
person to person of a new disease throughout many countries. Whereas, an
epidemic is a widespread occurrence of a disease in a community at a particular
time.
As the student of Theosophy understands, the
interdependence and interconnectedness of humanity is a fact in all departments
of nature - physical, psychic and moral. Human beings, individually and
collectively are continuously impressing one another and being impressed by
dark as well as inspiring psychic and moral influences. These local and
widespread contagions have a periodic tendency determined by two fundamental
laws of nature - periodicity, or the cyclic return of impressions, and the
karmic law of cause and effect. The meaning, significance, and consequences of
a pandemic are much more complex than one might expect, since they are often
accompanied by moral and psychic “Infection.” People need to prepare and
organize appropriately. Pandemics create both challenges and opportunities for
advancement.
Students of the history of pandemics recognize this
truth as well. A wonderful source on the subject is a new book written by
historian Frank M. Snowden, “Epidemics
and Society: From the Black Death to the Present”. Frank M. Snowden is a
professor emeritus of history and the history of medicine at Yale. He demonstrates
that epidemics affect every aspect of human life. They influence politics,
revolutions, and the environment. They can inflame racial discrimination and
invoke the inhuman responses of governments. They change societies and affect
personal relationships.
Most importantly, Professor Snowden concludes that
pandemics and epidemics are not random events that affect societies
indiscriminately, chaotically and without warning. A society produces its own
vulnerability to viral epidemics by its structure, values, standard of living,
and political priorities. It is an opportunistic contagion that moves across
the moral and mental fault lines of a society. They manifest as a causal chain
of ordered events. This idea is well understood and appreciated by the student
of Theosophy to be a special aspect of the universal law of karma called by the
ancients as the nidanic chain of incessant causation and effect.
Professor Snowden emphasizes that the history of
pandemics reveals a truth that students of Theosophy have already come to
realize from their experience with individual and interpersonal reactions to
the real and imagined threat of the coronavirus. The truth is that viral
epidemics and pandemics hold up a mirror as to who we really are, or at least
the weaknesses and strengths that are ordinarily hidden from our view. This is
no surprise to the Theosophist who understands the above quotation from “The Theosophical Glossary”. The astral
light that surrounds and interpenetrates the world is like a hall of mirrors
that reflects back in an intensified manner the vile emanations it has received
from humanity.
Individually and collectively, pandemics and epidemics
affect us mentally, psychically, and morally. The experience makes us more
aware of our attitude towards our own mortality, to death, to our lives, to our
environment. We certainly get to witness that we create the environment in
which we live and that it responds to us. We become more aware of the values
that shape our daily lives and little behaviors that would normally seem
insignificant and unnoticeable. Do we care about the people we work with, the
poor, the elderly, the sick and vulnerable people of the world? The way in
which we respond reveals our moral values and commitments.
All the challenges notwithstanding, the collective and
individual experience of an epidemic or pandemic has and can be an unrivaled
learning experience and opportunity for advancement of an individual or
society.
Great humanitarian reforms and organizations have
sprung up in the wake of epidemics. For the serious Theosophists who try to
make the teachings practical in their lives and fit themselves to be better
able to help others, the experience arouses opportunities to crush out passions
that primarily benefit the selfish tendencies of personality. The experience
provides an opportunity to think about otherwise mundane matters of everyday
life from the point of view of Divine Wisdom, and to crush out the notion of an
existence that is separate from others.
Pandemics seem to teach an inescapable lesson that
sermons, lectures, articles, and visual media often fail to impress so
vigorously. That is that regardless of our race, ethnicity, economic status,
creed, sex, condition, or organizational affiliation, we are all in this
together and that we have to organize our lives and sacrifice some personal
comfort with thought of the benefit of others. The health and well-being of
those who might otherwise be perceived among us as the least and most
vulnerable affects the health of all. As Professor Snowden says, we are best
prepared for any pandemic or epidemic when we realize that what affects one
person anywhere affects everyone everywhere.
No Theosophist could say it better.
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“The Meaning of a Pandemic” was published at the
associated websites on 7 March 2020.
Click to see other
texts by Steven H. Levy, M.D., a
theosophist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
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Link to the website
of the World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/.
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Regarding the
planetary level of karmic law, see the article “Human Ethics and Earthquakes”,
by Damodar K. Mavalankar.
Consider reading “Meditation on the Awakening of Mankind”
and “The Cycles of Our Mankind”.
You might like to examine
the booklet “Health and Therapy”.
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