The Seven Portals

My late teacher the Lady wrote this to me, before she died. She gave me the book The voice of the Silence and told me to always keep it by my bedside, which I have done for many years.


From the Lady.

As a disciple these are the keys I was taught when I first started studying with my teacher of Theosophy and before I was allowed in the Halls Of Learning. It is from Madame Blavatsky taken from the Voice of the Silence.


1. DANA, the key of charity and love immortal.

2. SHILA ,the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect , and leaves no further room for Karmic action.

3.KSHANTI, patience sweet, that nought can ruffle.

4.VIRAGA, indifference to pleasure and to pain.

5.VIRYA, the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal TRUTH, out of the mire of lies terrestrial.

6.DHYANA, whose golden gate once opened leads the Narjol toward the realm of Sat eternal and its ceaseless contemplations.

7.PRAJNA, the key to which makes of man a God, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis.

Such to the portals are the golden keys.

Before thou canst approach the last, O weaver of thy freedom, thou hast to master these Paramitas of perfection-the virtues transcendental six and ten in number-along the weary Path. H. P. Blavatsky.

This is the first thing I taught my students. Can anyone tell me what they understand about these Seven Portals and their meanings?

It sounds like these are all lessons you must learn.

You must be loving and accepting of all,willing to help all who is in need.
Take care of all bad Karma and don't rack up anymore bad Karma
Have an endless amount of patience
find pleasure in pain
I am trying to figure out the rest.I think 5 has something to do with lying.
I could be completely off but,that is what I got from it.

take your time, we will be covering this in the voice of the silence course, buy i wanted to give you a little bit.

I hope it is okay for me to try and answer these questions, I am sure I am not even close to comprehending them but I will try as I was lucky enought to have read "The Voice of the Silence" however briefly and I wish to share my perception of this wonderful knowledge given:

1 DANA I see it as being in unity with all things, to see and feel for all like they were a part of you and you of them, to seperate the ego and connect to what is unity in everything. Be in accord with all that is around and breath in harmony with it. To guide and help but not judge, to respect and love unconditionally. It is more than just obeying the laws out of fear of retribution, it is accepting and "tuning in" with all.

2 SHILA This probably has a connection to what I see as the middle path, to eliminate the action and reaction so to speak. It feels like the first two have a connection with each other as one can achieve unity with all there is through not letting the body rule the mind ,to seperate them. One cannot walk the middle path if there is a constant pull towards one or the other, it will make a person stumble and fall making it harder to walk further in the paths.So one must learn and resolve all the lessons they set for themselves prior to being born, as to be free from reincarnating for themselves to learn what was never learned. Another connection it has with DANA is again dealing with the aspect of fear. One must adknowledge all the past mistakes and learn the lessons set in the past, once it is achieved there is only the middle path and it holds no fear or selfish desires.

3 KSHANTI This one was a little harder to comprehend for a while. It seems to me that the fear and maybe impatience are two of the most primal and common traits of ones ego, they rule every student too, no matter how dedicated. Because the two traits come down to selfish reasons. One is scared of being regected, the other of not getting there on time and wanting to obtain it so badly it is still the lower self's motivators. A student cannot have these emotions ruling him because they do not belong in those halls. It is a sacrife of everything a person once held important to him on a deeply personal level and they cannot leave a single trace inside because they will fall again and again until they shred themselves of it.

4 VIRAGA It looks like a natural step up from the 3rd, it is almost like a final destination in completely overcoming ones subjective primal emotions and instincts. No one could become one with Gods if they do not stay indifferent, the great teachers cannot be subjective for they can only guide and give if the student is open in every single room of their self. Any emotion hatred or sympathy will hinder them and they will reveal to not have blended in to all that there is and all that occurs. They again get thrown off the Middle Path. Because pleasure and pain is something we react to, but is a part of the Univeral truth, man cannot merge with the Universal if he keeps reacting to what is only a part of natural law

5 VIRYA This one was even harder to grasp...But maybe it is the next step in sperating one to all that grouned them before, the true freedom of the Higher Self, maybe to expose and merge with the light received. It might be the last stand of the Lower Self and the final victory of the Higher. There is no room for ones being led off by the very idea of self/ego, the fear or uncertainty of what one is receiving. The student must not hesitate and enter the path

6 DHYANA Well this one looks like an entrance after the tests, it is where after all the previous hindrences are counquered and the test which came before them have been fought and overcome, this is where one takes their final step to the next.

7 PRAJNA This is where man receives the key to become God, where all the paths before them, the sacrifices and the pain endured comes into fruition, one can choose 3 other forms; whether to stay on the astral plane and watch over the ones living in this world guiding them or become one with the Universal Truth, all that there is. To completely abandon all that is connecting one to the Earth and only keep the wisdome of the divine and become one with Univeral State keeping the divine wisdome learned.
The 3 forms confused me a little, but I get the gist of it to a degree.
These are the paths which require great sacrifices and the destination is, as it was once said, "is not of this world" meaning incomprehensible to most because they are not ready to start the first path.
Well I gave it my best as "The Voice of Silence" ignites something in me causing these thoughts, I couldn't help it and had to share

closer than one thinks and through many lifetimes it will take the Gods, masters and teachers know we can not do it all in one life time. they also understand and do not judge that when we make mistakes, or do things we are ashamed of not to fret as we have the chance to fix it and move to another day. just realizing it is not right, is the first step to ascension.

Okay, thank you. Reading the first few pages of the "The Voice of Silence" to me like discovering an oasis at the desert, when one nearly gives up but keeps walking anyway and then suddenly it is there and it nearly blinds him...if that makes sense

it does make sense. Mabel Collin's light on the path is like that, a rare glimpse into the halls of learning and what a chela must go through.

Guest wrote:

It sounds like these are all lessons you must learn.

You must be loving and accepting of all,willing to help all who is in need.
Take care of all bad Karma and don't rack up anymore bad Karma
Have an endless amount of patience
find pleasure in pain
I am trying to figure out the rest.I think 5 has something to do with lying.
I could be completely off but,that is what I got from it.

okay i could be off myself, but wak was completely missin the point there and only comprehending it on such a shallow level.
"find pleasure in pain"? the only pleasure one can find in real pain, the only time one would feel pleasure is when the pain is ove and a person suddenly has new found love and appreciation for the lack of pain.
sorry to ramble on, but that part really did it for me, i think a lot of people see glamour in pain and do not understand pain at all.
but i've re-read my own answer and i think i might've been a little off here and there(or maybe a lot, but as far as i know personally). but i still think the path itself is so hard to walk and requiers so much dedication and hard work. however i think it's not what people assume it to be either, like people think one has to be a complete saint, but that's not really true, they see it as being a saint in every little detail in life, but that's a very simplistic view which blinds to what it actually is. i think it refers to all of these on a very universal level, not just someone's daily life. do i make sense? or am i completely off? i have been thinking about all of this so much lately

since he is not here, he did not understand it. the seven portals will only be obtained after many lifetimes, and even if a person has mastered one they are far more ahead than one who has not.

i can imagine. it's such a long process and one can never ever see it as school work or anything else they do in their lives. because it will ruin it. there is not right answer or a reward. it's funny, but that is exactly what i love about theosophy, well one of the things i love abou it anyway.

no there is no right or wrong answer and theosophy is a way of life, it is not a ritual not a spell not magick but yet it is the more powerful than any magick that is out there.

If I may say, I think Theosophy is a gateway to the gods, the true potential of the brain to interpret and receive the universal consciousness. Without a Theosophical aspect and an evolving rhythm to one's own brain and mindset how could one ever hope to apply the infinite possibilities of consciousness and tune into, study, and apply the universal science and art of magick. If I had to define Theosophy it would be the science of possiblity, and as emerson put it every scientific theory began as a poetic notion in the mind of man, an interpretation and sympathy to the universe. We were engulfed in nature long before mankind had the means to comprehend it under the laws of classical mechanics. The narrow perspective, dogmatic approach to religion, science, and philosophy in the modewrn age is rezally baffling. Even those philosophers such as Nietzshe who offered new system of thought outside of the narrow scope of science and orthadox religion, claiming their are no universal ffoundation for morality and truths, are taking by small minds as a foundation for morality and not seen for what it is, turn his work into a slogan, hot-air. rather proving his point that the solitary genius is always the saving grace and advancer of mankind.
just thought I'd open up some dialogue. as far as pleasure and pain go, to realize their similiar nature, their sympathy to each other, is easy to, as is any pair of oppisites. depends the paradime or wether your pentagram is up or down, wether the world is split open, or heaven is wether one wants to view them as the same thing. People limit themselves when offering hard definitions without understanding the different point of views the human reason can view things, and the flexibilitie of nature to accomadate them.

crowleywillcrawl wrote:

If I may say, I think Theosophy is a gateway to the gods, the true potential of the brain to interpret and receive the universal consciousness. Without a Theosophical aspect and an evolving rhythm to one's own brain and mindset how could one ever hope to apply the infinite possibilities of consciousness and tune into, study, and apply the universal science and art of magick. If I had to define Theosophy it would be the science of possiblity, and as emerson put it every scientific theory began as a poetic notion in the mind of man, an interpretation and sympathy to the universe. We were engulfed in nature long before mankind had the means to comprehend it under the laws of classical mechanics. The narrow perspective, dogmatic approach to religion, science, and philosophy in the modewrn age is rezally baffling. Even those philosophers such as Nietzshe who offered new system of thought outside of the narrow scope of science and orthadox religion, claiming their are no universal ffoundation for morality and truths, are taking by small minds as a foundation for morality and not seen for what it is, turn his work into a slogan, hot-air. rather proving his point that the solitary genius is always the saving grace and advancer of mankind.
just thought I'd open up some dialogue. as far as pleasure and pain go, to realize their similiar nature, their sympathy to each other, is easy to, as is any pair of oppisites. depends the paradime or wether your pentagram is up or down, wether the world is split open, or heaven is wether one wants to view them as the same thing. People limit themselves when offering hard definitions without understanding the different point of views the human reason can view things, and the flexibilitie of nature to accomadate them.

Brilliant and so intuitive I could cry.

had the best of teachers (:

crowleywillcrawl wrote:

had the best of teachers (:

When you dig into that god spark inside of you Crowley you make me want to soar to the heavens.

had to rid myself of same nasty external influences, and realize some things about the nature of mind, and consciousness. Open the lock box and unlock the history of my soul's code. I'll never fall again. and Emma I am so sorry for being such an ass. You have a very special place in my heart. Lots to be done, I'm really tuned in, keep breaking through, and devolping on all fronts. Need to master my demon, I unleashed him upon myself now, and it is getting interesting. but you know me, I look forward to such things.
Let the false prophets have their world, We got work to do

crowleywillcrawl wrote:

had to rid myself of same nasty external influences, and realize some things about the nature of mind, and consciousness. Open the lock box and unlock the history of my soul's code. I'll never fall again. and Emma I am so sorry for being such an ass. You have a very special place in my heart. Lots to be done, I'm really tuned in, keep breaking through, and devolping on all fronts. Need to master my demon, I unleashed him upon myself now, and it is getting interesting. but you know me, I look forward to such things.
Let the false prophets have their world, We got work to do

Welcome back my friend. I have been waiting.

such a detour to destiny, but I'm very happy to be here with you.

crowleywillcrawl wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ausVTbgTCpU

such a detour to destiny, but I'm very happy to be here with you.

Here at this forum we do not condone violence or anything graphic. We will explain why that path is wrong. This forum is a temple where one can start to contact the God Spark. Do not go backwards go forward. Since this thread is about the seven portals which are sacred to me I must remove the video.

This is a sacred forum. It's for Theosophists and students of Theosophy. It is not to be denigrated or disturbed with violent and graphic gore videos. The purpose is to raise consciousness connect with the God within and rise to great heights with natural means and peace. The Masters protect Emma and this forum and the members. We must respect that.

my apologies, I don't associate that song with violence or gore, and I didn't think it would be taking as such. Just letting it speak to the bouncy mood of my mind and one of the reflections into the universe i have. It was off target to the topic at hand, and I should not have profaned the thread. I'm also a great fan of art and it's many way's of being interpreted.
I believe I understand for pragmatic as well as universal reasons why that path is wrong, but I'd be interested to hear your point of view. I feel weird on the subject itself, I feel I am in need of some clarity on some issues, or a range of views because my set of experiences and capabilities and such have led me to a strange place. I do wish to move forward in a positive way, just wary about my next step. thank you for being understanding.

Thank you for being fair and also understanding.

Is this reflective of the main chakras and wheels of light?

They are all connected,

well to put it in simple terms. everything is in anything, and anything is in every everything. part is in the whole, whole is in every part. that's what portals are all about, and particles. spheres in general, circles and ish are a connection between one dimension into our perceptual dimension. the properties of the sphere will explain this to you if one has an open mind and reads between the lies.