Andrew Rooke – Australia
Asteroids are small rocky objects that orbit the sun and are sometimes called minor planets. Experts say that asteroids are remnants of the rocky material that first formed the planets of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. NASA has said that there are approx. 1,281,490 known asteroids in our solar system and no doubt many millions more that are unknown by our science. Most of the asteroids are orbiting the sun in between Mars and Jupiter however some cross the path of the Earth’s orbit and these have a usually remote chance of hitting the earth with potentially devastating results for life on the surface of our planet. Although most of these asteroids miss the Earth every now and then one does hit our planet. It is not a matter of whether this will happen, but when it will happen.
On April 11th 2024, a small asteroid about the size of a car passed the earth a mere 20,000 kilometres away - a close shave in astronomical terms. In February 2025, a potentially city-killing asteroid (Asteroid yr4) was given a 3.1% chance of hitting the Earth or our Moon in 2032, throwing the scientific community into a panic and realistically planning to try and divert the asteroid from its potential collision with highly-populated areas of the Earth.
More serious, on the morning of Feb.15, 2013, a meteor the size of a semitrailer unseen by the world’s astronomical observatories, shot out from the direction of the rising sun and exploded in a fireball over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. Briefly glowing brighter than the sun itself, the meteor exploded with 30 times more energy than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshim, exploding some 14 miles (22 kilometers) above the ground. The blast shattered windows on more than 7,000 buildings and temporarily blinded pedestrians, inflicted instantaneous ultraviolet burns and otherwise injured more than 1,600 people. Fortunately, no known deaths resulted.
The Chelyabinsk meteor is thought to be the biggest natural space object to enter Earth's atmosphere in more than 100 years. Yet no observatory on Earth saw it coming. Arriving from the direction of the sun, the rock remained hidden in our biggest blind spot, until it was too late. Events like these are, fortunately, uncommon. Rocks the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor — roughly 66 feet (20 meters) wide — breach Earth's atmosphere once every 50 to 100 years, according to an estimate from the European Space Agency (ESA).
Larger asteroids strike even less frequently. The size of the one that destroyed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago strikes the earth about once every 100 million years. To date, astronomers have mapped the orbits of more than 33,000 near-Earth asteroids and, thankfully,found that none pose a risk of hitting our planet for at least the next century.
Theosophical teachers tell us that the Masters of Wisdom are continuously acting as the ‘Guardian Wall’ shielding and protecting mankind from a vast array of cosmic and terrestrial dangers. Although I don’t know of specific instances where the earth has been so protected,we are told that these dangers arise continuously at many levels – spiritual, intellectual, psychical, astral, and physical such as the ‘near-earth asteroids’ that frequently shave by the earth at tremendous speed. In addition to these spectacular physical dangers with which we are more familiar, G de Purucker tells us: “There are the cosmic dangers reaching our earth from outside, from other planets of the solar system, and from dead planets, our moon in particular”…”and from rivers of lives circulating through the living being of the solar system which seek to enter our earth’s atmosphere.” – from G de Purucker: The Fountain Source of Occultism, page 676.
In particular the karmic harvest of Humanity’s collective disharmonious acts and thoughts would threaten our very survival if not ‘dammed back’ as far as they are able karmically by members of the Brotherhood of Compassion. Perhaps the greatest dangers facing mankind today are the ‘psychical epidemics’ sweeping the world distracting our thoughts from spirituality and misleading us from fulfilling our true human potential. It is said that the Great Ones protect humanity with their enlightened knowledge of the divine potencies of sound, ‘singing’ these dangers, as far as is possible, into the ‘akasha’ (the kosmical solstices and equinoxes (December, March, June, and September), in secret places around the globe, one or many brave souls undergo the trials of the solstices and equinoxes which may fit them one day to be another ‘stone’ in the Guardian Wall. Unknown,unrecognized and virtually invisible to the majority of humanity, they work selflessly to protect mankind and provide an environment that will give us ordinary folk the time and opportunity to learn the lessons of life available on our Earth.
Inspired by the little we know of their example, let us hearken to the true message of the seasons of initiation and go forward with our lives in the same compassionate spirit. Theosophical founder HP Blavatsky wrote about the Guardian Wall in her book, The Voice of the Silence, page 68:
“Self-doomed to live through future kalpas, unthanked and unperceived by man; wedged as a stone with countless other stones which form the ‘Guardian Wall’, such is thy future if the seventh grade thou passest. Built by the hand of many Masters of Compassion, raised by their tortures, by their blood cemented, it shields mankind, since man is man, protecting it from further and greater misery and sorrow. Withal man sees it not, will not perceive it, nor will he heed the word of Wisdom… for he knows it not. But thou has heard it, thou knowest all, O thou of eager guilleless Soul…and thou must choose.”
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This article also appeared in the June 2025 issue of the magazine THE ANCIENT WISDOM DOWNUNDER. If you would like to receive this high quality quarterly e-Magazine in your mailbox, write to the editor, Mr. Andrew Rooke: