BOOK
-II -
INTRODUCTION
In this second book, the chapters have been given the same numbers and titles
as their counterparts in Book I. Here, however, the outline has been supplemented
and illustrated by further quotations from the original literature. While it
is hoped that a reasonably connected narrative will result, a mass of information
has had necessarily to be omitted, and in spite of the additional material given
here, we still have no more than the barest groundplan of Esoteric Science.
The reader who wishes to understand more of its structure must turn to the classical
works themselves. Even there the picture is not complete; although much has
been made available, yet, as Mme Blavatsky advised her readers, it is relatively
little, and that little is part allegorical.
Because of the primary intention of keeping the main thesis clear, little reference
has been made to the esoteric element in the world's religious and philosophical
systems. Yet the material relating to this aspect of the Science is abundant,
and each reader will be able to study his particular interest in the light of
Esotericism.
The writer hopes that it is not too much to assume that the reader, having
come this far in the exploration of this outline of Occult Science, will have
begun to turn to the source material on which this outline is based. This second
part will, in addition to elaborating some of the information given in Book
I, set up signposts leading to some of the more recondite aspects of the science.
Having made himself familiar with the basic concepts and the vocabulary which
their study entails, the reader will have no great difficulty in adding to the
vocabulary required for this further exploration.
The use of special or technical terms has been kept to a minimum in this outline.
In the principal literature, a temporary difficulty that confronts the student
is the indiscriminate mixing of nomenclatures: Buddhist. Hindu, Tibetan, Kabalistic
and so on. However, the difficulty will be overcome by perseverance and the
growing familiarity with the terms encountered.
Esoteric Science is the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy. In Chapter
14, religion is discussed , in broad terms, in the light of Esotericism. Throughout
the book, some aspects of philosophy are introduced, whereas little attention
is given to the science of today. Yet Esoteric Science has a significant contribution
to make both to the natural sciences and to the domain of psychology, as well
as to metaphysics in such questions as the nature of matter, time, space and
causation. Esoteric Science affirms the existence of invisible and subjective
realms of being that are not yet within the purview of today's sciences. These
inner, causative worlds are the "within" whence originates the "without", with
all its divers substances, forms, qualities and modes of behaviour.
Beyond and behind these realms is THAT which ever is. This is the postulated
great unknowable, the ABSOLUTE of Esotericism, the Parabrahm of the Hindus,
the Causeless Cause behind the very first stirrings of that which is to be the
root of all manifestation, the ONE. Neither the ever-existing THAT, nor the
ONE, is 'in' space and time as we understand them. With the first signs of manifestation,
at the beginning of a Cosmos, there arise the abstract roots of what will be
space, substance and motion, to bring manifestation into being.
Modern science is now examining the idea that matter may originate from space.
Esotericism endorses this view and in fact teaches it, adding, however, that
there are two aspects of space, a 'visible' and an 'invisible' one. The invisible
aspect is inner, subjective space - the space of mental pictures, dreams, ideal
images, and so on; it is dimensionless, that is, it cannot be measured. Visible
space is the room in which 'stuff' and things exist, and it originates with
them. It is the space of physical existence, our physical universe. In the occult
view, this space is material, that is, it is itself 'stuff' from which is ultimately
derived the substance of all things. It can be regarded as an ethereal plasma;
it is affected by magnetic fields and gravity which, together with what manifests
to us as electricity, are aspects of it in their essential nature. It is to
be noted that, according to the esoteric teaching, gravity is an "attraction"
which things physical have for one another, a kind of affinity or sympathetic
attraction stemming from within their inner natures. In the physical world such
an attraction appears also in chemical affinities. In an attempt to understand
how the ordinary notion of dimension does not apply to inner space, we can ask
ourselves, for example, how big - by any physical yardstick - is any imagined
thing, be it a world or an egg!
The universe, with all that is in it, is subject to cyclic law. All things
come and go, all things are born and die. So too does all matter; like everything
else, sub-atomic particles have a finite life. Although at sub-atomic levels
a degree of uncertainty prevails, yet even here statistical probability applies,
and the probability is that our world, and the entire Cosmos, will continue
much as they are but subject to slow change. Everything throughout the Cosmos
is living and intelligent in its own degree. Occultism regards the Cosmos as
a Unity, all its innumerable components sharing its entire nature; the deepest
mystery, truly! Everything, therefore, is both in it and of it, and everything
must inevitably participate in its processes. (This fact justifies the view
that the observer of an experiment necessarily affects what he observes.)
There are many questions confronting science today. Let us state a few of them.
Whence the hydrogen that seems to be continuously created? What is life? Whence
animation and consciousness? Whence the human form? How do the molecules, the
cells and the organs that comprise it come to 'know' their special function?
What and where ultimately is memory? Why does evolution appear punctuated? In
Esoteric Science may be found explanations which will answer these and many
other as yet unresolved problems of science - problems which cannot be resolved
so long as scientists are limited to the use of physical instruments and partially
developed senses. Yet, it must be repeated, the information so far made available
is no more than the lifting of a corner of the veil. Nevertheless, the study
of the little we have been given may provide insights and understanding of the
world of our experience, and maybe an intimation (not obtainable anywhere else)
of what lies beyond.
CHAPTER
-I- [BOOK
-II- ]
ABOUT ESOTERIC SCIENCE
In introducing the subject of Esoteric Science in Book I, several facts were
briefly mentioned which it is now necessary to elaborate.
First of all, the antiquity of Theosophy has to be appreciated. Mme Blavatsky,
acting as the amanuensis of her Teachers, had the particular task of making
public some aspects of the archaic doctrine that had hitherto been reserved
for the few to whom "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" had been made known.
The knowledge communicated in those mysteries was no new thing, but to the general
public - "them that are without" - it was concealed under parable and symbol
[Matt. xiii 11; Mark iv 11; Luke viii 10]. This is made clear in the Preface
to The Secret Doctrine, where the writer states:
These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation;
nor does the author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made
public for the first time in the world's history. For what is contained in this
work is to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the
scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph
and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted
is to gather the oldest tenets together and to make them one harmonious and
unbroken whole. [The Secret Doctrine -I, vii / I, xix / I, 7]
The introductory section of The Secret Doctrine is in fact a presentation
of the evidence of the existence of such a tradition in the ancient world. In
an article published in the first number of The Theosophist, the monthly
magazine which she founded in 1879 (and which continues in publication to this
day), Mme Blavatsky explains:
There were Theosophists before the Christian era,
notwithstanding that the Christian writers ascribe the development of the Eclectic
theosophical system to the early part of the third century of their era. Diogenes
Laertius traces Theosophy to an epoch antedating the Ptolomies; and names as
its founder an Egyptian Hierophant called Pot-Amun, the name being Coptic and
signifying a priest consecrated to Amun, the god of Wisdom. But history shows
it revived by Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neo-Platonic School. He and
his disciples called themselves "Philaletheians" - lovers of the truth; while
others termed them the "Analogists", on account of their method of interpreting
all sacred legends, symbolical myths and mysteries, by a rule of analogy or
correspondence, so that events that had occurred in the external world were
regarded as expressing operations and experiences of the human soul. It was
the aim and purpose of Ammonius to reconcile all sects, peoples and nations
under one common faith - a belief in one Supreme, Eternal, Unknown and Unnamed
Power, governing the Universe by immutable and eternal laws. His object was
to prove a primitive system of Theosophy, which at the beginning was essentially
alike in all countries; to induce all men to lay aside their strifes and quarrels,
and unite in purpose and thought as the children of one common mother; to purify
the ancient religions, by degrees corrupted and obscured, from all dross of
human element, by uniting and expounding them upon pure philosophical principles.
[The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-II, 88]
Evidence of the existence of an esoteric tradition in antiquity should not
obscure the fact that the detailed information now presented in the writings
of Mme Blavatsky and in the instructions given by her Teachers is unique: it
is to be found nowhere else. For the first time, there is here offered to the
student a comprehensive and consistent system, expressed as nearly as possible
in plain terms in a European language. This modern exposition of Esoteric Science
includes in its wide embrace the whole field of cosmic and human evolution,
and specifically those areas indicated by the chapter headings of this book.
Esoteric Science is recognized under a variety of names, one of them being
the Wisdom-Religion. However, as was pointed out earlier, Theosophy is not a
religion in any sectarian sense, nor is it to be identified with any of the
historical religions. This is stated explicitly in the Preface to The Secret
Doctrine in the following passage:
It is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that
the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes,
belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian
religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively.
The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins,
the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original
element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become
materialized. [The Secret Doctrine -I, viii /I, xx /I, 8]
In an article intended to clarify the use of the word "religion" in a theosophical
context, Mme Blavatsky says repeatedly that Theosophy, although not a
religion, is religion.
Theosophy is not a Religion, we say but RELIGION
itself, the one bond of unity, which is so universal and all-embracing that
no man, as no speck - from gods and mortals down to animals, the blade of grass
and atom - can be outside of its light. Therefore any organization or body of
that name must necessarily be a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD ... It transmutes the
apparently base metal of every ritualistic and dogmatic creed (Christianity
included) into the gold of fact and truth, and thus truly produces a universal
panacea for the ills of mankind ... Its doctrines, if seriously studied, call
forth, by stimulating one's reasoning powers and awakening the inner
in the animal man, every hitherto dormant power for good in us, and also the
perception of the true and the real, as opposed to the false and the unreal.
Tearing off with no uncertain hand the thick veil of dead-letter with which
every old religious scripture was cloaked, scientific Theosophy, learned in
the cunning symbolism of the ages, reveals ... the origin of the world's faiths
and sciences. It opens new vistas beyond the old horizons of crystallized, motionless
and despotic faiths; and turning blind belief into a reasoned knowledge founded
on mathematical laws - the only exact science - it demonstrates to him
under profounder and more philosophical aspects the existence of that which,
repelled by the grossness of its dead-letter form, he had long since abandoned
as a nursery tale. It gives a clear and well-defined object, and ideal to live
for, to every sincere man or woman belonging to whatever station in Society
and of whatever culture and degree of intellect. Practical Theosophy is not
one Science, but embraces every science in life, moral and physical.
It may, in short, be justly regarded as the universal "coach", a tutor of world-wide
knowledge and experience, and of an erudition which not only assists and guides
his pupils toward a successful examination for every scientific or moral service
in earthly life, but fits them for the lives to come, if those pupils
will only study the universe and its mysteries within themselves ...
[The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 163]
It has been claimed that Esoteric Science is specific knowledge of universal
facts. This knowledge has been acquired, as already pointed out, by methods
comparable with those of the physical sciences, with the difference that the
instruments used by its investigators were faculties developed within themselves.
An important passage from which an extract was quoted in Part I is here given
more fully:
The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of
the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system
.... But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which
have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets
to marshal, to set down and explain, in the bewildering series of evolutionary
progress, are all regarded on a few pages of geometrical signs and glyphs. The
flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter,
and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane, however, learned,
would have perceived but the external work of form.... the system in question
is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals.... it is the uninterrupted
record covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective experiences
were made to test and to verify the traditions passed orally by one early race
to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who watched over
the childhood of Humanity.... How did they do so?... by checking, testing, and
verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent
visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their
physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organizations to the utmost possible
degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed
by the visions - so obtained as to stand as independent evidence - of other
adepts, and by centuries of experience. [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 272 /I, 293 /I, 316]
“The doctrine is barely sketched in our two volumes”, she wrote
in the first issue of La Revue Théosophique, in which some parts
of The Secret Doctrine were to appear in translation, “and yet
the mysteries unveiled therein concerning the beliefs of prehistoric peoples,
cosmogony and anthropology, have never been divulged until now.
[The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XI, 126]
CHAPTER
-2- [BOOK -II- ]
THE SCOPE OF THE SCIENCE
In Chapter 2 of Book I an outline of the principal aspects of Esoteric Science
was given, each theme being further developed in the chapters that followed.
That outline was intended to give a preliminary view of the scope of the science.
Another way to the appreciation of the immense field of the study and the essential
framework of Esoteric Science is suggested in a small compilation of extracts
from the writings of H.P. Blavatsky. Its title, Foundations of Esoteric Philosophy,
exactly describes its contents, for the extracts show the basic principles "which
underlie and pervade the entire system of thought" designated by the name of
Esoteric Science [The Secret Doctrine -I, 13 /I, 42 /I,79]. Until
the student is ready to embark on the study of the major works, this small book
is an almost indispensable companion to his explorations of that science. What
we have here is a collection of summaries made from time to time by Mme Blavatsky
herself, so that the essential teachings could be clearly discerned amid the
mass of detail and explanatory material which might otherwise conceal them.
Furthermore, in the Bowen Notes - teachings given by her only a few weeks before
her death - specific advice is offered to the student on the method of approach
to the study of The Secret Doctrine, the order in which the most important
sections of the work should be studied and the attitude that should accompany
the reader throughout his study.
Come to the The Secret Doctrine - (she says)
without any hope of getting the final Truth of existence from it, or with any
idea other than seeing how far it may lead TOWARDS the Truth. See in study a
means of exercising and developing the mind never touched by other studies.
[Madame Blavatsky on how to study theosophy -, 8]
The basic principle of the system, as we have seen, is that of Unity, the One,
the everlasting and unchanging Reality from which emerges periodically, according
to inherent, ceaseless Law, a manifested universe. Within it are all things,
the expressions in time and space of the inexhaustible potencies of the One
Spirit, the ever activating Principle of the whole. The teaching of an originating
and essential Oneness is expressed in various ways. (Note that, unless otherwise
indicated, all the quotations that follow in this chapter are taken from Foundations
of Esoteric Philosophy, where precise references to the source of each passage
are given.) For example:
The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each
constituent part of compounds in Nature ... is the one fundamental law in Occult
Science. [p.13]
The FUNDAMENTAL UNITY OF ALL EXISTENCE. This unity
is a thing altogether different from the common notion of unity ... it is that
existence is ONE THING, not any collection of things linked together. Fundamentally
there is ONE Being. [p.17]
The essential unity of all manifested things is due to the originating Reality,
the One Principle:
An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless and Immutable
PRINCIPLE, on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power
of human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude.
It is beyond the range and reach of thought ... [p.21]
The fundamental law in that system, the central
point from which all emerges, around and towards which all gravitates, and upon
which is hung all its philosophy, is the One Homogeneous Divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE,
the One Radical Cause. [p.30]
In the various lists of basic ideas collected here, the principle of unity
is - with two exceptions - placed first. These exceptions are a) the summary
at the end of Isis Unveiled, which was Mme Blavatsky's first attempt
to place the teachings of the esoteric philosophy before the public; here she
puts first the principle of Universal Law:
There is no miracle. Everything that happens is
the result of law - eternal, immutable, ever active. [p.57]
and b) the Recapitulation of the first part of Volume I of The Secret Doctrine,
where the list of Six Numbered Items begins, not with basic principles, but
with a summary of the Introductory section of the work, the evidence of a universal
esoteric tradition. With these exceptions, the lists of basic ideas give first
place to the principle of unity, for in fact all other principles are but corollaries
of this fundamental truth. This will become evident as the statements in each
of the summaries are studied. For instance, if there is but ONE OMNIPRESENT
LIFE, it must follow that "there is no dead matter, every thing is itself a
life, living". [p.17]. If there is but ONE LIFE, "the fundamental identity of
all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul" must also be true [p.24]. If there is
but ONE LIFE, all things must have come from it: "The universe is the periodical
manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence" [p.30]. If there is but ONE
LIFE, as the Esoteric Science affirms, then that same Science cannot at the
same time deny that ONE originating PRINCIPLE: "The Secret Doctrine teaches
no Atheism" [p.39].
Again, an examination of the summaries collected in Foundations of Esoteric
Philosophy will make clear what, according to Esoteric Science, is the nature
of man and his central place in the total scheme. All the grand processes of
evolution involve man, for he is their model and the goal, in our System, of
the whole process of universal Becoming. Physically, psychically, mentally and
spiritually, he is in it and of it. His emergence as a self-conscious being
is what the whole process is about. His evolutionary history recapitulates the
movement of life through all the forms of the kingdoms of Nature. These forms
are the instruments through which consciousness is constantly and increasingly
expressed, until from simple responsiveness in the lowest kingdom it becomes
self-consciousness in man. Now a new element is introduced into the evolutionary
process, the power of self-determination. While nothing can happen outside the
Law, man, alone of all the creatures on our planet, can exercise choice in his
observation of the Law.
The passages that follow illustrate the teachings of Esoteric Science in relation
to man:
Nature is triune: there is visible, objective nature;
an invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the other and
its vital principle; and, above these two, spirit, source of all forces,
alone eternal and indestructible. The lower two constantly change; the higher
third does not. Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body; his
vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over
and illuminated by the third - the sovereign, the immortal spirit. When the
real man succeeds in merging himself with the latter he becomes an immortal
entity. [pp.57/58]
In the Third Fundamental Proposition given in the Proem of The Secret Doctrine,
after the affirmation of "the fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal
Over-Soul", there is outlined the age-long pilgrimage of man through the worlds
of form, with this significant addition:
The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric Philosophy
admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego
through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses
and reincarnations. [p.24]
Man's relationship to the rest of the cosmic process is further shown in paragraph
6 of the Recapitulation; for man is shown to be an inevitable stage in that
process. Of the Hierarchies of Beings mentioned earlier, each individual
either was, or prepares to become, a man,
if not in the present, then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara). They are
perfected, when not incipient, men ... [p.32]
In sober truth, as just shown, every so-called "Spirit"
is either a disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel
(Dhyan Chohan) down to the last conscious "Builder" (the inferior class of Spiritual
Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras,
on this or other spheres, so the inferior, semi-intelligent and non-intelligent
Elementals are all future men. [p.34]
(Clearly the term "man" must not be understood to be necessarily a being with
"two arms, two legs and a head", but rather as a stage in the evolution of consciousness.)
Humanity constitutes one of the "almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient
Beings", and, together with all the others, it has its own mission to perform
in its progress towards the next stage in the evolutionary scheme [p.32]. That
stage is one in which the consciousness of the individual becomes merged with
that of the whole human race: the sense of separateness characteristic of earlier
stages gives place to the experience of unity with all mankind. That stage is
reached when an individual is able to respond affirmatively to the question,
"Hast thou attuned thy heart and mind to the great mind and heart of all mankind?
... Hast thou attuned thy being to humanity's great pain?" [The
Voice of the Silence -, Frag.3, v 225, v 228]
To reach that goal - one which can be attained by each individual unit - there
is a long and painful route (but which at the same time engenders great joy)
to be followed, for much that was useful in adolescence has to be sacrificed
on the way to maturity. This is the lesson of the great spiritual teachers,
made explicit in the occult injunction, "Give up thy life, if thou would'st
live" [The Voice of the Silence -, Frag.1, v 21].
Before leaving the review of Foundations of Esoteric Philosophy, it
should be pointed out that the Conclusion given there does not appear to be
the one intended by Mme Blavatsky when she recommended to her London group the
study of the "Conclusion (Vol.II)". She had used the word Conclusion as the
heading to the final portion of Part I of Volume II of The Secret
Doctrine. It is here, rather than in the concluding pages of the whole work,
that she writes of "the times of coming of the Races and Sub-Races". Both Conclusions
are highly instructive and give the reader a sense of the immensity of the scheme
in which he, like the whole human race, is involved.
CHAPTER
-3- [ BOOK -II- ]
THE OCCULT CONSTITUTION
OF COSMOS AND MAN
In a system that functions as a single unit - a true unity - everything is
related to everything else. Divisions are made for purposes of presentation
and study must inevitably be arbitrary, and in treating the parts as though
they were separate, some repetition will also be inevitable. The understanding
of the Hermetic axiom - "as above, so below" - is of paramount importance in
this instance. The universe is sevenfold, and man likewise is sevenfold, each
of his principles or aspects having its correspondence with the planes of the
Cosmos; hence the insistence on the law of analogy, as is shown in the following
paragraphs.
There is an eternal concatenation of causes and
effects, and a perfect analogy which runs through, and links together, all the
lines of evolution. One begets the other - globes as personalities .. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 171 /I, 194 /I, 224]
Everything in the Universe follows analogy. "As
above, so below"; Man is the Microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place
on the spiritual plane repeats itself on the Cosmic plane. Concretion follows
the lines of abstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the lowest; the
material to the spiritual. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 177 /I, 200
/I, 230]
It thus becomes apparent how perfect is the analogy
between the processes of Nature in the Kosmos and in the individual man. The
latter lives through his life-cycle, and dies. His "higher principles", corresponding
in the development of a planetary chain to the cycling Monads, pass into Devachan,
which corresponds to the "Nirvana" and states of rest intervening between two
chains. The Man's lower "principles" are disintegrated in time and are used
by Nature again for the formation of new human principles, and the same process
takes place in the disintegration and formation of Worlds. Analogy is thus the
surest guide to the comprehension of the occult teachings. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 173 /I, 196 /I, 226]
This chapter elaborates the information given in Book I and introduces further
aspects of the subject. However, because of the vastness and the intricacies
of the scheme, it is possible to give only pointers towards these further aspects
- a syllabus for study rather than a complete exposition. One of the principal
sources of this information requires a word of explanation. At the end of the
second volume of The Secret Doctrine Mme Blavatsky refers to "a third
and even a fourth volume", yet no material seeming to constitute such volumes
was discovered after her death. There was indeed a good deal of unpublished
manuscript, which was collected and edited by Annie Besant and published in
1897 under the title The Secret Doctrine Vol.III. (In the 6-volume Adyar
edition of 1938, this became Vol.V.) Included here are a number of Papers of
Instruction circulated privately by Mme Blavatsky among her pupils constituting
an inner group in the Esoteric Section which she had established in 1888. The
same material has since been published separately under the title The Esoteric
Writings of H.P.Blavatsky, while the papers of instruction also appear in
Volume XII of the Collected Writings. The page references given here
are to the 1897 Vol.III and the Adyar edition Vol.V.
The principles of man are variously classified according to different systems
(see the table given in The Secret Doctrine -I, 157 and Key Ch.VI, 91/2). The esoteric
Instructions offer further classifications, with one demonstrating the correspondence
in the Cosmos. Here the seventh principle is given as the Auric Egg or Auric
Envelope, that which demarks him as an individual from the whole, as a drop
of water from the ocean. It is thus called because
the substratum of the Aura around man is the universally
diffused primordial and pure Akasha, the first film on the boundless and shoreless
expanse of Jiva, the immutable Root of all. [--- The Secret Doctrine
-III, 493 /V, 471 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 607 /The esoteric
writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 392]
Although it is now referred to as "the chief 'principle' of all", the Auric
Egg was not mentioned in the earlier published literature. Such mention "was
not permitted .. on account of its being so sacred" [---
The Secret Doctrine -III, 446 /V, 427 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-XII, 526 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 356]. The "Luminous
Egg" is described as "the invisible magnetic sphere in which every man is enveloped"
- to which statement a footnote adds, "so are the animals, the plants, and even
the minerals" [--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 445 /V, 427 fn /The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 526 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-, 356]. In this way all units of life, simple or complex, are entities.
If we bear in mind what has already been learned of the Astral Light, the lowest
regions of the Akasha, the function of the Auric Egg will be more readily understood.
We learn that it reflects all the thoughts, words and deeds of the individual;
it preserves every karmic record; it is "the storehouse of all the good and
evil powers of man, receiving and giving out at his will - nay, at his very
thought - every potentiality, which becomes, then and there, an acting potency";
furthermore, "it furnishes man with his Astral Form, around which the physical
entity models itself, first as a foetus, then as a child and man." [---
The Secret Doctrine -III, 495 /V, 472 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-XII, 608 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 394]
An aspect of the correspondence between man and his world is summarized in
the statement, "The Auric Egg is to the Man as the Astral Light is to the Earth"
[--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 539 /V, 512 /The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky - omitted]. There is a similar correspondence
with the total manifested Kosmos, represented diagrammatically as the six kosmic
planes within the seventh, the Auric Egg. As with the Auric Egg of the individual,
so "in the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe"
[--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 555 /V, 528 /The collected writings
of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 657 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 436].
To help us to understand the way in which each human principle reflects the
cosmic principles, and similarly the way in which each plane reflects the sevenfold
Kosmos, we may think of the label that used to appear on bottles of coffee essence.
It showed a man holding a bottle with a label showing a man holding a bottle
with a label ... and so on, theoretically ad infinitum. This is indeed the Hermetic
axiom: as the Kosmos exists on seven planes, of which the lowest is called (in
the Instructions) the terrestrial or Prakritic, this Kosmic Prakritic is similarly
divided into seven, of which the lowest only is the objective terrestrial plane
sensed by the five physical senses. Likewise this, "the lowest plane of Prakriti,
or the true terrestrial", is "divisible into seven planes, and these again into
seven, making the forty-nine" [--- The Secret Doctrine -III,
551 /V, 524 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky - omitted].
There is a warning, repeated here and there in different words, against interpreting
the teachings concerning the superphysical, suprasensuous worlds in terms of
our sensory experience of a three-dimensional time-bound world.
It has often been explained that neither the cosmic
planes of substance nor even the human principles - with the exception of the
lowest material plane or world and the physical body, which as has been said,
are no 'principles' - can be located or thought of as being in Space and Time.
As the former are seven in ONE, so are we seven in ONE - that same absolute
Soul of the World, which is both Matter and non-Matter, Spirit and non-Spirit,
Being and non-Being. Impress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you
who would study the mysteries of SELF. [--- The Secret Doctrine
-III, 447 /V, 428 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 528 /The esoteric
writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 357]
A similar warning against the misuse of diagrams is given in Instruction III:
The Diagrams and Plates are intended to familiarize
students with the leading ideas of occult correspondences only, the very genius
of metaphysical, or macrocosmic and spiritual Occultism, forbidding the use
of figures or even symbols further than as temporary aids. Once define an idea
in words, and it loses its reality; once figure a metaphysical idea, and you
materialize its spirit. Figures must be used only as ladders to scale the battlements,
ladders to be disregarded once the foot is put upon the rampart.
Let the Esotericists, therefore, be very careful
to spiritualize the Instructions and avoid materializing them; let them always
try to find the highest meaning possible, confident that in proportion as they
approach the material and visible in their speculations on the Instructions,
so far are they from the right understanding of them. This is especially the
case with these first Instructions and Diagrams, for as in all true arts, so
in Occultism, we must first learn the theory before we are taught the practice.
[--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 486 /V, 464 /The collected writings
of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 600 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 387]
The sevenfold pattern is found again in the human organism and in the Auric
Envelope. Potentially, man has seven senses, two of which are latent and therefore
remain unrecognized.
seven senses of ours correspond with every other
septenate in nature and in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human
Auric Envelope (the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven
layers, just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this Aura
which, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity, either
opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether from anything
but this three-dimensional world of Matter.
Each of our seven physical senses (two of which
are still unknown to profane Science), and also of our seven states of consciousness
- viz.: (1) waking; (2) waking-dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or
trance-sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super-psychic; (7) and purely spiritual - corresponds
with one of the seven Cosmic Planes, develops and uses one of the seven super-senses,
and is connected directly, in its use on the terrestro-spiritual plane, with
the cosmic and divine centre of force that gave it birth, and which is its direct
creator. Each is also connected with, and under the direct influence of, one
of the seven sacred Planets. [--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 448
/V, 429 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 528 /The esoteric writings
of H.P.Blavatsky -, 357]
This passage is preceded by a warning against misplaced reliance on either
the physical or the psychic senses in what concerns the higher planes.
Remember that with our physical senses alone at
our command, none of us can hope to reach beyond gross Matter. We can do so
only through one or another of our seven spiritual senses, either by
training, or if one is a born Seer. Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such
faculties, if not an Adept, no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will,
through his ignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions
he sees in the Astral Light, only to mistake for God or Angels the denizens
of those spheres of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse, as witness Swedenborg
and others. [--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 448 /V, 429 /The collected
writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 528 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-, 357]
The inter-relatedness of the evolution of the senses, the Elements and the
Root-Races, is shown in the story of Anthropogenesis, where it is stated that
... with the Ancients, the evolution of man, and
the growth and development of his spiritual and physical senses, were subordinate
to the evolution of the Elements on the Cosmic plane of this earth. [The
Secret Doctrine -II, 107 /II, 113 /III, 116]
As each Element evolves, it "adds to its own characteristics those of its predecessor",
and similarly, as each Root-Race evolves, it "adds the characterizing sense
of the preceding Race". Thus man is seen to evolve "gradually in seven stages,
and on the same principles". The relevant information is outlined in a brief
table:
The following table on parallel lines may be found
in the evolution of the Elements and the Senses; or in Cosmic Terrestrial "Man"
or "Spirit", and mortal physical man:
In the simple analysis of the constitution of man as a Triad (the three higher
principles) and a Quaternary (the four lower ones), mention was made of Antahkarana,
sometimes described as a bridge between Upper and Lower Manas. Antahkarana is
defined more fully in the Instructions as "that path or bridge of communication
which serves as a link between the personal being whose physical brain is under
the sway of the lower animal mind, and the reincarnating Individuality, the
spiritual Ego, Manas, Manu, the "Divine Man"." [---
The Secret Doctrine -III, 511 /V, 487 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-XII, 623 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 406] A further elaboration
of the teaching emphasizes the fact that in incarnation there are effectively
two Egos, the Divine and the human, which rebecome one in Devachan or Nirvana.
Here Mme Blavatsky makes use of a practical illustration: using a lamp to represent
the Divine Ego, the light it throws out to be the lower Manas, and the wall
on which the light falls to be the man in his physical body, the Antahkarana
is then seen as "that portion of the atmosphere which transmits the ray from
the lamp to the wall" [--- The Secret Doctrine -III, 519 /V,
495 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 631 /The esoteric writings
of H.P.Blavatsky -, 412]. The illustration is carefully developed to
show not only the importance of the "imaginary bridge" between the human and
the Divine Ego but also the power of the human Ego to ensure the maintenance
of the connection. In the Key, discussion of the question of immortality
makes it clear that "man and soul have to conquer their immortality", a teaching
that is found again here in the statement that the human Soul becomes immortal
by being "grafted on" the Monad - and in no other way. The Voice of the Silence,
which was published in the same year as the Key, speaks of the merging
of "the two into the One" and the consequent destruction of Antahkarana. In
the Instructions, Mme Blavatsky refers to the Glossary of the Voice,
in which this definition is given:
Antahkarana is the lower Manas, the
Path of commmunication or communion between the personality and the higher Manas
or human Soul. At death it is destroyed as a Path or medium of communication,
and its remains survive in a form as the Kamarupa - the "shell". [The
Voice of the Silence -, Frag.3, v 222, note 9]
Ultimately, then, the bridge is to be transcended with the merging of the individual
with the Universal Soul; nevertheless it is a mistake to attempt to achieve
that end by ignoring the Higher Mind.
No single rung of the ladder leading to knowledge
can be skipped. No personality can ever reach or bring itself into communication
with Atma, except through Buddhi-Manas; to try to become a Jivanmukta or a Mahatma
before one has become an Adept or even a Narjol (a sinless man) is like trying
to reach Ceylon from India without crossing the sea. Therefore we are told that
if we destroy Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control
of the impersonal Ego, we risk to lose the latter and be severed for ever from
it, unless indeed we hasten to re-establish the communication by a supreme and
final effort. It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of
the Divine Mind, that we have to destroy Antahkarana. [--- The
Secret Doctrine -III, 522 /V, 497 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII,
634 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 414]
CHAPTER
-4- [BOOK -II- ]
THE HIERARCHIES OF
BEINGS
All existence is ONE THING: the universe is a living Entity composed of hosts
of living beings. These hosts, which provide the structure, qualities and governance
of the universe according to everlasting law, are divisible into seven main
types according to their characteristic qualities, these in turn having their
correspondences at every level of being. Although distinctively named and described
in the literature, these various groups of living beings constitute a Unity
in which every component is intimately related to every other. Each Hierarchy
is composed of those below it, while in its turn it is a component of the one
above it. There are therefore Hierarchies of Beings superior to man, from among
whom came the guides and teachers of the early races, and from whom also man
has derived the very qualities of his being. There are also Hierarchies of the
kingdoms below man, those of the Elementals.
The great religious traditions recognize these Hosts under a variety of names
- Spirits, Angels and Archangels, the Elohim and Sephiroth, Amshaspends, Cosmocratores
and Prajapatis of the different systems. In The Secret Doctrine also
many names are used to refer to these lofty powers, the designation of each
often signifying the function of the particular Order or Hierarchy or its place
in the total scheme. Thus we find Lipika, Ah-hi, Dhyani-Chohans, Mind-born Sons,
Sons of Light, Builders, Planetary Spirits, and so on. Their origination in
the One Life is first indicated in the Summary of the Seven Stanzas given at
the end of the Proem, where each Stanza is shown to refer to one of the seven
stages in the process of cosmic becoming. Stanza IV, describing the stage known
in Hindu mythology as "the 'Creation of the Gods'", shows
the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe
into the septenary hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the active
manifestations of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and
ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in
which the name "Creator" is intelligible; they inform and guide it; they are
the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution, embodying in themselves
those manifestations of the ONE LAW, which we know as the "Laws of Nature".
Generically they are known as the Dhyani-Chohans,
though each of the various groups has its own designation in the Secret Doctrine.
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 21 /I, 49 /I, 86]
This summary is developed in passages descriptive of particular groups and
their several functions. Information about some of these - the Ah-hi, the Lipika,
the Builders and the Planetary Spirits - is given here and there throughout
the Commentaries, the following extracts being a representative selection.
1. The Ah-hi. The Ah-hi (Dhyani-Chohans)
are the collective hosts of spiritual beings - the Angelic Hosts of Christianity,
the Elohim and "Messengers" of the Jews - who are the vehicle for the manifestation
of the divine or universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces
that give to and enact in Nature her "laws", while themselves acting according
to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they
are not "the personifications" of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought.
This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into
action, is like an army - a "Host", truly - by means of which the fighting power
of a nation manifests itself, and which is composed of army corps, divisions,
brigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its separate individuality or life,
and its limited freedom of action and limited responsibilities; each contained
in a larger individuality, to which its own interests are subservient, and each
containing lesser individualities in itself. [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 38 /I, 70 /I, 112]
2. The Lipika. The Lipika, from the word
lipi, "writing", means literally the "Scribes". Mystically, these Divine
Beings are connected with Karma, the Law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders
or Annalists who impress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light
- "the great picture-gallery of eternity" - a faithful record of every act,
and even thought, of man, of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal
Universe. As said in Isis Unveiled [p 343], this divine and unseen canvas
is the BOOK OF LIFE. As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the
passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the "Builders"
reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to
the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognize in the Seven
"Planetary Spirits" or the "Spirits of the Stars"; for thus it is they who are
the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation - or, as called by Plato, the
"Divine Thought". The Eternal Record is no fantastic dream, for we meet with
the same records in the world of gross matter. [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 103 /I, 130 /I, 165]
More information about the function of the Lipikas is given in the Commentaries
on Stanza V. We pass now to the Builders.
3. The Builders. There are three chief groups
of Builders and as many of the Planetary Spirits and the Lipikas, each group
being again divided into seven sub-groups. It is impossible, even in such a
large work as this, to enter into a minute examination of even the three principle
groups, as it would demand an extra volume. The "Builders" are the representatives
of the first "Mind-Born" entities, therefore of the primeval Rishi-Prajapatis;
also of the Seven great Gods of Egypt, of which Osiris is the chief; of the
Seven Amshaspends of the Zoroastrians, with Ormazd as their head; or the "Seven
Spirits of the Face"; the Seven Sephiroth separated from the first Triad, etc.,
etc.
They build, or rather rebuild every "system" after
the "Night". The Second group of the Builders is the Architect of our planetary
chain exclusively; and the third, the progenitor of our humanity - the Macrocosmic
prototype of the microcosm.
The Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits
of the Stars in general and of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies
of men who are all born under one or another of their constellations; the second
and third groups pertaining to other systems have the same functions, and all
rule various departments in Nature ...
The Lipikas ... are the Spirits of the Universe,
whereas the Builders are only our own planetary deities. The former belong to
the most occult portion of Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here ... [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 127 /I, 152 /I, 185]
The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into
seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric, within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the
twelve signs of the Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting scale being connected,
moreover, with the Seven Planets. All this is subdivided into numberless groups
of divine Spiritual, semi-Spiritual and ethereal Beings. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 213 /I, 233 /I, 260]
Each of these orders of Celestial Beings is described in some detail, for the
further study of which the reader is referred to the Commentary on Stanza VII,
entitled "The Parents of Man on Earth".
The wealth and complexity of the information given in the Stanzas must understandably
have proved perplexing, if not fanciful, to some of Mme Blavatsky's readers.
Anticipating their reaction to Stanza V, for example, "perhaps the most difficult
of all the Stanzas to explain" - she commented:
Its language is comprehensible only to him who is
thoroughly versed in Eastern allegory and its purposely obscure phraseology.
The question will surely be asked, "Do the Occultists believe in all these 'Builders',
'Lipikas', and 'Sons of Light' as Entities, or are they merely imageries?" To
this the answer is given as plainly: "After due allowance for the imagery of
personified Powers, we must admit the existence of these Entities, if we would
not reject the existence of spiritual humanity within physical mankind. For
the hosts of these Sons of Light and 'Mind-born Sons' of the first manifested
Ray of the UNKNOWN ALL are the very root of spiritual man". Unless we want to
believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially created soul for every human
birth - a fresh supply of these pouring in daily, since "Adam" - we have to
admit the occult teachings. [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 106 /I, 131 /I, 166]
Reference was made earlier to the Preface of The Secret Doctrine, in
which Mme Blavatsky mentioned that part of her aim was "to assign man his rightful
place in the scheme of the Universe". According to the esoteric teaching, humanity
is an inescapable stage in the progressive unfoldment of consciousness:
The Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a
divine, fully conscious god - aye, even the highest - the Spiritual primeval
INTELLIGENCE must pass through the human stage. and when we say human, this
does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit
any world, i.e. to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium
between matter and spirit, as we have now, since the middle part of the
Fourth Root-Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must have won for
itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience.
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 106 /I, 131 /I, 166]
CHAPTER
-5- [BOOK -II- ]
AKASHA AND THE ASTRAL
LIGHT
Akasha, "the subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space"
[The Theosophical Glossary -], enters into every feature
of the manifold universe. In the literature, it appears under many guises, and
the terms used to define it will differ according to the particular aspect under
consideration. Thus we find a variety of descriptive statements, each one referring
to one of its many aspects or functions. For example:
[Akasha is] the primordial substance erroneously
identified with Ether. [The Theosophical Glossary -]
... it is to Ether what Spirit is to Matter, or
Atma to Kama-rupa. [The Theosophical Glossary -]
It is ... the Universal Space in which lies inherent
the eternal Ideation of the Universe in its ever-changing aspects on the planes
of matter and objectivity. [The Theosophical Glossary -]
[It is] the power which lies latent at the bottom
of every magical performance [i.e. in religious ceremonial operations]. [The
Theosophical Glossary -]
... in another aspect it is Kundalini - occult
electricity; the alkahest of the alchemists in one sense, or the universal solvent.
[The Theosophical Glossary -]
It is the] anima mundi on the higher plane
as the astral light is on the lower. [The Theosophical
Glossary -]
[It is] the ONE Element in its second stage, "Father-Mother"
... divine Astral Light, or the "Soul of the World". [The Secret
Doctrine -I, 140 /I, 163 /I, 196]
There is one great difference between the Astral
Light and the Akasha which must be remembered. The latter is eternal, the former
is periodic. [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 361
Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge -, 75]
The Akasha is the eternal, divine consciousness
which cannot differentiate, have qualities or act. [The collected
writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 361 Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge -, 75]
Some of the other terms that occur in the above statements must now be studied,
especially as Esoteric Science employs them in a way quite different from common
usage. Take for example Space, which is ordinarily regarded as a three-dimensional
void, whereas in Occultism Space is entirely non-dimensional. If the reader
will use the selected statements given here as pointers to lead him into the
text, he will find himself breathing a totally different atmosphere from that
of modern science, and will increasingly appreciate the grandeur of the concepts
of the occult doctrine.
Time and Space are forms of the One incognizable
Deity. [The Secret Doctrine -II, 382 fn /II, 399 fn /III, 380]
A Deity that manifests in Space and Time
- these two being simply the forms of THAT which is the Absolute ALL - can be
but a fractional part of the whole. [The Secret
Doctrine -II, 158 /II, 168 /III, 166]
In a footnote in the Proem, Mme Blavatsky quotes, and comments on, a passage
from a then recent work in which the author refers to Space as "the Unknown
First Cause":
This unknown something, thus recognized as, and
identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable
- (abstract space, granted); and because invisible and impalpable, therefore
incognizable. And this incognizability has led to the error of supposing it
to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 9 fn /I, 38 /I, 75]
In a page significantly headed "The Pith and Marrow of Occultism", the fundamental
Law of the esoteric system is given as "the One homogeneous SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE,
the one radical cause", a phrase which is further explained:
It is called "Substance-Principle", for it becomes
"substance" on the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains
a "principle" in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible
SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and
everything. Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System.
It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 273 /I, 294 /I, 316]
A later footnote comments on an aspect of early Greek thought which, in its
conception of Chaos, echoes that of the archaic doctrine. In Hesiod, for example:
Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless
in duration, an abstraction at the same time as a visible present. SPACE filled
with darkness, which is primordial matter, in its pre-cosmic state. For
in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space
is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity in our philosophy. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 336 fn /I, 359 fn /II, 50]
Another term that occurs frequently in the literature of the esoteric tradition
is Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World, or Alaya. Although the particular meaning
of any term may vary according to its context, the following statements will
show clearly the fundamental concepts which each of the three alternative expressions
seeks to convey in regard to the same reality. For example, terms such as "Maha-Atma,
Brahman, the Spirit of Life", are used as "identical with the Universal Soul,
or Anima-Mundi, the Astral Light of the Theurgists and Kabalists being
its last and lowest division" [The Secret Doctrine -I, 461 /I,
499 /II, 182]. Elsewhere, in a quotation taken from Isis Unveiled,
both Light and Life are described as
... electricity - the life-principle, the anima
mundi, pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light
is the great Protean magician, and under the Divine Will of the architect, or
rather the architects, the "Builders" (called One collectively),
its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every
living being. From its swelling, electric bosom, spring matter and spirit.
Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action, and
of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives
life and produces death, and from its primordial point gradually emerged into
existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 579 /I, 633 /II, 303]
A further commentary on the meaning of anima mundi occurs in Volume
II of The Secret Doctrine, in a chapter on "The Fall of the Cross into
Matter" where it is stated:
With the Esotericists, from the remotest times,
the Universal Soul or anima mundi, the material reflection of the Immaterial
Ideal, was the Source of Life of all beings and of the life-principle of the
three kingdoms; and it was Septenary with the Hermetic philosophers,
as with all ancients. For it is represented as a sevenfold cross, whose branches
are respectively light, heat, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, astral
radiation, motion, and Intelligence, or what some call self-consciousness.
[The Secret Doctrine -II, 562 /II, 593 /IV, 132]
A note in the Glossary to Part II of The Voice of the Silence concerning
a verse (221) relating to the innermost nature of man as one with the Universal
Soul, Alaya, and in explanation of the statement, "the MASTER-SOUL is one, Alaya,
the Universal Soul", says:
The "MASTER-SOUL" is Alaya, the Universal
Soul or Atman, each man having a ray of it in him and being supposed to be able
to identify himself with and to merge himself into it. [The Voice
of the Silence -, Frag.3, V 221, note 8]
Like everything in the Cosmos, the Anima Mundi is seven-fold. "it is in a sense",
says the Theosophical Glossary, "the 'seven-skinned mother' of the stanzas in
The Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness
and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana,
in its lowest Astral Light". This astral light is further described in a footnote:
The astral light stands in the same relation to
Akasha and Anima Mundi as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and
the same thing seen from two aspects: the spiritual and the psychic -
the super-ethereal or connecting link between matter and pure spirit, and the
physical. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 197 fn /I, 219 /I, 247]
In the Commentary on Stanza III, Mme Blavatsky had referred to the prototype
of the lotus, as of everything else, being present in the Astral Light:
... the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature
embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present
in an ideal form in the Astral Light from "Dawn" to "Night" during the Manvantaric
period, like everything else, as a matter of fact, in this objective Universe;
from man down to mite, from giant trees down to the tiniest blades of grass.
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 63 /I, 92 /I,
131]
Questioned by her students about the meaning of this statement, she explained
further the meaning of the terms, adding:
The Astral Light is that which mirrors the three
higher planes of consciousness, and is above the lower, or terrestrial plane;
therefore it does not extend beyond the fourth plane, where, one may say, the
Akasha begins. [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 360
Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge -, 74]
Elaborating the theme still further, she suggested a comparison between the
Akasha and the Astral Light with the help of a simple illustration:
We may compare the Akasha and the Astral Light,
with regard to these prototypes, to the germ in the acorn. The latter, besides
containing in itself the astral form of the future oak, conceals the germ from
which grows a tree containing millions of forms. These forms are contained in
the acorn potentially, yet the development of each particular acorn depends
upon extraneous circumstances, physical forces, etc. [The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 362; Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge
-, 76]
CHAPTER
-6- [BOOK -II-]
ELEMENTS AND ELEMENTALS
The Elements come into being as a result of the process of differentiation
that accompanies manifestation. From the One, the Many: from homogeneity, diversity:
Primordial matter, then, before it emerges from
the plane of the never-manifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under
the impulse of Fohat [see Chapter 1 and Glossary], is but "a cool Radiance,
colourless, formless, tasteless, and devoid of every quality and aspect".
From this originating matter are produced
the seven primal "Centres of Forces", or atoms,
that develop later into the great Cosmic "Elements", now divided into the seventy
or so sub-elements known to science. [The Secret Doctrine -I,
82 /I, 110 /I, 147]
(This was written, of course, before 1888. Science today recognizes many more
such sub-elements.)
We now have to consider another aspect of differentiation relating closely
to the Elements - the Tattvas. A useful explanation of the term is given by
Geoffrey Barborka in The Divine Plan:
Tattva is a Sanskrit word which is generally rendered
"reality", although the literal meaning of the word is "that-ness", since it
is derived from the pronominal particle tat with the suffix tva.
It may also be rendered "element", in the sense of the underlying reality behind
the outward appearance or physical manifestation. [The Divine
Plan - 174]
Further help is given to the reader in a description of the idea associated
with the word Tattva:
Tattva conveys the idea that there is a "force-side"
or "spirit-side" to the elements ... It is the force, or "spirit-side" of an
element that enables it to "change", that is, develop or unfold, as the cyclic
periods progress, since each era requires a different aspect - because of the
various planes - in which the Element-Principle must manifest in order to accomplish
its evolutionary advancement or unfoldment. [The
Divine Plan - 173]
Like everything else in Nature, the Tattvas are seven in number, although some
Indian systems give only five (for reasons which are explained in the relevant
passage). In instructions to her circle of students in London, Mme Blavatsky
pointed out that in Nature
... we find seven Forces, or Seven Centres of Force,
and everything seems to respond to that number, as for instance, the septenary
scale in music, or Sounds, and the septenary spectrum in Colours. [The
Secret Doctrine -III, 497 /V, 474 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII,
610 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky - 395]
There follows here a list of the seven Tattvas, each with its distinguishing
name according to its characteristic nature or function; Adi (the primordial
universal Force), Anupadaka (the first differentiation on the plane of being),
Akasha (the Creative Force of the Third Logos), Vayu (the aerial plane where
substance is gaseous), Taijasa (the plane of our atmosphere, from tejas,
luminous), Apas (watery or liquid substance or force) and Prithivi (the terrestrial
spirit or force).
All these correspond to our principles, and to the
seven senses and forces in man. According to the Tattva or Force generated or
induced in us, so will our bodies act. [The Secret Doctrine -III,
498 /V, 475 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 612 /The esoteric
writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 396]
The correspondences between the Esoteric Principles, Tattvas or Forces, and
the Human Body, States of Matter and Colour are set out in the comprehensive
table below which should be studied at this point in conjunction with the text.
We are familiar with the idea of evolution in the visible kingdoms of Nature
around us. Occultism recognizes the universality of the evolutionary principle
which brings into existence and develops the Elements one after the other in
the sequence of the Rounds (a Round being defined by one of the Mahatmas as
"the passage of a monad from globe A to globe Z ... through the encasement in
all and each of the four kingdoms" [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett
-14, 79:80] ). The teaching is elaborated in the Commentary on the much-quoted
Stanza VII, which is in effect a summary of the total process:
... every new Round develops one of the compound
Elements ... If Nature is the "Ever-becoming" on the manifested plane, then
those Elements are to be regarded in the same light: they have to evolve, progress,
and increase to the Manvantaric end. [The Secret
Doctrine -I,250 /I, 271 /I, 295]
There follows an account of what is accomplished in material evolution through
the successive Rounds.
"Thus the First Round, we are taught, developed
but one Element, and a nature and humanity in what may be called one aspect
of Nature - called by some, very unscientifically, though it may be so de
facto, "One-dimensional Space". The Second Round brought forth and developed
two Elements - Fire and Air, and its humanity, adapted to this condition
of Nature, if we can give the name Humanity to beings living under conditions
unknown to men, was - to use again a familiar phrase in a strictly figurative
sense (the only way in which it can be used correctly) - "a two-dimensioned
species". [The Secret Doctrine -I, 250 /I, 271 /I, 295]
There follows a commentary on the idea of "dimensional Space", and in particular
on the use of the expression "the fourth dimension of Space". Furthermore, it
is noted that, as the characteristics of matter are closely related to the human
senses,
by the time that it [matter] fully develops the
next characteristic - let us call it for the moment PERMEABILITY - this will
correspond to the next sense of man - let us call it "NORMAL CLAIRVOYANCE".
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 251 /I, 272 /I, 296]
The story of the evolution of Matter through the Rounds is now taken up again:
The centres of consciousness (destined to develop
into humanity as we know it) of the third Round arrived at a perception of the
third Element Water. Those of the fourth Round have added earth as a
state of matter to their stock as well as the three other elements in their
present transformation. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 252 /I, 273
/I, 297]
The significance of the last few words in the above extract must not be overlooked.
They refer to the fact that, as evolution is universal and continuous, and Nature
"ever-becoming", "none of the so-called elements were, in the three preceding
Rounds, as they are now" [The Secret Doctrine -I, 253 /I, 273
/I, 297].
This important aspect of the teaching is further developed in the pages that
follow, where we find this paragraph:
The elements, whether simple or compound, could
not have remained the same since the commencement of the evolution of our chain.
Everything in the Universe progresses steadily in the Great Cycle, while incessantly
going up and down in the smaller cycles. Nature is never stationary during manvantara,
as it is ever becoming, not simply being; and mineral, vegetable,
and human life are always adapting their organisms to the then reigning Elements,
and therefore those Elements were then fitted for them as they are now
for the life of present humanity. It will only be in the next or fifth Round
that the fifth Element, Ether - the gross body of Akasha, if it can be
called even that - will, by becoming a familiar fact of Nature to all men, as
air is familiar to us now, cease to be as at present hypothetical, and also
an "agent" for so many things. And only during that Round will those higher
senses, the growth and development of which Akasha subserves, be susceptible
of a complete expansion. As already indicated, a partial familiarity
with the characteristic of matter - permeability - which should be developed
concurrently with the sixth sense, may be expected to develop at the proper
period in this Round. But with the next element added to our resources in the
next Round, permeability will become so manifest a characteristic of
matter, that the densest forms of this will seem to man's perceptions as obstructive
to him as thick fog, and no more. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 257
/I, 277 /I, 301]
It may require some considerable effort on the part of the reader to abandon
the usual picture evoked by a particular word and to recognize that the reality
which that word is used to represent in the occult doctrine must be totally
different from his conception of it. Let us take the Element Fire as an example.
Fire, in the ancient philosophy of all times and
countries, including our own, has been regarded as a triple principle. As water
comprises a visible fluid with invisible gases lurking within, and, behind all
the spiritual principle of nature, which gives them their dynamic energy, so,
in fire, they recognized: 1st. Visible flame; 2nd. Invisible, or astral fire
- invisible when inert, but when active producing heat, light, chemical force,
and electricity, the molecular powers; 3rd. Spirit. They applied the same rule
to each of the elements; and everything evolved from their combinations and
correlations, man included, was held by them to be triune. Fire, in the opinion
of the Rosicrucians, who were but the successors of the theurgists, was the
source, not only of the material atoms, but also of the forces which energize
them. When a visible flame is extinguished it has disappeared, not only from
the sight but also from the conception of the materialist, forever. But the
Hermetic philosopher follows it through the "partition-world of the knowable,
across and out on the other side into the unknowable", as he traces the disembodied
human spirit, "vital spark of heavenly flame", into the Aethereum, beyond the
grave. [Isis Unveiled -I, 423]
Mme Blavatsky returns time and again to the distinction that must be drawn
between the everyday concepts associated with familiar terms and their connotation
in Occultism. Both volumes of The Secret Doctrine include a section in
which the views enunciated by contemporary scientists - characterized by an
anxiety "to drive spirit out of their conceptions" - are contrasted with the
occult doctrine. Thus, in a chapter "On the Elements and Atoms from the standpoint
of Science and that of Occultism", we read:
When the Occultist speaks of "Elements", and of
human Beings who lived during those geological ages, the duration of which it
is found as impossible to determine, according to the opinion of one of the
best English geologists, as the nature of matter, it is because he knows what
he is talking about. When he says "Man" and Elements, he neither means "man"
in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the elemental atoms,
those hypothetical conceptions, the entitative abstractions of matter in its
highly attenuated state, as existing at present in scientific minds; nor, again,
the compound Elements of antiquity. In Occultism the word Element means
"rudiment" in every case. When we say "Elementary Man", we mean either the proemial,
incipient sketch of man, in its unfinished and undeveloped condition, hence
in that form which now lies latent in physical man during his lifetime, and
takes shape only occasionally and under certain conditions; or that form which
for a time survives the material body, and which is better known as an "Elementary".
With regard to "Element", when the term is used metaphysically, it means, in
distinction to the mortal, the incipient divine man; and, in its physical
usage, inchoate matter in its first undifferentiated condition, or in the laya
state, which is the eternal and the normal condition of substance, differentiating
only periodically, and being during that differentiation in an abnormal
state - in other words, a transitory illusion of the senses. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 566 /I, 619 /I, 290]
(For the meaning of laya, see Glossary.)
The reader is constantly reminded of the fundamental teaching of Occultism,
namely, the fact of the ONE LIFE, with its inescapable corollary, that all things
are but differentiations of the One, by whatever name that One is recognized.
This is the science underlying the affirmation that runs through the sacred
literature of India, "THAT art thou", the recognition that man in his essential
nature is identical with the One Life.
As to the "elemental atoms", so called, the Occultists
refer to them by that name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by
the Hindu to Brahma when he calls him ANU, the "Atom". Every elemental atom,
in search of which more than one chemist has followed the path indicated by
the Alchemists, is, in their firm belief (when not knowledge), a SOUL;
not necessarily a disembodied soul, but a jiva, as the Hindus call it,
a centre of POTENTIAL VITALITY, with latent intelligence in it, and in the case
of compound Souls, an intelligent active EXISTENCE, from the highest to the
lowest order, a form composed of more or less differentiations. It requires
a metaphysician - and an Eastern metaphysician - to understand our meaning.
All those atom-Souls are differentiations from the ONE, and in the same relation
to it as the divine Soul - the Buddhi -to its informing and inseparable
Spirit, or Atman. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 566 /I, 619
/I, 290]
Returning now to the Elementals, we must remind ourselves that the Cosmos in
its totality is intelligent, but that, in order to bring about specific effects
at each level of being, it requires qualified agents. These are the Elementals:
they are concerned in every phenomenon of the manifested Cosmos, for they are
the operative powers. Without Elementals in their numerous kinds, everything
in Nature would be dead - or rather, would not exist. Matter would be unresponsive,
insentient, inactive. Some of them, for example, are involved in the motions
of the winds, earthquakes and floods, in the incidence of droughts and in the
responses of flora and fauna to seasonal changes, as in those changes themselves.
Others are concerned in the dynamics of our thinking and feeling and in the
regulation of our bodily functions. Nothing that is could exist without them.
Yet, though they are the operative agents of the Law, they are not in themselves
the Law. Moreover, they are subject to higher intelligences, the Dhyani-Chohanic
hosts in their ascending grades, culminating in the Lords of Karma who are recognized
in occult literature under such terms as Rectors, Regents, Archangels and the
Four Maharajahs.
CHAPTER
-7- [ BOOK -II- ]
LAW IN COSMOS AND
HUMAN LIFE
The aspects of universal Law to be considered in this chapter are periodicity
and cyclic progression. These are exemplified in the rhythmic motions of heavenly
bodies, including our earth and the moon, down to the lesser scale of our daily
lives and our very bodies - the pulse of the heart, the alternation of inhalation
and exhalation, sleeping and waking, and indeed in our living and dying. By
studying the operation of the Law as it affects the individual man, we may come
to understand how the events and circumstances of one incarnation result from
his actions in previous lives. The retributive aspects of the Law have not been
explained in technical detail, but some partial understanding may be reached
by an appreciation of the factors involved, in particular of the hierarchies
of entities by whom the universe in all its parts is "guided, controlled and
animated" [The Secret Doctrine -I, 274 /I, 295 /I, 317].
Some preliminary information on this subject is given in the synopsis of the
seven Stanzas at the end of the Proem, referring to "the septenary hierarchy
of conscious Divine Powers", mentioned in Chapter 4,
who adjust and control evolution, embodying in themselves
those manifestations of the ONE LAW, which we know as the Laws of Nature. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 21 /I, 49 /I, 86]
Again in that Chapter reference was made to
The AH-HI (Dhyani-Chohans), ... the collective hosts
of spiritual beings ... [who] are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact
in Nature her "laws", while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon
them in a similar manner by still higher Powers ... [The Secret
Doctrine -I, 38 /I, 70 /I, 112]
The "Regents or Angels" mentioned in the previous chapter not only "rule over
the Cosmical Forces of North, South, East and West" (relative to wherever one
maybe on earth and its direction of spin) but are also "connected with Karma,
as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry out her decrees" [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 122 /I, 147 /I, 180]. It is not to be supposed, however,
that it is these Beings who bring down upon man the unhappy consequences of
his evil deeds. This is unequivocally stated:
It is not the "Rector" or "Maharaja" who punishes
or rewards, with or without "God's" permission or order, but man himself - his
deeds or Karma, attracting individually and collectively (as in the case of
whole nations sometimes) every kind of evil and calamity. We produce CAUSES,
and these awaken the corresponding powers in the sidereal world; which powers
are magnetically and irresistibly attracted to - and react upon - those who
produced these causes; whether such persons are practically the evil-doers,
or simply thinkers who brood mischief. [The Secret
Doctrine -I, 124 /I, 148 /I, 181]
The grand processes of Nature operate on their appropriate scale throughout
the Cosmos. There is, however, an insistence that, in the study of Nature, we
must have particular regard to Man, but never view him in isolation or as separate
from the Universal Whole.
Let us study man, therefore, but if we separate
him for one moment from the Universal Whole or view him in isolation, from a
single aspect, apart from the "Heavenly Man' ... we shall either land in black
magic or fail most ingloriously in our attempt. [The Secret Doctrine
-III, 437 /V, 419 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 517 /The esoteric
writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 350]
The "Heavenly Man' - in Kabalistic terms Adam Kadmon - is a symbol for the
whole cosmic process. The "Heavenly Man" is the model or object of "ever-becoming".
All is tending to become 'man' - in our planetary manvantara at least - and
the Beings in the post-human kingdoms proceed from having been human. Man is
not only the model for, but the critical point in, the evolutionary scheme [see
The Secret Doctrine -I,133 /I,157 /I,190]
Fohat holds a key place in the cosmic process. It is the energy of Fohat that
quickens all the planes and subplanes which in turn are reflected in the constitution
of man.
The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread
of Fohat. It journeys through the Seven Worlds of Maya ... [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 238 /I, 258 /I, 283]
In the Commentary that follows, Mme Blavatsky explains that the last phrase
refers here to the seven globes of the planetary
chain and the seven Rounds, or the 49 stations of active existence that are
before the "Spark" or Monad at the beginning of every "Great Life-Cycle" or
Manvantara. The "thread of Fohat" is the thread of life before referred to.
This relates to the greatest problem of philosophy
- the physical and substantial nature of life, the independent nature of which
is denied by modern science because that science is unable to comprehend it.
The reincarnationists and believers in Karma alone dimly perceive that the whole
secret of life is in the unbroken series of its manifestations, whether in,
or apart from, the physical body. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 238
/I, 258 /I, 283]
The Forty-Nine Fires, here mentioned in relation to the Cosmos as "the stations
of active existence", relate also to the principles and sub-principles of man's
constitution; the Monad or Spark is
JIVA, the MONAD in conjunction with MANAS, or rather
its aroma - that which remains from each personality, when worthy, and hangs
from Atma-Buddhi, the Flame, by the thread of life. [The Secret
Doctrine -I, 238 /I, 258 /I, 283]
Here we have a description of the process of reincarnation: it is the Monad
in conjunction with the aroma of Manas, the Ego, that periodically animates
the vehicles of perception and action necessary for gaining experience in the
psychic and physical worlds. In accordance with the law of analogy and cyclic
law, the process applies to Globes as well as to Egos.
An interesting question, incidental to our theme but often asked, is whether
there is a finite, and definite, number of human Monads associated with our
Earth, incarnating over and over again, only a proportion of the number being
in incarnation at any one time.
There must be a limited number of Monads evolving
and growing more and more perfect through their assimilation of many successive
personalities, in every new Manvantara. This is absolutely necessary in view
of the doctrines of Rebirth, Karma, and the gradual return of the human Monad
to its source - absolute Deity. Thus, although the hosts of more or less
progressed Monads are almost incalculable, they are still finite, as is everything
in this Universe of differentiation and finiteness ... there is an eternal concatenation
of causes and effects, and a perfect analogy which runs through, and links together,
all thelines of evolution. One begets the other - globes as personalities.
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 171 /I, 194 /I, 224]
This gaining of experience in the inner, spiritual realms of being leads to
a consideration of how we, as individual persons, come to be as we are. Two
factors are involved: the Elementals, as the operative agents of the Law, and
the Akasha and the Astral Light as the reservoirs, at their respective levels,
of all experience and thus the seat of memory. It is through these two, the
Elementals and the Universal Memory, that the fruit of what was becomes the
seed of what will be. The pattern of what-is-to-be has been determined by all
the conditioning factors in the past to which we, individually and collectively,
have contributed. These are impressed into Nature's unfading memory, a memory
that is inherent in the Maharajas or Regents. The dynamism that brings forth
the new order in due season and in accordance with the patterns so established
is Fohat and the elemental life. This, in general terms, is the nature of the
reincarnation process.
The origins of the personal make-up of an individual when he returns to a new
life on earth is explained in The Secret Doctrine in the following passage.
Occultism, says Mme Blavatsky, teaches that
(a) the life atoms of our life-principle (Prana)
are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with
the life-principle (an independent, eternal, conscious factor) are partially
transmitted from father to son by heredity, and partially are drawn once more
together and become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation
of the Monads. Because (b) as the individual Soul is ever the same, so
are the atoms of the lower principles (body, its astral, or life-double,
etc.) drawn as they are by affinity and karmic law always to the same individuality
in a series of various bodies, etc., etc. [The
Secret Doctrine -II, 671 /II, 709 /IV, 241]
A footnote to this passage adds:
The collective aggregation of these atoms forms
thus the Anima-Mundi of our Solar System, the soul of our little
universe, each atom of which is of course a soul, a monad, a little universe
endowed with consciousness, hence with memory. [The Secret
Doctrine -II, 672 fn /II, 709 fn /IV, 241]
To understand more fully the processes of reincarnation as they affect the
personal characteristics with which we are born, one has to keep in mind the
nature of the Auric Envelope and its function as the accumulator of Karma, and
as that in which the new Astral Body is formed. In lay parlance, the process
may be described as the re-animation, at the dawn of a new earth life, of the
dormant, residual properties and qualities formed as a result of all the actions
and experiences of the previous personality. Here too the law of analogy applies,
and the process is seen to be universal as well as individual.
In the Kosmic Auric envelope is all the karma of
the manifesting Universe ... Jiva is everywhere, and so with the other principles.
[The Secret Doctrine -III, 555 /V, 528 /The collected writings
of H.P.Blavatsky -XII, 657 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 436]
When a new universe is to come into being, its processes are started in the
same way as for a man, the smaller reflecting the greater. Further, the teaching
says that the Karma of a planet, for example, is the collective Karma of the
beings it has nurtured. In the aggregate, the thoughts and actions of men determine
not only their own Karma but that of their environment and their world. It is
in this sense that an individual man plays his part in the evolutionary development
of his planet and likewise even in that of the solar system.
The law has its inner as well as its outer manifestations. Although in one
respect its cycles can be regarded as mechanistically objective, like tidal
ebb and flow, they have corresponding inner aspects which affect periodically
the quality and conditions of life. There are times like the seasons, for instance,
when qualitative aspects of communal life can and do manifest changes, as in
periods of peace or of strife.
Using the axial revolution of our planet as a simile, Mme Blavatsky states
that
The revolution of the physical world, according
to the ancient doctrine, is attended by a like revolution in the world of intellect
- the spiritual evolution of the world proceeding in cycles, like the physical
one. Thus we see in history a regular alternation of ebb and flow in the tide
of human progress. The great kingdoms and empires of the world, after reaching
the culmination of their greatness, descend again, in accordance with the same
law by which they ascended; till, having reached the lowest point, humanity
reasserts itself and mounts up once more, the height of its attainment being,
by this law of ascending progression by cycles, somewhat higher than the point
from which it had before descended. [Isis Unveiled -I, 34]
An important comment on this doctrine of cycles points out that "these cycles
- wheels within wheels ... do not affect all mankind at one and the same
time" [The Secret Doctrine -I, 641 /I, 703 /II, 366].
This raises the question of predestination and free will. The general principle
is clear:
There is a purpose in every important act of Nature,
whose acts are all cyclic and periodical ... There is a predestination
in the geological life of our globe, as in the history, past and future, of
races and nations. This is closely connected with what we call Karma ... [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 640 /I, 702 /II, 365]
It must not be supposed that the responsibility of the individual is in any
way diminished, whether that individual be a person or a nation.
KARMA-NEMESIS is the creator of nations and
mortals, but once created, it is they who make of her either a fury or a rewarding
Angel ... There is no return from the paths she cycles over; yet those paths
are our own making, for it is we, collectively or individually, who prepare
them. Karma-Nemesis is the synonym of PROVIDENCE, minus design, goodness,
and every other finite attribute and qualification ... [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 642 /I, 704 /II, 367]
CHAPTER
-8- [BOOK
-II- ]
DEATH AND
REBIRTH
In Part I, the principal sources of information mentioned were The Mahatma
Letters to A.P. Sinnett and The Key to Theosophy, in which Mme Blavatsky
outlines the instructions she had received from her Adept Teachers. Additional
material may be found in The Secret Doctrine and the Collected Writings.
Mme Blavatsky refers several times to the source of her knowledge. For instance,
in the Key, when the Enquirer asks whether anyone - "even an adept or
seer" - can follow out in detail the processes of karmic adjustment, she replies:
Certainly; "those who know" can do so by the exercise
of powers which are latent even in all men. [The key to Theosophy
- XI, 215]
Again, in answer to the question whether such adepts "really know more than
we do of reincarnation and after states", she affirms:
They do indeed. By the training of faculties we
all possess, but which they alone have developed to perfection, they have entered
in spirit these various planes and states ... For long ages, one generation
of adepts after another has studied the mysteries of being, of life, death,
and re-birth, and all have taught in their turn some of the facts so learned.
[The key to Theosophy - XI, 217]
In the study of the processes of death, we have to remind ourselves of the
three parts into which the seven aspects or principles of man may be grouped:
an upper Triad, a middle Duad, and a lower Triad.
When man dies, his second and third principles die
with him; the lower triad disappears, and the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh
principles form the surviving Quaternary. [The Mahatma Letters
to A.P.Sinnett -16(5), 101:103]
At this point the now four-fold entity becomes unconscious:
Every just disembodied four-fold entity ...
loses at the instant of death all recollection, it is mentally - annihilated;
it sleeps its akashic sleep in the Kama-loka. This state lasts from a few hours
(rarely less), days, weeks, months - sometimes to several years. All this according
to the entity, to its mental status at the moment of death, to the character
of its death, etc. [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -24(5),
184:186]
Kama-loca is the subjective, invisible (to physical sight) region where the
kama-rupa remains, after death, until it disintegrates upon the exhaustion of
the passional and mental causes that created it. A similar statement regarding
the kama-manasic remains of the deceased and the period of unconsciousness is
made by Mme Blavatsky.
The processes and states of consciousness in the Kama-loca present some difficulties.
Some further explanatory material is helpful.
According to the Eastern teaching the state of the
deceased in Kama-loka is not what we, living men, would recognize as "conscious".
It is rather that of a person stunned and dazed by a violent blow, who has momentarily
"lost his senses". Hence in Kama-loka there is as a rule (apart from vicarious
life and consciousness awakened through contact with mediums) no recognition
of friends or relatives, and therefore such a case as stated here [from a correspondent's
question that meeting between entities in Kama-loca must be very disappointing
if one of them has progressed through that state as only to leave a "shell"
behind] is impossible. [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-IX, 164]
The passage quoted goes on to state that those we loved will be with us in
Devachan, and then it adds by way of further emphasis:
But the process of stripping off the lower, the
fourth and part of the fifth, principles is an unconscious one in all normal
human beings. It is only in very exceptional cases that there is a slight return
to consciousness in Kama-loka; and this is the case of very materialistic, unspiritual
personalities ... [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -IX,
164]
What next occurs is described as
a "death" struggle between the Upper and Lower dualities.
If the upper wins, the sixth, having attracted to itself the quintessence of
Good from the fifth - its nobler affections, its saintly (though earthly)
aspirations and the most Spiritualized portions of its mind - follows its divine
elder (the 7th) into the "Gestation" State; and the fifth and fourth
remain in association as an empty shell - (the expression is quite correct)
- to roam in this earth's atmosphere, with half the personal memory gone, and
the more brutal instinct fully alive for a certain period - an "Elementary"
in short. This is the "angel guide" of the average medium. [The
Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -16(5), 101:103]
It is the Elementary that is often referred to as a "shell" or "spook". The
Mahatma refers here to an explanation given by Mme Blavatsky to Mr Hume, to
the effect that, after the loss of the lower principles,
... man's sixth principle [Monad], as something
purely spiritual, could not exist, or have conscious being in the Devachan,
unless it assimilated some of the more abstract and pure of the mental attributes
of the fifth principle or animal Soul, its manas (mind) and memory. [The
Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -16(5), 101:103]
It is only after the struggle in Kama-loca and the subsequent gestation period
that consciousness begins to return "at the door of Devachan" [The
Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -25, 197:199]. There then occurs the second
review of the life just ended, remembrance of it returning
slowly and gradually towards the end of the gestation
(to the entity or Ego), still more slowly but far more imperfectly and incompletely
to the shell, and fully to the Ego at the moment of its entrance
into the Devachan. And now, the latter being a state determined and brought
by its past life, the Ego does not fall headlong but sinks into it gradually
and by easy stages. With the first dawn of that state appears that life (or
rather is once more lived over by the Ego) from its first day of consciousness
to its last. From the most important down to the most trifling event, all are
marshalled before the spiritual eye of the Ego; only, unlike the events of real
life, those of them remain only that are chosen by the new liver (pardon
the word) clinging to certain scenes and actors, these remain permanently
- while the others fade away to disappear for ever, or to return to their creator
- the shell. Now try to understand this highly important, because so
highly just and retributive law, in its effects. Out of the resurrected Past
nothing remains but what the Ego has felt spiritually - that was
evolved by and through, and lived over by his spiritual faculties - be they
love or hatred. [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett
-24(5), 184:187]
Letter 16 consists of answers to a series of questions posed by Mr Sinnett
on the condition of Devachan. He asks whether it is "only attained by the few
who are very good, or by the many who are not very bad". The Mahatma replies:
Who goes to Deva Chan?" The personal Ego of course,
but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego - the combination of the sixth and
seventh principles - which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn
into the Deva-Chan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe.
The fact of his being reborn at all, shows the preponderance of good over evil
in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time
being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnations, he brings along with
him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts, into this Deva-Chan.
"Bad" is a relative term for us - as you were told more than once before, -
and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence all those
who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality -
go to the Devachan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary,
later on. Meanwhile they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes
produced by them. [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -16(3),98:100]
In Chapter IX of the Key, Mme Blavatsky explains how the kind of communications
alleged by Spiritualists between the deceased and those they have left behind
cannot be reconciled with the idea of a blissful hereafter. The state of Devachan
is one, she insists, of "unalloyed happiness". Letter 16 from the Mahatma
develops the description of Devachan at some length, pointing out that
... it is a state, one, so to say, of intense
selfishness, during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness
on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly
affections, preferences and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious
actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the
bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness: for, it is a state of perpetual
"Maya" ... [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -16(3), 98:101]
In answer to a question on the duration of the period of gestation between
Death and Devachan, the Mahatma refers to some confusion that had occurred in
the use of the term "Bardo". Correctly, he explains,
"Bardo" is the period between death and rebirth
- and may last from a few years to a kalpa. It is divided into three sub-periods
(1) when the Ego delivered of its mortal coil enters into Kama-Loka (the
abode of Elementaries); (2) when it enters into its "Gestation State": (3) when
it is reborn in the Rupa-Loka of Devachan. [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett
-16(9), 103:105]
The duration of each of these sub-periods is then explained, with the reasons
for variations, the general principle throughout being the operation of Karma.
sub-period (1) may last from a few minutes to a
number of years ... sub-period (2) is very long ... proportionate to
the Ego's spiritual stamina; sub-period(3) last in proportion to the good Karma
... [10]
Later it was explained that sub-period (3) in Devachan lasts "for years, decades,
centuries and millenniums oftentimes multiplied by something more":
Every effect must be proportionate to the cause.
And, as man's terms of incarnate existence bear but a small proportion to his
periods of internatal existence in the manvantaric cycle, so the good thoughts,
words, and deeds of any one of these "lives" on a globe are causative of effects,
the working out of which requires far more time than the evolution of the causes
occupied. [The Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett -16(9), 104:106]
Chapter IX of the Key introduces a number of questions relating to rewards
and punishments. It might appear that if, after death, a condition of unconsciousness
supervenes, there can be no sense of punishment. "Karmic punishment", explains
Mme Blavatsky, "reaches the Ego only in its next incarnation". It might then
seem that, deprived of consciousness of his past misdeeds, the man will continue
to suffer blindly.
Not quite so. At the moment of death every man,
even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before
him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes
one with the individual and all-knowing Ego. But this instant is enough
to show him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life.
He sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception.
He reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the arena he is
quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the suffering that has overtaken
him. [The key to Theosophy - IX, 162]
Similarly, at the moment of rebirth, the Ego has "a prospective vision of the
life which awaits him and realizes all the causes that have led to it". Here
is our introduction to the process of coming back into incarnation - in effect,
the dying process in reverse, with the re-formation of the soul principles (the
fifth and fourth) preceding that of the vital principles (the second and third),
which precedes the formation of the new physical body.
The process of return is reviewed in a passage in the Collected Writings,
where Karma, Tanha (the thirst for experience) and the Skandhas are described
as "the almighty trinity in one, and the cause of our rebirth". After an account
of the man's experience at the moment of death, Mme Blavatsky refers to the
future incarnation:
... the vices, defects and especially the passions
of the preceding life become, through certain laws of affinity and transference,
the germs of the future potentialities in the animal soul (Kama-rupa),
hence of its dependent, the astral double (linga-sharira) - at a subsequent
birth. It is the personality alone which changes; the real reincarnating
principle, the EGO, remains always the same; and it is its KARMA that guides
the idiosyncracies and prominent moral traits of the old "personality"
that was (and that the EGO knew not how to control), to re-appear in the new
man that will be. These traits and passions pursue and fasten on the yet plastic
third and fourth principles of the child, and - unless the EGO struggles and
conquers - they will develop with tenfold intensity and lead the adult man to
his destruction. For it is they who are the tools and weapons of the Karmic
LAW of RETRIBUTION. Thus ... our good and bad actions "are the only tools with
which we paint our likenesses at death", for the new man is invariably
the son and progeny of the old man that was. [The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 176]
Further information about the processes involved in returning to earth life
was given by Mme Blavatsky in her Instructions to the members of her Esoteric
Section in London. These are included in the later editions of The Secret
Doctrine (3rd edition Vol.III, 495/6; Adyar edition Vol.V, 472/4) and in
Vol.XII of the Collected Writings, 515/713.
An interesting passage in The Secret Doctrine tells us that, until the
beginnings of the Fourth Race,
... there had been no regular death, but only a
transformation, for men had no personality as yet. They had monads -
breaths of the ONE Breath, and as impersonal as the source from which they proceeded.
They had bodies, or rather shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karmaless.
Therefore, as there was no Kamaloka - least of all Nirvana or even Devachan
- for the "souls" of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no
intermediate periods between the incarnation. Like the Phoenix, primordial man
resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation,
he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary
law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical
organism, and with it - moral decay. [The Secret Doctrine -II,
610 /II, 645 /IV, 181]
The account of the death process as given by the Mahatmas shows us how it fits
into the grand universal scheme of ever-becoming, in accordance with
cyclic and evolutionary law. The only real tragedy of death is for those left
behind; when in their personal bereavement they see death as an isolated incident
instead of one long series. One day maybe we shall all be able to see it in
the vast panorama of causes and effects throughout our many lives; we may then
see how the events we have experienced have led to the enduring bonds of love
and duty. Then too we may see the vast journey of Egoic LIFE as it passes through
the many personal lives, until its final perfection and liberation, when the
otherwise endless cycle of births and deaths will cease, for ever.
CHAPTER
-9- [BOOK -II- ]
ORIGINS
The universe comes into being "from within outwards". It exists on different
levels in the inner worlds. From the worlds of Ideation it proceeds as archetypes,
becoming more and more defined and substantial as it passes down, now as prototypes,
through the formative planes; finally it is projected into objectivity on the
physical level in the forms we know. The process is cyclical: all things come
and go in due season, governed by those laws that are aspects of the one Universal
Law.
Man's origins reflect the cosmic process: his higher spiritual principles arise
in the formless planes of being; his lower ones reflect the lower quaternary
of manifested existence, taking physical form during his life on earth.
It is hardly possible to proceed further without referring in some detail to
the Three Fundamental Propositions - the essence of the Secret Doctrine - which
Mme Blavatsky lays before us in the Proem of The Secret Doctrine. Here
we give only a few extracts from pages that should be studied in their entirety.
The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental
propositions:
(a) An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable
PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power
of human conception and could only be dwarfed by human expression or similitude
...
To render these ideas clearer to the general reader,
let him set out with the postulate that there is one absolute Reality which
antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause
... is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be". It is of course
devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested,
finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and
is beyond all thought and speculation.
This "Be-ness" is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine
under two aspects. On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare
subjectivity, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any
conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other, absolute abstract Motion
representing Unconditioned Consciousness ...
Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms:
(b) The Eternity of the Universe in toto
as a boundless plane; periodically "the playground of numberless Universes incessantly
manifesting and disappearing", called "the manifesting stars", and the "sparks
of Eternity". "The Eternity of the Pilgrim" is like a wink in the Eye of Self-Existence
... "The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb,
flux and reflux".
This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is
the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb
and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments
of nature. An alternation such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping
and Waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly universal and without exception,
that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental
laws of the universe.
Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches:
(c) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the
Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root;
and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul - a spark of the former - through
the Cycle of Incarnation (or "Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic
law, during the whole term. In other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (divine
Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued
from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle - or the OVER-SOUL -
has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that
Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then
by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending
through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas,
from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The pivotal
doctrine of the esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in
man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout
a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations ...
(The Divine Plan, by Geoffrey Barborka, offers a detailed commentary
on these three Propositions).
It will be seen at once that the content of these Propositions is inexhaustible,
as they embrace the totality of the cosmic process. Let us consider briefly
a few of the terms here placed before us.
Space, in Esotericism, is not the room occupied by things or stuff, as in common
usage, nor is duration an extended period of time. If we survey the heavens
on a clear night, we may wonder how far in any direction space extends. Even
if we push thought or imagination to its very limits, we find no answer. But
in this instance we are thinking of space as an extension of something measurable,
a plenum which accommodates the heavenly bodies; we are granting it size, dimension.
Esoteric space is dimensionless. To help ourselves to discover what this might
mean, let us look within at the objects of our thoughts and ask: what is the
size of an imagined planet or an imagined orange? and where are they? We discover
that the images have no dimension in terms of physical measurement, and no location,
other than wherever we happen to be. The experience of these truths can be enlightening
and liberating. A footnote in the Proem explains the meaning of the word "Pilgrim"
as used in these Propositions:
"Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our Monad
(the two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and
eternal principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole - the
Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the
end of the cycle. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 16 fn /I, 45 fn /I,
82]
Motion is explained by Mme Blavatsky as the equivalent, in the material plane,
of "the 'Breath' of the One Existence", which is applied "only to the spiritual
aspect of Cosmogony".
The One Eternal Element, or element-containing Vehicle,
is Space, dimensionless in every sense; coexistent with which are - endless
duration, primordial (hence indestructible) matter, and motion
- absolute "perpetual motion" which is the "breath" of the "One" Element. This
breath, as seen, can never cease, not even during the Pralayic eternities. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 55 /I, 85 /I, 125]
Metempsychosis adds an important element to the idea of reincarnation. Repeated
life-experiences do not, of themselves, imply soul-growth, and indeed reincarnation
is sometimes seen, although mistakenly, to be merely the return of a personality.
The addition of the term metempsychosis shows that the significance of reincarnation
lies not in the fact of the re-assumption of a human personality by the Ego
but in the soul-growth, the development of faculty, that is effected by each
such return. Repetition without progress has little value; each new opportunity
of earth-life offers the conditions for a further flowering of the potentialities
of the Ego.
One of the universal symbols used to represent the becoming of the universe
is that of the egg.
Therefore, it is found in every world-theogony,
where it is largely associated with the serpent symbol; the latter being everywhere,
in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity, infinitude,
regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. The mystery of apparent
self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature
the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture
under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection
of this graphic symbol. [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 65 /I, 95 /I, 134]
Sloka 3 of the third Stanza introduces the egg-symbol to convey the sense of
becoming from that which always is.
"DARKNESS" RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY
RAY INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER-DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN
EGG; THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL (periodical)
GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD-EGG. (a)
(a) The solitary ray dropping into the mother deep
may be taken as meaning Divine Thought or Intelligence, impregnating chaos.
This, however, occurs on the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the
plane whereon that which we call a metaphysical abstraction is a reality. The
Virgin egg being in one sense abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed
through fecundation, is eternal and forever the same. And just as the fecundation
of an egg takes place before it is dropped, so the non-eternal periodical germ
which becomes later in symbolism the mundane egg, contains in itself, when it
emerges from the said symbol, "the promise and potency" of all the Universe.
Though the idea per se is, of course, an abstraction, a symbolical mode
of expression it is a symbol truly, as it suggests the idea of infinity as an
endless circle. It brings before the mind's eye the picture of Kosmos emerging
from and in boundless space, a Universe as shoreless in magnitude if not as
endless in its objective manifestations. The simile of an egg also expresses
the fact taught in Occultism that the primordial form of everything manifested,
from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been
with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity - a serpent swallowing
its tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as
seen from its centre. The field of vision or of thought is like a sphere whose
radii proceed from one's self in every direction, and extend out into space,
opening up boundless vistas all around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal
and the Kabalists, "whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere", a
conception which enters into the compound idea of this emblem. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 64 /I, 94 /I, 133]
This symbolic account of cosmic beginnings is consistent with what we know
as the natural creative and procreative process at the physical level. The Hermetic
axiom says, "As above, so below". The converse must equally be true, "As below,
so above", and in the study of principles this can provide a useful key.
The story of the genesis of man as we now see him is understandable in terms
of his occult constitution. He is a sevenfold entity, his seven principles represented
in the three aspects of Spirit, Soul and Body, these three being directly related
to the three evolutionary streams - the Monadic, the intellectual and psychic,
and the physical. Monads in themselves are highest spirit, but they require
appropriate vehicles through which to express their developing powers. These
vehicles can of necessity give expression only to such aspects of spirit as
it is in their nature to do. On world-chain after world-chain, wave after wave
of Monads reach, and then pass through, all phases of the human stage, proceeding
onwards into superhuman stages.
Always we must keep in mind that central element of evolutionary law, "from
within outwards". As it operates in the cosmos, so it operates in man. In introducing
the subject matter of the second volume of The Secret Doctrine, the becoming
of man, Mme Blavatsky informs the reader that "the Secret Doctrine postulates
three new propositions", the second of these being "the birth of the astral,
before the physical body, the former being a model of the latter". This
applies equally to the individual as to the race of mankind.
The first race of men were, then, simply the images,
the astral doubles, of their Fathers, who were the pioneers, the most progressed
Entities from a preceding though lower sphere, the shell of which is
now our Moon. [The Secret Doctrine -II, 115 /II, 121 /III, 122]
During the first three Rounds on our Globe, these Fathers or Ancestors, the
Lunar Pitris, were recapitulating the developmental stages through which they
had passed on the Lunar Chain.
Evolutionary law compelled the lunar "Father" to
pass, in their monadic condition, through all the forms of life and being on
this globe; but at the end of the Third Round, they were already human in their
divine nature, and were thus called upon to become the creators of the forms
destined to fashion the tabernacles of the less progressed Monads, whose turn
it was to incarnate. [The Secret Doctrine -II, 115 /II, 121 /III,
122]
As we are here concerned with origins rather than later development - a long
story indeed! - we may simply summarize this portion of our study with words
which, if heeded, will provoke a desire to make further acquaintance with the
text:
The mystery attached to the highly spiritual ancestors
of the divine man within the earthly man is very great. [The
Secret Doctrine -II, 81 /II, 85 /III, 90]
but it is from the spiritual ancestors that man as we now know him obtained
all his principles.
CHAPTER
-10- [ BOOK -II- ]
GLOBES, ROUNDS AND
RACES
A whole panorama of new ideas, some perhaps very strange, is being presented
in this book. In the first part of this chapter the idea of planets like our
own having principles comprising an occult constitution like that of man, was
introduced. It was shown how the Hermetic Axiom, "As above, so below", really
is an aid to our understanding of the esoteric view of the Cosmos and its workings.
We saw that the rule of seven applied not only to the inner nature of the planet
but also to its evolutionary stages, to those of the Races of mankind and to
the time periods marked out by those stages. The cyclic law applies throughout
the whole process and all phases and aspects of the process are marvellously
coordinated, designed to reach a programmed end, whereafter what had been becomes
the seeds for a further harvest in the next great cycle of activity.
In this part of the Chapter more details of the several aspects of the global
processes are given. These enrich our overall view and help to illustrate the
fact that even in the intricacies of some of the relatively smaller processes,
the same laws of analogy apply, the minor always reflecting the major.
In this chapter the further information will be given under the following headings:
1. Origins and formation of Globes
2. The classes and nature of the entities that formed and peopled the Globes
3. Ancestry of Man. The journey of development of those entities who provided
him with his principles.
4. Man's evolutionary development. The Races.
5. The areas of the physical planet, earth, where the Races developed.
6. Time scales.
The planetary parent of our Globe was a planet whose lingering physical remains
are now our satellite moon. The Chain of Globes that preceded our chain is therefore
referred to as the Lunar Chain.
At the end of the last Round of the Lunar Chain its Globes die in turn and
transfer their principles, Globe by Globe, to the new Chain, to form its corresponding
Globes. The Globes in order round the Chain are, as described in Book I, usually
represented by letters, A to G (or Z). These new Globes will start their evolution
where their parent old ones finished theirs. The new ones thereby, as their
development proceeds, represent a higher state of being; they are more advanced
than their predecessors. The process of transfer of principles Globe to Globe
is illustrated in Figure II, The Secret Doctrine -I, 172 /I, 195 /I, 225.
The universe is a living whole, and everything in it expresses Life as a life,
a living entity. In their multiplicity of kind and quality these lives comprise
manifest existence in its countless multitudes of living beings, ranging from
the infinitely small to the infinitely large. They constitute the Hierarchies.
The ultimate units of Life have been defined as Monads, with the reservation
that there is really only one homogeneous MONAD. It is thought of as atomic
or unitary when in association with a single unit of Life, an entity, whether
small or large, e.g. the Monad of a physical atom or the Monad of a man. (Monad
in its totality is sometimes referred to as Monadic Essence.) In connection
with the genesis of a Globe, its life principles received from the previous
Chain are seen as classes of Monads at various stages of development. There
are classes of Monads associated with the elemental kingdoms, the mineral, vegetable
and animal kingdoms, as well as the human.
There is a passage which, after describing the Globe to Globe transfer of principles
from the Lunar to the Earth Chain, explains further:
Our Moon was the fourth Globe of the series, and
was on the same plane of perception as our Earth. But Globe A of the lunar chain
is not fully "dead" till the first Monads of the first class have passed from
Globe G or Z, the last of the "Lunar chain", into Nirvana which awaits them
between the two chains: and similarly for all the other Globes as stated, each
giving birth to the corresponding Globe of the "earth-chain".
Further, when Globe A of the new chain is ready,
the first class or Hierarchy of Monads from the Lunar chain incarnate upon it
in the lowest kingdom, and so on successively. The result of this is, that it
is only the first class of Monads which attains the human state of development
during the first Round, since the second class, on each planet, arriving later,
has not time to reach that stage. Thus the Monads of Class 2 reach the incipient
human stage only in the Second Round, and so on up to the middle of the Fourth
Round. But at this point - and on the Fourth Round in which the human stage
will be fully developed - the "Door" into the human kingdom closes; and
henceforward the number of "human" Monads, i.e., Monads in the human stage of
development is complete. For the Monads which had not reached the human stage
by this point will, owing to the evolution of humanity itself, find themselves
so far behind that they will reach the human stage only at the close of the
seventh and last Round. They will, therefore, not be men on this chain, but
will form the humanity of a future Manvantara and be rewarded by becoming "Men"
on a higher chain altogether, thus receiving their Karmic compensation. To this
there is but one solitary exception, for very good reasons, of which
we shall speak further on. But this accounts for the difference in the races.
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 172 /I, 196 /I, 226]
This "one solitary exception" refers to the primary apes. This story will be
told later (in Chapter 11). The irreversible process of ever-progressing growth
and development, taking place continually within the Cosmos is exemplified in
the grand procession of global development with all that takes place on each
Globe. Furthermore the process is entirely ordered. The great Beings who themselves
have been through it and attained to a lofty level are the directors.
Now every "Round" (on the descending scale) is but
a repetition in a more concrete form of the Round which preceded it, as every
globe - down to our fourth sphere (the actual earth) - is a grosser and more
material copy of the more shadowy sphere which precedes it in their successive
order, on the three planes [see diagram in Book I]. On its way upwards in the
ascending arc, Evolution spiritualizes and etherealizes, so to speak, the general
nature of all, bringing it on to a level with the plane on which the twin globe
on the opposite side is placed; the result being, that when the seventh globe
is reached (in whatever Round) the nature of everything that is evolving returns
to the condition it was in at its starting point - plus, every time, a new and
superior degree in the states of consciousness. Thus it becomes clear that the
"origin of man", so-called, on this our present Round, or life cycle on this
planet, must occupy the same place in the same order - save details based on
local conditions and time - as in the preceding Round. Again it must be explained
and remembered that, as the work of each Round is said to be apportioned to
a different group of so-called "Creators" or "Architects", so is that of every
globe, i.e. it is under the supervision and guidance of special "Builders" and
"Watchers" - the various Dhyan-Chohans. [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 232 /I, 253 /I, 278]
This passage illustrates how each phase of development is successive, each
being superior to its predecessor but inferior to its successor; put differently
the Monads are moving up the scale of existence in their classes.
We began this part of the Chapter by stating that analogy applied between the
orders of magnitude of the total process of universal ever-becoming, the lesser
reflecting the greater. This, as seen in Chapter 3, is the case with man's principles;
analogy applies.
It is explained that there are several kinds of Pralaya or rest between periods
of activity. There is one between Rounds, a global or planetary one, one for
a Chain, another for a Solar System, and so on.
Mme Blavatsky also explains that the Monads who came to Earth from the Lunar
Chain "may be roughly divided into three great Classes:
1. The most developed Monads (the Lunar Gods or
"Spirits", called, in India, the Pitris, whose function it is to pass in the
first Round through the whole triple cycle of the mineral, vegetable, and animal
kingdoms in their most ethereal, filmy and rudimentary forms, in order to clothe
themselves in, and assimilate, the nature of the newly formed chain. They are
those who first reach the human form (if there can be any form in the realm
of the almost subjective) on Globe A in the first Round. It is they, therefore,
who lead and represent the human element during the second and third Rounds,
and finally evolve their shadows at the beginning of the Fourth Round for the
second class, or those who come behind them.
2. Those Monads that are the first to reach the
human stage during the three and a half Rounds, and to become men.
3. The laggards; the Monads which are retarded,
and which will not reach, by reason of Karmic impediments, the human stage at
all during this cycle or Round, save one exception ... [The Secret
Doctrine -I, 174 /I, 197 /I, 227]
It is therefore Monads of the 2nd Class who comprise the majority of human
beings on Earth now. These were the first to arrive on Globe D (Earth) in this
the Fourth Round.
We learn that the physical bodies of men take the form (i.e. anthropoid) from
a pattern projected from Chhayas, the form of the astral bodies of the First
Class of Pitris, the most advanced to arrive on Earth, which was then ethereal,
not of dense physical matter as now. It is explained in The Secret Doctrine
that, as we have seen in Chapter Four, there are seven creative Hierarchies
associated with our Globe and our humanity. "These last act on the man-bearing
globes of a chain". Of these one is called the Barhishad Pitris or ancestors.
These projected the astral model of their form to be assumed by man. A second
hierarchy is known as the Agnishvatta Pitris (and many other names such as Solar
Angels, Manasas, Manasaputras, Kumaras) who were to endow man with mind, in
the middle of the third Race of this our Fourth Round. Up to this time man was
mindless.
During the early Rounds, and the early Races of our Round, the Globe D was
ethereal, becoming denser with each successive Round and Race. Man, or what
was to become man, reflected these conditions of being. It was only in our Fourth
Round that the Globe and man became more or less as we know them now. The literature
gives us a description, very much in outline, of both the conditions on earth
and the state of humanity during Rounds.
The significant event at the middle of the Third Race was the coming of mind
to man. Thereafter man became the responsible creature he now is, knowing "good
and evil", but coincident with the coming of mind came the division of the sexes.
Up to this time there had been the various methods of reproduction mentioned
in the previous chapter that are found in the life forms as they move up the
evolutionary scale, in the plant and animal kingdoms.
There are seven Root Races, each a developmental stage of humanity, in a Round.
There is a short description of the nature of man in each Race, as follows:
... the First Root-Race, the "Shadows" of the Progenitors,
could not be injured or destroyed by death. Being so ethereal and so little
human in constitution, they could not be affected by any element - flood or
fire. But their "Sons" the Second Root-Race, could be and were so destroyed.
As the "progenitors" merged wholly in their own astral bodies, which were their
progeny; so that progeny was absorbed in its descendants, the "Sweat-born".
These were the second Humanity - composed of the most heterogeneous gigantic
semi-human monsters - the first attempts of material nature at building human
bodies. [The Secret Doctrine -II, 138 /II, 146 /III, 146]
Later there is another description of man's arrival on this Earth, at the dawn
of every rebirth of the worlds (in this case the beginning of the Fourth Round),
First come the SELF-EXISTENT ... These lives "are
the divine 'Sishta', (the seed-Manus ... the Pitris)
From these proceed -
1) The First Race, the "Self-born" which are the
(astral) shadow of their Progenitors. The body was devoid of all understanding
(mind, intelligence, and will). The inner being (the higher self or Monad),
though within the earthly frame, was unconnected with it. The link, the Manas,
was not there as yet.
2) From the First (race) emanated the second called
the "Sweat-born" and the "Boneless". This is the Second Root-Race, endowed ...
with the first primitive and weak spark (the germ of intelligence) ... And from
these in turn proceeds:-
3) The Third Root Race, the "Two-Fold" (Androgynes).
The first Races thereof are shells, till the last is "inhabited" (i.e. informed)
by the Dhyanis." [The Secret Doctrine -II, 164 /II, 173 /III,
172]
This Third Race became oviparous, producing, at seasons of procreation "...
a small spheroidal nucleus which developed into a large, soft, egglike vehicle
... from which issued unaided the young human animal, as the fowls do in our
race" [The Secret Doctrine -II, 166 /II, 175 /III, 173 (paraphrased)].
With each race the method of reproduction changed. Later the race became bi-sexual,
males distinct from females. This separation coincided with the advent of mind.
The Fourth Race was the first really recognizably human race. As a continuation
from the Third Race it was gigantic to start with, but the size slowly diminished
to about our proportions.
There is some interesting information about the development of speech:
The First Race - ethereal or astral ... called "Self-born"
- was, in our sense, speechless, as it was devoid of mind on our plane. The
Second Race had a "Sound-language", to wit, chant-like sounds composed of vowels
alone. The Third Race developed in the beginning a kind of language which was
only a slight improvement on the various sounds in Nature, on the cry of gigantic
insects and of the first animals ... [The Secret
Doctrine -II, 198 /II, 208 /III, 203]
A speech was developed in the later Third Race, but it was only in the Fourth
Race that speech was perfected, evoluting into the inflectional, highly developed
language of the Fifth Race (see interesting information The Secret Doctrine
-II, 198 /II, 208 /III, 203 and Footnotes).
There is much reference in the literature to the lands on which the great Root
Races developed. The story of where the First and Second Races started and the
areas they occupied is obscure because the earth was then ethereal. A land at
the North Pole is postulated, always under the eye of the Pole Star, but no
such land is now known; later Greenland, which then enjoyed an equable climate,
is specifically mentioned. In several places, however, it is said that the axis
of the earth has shifted a number of times. Periodically the land masses have
sunk beneath and risen up from the oceans.
The name used for the home of the second Race was Hyperborea, ethereal; of
the Third Race, Lemuria, mostly dense physical; of the Fourth Race, Atlantis,
earth as we now know it. The Fifth Race with its origins in Europe now peoples
North America, Australia and parts of South Africa, as well as its old home
lands in the east, Northern India, etc.
CHAPTER
-11- [ BOOK -II- ]
EVER-BECOMING, THE
PROCESS OF EVOLUTION
Behind the processes of Cosmos and all the operations of Nature there is design.
The ultimate purpose behind all the cosmic activity cannot be perceived by our
finite faculties but Occult Science teaches that the whole process tends toward
a progressive unfoldment of SelfConsciousness. There are deep inner areas of
subjectivity which at present cannot normally be reached, but something of the
design behind the evolutionary process as it applies to our more immediate realms
of being and what is in them can be discerned from, for example, the increase
in the sentiency of things as they ascend through the kingdoms. Occultism extends
this view, perhaps surprisingly. The following introduces some novel, even strange,
ideas:
"Every form on earth, and every speck (atom)
in Space strives in its efforts towards self-formation to follow the model placed
for it in the 'HEAVENLY MAN' ... Its (the atom's) involution and evolution,
its external and internal growth and development, have all one and the same
object - man; man, as the highest physical and ultimate form on this earth;
the MONAD, in its absolute totality and awakened condition - as the culmination
of the divine incarnations on Earth." [The Secret Doctrine
-I, 183 /I, 205 /I, 234]
There are two aspects to the evolutionary process:- one is the gradual progress
of the Monad through the Kingdoms, from the Elemental to the Superhuman; the
other is the cyclic nature of its progression. There are cycles within cycles,
each itself composed of smaller ones. Each cycle, however, proceeds along the
axis of the next larger one, like the coiled coil filament of an electric lamp.
The small coils in Nature are the life cycles of its small lives, of which
the life forms of larger creatures, with longer life cycles, are composed, and
so on up the scales of being. As forms develop complexity and refinement they
become the vehicles for progressively expanding consciousness, where expanding
means an ever-widening and deepening field of consciousness. This process extends
not only up to the human stage, but beyond it. The significance of this serial
development is that matter, the physical as well as the non-physical substances
of the inner (to us subjective) realms, becomes educated by their experience
in the living beings whose principles are composed of them. All substances are
thereby developed to be suitable to play their part in the constitutions of
beings and are continually refined as creatures ascend the ladder of life. The
more developed beings impress their inner substances with, or project into them,
the ideal patterns of their forms. While these forms may originally have been
those which Nature had evolved for her purposes in the various situations of
earthly existence, they become modified. Modifications in the inner worlds reflect
into modifications in the outer, physical world. This process in terms of earth
time is exceedingly slow but it is the inner mechanism of evolution. All things
coming into being from the within to the without are modified according to changes
in the inner subjective worlds. Very occasionally there are relatively sudden
changes not in accordance with slow modification, like the sudden departure
of dinosaurs. Gradual development is sometimes supplemented by a stepped programme
at Dhyan Chohanic levels.
In these processes of ever-becoming, man on Earth is a critical stage. In him
it is said the spiritual aspects and the material aspects of Being are equal.
Up to the man-state matter was in the ascendent but after it the spiritual aspect
begins to predominate. The highest or most developed Beings in the post-human
kingdoms represent the forefront of progressive change; as such they become
not only the Architects of the forms in the kingdoms below them but also, according
to their rank, they become directors, the governors and regulators of the processes.
All this is the LAW in operation. There are many passages in the literature
describing the numerous aspects of this ordered ever-becoming process; one,
attributed to Hegel, summarizes its whole scope:
... the Unconscious evolved the Universe only "in
the hope of attaining clear self-consciousness", of becoming, in other words,
MAN; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual Puranic phrase about Brahma
being constantly "moved by the desire to create". This explains also the hidden
Kabalistic meaning of the saying: "The Breath becomes a stone; the stone,
a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and the
spirit, a god". The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc., were all
men - of whatever forms and shapes - in other worlds and the preceding Manvantaras.
[The Secret Doctrine -I, 106 /I, 132 /I, 167] It is important
to notice here that it is the "Breath", the Monad, or rather its vehicles, which
go through the evolutionary stages; for example, no animal, as such, ever becomes
a man, neither has any individual man ever been a plant or animal, nor according
to this doctrine can he ever revert and be one in, say, a future life.
The passage goes on to explain
This subject, being so very mystical, is therefore
the most difficult to explain in all its details and bearings; since the whole
mystery of evolutionary creation is contained in it ... [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 107 /I, 132 /I, 167]
Another aspect of the mystery is that in Unity there are really no discrete
parts. Everything is not only in and of the whole but is itself that whole.
When considering the inner worlds altogether, we must somehow transcend our
ideas of magnitudes if we are to comprehend this. In the (to us) subjective
worlds there are no dimensions; they have no magnitude in relation to anything
at physical level that we know of. If we bear this in mind, a further quotation
may have meaning:
Yet this cosmic dust is something more; for every
atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self-consciousness in it, and is,
like the Monads of Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and for itself. It
is an atom and an angel. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 107 /I,
132 /I, 167]
The evolutionary process is the actualization of this inherent potentiality.
From within outwards is the rule, but between the extreme of spirit on the one
hand and physical matter on the other, there are states corresponding to the
middle planes of Nature, all subjective to us at our physical level. The inner
worlds are, however, those of archetypal, spiritual ideation at the higher levels
and of prototypes at the mental and psychic levels in the Astral Light.
Now the evolution of the external form, or
body, round the astral is produced by the terrestrial forces, just as
in the case of the lower kingdoms; but the evolution of the internal or real
MAN is purely spiritual. It is now no more a passage of the impersonal Monad
through many and various forms of matter - endowed at best with instinct and
consciousness on a quite different plane - as in the case of external evolution,
but a journey of the "pilgrim-Soul" through various states of not
only matter but Self-consciousness and self-perception, or of perception
from apperception.
The MONAD emerges from its state of spiritual and
intellectual unconsciousness; and, skipping the first two planes - too near
the ABSOLUTE to permit of any correlation with anything on a lower plane - it
gets direct into the plane of Mentality. But there is no plane in the whole
universe with a wider margin, or a wider field of action in its almost endless
gradations of perceptive and apperceptive qualities, than this plane, which
has in its turn an appropriate smaller plane for every "Form", from the "mineral"
monad up to the time when that monad blossoms forth by evolution into the DIVINE
MONAD. But all the time it is still one and the same Monad, differing only in
its incarnation, throughout its ever succeeding cycles of partial or total obscuration
of spirit, or the partial or total obscuration of matter - two polar antitheses
- as it ascends in the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the depths
of materiality. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 175 /I, 198 /I, 228]
All the above is describing something of the process of man's becoming and
telling of the uniquely important place he holds in the evolutionary process.
The principles of evolution as generally accepted by science, in so far as
the survival of the fittest, and the development of life forms from the primitively
simple to the most complex are concerned, are in line with the esoteric view.
The latter, however, differing from science, includes the inner, invisible worlds
and their influence on the outer. It also includes the further idea of a planned
progression, a systematic programme. The total economy of Nature is involved
in this and all phases, e.g. at the physical level, all the necessary links
in the food chain are coordinated. Another example of this programming is the
timed arrival of the Root Races on the planet to coincide with the shifts in
the continental land masses, i.e. their emergences from and submergences into
the oceans.
Yet a further aspect of this evolutionary process, according to the esoteric
view, is the transmission of not only physical but mental and psychic characteristics
from units of life to their successors along any given chain of lives, e.g.
from one personality to the next personality in man. In this process the Auric
Envelope, or Egg, plays a significant part. It is the causative link between
lives: for example, in it are stored the karmic effects of a man's successive
lives. There is an Auric Egg or its equivalent for every living thing. In man
it contains the Skandhas, the aggregate of those elementals which are conditioned
by all his activities, both subjective and objective, during life.
Regarding the mechanism of physical heredity, orthodox science recognizes the
role played by germ cells (genes, chromosomes, DNA) but in this connection Mme
Blavatsky quotes a hypothesis propounded by a Professor Weissmann which negates
the process of Darwinian transformation and substitutes the more occult view.
The Professor shows
- one infinitesimal cell out of millions of others
at work in the formation of an organism, determining alone and unaided by means
of constant segmentation and multiplication, the correct image of the future
man (or animal) in its physical, mental and psychic characteristics. It is that
cell which impresses on the face and form of the new individual the features
of the parents or of some distant ancestor; it is that cell again which transmits
to him the intellectual and mental idiosyncrasies of his sires, and so on. This
Plasm is the immortal portion of our bodies - simply through the process of
successive assimilation ... those germinal cells do not have their genesis
at all in the body of the individual, but proceed directly from the ancestral
germinal cell passed from father to son through long generations. [The
Secret Doctrine -I, 223 fn /I, 243 /I, 269]
It was this hypothesis which was accepted by the Professor and a note says
it is to this cell that he traces the immortal portion of man. But whence that
embryological cell? The Secret Doctrine says,
Complete the physical plasm ... the "Germinal Cell"
of man with all its material potentialities, with the "spiritual plasm", so
to say, or the fluid that contains the five lower principles of the six-principled
Dhyan - and you have the secret ...
When the seed of the animal man is cast into the
soil of the animal woman, that seed cannot germinate unless it has been fructified
by the five virtues (the fluid of, or the emanation from the principles) of
the six-fold Heavenly man. [The Secret Doctrine -I, 224 /I, 245
/I, 271]
The passage goes on to explain that in the lower kingdoms the "germinal cell"
does not have all five principles but in man it must or "he will be born no
higher than an animal", and even then he must be overshadowed by the upper spiritual
principles.
As far as the animal kingdom is concerned, Esoteric Science does not agree
with the Darwinian theory that man's original ancestor was the ape. It reverses
that idea. It agrees there was a common ancestor but states that it was human
not animal. This statement is elaborated and justified. It begins with a reference
to the animal forms of the Third Round having been carried forward into the
Fourth Round:
And finally the forms and genera of neither
man, animal, nor plant were [at the start of the Fourth Round] what they became
later. Thus the astral prototypes of the lower beings of the animal Kingdom
of the Fourth Round, which preceded (the Chhayas of) Men, were
consolidated, though still very ethereal sheaths of the still more ethereal
forms or models produced at the close of the Third Round on Globe D. "Produced
from the residue of the substance matter; from the dead bodies of men and (other
extinct) animals of" ... the previous Third Round ...
... while the nondescript "animals" that preceded
the astral man at the beginning of this life-cycle [Fourth Round] on our Earth
were still, so to speak, the progeny of the men of the Third Round, the mammalians
of this Round owe their existence, in great measure, to man again ... [The
Secret Doctrine -II, 186 /II, 196 /III, 192]
To an extent then the animal forms at the beginning of the Fourth Round were
the progeny of men of the Third Round.
The text tells us that the man forms were the first to arrive on Earth (Globe
D) in the Fourth Round. The mammalia were derived from these forms and to begin
with, like man, they were hermaphrodite.
The animals, however, became bi-sexual. "The animals
separated first (into male and female)" and began to breed. Man followed suit.
"He (man) said "Let us as they: let us unite and make creatures". They
did ..." [The Secret Doctrine -II, 184 /II, 194
/III, 190].
The process of the separation of the sexes in the Third Race is told in The
Secret Doctrine -II, Stanza X. Then follows a description of how the then mindless
men of the time "took huge she-animals unto them".
Third Race man at this time was virtually speechless but acquired speech later.
The progeny of his 'sin' with the animals, however, remained dumb, "to keep
the shame untold". We are not told what the huge she-animals were. Man at this
time being "mindless" was irresponsible, but mind was bestowed on him by the
Manasaputras half way through the Third Race, at the time of the division of
the sexes. In the Fourth Round, therefore, man had mind and was a responsible
being. Nevertheless, we are told, some of the more primitive members of the
Fourth Race ... "took wives fair to look at. Wives from the "mindless", the
narrow headed. They bred monsters, wicked demons, male and female ..."
[The Secret Doctrine -II, 271 /II, 284 /III, 273].
It was from these unions that the present anthropoid apes are descended. The
great apes, however, have been the subject of evolutionary changes since those
remote times. Since those matings, Nature has prevented offspring resulting
from unions of individuals of too widely differing species.
The present primary apes are the 'one solitary exception' (referred to in Chapter
10, Book II) from the animal kingdom able to become man in this Fifth Round.
It is said they will do so because by way of their ancestry - more than half
human - they are possessed of human Egos. These Egos are entities who had already
reached the human stage before this Round [The
Secret Doctrine -II, 262 /II, 274 /III, 264].
The reason for the physical resemblance of the apes to that of man is obvious
from their ancestry but the following is interesting a propos the barrier between
differing species:
Let us remember in this connection the esoteric
teaching which tells of Man having had in the Third Round a GIGANTIC APE-LIKE
FORM on the astral plane. And similarly at the close of the Third Race in this
Round. Thus it accounts for the human features of the apes, especially
of the later anthropoids - apart from the fact that these latter preserve by
heredity a resemblance to their Atlanto-Lemurian sires. [The
Secret Doctrine -II, 688 fn /II, 727 fn /IV, 258 fn]
Evolution of the human race on a planet proceeds through the seven stages of
the Root Races. These stages leave their representatives behind long after a
new Race has taken the stage. Similarly each Root Race has seven sub-Races and
each of these progressively smaller divisions. These divisions small or large
are not those used by students of academic Ethnology.
Each of the esoteric divisions, in their day, had its physical characteristics,
colour and so on. They inhabited various regions of the earth. Catastrophes
caused mass migrations at intervals over vast periods of time. The Secret
Doctrine contains a mass of information concerning the Races and their sub-divisions.
The following is an important example:
They "of the yellow hue" are the forefathers of
those whom Ethnology now classes as the Turanians, the Mongols, Chinese and
other ancient nations; and the land they fled to was no other than Central Asia.
There entire new races were born; there they lived and died until the separation
of the nations ... Nearly two-thirds of one million years have elapsed since
that period. The yellow-faced giants of the post-Atlantean day, had ample time,
throughout this forced confinement to one part of the world, and with the same
racial blood and without any fresh infusion or admixture in it, to branch off
during a period of nearly 700,000 years into the most heterogeneous and diversified
types. The same is shown in Africa; nowhere does a more extraordinary variability
of types exist from black to almost white, from gigantic men to dwarfish races;
and this only because of their forced isolation. The Africans have never left
their continent for several hundred thousands of years. If tomorrow the continent
of Europe were to disappear and other lands to re-emerge instead; and if the
African tribes were to separate and scatter on the face of the earth, it is
they who, in about one hundred thousand years hence, would form the bulk of
the civilized nations. And it is the descendants of those of our highly cultured
nations, who might have survived on some island without means of crossing new
seas, that would fall back into a state of relative savagery. Thus the reason
for dividing humanity into superior and inferior races falls to
the ground and becomes a fallacy. [The Secret Doctrine -II, 425
/II, 443 /III, 424]
So the complex story of evolution unfolds. We have seen that the whole process
is keyed to the archetypal form, at the highest level of ideation, of the Heavenly
Man. Everything in the vast process is being developed to play its part in the
constitution of perfected man, and man, we must remember, is a complex of principles
for all of which the physical body is the instrument of expression during physical
life. The evolutionary process takes place on all levels, right through to the
super-human ones. It is in these lofty levels that man's development will culminate.
He then will become a 'Builder' and then an 'Architect' in his turn. We are
all embarked on a stupendous journey, whereon the pace of our going is entirely
up to us, individually. By the principle of Unity, however, each man's progress
furthers that of the whole of humanity.
CHAPTER
-12- [ BOOK -II- ]
SPIRITUALISM
AND PSYCHISM
The teachings of Esoteric Science form one consistent whole. It is only within
the context of esoteric cosmogony with its accounts of the planes of nature,
and of esoteric psychology with its description of the constitution of man and
of the after-death states, that the phenomena associated with spiritualism and
psychism can be understood. These phenomena are many and varied, and according
to the type of manifestation being considered, so must its appropriate explanation
be sought.
Referring to the phenomena commonly associated with the spiritualistic seance,
Mme Blavatsky writes:
The cause of such manifestations are by no means
so simple as the Spiritualists would like to believe. Foremost of all, the deus
ex machina of the so-called "materializations" is usually the astral body
or "double" of the medium or of someone present. [The key to
Theosophy - II, 28]
It is the astral body, she explains further, that is the responsible force
in a variety of manifestations. At the Eddy farmstead at Chittenden where Mme
Blavatsky and Col. Olcott first met in 1874, many materializations occurred.
They are described in great detail in Col. Olcott's book, People from the
Other World. Among the many apparitional forms observed by him were those
of a number of people whom Mme Blavatsky had known earlier in her life, one
of them being her uncle.
Even the materialized form of my uncle at the Eddy's
was the picture; it was I who sent it out from my own mind, as I had come to
make experiments without telling it to anyone. It was like an empty outer envelope
of my uncle that I seemed to throw on the medium's astral body. I saw and followed
the process. I knew Will Eddy was a genuine medium, and the phenomenon was as
real as it could be, and therefore, when days of trouble came for him,
I defended him in the papers. [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-I, 35]
Repeatedly in her writings Mme Blavatsky insists that there can be no communication
between the living and the dead, if by communication one understands the return
of the real Spirit (Ego) of the deceased person to the world he has left.
We Theosophists, and especially occultists, must
never lose sight of the profound axiom of the Esoteric Doctrine which teaches
us that it is we, the living, that are drawn toward the spirits - but that the
latter can never, even though they would, descend to us, or rather, into our
sphere. [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -I, 36] There
can, however, be communication under certain circumstances, particularly premature
death of the personality, via a medium, as was explained in Book I.
The word 'spirit' in the above quotation, as distinct from soul or psyche,
is used in its proper theosophical sense. It will be noted that there is no
question of denying the validity of the phenomena as such: it is only the spiritualistic
explanation that is called into question.
I was sent from Paris on purpose to America to prove
the phenomena and their reality and - show the fallacy of the Spiritualistic
theories of "Spirits". But how could I do it best? I did not want people at
large to know that I could produce the same thing at will. [The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -I, 73]
The power of producing apparently inexplicable phenomena at will is commonly
referred to as "magic". But magic to the occultist is a science, "a profound
knowledge of the Occult forces in Nature, and of the laws governing the visible
or the invisible world". The passage continues
Spiritualism in the hands of an adept becomes Magic,
for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the Universe,
without breaking any of them and thereby violating Nature. In the hands of an
experienced medium, Spiritualism becomes UNCONSCIOUS SORCERY; for, by allowing
himself to become the helpless tool of a variety of spirits, of whom he knows
nothing save what the latter permit him to know, he opens, unknown to himself,
a door of communication between the two worlds, through which emerge the blind
forces of Nature lurking in the astral light, as well as good and bad spirits.
[The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -I, 137]
One of Mme Blavatsky's earliest attempts to place the essential teachings of
esoteric philosophy before the public is to be found in the summary which introduces
the last chapter of Isis Unveiled. The list of ten important points begins
with the unequivocal statement:
There is no miracle.
This is elaborated to affirm that apparent miracles are not a violation of
the laws of Nature but the application of laws not known to contemporary science.
Everything that happens is the result of law - eternal,
immutable, ever active. [Isis Unveiled -II, 587]
The question may be asked: if there is no communication between the living
and the dead, how is it that the entities who seem to communicate through the
medium at a seance show not only intelligence but even particular skills, for
example, a knowledge of foreign languages (not possessed by any medium or other
person present). The explanation is that in the middle principles (Kama-Manas)
of the defunct which remain in Kama-Loca for a longer or shorter time, there
adhere the psychic idiosyncracies and memories and the personality traits, even
to the manner of speech. It is these that impress the entranced medium who assumes
them in appearance of visage, tone of voice, etc. Further, the messages received
contain knowledge which possibly only the deceased person possessed, even from
previous lives. These latter will probably be from the Astral Light. Sometimes
knowledge of a high order, even unknown in life to the deceased may come through,
but not often, in a seance. Such knowledge is that of the Individuality (Ego).
The fact is, says Mme Blavatsky, that the essence of man being one with the
Universal Spirit, it
is practically omniscient, but that it cannot manifest
its knowledge owing to the impediments of matter. Now the more these impediments
are removed, in other words, the more the physical body is paralysed, as to
its own independent activity and consciousness, as in deep sleep or deep trance,
or, again, in illness, the more fully can the inner Self manifest on
this plane. [The key to Theosophy - II, 29]
It is evident, therefore, that before one can enter seriously into profitable
discussion, one must understand the distinction between the personality, the
temporary embodiment of the Ego, and the Individuality, to which alone the term
"spirit" should properly be applied. The same clarification is necessary if
one is to understand the nature of the reincarnation process, the personality
being - as the word clearly shows - the mask assumed for one incarnation by
the Actor, the enduring Ego.
There is another factor not generally taken into account in popular explanations
of spiritualistic and psychic phenomena, and that is the difference between
spiritual and psychic senses. The psychic is too readily assumed to be the spiritual,
so that one whose perceptive faculty is able to pass through gross physical
matter is thought to have developed spiritual vision. Ordinary clairvoyants
and untrained seers fail to recognize the gradations of matter beyond the physical.
They can see through gross matter, such as a wall,
the human body and so forth, as if it were glass, but they cannot see through
astral substance, and hence they believe its forms and all the pictures and
shapes in the astral light to be real. Only the adept sees through these illusions,
which are far more powerful because composed of a subtile order of matter: subtile
energies, fine forces, have a highly increased rate of power over grosser ones.
The adept has at his command the rate of vibration which dispels them or drives
them asunder. [Letters that have helped me -, 27]
Because of the complexity, and at the same time the inter-relatedness of the
many facets of the cosmic process, there is no one place in the literature of
Esoteric Science in which the student can find a complete exposition of the
subject of psychic phenomena and their production. In addition to what has been
explained above, one must again refer to the role of the elementals and the
ubiquity of the Astral Light.
There is not a single thing going on about us, no
matter what, that elementals are not concerned in, because they constitute a
necessary part of nature, just as important as the nerve currents in your body.
[The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-X, 271]
An incident narrated by W.Q. Judge may serve to illustrate their role in the
production of phenomena in consequence of their power to acquaint themselves
with the thoughts and unuttered wishes of human beings. He was in London at
the time, with Mme Blavatsky, and found himself in need of a certain sheet of
paper on which he had written a few lines, but he had left it behind in America.
Without expressing the thought in words, he wondered to himself whether, by
some means, she could obtain the paper for him.
She smiled at me, rose, went into her room, came
out at once, and in a moment handed me a piece of paper ... To my amazement
it was a duplicate of my paper, a facsimile. I then asked her how she
got it, and she replied: "I saw it in your head and the rest was easy. You thought
it very clearly. You know it can be done; and it was needed". This was all done
in about the time it takes to read these descriptive sentences. [The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -X, 273]
Seeking out and putting together the considerable body of detailed information
about the planes of Nature (in particular, the Akasha and the Astral Light),
the constitution of man in life and death, the elements, elementals and elementaries,
the student will find answers to most of his questions concerning psychic faculties
(clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, psycho-kinesis and so on), fortune-telling
and divination, hypnotism, materializations, healing and apparent magical performances.
Because of the essential unity underlying the whole of existence, occult philosophy
recognizes no supernatural agency, and all that appears to the ignorant as magical
or miraculous must in fact take place in accordance with natural law.
We would that all who have a voice in the education
of the masses should first know and then teach that the safest guides
to human happiness and enlightenment are those writings which have descended
to us from the remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations and
a higher average morality prevail in the countries where the people take their
precepts as the rule of their lives. We would have all to realize that magical,
i.e., spiritual powers exist in every man, and those few to practise them who
feel called to teach, and are ready to pay the price of discipline and self
conquest which their development exacts ... [Isis Unveiled -II,
635]
We must now say a few words to correct the popular misconception that identifies
Occultism with black magic and such black arts as witchcraft and necromancy.
It has been explained earlier that the invisible worlds around us are peopled
by Elementals and Elementaries, and that these entities are responsible for
the great variety of psychic and spiritualistic phenomena. To this we must add
the further fact that human thought-forms are animated by such Elementals and
maybe by Elementaries. This is true whether the thought-form is produced by
one individual or by a group. Where the thought is strongly defined, and especially
when it is reinforced by emotion, the mental image thus created may become vivified
by an Elemental and thus acquire a measure of independent life. The collective
thought of a group of people, as for example a congregation of worshippers or
the audience at a political meeting, may create a powerful entity, ensouled
by either an Elemental or an Elementary, which will be fed and strengthened
by the intensity of the emotion with which it has been charged. It may then
be sensed by other members of the group who thus find themselves swept along
on a strong current of irresistible and maybe violent emotion which can cause
them to behave in ways which, individually, they would repudiate. Similarly,
a mediumistic member of the group may be moved to make utterances or deliver
messages which appear to come from a power beyond him - as indeed they do, that
power being the entity called into existence by the collective thoughts of worshippers
or other people present.
Power in itself, of whatever kind, is neither good nor evil: it becomes either
good or evil according to its use. The difference between white and black magic
is that in the former the power is exercised only for beneficent purposes, whereas
in the latter it is turned to selfish or even maleficent ends. The karmic consequences
to the magician will be in accordance with those purposes and with the benefit
or harm to others resulting from the exercise of his powers. In both cases,
the effective agents are the Elementals, the magician being one who has learnt
how to evoke and control them. It is a mistake to think of magic as in any way
supernatural, if by that we mean an action brought about in contravention of
natural law: in the occult philosophy it is axiomatic that there is nothing
outside Nature. In what appear to be miraculous or magical performances, both
the white and the black magicians are using - for good or evil - knowledge of
their own powers and of the processes of Nature. As stated earlier in this chapter,
there is no miracle:
Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of the principles
[of man and Cosmos], and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence
of the spirit and its control over nature's forces may be acquired by the individual
while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge
in practice. [Isis Unveiled -II, 588]
It is hardly necessary to add that the Occultism with which we are concerned
is entirely beneficent. Nothing further therefore needs to be added about the
black arts, save the recognition that they are no fiction. No occultist of the
"right-hand path", no "white Adept", will ever exercise his powers for his own
advantage or to escape the disagreeable consequences of past mistakes, nor will
he make any attempt to interfere with the karma of others. He may, however,
by his wisdom and strength, so inspire and strengthen those who seek his help
that they are enabled to face their difficulties with greater understanding
and courage.
CHAPTER
-13- [ BOOK -II- ]
SPIRITUAL
DEVELOPMENT
In instructing the students who gathered round her in London in the late 1880's,
Mme Blavatsky emphasized the absolute necessity of understanding that "EXISTENCE
IS ONE THING". That One Thing, the source and essence of all, is called by the
Hindus Parabrahman or Paramatman. Equally important for the student is the recognition
of the inevitable corollary of this truth: if there is but One Reality, we must
have come from It - for there is no other source of being, and we must one day
return to It - for there is nowhere where It is not. She then uses a passage
from Aryasanga, an immediate disciple of the Buddha, to add the third aspect
of the corollary - that we must in fact be It, for there is nothing
else: THAT ART THOU.
The passage from Aryasanga is an exquisite summary of the Secret Doctrine,
setting out in a few lines the whole story of existence from the periodical
emergence of the Cosmos through the incalculable aeons of the evolutionary process
to the consummation of human life in the individual's realization of identity
with the One.
THAT which is neither Spirit nor Matter, neither
Light nor Darkness, but is verily the container and root of these, that
thou art. The Root projects at every Dawn its shadow in Itself, and that shadow
thou callest Light and life, O poor dead Form. [This] Life-Light streameth downward
through the stairway of the seven worlds, the stairs of which each step becomes
denser and darker. It is of this seven-times-seven scale that thou art the faithful
climber and mirror, O little man! Thou art this, but thou knowest it not. [---
The Secret Doctrine -III, 513 /V, 488 /The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky
-XII, 625 /The esoteric writings of H.P.Blavatsky -, 407]
In those last words - "but thou knowest it not" - is there not an implied imperative,
an injunction to the individual pilgrim to know, to abandon his ignorance
by obeying the precepts laid down by generations of Teachers, and so to enter
the way of enlightenment?
It may be argued that there is some contradiction in the term "spiritual development",
for Spirit is the One Life, present in all things, perfect from the beginning.
It cannot therefore be said to develop if by development we mean the emergence
of new qualities. Only the vestures, the vehicles through which it manifests,
can properly be said to develop in this sense, that is, to become increasingly
responsive to the potentialities of Spirit. With the expansion of consciousness
comes an ever-widening field of perception which will result ultimately - insofar
as one can speak of an end in Nature - in Self-realization, that is, the realization
of the Self, the direct knowledge of the identity of one's own life with the
One Life. Until now, until this great awakening, the pilgrim soul (the Individual)
has been struggling on in darkness, painfully aware of separateness and of the
gradualness of the process in which he, and all humanity with him, is engaged.
Below the human kingdom, Self-realization is unattainable, for in the animal
the mental principle is dormant. In man, by virtue of the dual mind principle
- the outward-turned consciousness functioning through the senses, and the as
yet unconscious higher mind - the nature of future progress is seen to be through
the increasing responsiveness of the merely human element to the pressure from
within, as the higher or spiritual consciousness seeks to manifest through the
vehicles with which Karma has endowed him.
Spiritual development then is the development of the faculties or powers in
each being that are necessary to give expression to the qualities and powers
of Spirit. How those faculties are to be developed is the subject of many works
of spiritual counsel and instruction written by advanced individuals for the
helping of those would-be disciples in whom has been awakened a sense of direction
but as yet little knowledge as to how to proceed. "Lead the life necessary for
the acquisition of such knowledge and powers," wrote one of the Mahatmas to
a lay chela, "and Wisdom will come to you naturally." [The Secret
Doctrine -I, 167 /I, 190 /I, 221]
In an article in The Theosophist for May 1885, introduced by lines from
Christina Rossetti which she repeated later in The Secret Doctrine -
an indication of her endorsement of the verse "as an epitome of the life those
who are truly treading the path which leads to higher things" - Mme Blavatsky
points out that, whatever difference there may be in the various presentations
of the Esoteric Doctrine, they all agree in regard to "the road to spiritual
development".
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Does the journey take the whole long day?
From morn till night, my friend.
That road is one, and the conditions for its treading are everywhere the same:
One only inflexible rule has been ever binding upon
the neophyte, as it is binding now - the complete subjugation of the
lower nature by the higher. From the Vedas and Upanishads to the
recently published Light on the Path, search as we may through the bibles
of every race and cult, we find but one only way, - hard, painful, troublesome,
by which man can gain the true spiritual insight. And how can it be otherwise
since all religions and philosophies are but the variants of the first teachings
of the One Wisdom, imparted to men at the beginning of the cycle by the Planetary
Spirit? [The collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -VI, 331]
That is why, she adds, the methods of spiritual growth, advocated within the
Theosophical Society
are those of the ancient Rishis, its tenets those
of the oldest Esotericism; it is no dispenser of patent nostrums composed of
violent remedies which no honest healer would dare to use. [The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -VI, 334]
The pain that inevitably accompanies the process of growth through evolution
is largely due to the mistake of
perpetually seeking the permanent in the impermanent,
and not only seeking, but acting as if we had already found the unchangeable,
in a world of which the one certain quality we can predicate is constant change,
and always, just as we fancy we have taken a firm hold upon the permanent, it
changes within our very grasp, and pain results. [The
collected writings of H.P.Blavatsky -VI, 331]
Warnings there are in abundance in the literature of the spiritual life: warnings
against mere intellectual development, the accumulation of knowledge, to the
neglect of the intuitive faculty; warnings against reliance on either external
practices such as religious observance or the cultivation of psychic powers;
warnings against seeking by any means the advantage or enhancement of the personality,
or placing the goal of attainment in some future time. It is because of the
dangers that await the pilgrim in the later stages of the journey that in the
earlier stages there is great emphasis on the necessity for purity in life and
the observance of the higher ethics.
Theosophy has to inculcate ethics; it has to purify
the soul if it would relieve the physical body, whose ailments, save cases of
accidents, are all hereditary. It is not by studying Occultism for selfish ends,
for the gratification of one's personal ambition, pride, or vanity, that one
can ever reach the true goal of helping suffering mankind. [The
key to Theosophy - II, 24]
The effort in these earlier stages is described as a purification, a process
by which the personal nature must be disciplined to loosen its hold on the real
man. The disciple must get rid - at first gradually but later more drastically
- of all the attitudes and desires that are the result of identification with
the personal man, uprooting the giant and prolific weed of selfishness. The
warning of The Voice of the Silence is severe:
Woe, then, to thee, Disciple, if there is one single
vice thou hast not left behind. For then the ladder will give way and overthrow
thee ... Beware lest thou should'st set a foot still soiled upon the ladder's
lowest rung. [The Voice of the Silence -, Frag.1,
v 69]
Popular religion - that is, exoteric religion with its anthropomorphic theology,
its rituals and disciplinary practices - is said to be the nursery of future
occultists. Hence the necessity for an ethical code that will initiate the process
of purification. The eight-fold system of yoga likewise begins with yama and
niyama (see Glossary). But the teaching of Esoteric Science introduces a feature
that distinguishes it entirely from exoteric religion, that of "self-induced
and self-devised efforts" by which the pilgrim may ascend to the heights of
spirituality. As we saw in Part One,
The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy
admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego
through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses
and reincarnations. [The Secret Doctrine -I,
17 /I, 45 /I, 82]
In this philosophy there is no room for reliance on an external saviour, for
as it teaches the fundamental identity of all souls with the source of being,
the saving Divinity is within, "awaiting its inevitable hour". Spiritual development
is the slow unveiling of that Divinity, present in every man, until the individual
consciousness is merged into It and becomes that of the ONE ALL.
One of the world's greatest treatises on spiritual development is The Bhagavad
Gita. It is the story of the Divine Teacher, the Lord Sri Krishna, instructing
his pupil Arjuna. There are eighteen Chapters of inspiring discourse. These
engender devotion in the listener towards the Lord ... "who is thine own Self".
Another work of inestimable value to the serious aspirant is The Yoga Sutras
of Patanjali.
A major element in spiritual instruction is that designed to free consciousness
from the imprisoning effects of personal selfish life. Real teaching aids the
aspirant to transcend these limitations by the elevation of consciousness to
Egoic or divine levels. As far as we are concerned our Ego is the Divinity within
ourselves. In The Bhagavad Gita it speaks to us in the first person:
Those who worship me with constant zeal, with the
highest faith and minds placed on me, are held in high esteem by me. But those
who, with minds equal toward everything, with senses and organs restrained,
and rejoicing in the good of all creatures, meditate on the inexhaustible, immovable,
highest, incorruptible, difficult to contemplate, invisible, omnipresent, unthinkable,
the witness, undemonstrable, shall also come unto me. [Letters
that have helped me - XII, 3 and 4]
There is much else about concentration and meditation. In spiritual development
meditation figures largely. It is not the purpose of this book to give detailed
instruction, merely to whet curiosity and interest. In this connection, for
those wishing a more practical guidance, Mme Blavatsky's "Diagram of Meditation"
is recommended.