Theosophy - Emotion, Intellect and Spirituality - by Annie Besant - Adyar Pamphlets No. 1
Adyar
Pamphlets - No.1
Emotion, Intellect and Spirituality
by Annie Besant
First Impression March 1911
Second Impression March 1914
Theosophical
Publishing House Adyar, Chennai [Madras] India
[Page
1] THERE is so much confusion
of thought with regard to the meaning of the three stages of consciousness
which I have described under the names Emotion, Intellect and Spirituality,
that I think we shall not waste our hour this evening if we devote it to
the consideration of these stages of consciousness, trying to define them
accurately and to understand exactly what is meant by the name which is
given to each. And it is not only that by this study we shall, perhaps,
somewhat clarify our ideas, but also we shall find that answers present
themselves to certain rather curious problems that appear in human life
from time to time, problems that are puzzling in their nature and that
give rise to a good deal of bewildered questioning. We find people, for
instance, asking why it is that we sometimes see an apparently fundamental
change take place in a person within the limits of a single incarnation,
and why someone who looks by no means hopeful during the earlier stages
of his life should[Page
2] perhaps evolve very
rapidly during the last half of his incarnation. Then, again, another question
that sometimes arises is: Why is it that people who in many ways do not
seem to be qualified, show none the less certain signs of spiritual growth
? What is there in their nature which enables them to acquire certain spiritual
faculties, when, looking at them from the purely external standpoint, they
would not seem to be sufficiently evolved to show forth these qualities ?
Why is it, as I have often heard people say, that you can sometimes obtain
better and wiser advice from a person in whom the higher intellect is not
largely developed, but who shows very strongly the qualities of
compassion, benevolence and sympathy, than from an intellect far more
highly trained, than from a well-developed mind ?
Now if these stages of consciousness are not understood, we are apt to
answer such questions in a very mistaken fashion; and in a fashion,
moreover, that is not only mistaken in itself, but is also likely to give rise to
certain serious mistakes in conduct, certain grave blunders in our attempts
to forward our own evolution. Thus we find people sometimes mistaking
abounding emotion for spirituality, sometimes confusing the mere surging
up of feeling with the strong potencies that come down from the spiritual
world; and it is partly in order that we may avoid those [Page 3] blunders, that
I am going to ask you to follow me this evening in a somewhat careful
analysis of these stages of consciousness, bringing them under the light of
that Theosophical teaching which has illuminated for many of us so many
problems in the past, and which illuminates so many new problems now.
If we look at the
question from the ordinary standpoint of western psychology we find in our
text-books the very familiar division of the mind into emotion, intellect
and will. When we come to look a little more closely into this classification,
we find that under the heading emotion sub-classes are made: first, sensations,
simple, primitive in their character, lying at the root of all further manifestation
of consciousness, sensations which are the response of the organism to stimuli,
to something that touches it from without. Then we have feelings,
which are said to arise from the grouping and co-ordination of these primitive
sensations, complex in their nature
— sometimes exceedingly complex — but none the less traced down
to these simple sensations, which, grouped together according to their nature,
gradually produce that which is recognized as feeling; so that under this
heading emotion we have the two sub-classes of sensations and feelings.
Now if we consider
for a moment the five planes of the universe on which, according to [Page
4] the
Theosophical teachings, our human evolution is proceeding at the present
time — the physical, the astral, the mental or
mãnasic, the buddhic and the nirvãnic — if we consider
for a moment those five planes, we shall see that they seem to arrange themselves
in a very definite order. With regard to the nirvãnic plane we need
say practically nothing tonight, for although that be the higher region
of the spiritual universe it can scarcely come into our consideration at
the present stage of evolution. The nirvãnic and the buddhic planes
together we class under the heading spiritual. All their forces would be
spiritual forces, all consciousness working in them would be a consciousness
spiritual in its nature, spiritual Beings would have there their habitat.
If, then, omitting also for the moment the mental region, we look at the
two lower planes — the
astral and the physical — we find that these may be classed together
as phenomenal. In these phenomenal worlds evolution takes place with
regard to the astral body, the etheric double and the dense physical. These
three bodies belong, of course, to the astral and the physical planes, which
are capable of being classed together as phenomenal, just as the two
higher planes are classed together as spiritual. They are essentially the
worlds of phenomena, the worlds of concrete objects, the worlds in which [Page
5] forms are found with all
their limitations; whereas the two higher are worlds which to the lower scrutiny
are formless, in which the life is continually manifesting itself and moulding
the subtle matter of those planes into immediate expression of itself. So
that the great characteristic of the two higher regions is the manifestation
of life, the great characteristic of the two lower the manifestation of form.
Thus we may classify them in these pairs as phenomenal and spiritual.
When we come
to deal with the mental world, the mãnasic, we find that it
partakes of the characteristics of those regions above and of those below,
or, if we prefer to say so, of the inner and the outer. The lower half of the
mental plane shows the distinct mark of the phenomenal worlds, the rûpa
levels or the levels of form. And we notice that its phase of consciousness
is that of the intellect, whose ideas are drawn from the phenomenal world
and which takes sensations and feelings from that world below it, co-ordinates
them, groups them together, draws its own conclusions from them, the whole
of that work going on on the lower mental plane, that which we speak of as
the levels of form or rûpa. Those levels, then,
are distinctly related to the two lower worlds. But when we pass on to the
higher, the upper half of the mental, we find that the intellect takes [Page
6]
on the characteristics which
belong to the higher regions or spiritual world. It is abstract, not concrete,
in its character ; it deals with ideas which from the standpoint of the
concrete intellect are formless, those ideas that have the peculiar characteristic
of existing in their own world as things perfectly intelligible, perfectly
distinct, perfectly clear as seen by the intuition of manas, but that none
the less, the moment they pass on to the lower level of the mental plane,
are found not to be one but many in every case—one abstract idea
belonging to the formless world giving birth perhaps to hundreds of concrete
ideas, each one distinct with its own characteristic form. So that, looked
at in this way, we see that the mental plane seems to divide itself
into this dual relationship to the worlds above it and the worlds
below. Consciousness working thereon shows out these two great
characteristics — the concrete dealing with the phenomenal,
and the abstract reaching upwards toward the spiritual. This plane is
essentially the human plane, it is the great battleground of
humanity; none of the combats that take place on the physical or
the astral planes are to be compared in their intensity,
in their importance, in their subtlety, with the combats that are waged
on the mental plane. It is the plane of balance, the plane
having two below [Page
7] it
and two above it, the central plane for humanity, and in that sense the
most important and the most characteristic in human evolution. It is there
that the " I"
develops, the root and the center of individuality; hence it is
that on this plane all the most terrible combats are waged. It is the
place where success or failure comes to humanity in the course of our
world-evolution.
Now looking at the whole question in that rather wide
way, trying to take, as it were, a bird's-eye view of these planes on
which human evolution is proceeding, we shall find, I think, that the
question of consciousness will become very much easier to grasp. If we
would understand the consciousness which is working on these planes,
we must note the characteristics of each plane, and these will in turn
be characteristics of the consciousness in its activity on any given
plane; and the more we are able to recognize each of these planes as
separate from the others, as having its own place in evolution, the more
shall we be able to understand the workings of consciousness on each,
the attributes which it will necessarily develop, the characteristics
which it will inevitably show. And if we can work these out fairly, clearly
and definitely, we shall not run into the danger of confusion into which
I notice so many of our students do run, sometimes thinking that theemotional [Page
8]is the spiritual, and utterly
misunderstanding the place of the mental in the total evolution of man.
There
is one thing that we shall have to consider when we are dealing with consciousness,
which does not at once come out clearly and plainly in this broad view
that I have been taking. There is a kind of borderland between the astral
and the mental planes; not a borderland in the sense of anything that
intervenes between the two, but a region which is in a
very real sense common to both; a region in which the higher
matter of the astral plane and the lower matter of the mental
plane work together in a peculiar and co-ordinated fashion, so that you
cannot entirely separate them in their working, so that characteristics
of both planes are there found to be united. And the product of activity,
when the two kinds of matter from the higher astral and the lower mental
are brought together and meet to work together, the product of that coalition
has partly the intellectual stamp, partly the stamp which belongs
to it as coming to it from the astral plane — the stamp
of kãma;
so that we get a form of consciousness which we are obliged
to distinguish by the term drawn from both, kãma-mãnasic.
And some of you, I dare say, in your studies, especially in reading
the writings of [Page
9] H.
P. Blavatsky, have sometimes been a little confused by this division which
is brought in by her. So much does she bring it in, in fact, that she even
occasionally speaks of the kãma-mãnasic plane as a
region where both kãma and manas are working together,
where one cannot speak of it as wholly kãmic or as wholly mãnasic,
where the two so interpenetrate each other that they may be separated from
the pure workings of manas on the one hand and of kãma on
the other, but where we get the characteristics of both.
This region is therefore conveniently called by the names of both,
kãma-mãnasic. The recognition of that will
help us considerably in clearing up some of the difficulties that are left
by the ordinary western division, between emotions, taken as divided into
sensations and feelings, and the differences that arise between the
different classes of feelings, which you will find in a
moment that I shall prefer to separate off definitely as emotional.
One
other point has to be considered before I take up these things separately,
and it is this: that consciousness is one, and that however different the
manifestations may be, the life within them is the same. There is but one
life working in us, the life of ãtmã. It is that which, pouring
forth from the nirvãnic plane, presents itself as buddhi on the buddhic
plane, [Page
10] as
manas on the manasic plane, as kãma on the
astral, as prãna, through the etheric and the dense
body, on the physical. There is but one life, no matter how different
may be its manifestations; it is the essential consciousness,
and that unit is the root of our being. Everything that
is in us comes forth from that; and we should think of it as a great
stream of outpouring energy, which changes its appearance
and its color as it clothes itself in the matter of one
plane after another, the color being lent it by the plane — the
coloring matter, we might almost call it. While the essential
life remains the same, remember always that that essential life
draws into itself the coloring characteristic of any plane; so
that when the evolution through all the planes is completed,
the ãtmã has taken up the coloring of every
plane, and is therefore very different at the conclusion of the human
evolution from the ãtmã at the beginning of
that evolution — a
point which we are very often apt to lose sight of, and
so to get a sort of despairing idea and to say of the whole
evolution: " If it be ãtmã at the beginning and
âtmâ at the ending, what has been done through all this pilgrimage ?" While
ãtmã may shake off all the matter of
the planes, the coloring obtained through that matter is not lost.[Page
11]
Realizing
this one outpouring energy, let us remember that in the course of evolution
we have the mounting upwards, as the Monad climbs from the mineral to the
vegetable, from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to the animal!
man; that we have the downpouring stream, ãtmã-buddhi-manas,
working downwards towards the mãnasic plane, while ãtmã-buddhi
from below, as the Monad, is working upwards towards the mãnasic plane.
Hence that same central plane is the meeting-place of the two streams - another
thing that shows us its enormous importance and the central
position which I gave to it in the five as a whole. It is
the meeting-ground of the two great waves of evolution, the one going Up
wards, from the second Logos, the other coming downwards from the first: they
meet on the mental plane and there carry on what we call the joint evolution.
Let
us see, then, how emotion is to be distinguished, how it arises and how
it manifests itself. We may here utilize quite rightly and quite fully
the western psychology in the analysis that it gives of sensations and
feelings. They belong to that upward-climbing Monad that we know as the
wave from the second Logos having the organizing characteristic of
ãtmã-buddhi climbing upwards in evolution. That climbing of the
mineral to the vegetable begins, as we [Page 12] know, by the vivifying of astral matter,
the Monad drawing it round itself for the purpose of expressing the capacity
of what we call sensation. As it passes onwards from the vegetable to the
animal, this astral matter is drawn very much more under the control of the
Monad and is roughly shaped round it in the astral body of the animal, at
which stage the characteristic of sensation becomes very marked.
Now what is
sensation ? It is the power to respond to a stimulus from without, the
response of the organism to something that touches it, the answer which
it sends out to that touch, the sensibility to contact. We have learnt that
this power of response resides in the astral matter, not in the physical,
that the power of sensation is not a power which is located in the
physical body, but that all that the physical body does is
to provide certain organs whereby stimuli may be sent in from the
physical world and conducted to the true centers of sensation
in the astral body. If anything interfere with the link between the astral
and the physical, sensation stops; dislocate the astral from the
physical, and there is no sensation in the physical. As we
know in the use of various drugs, when that dislocation is brought
about we lose all power of sensation, of response to any stimulus
that may touch us from without. [Page
13] The power of sensation is
in the astral matter, and as that is aggregated together into a primitive
kind of astral body centers of sensation are gradually built up, and the
animal feels, responds to stimuli, and has what we call primary sensations.
As this astral body becomes better organized, these simple sensations aggregate
themselves together into feelings, very much after the fashion that western
psychology describes, and we have then more complicated movements in
the astral body made up of a number of primary sensations, the astral body
adding to the mere response to the external stimulus its own power which
has been evolved by way of those repeated responses. So that it gradually
acquires, as it were, a kind of ready-made apparatus; an apparatus
composed of a number of vibrations which are always ready to come into
action as a group, and these aggregated vibrations we may at this stage
call feelings. They belong to the astral body, and they come as a
great gush in answer to a stimulus, the impulse being in its nature the kind
of sensation which gave rise within the astral body — by many repetitions
and many workings of the astral body upon the sensation — to this feeling,
which is then established as what we may call a group of vibrations; not
the simple vibration of the answer that we call [Page
14] sensation, but the
grouped, co-ordinated and modified vibrations which work together as a
feeling.
Then
comes the still further change which occurs when, from the mental plane,
action takes place on the part of the awakened manas after the third life-wave
has come down, and manas is brought into activity; that is, mãnasic
matter is being brought together by that downward wave and the inchoate
mental body is formed. We then find that this mental matter begins to vibrate
when the astral matter is set vibrating very vehemently, and that when
these complicated groups of vibrations are active in the astral body, an
answering vibration is set up in the growing mental body. That vibration
lends to the feeling something of the mental character. Then memory comes
in, and a little inclination to reason and to judgment, and so on; a certain
intellectual quality is thus imparted to the feeling, which enriches and
deepens it and tends to make it more permanent, giving it a more defined
character of its own. This separates it off still more distinctly from
other groups of feelings, or vibrations that are called feelings, in their
turn; and this mental quality, which is due to the mental region inter-working
with the astral, gives us what I will define as emotion. So that we have
now three classes instead of [Page
15] the
two of western psychology which takes emotion as the whole. I am taking
sensation, feeling and emotion as a triad, as three classes which can be
distinguished the one from the other; the first two, the sensations and
the feelings, being really kãmic or astral, the third, emotion, being
kãma-mãnasic — the manas and
the kãma both entering into it and producing this kãma-mãnasic
vibration. This, in order to use an ordinary English word, we will speak
of as emotion,
remembering that its distinguishing mark is this mental, this intellectual
touch added to that of kãma.
It
will probably make these theoretical distinctions, as we may perhaps call
them, a little clearer if I take two illustrations. One, which you would
generally characterize — (when you bring morality into the question) — as
good, and the other which you would characterize — (regarded from the
moral standpoint) — as bad. Certain sensations in primitive man, as in
the animal, are pleasurable, others painful. Take the group of pleasurable
sensations which arise either in the animal or in the animal-man in contact
with another animal or animal-man of the opposite sex — I am using the
word man, of course, in the double sense. Where there is sex difference,
the coming into touch with each other gives rise, at the earliest possible
stage, to a [Page
16] certain
feeling of mutual attraction, a feeling which will be called pleasurable
in its nature and which attracts the two together. It is nothing more than
a response of the nature of sensation on the part of each to the stimulus afforded
by the other; but the two opposites which find one of their expressions in
sex — (those two opposites that run all through
the universe and that express themselves as sex on the physical
plane) — when they come towards each other embodied in two forms
separated for the time, attract each other. Each acts as a stimulus to the
other and there is the stimulus giving rise to a sensation; but it is a
complete inter-action, each acting as a stimulus to the opposite, each
feeling the sensation in reply to that stimulus. There is there nothing but
the simple sensation in the most primitive form. After a time, however, the
activity of the astral body, the grouping together of many such sensations
and the placing them, as it were, in connection with beings that have the
characteristics of the opposite sex, give rise to a feeling which we may
then characterize as something more than a mere sexual sensation. We might
call it passion still animal whether in the brute or in the animal-man, but
distinguishable from mere sensation, less primitive in its character, with
a great deal more astral force and life coming [Page
17] into
it. So that the consciousness — (which, remember, is a unit) — responding
by this far more highly organized astral grouping, will have far more complicated
vibrations; and these we may speak of as sexual passion. Then comes the
time when the intelligence begins to work in connection with this passion,
when the intelligence begins to bring in its finer and keener vibrations
and we have the emotion of love, kãma-mãnasic in its character.
Later there will be a recognition of many other elements that should enter
into that passion to purify and to refine it, and all sorts of other ideas
will come into connection with it — the ideas of sacrifice and self-surrender
and helpfulness and desire to make happy — and then the whole feeling
is enriched and purified and elevated by this influx of the intelligence
working in the mental body. In this survey we get the three stages: The
sensation, which is the mere response to the stimulus from the opposite
sex; the passion, which is the more complicated feeling and into which
very many more vibrations in the astral bodies enter; and the emotion,
love, of a far higher character and containing far loftier possibilities.
These, speaking generally, would be on the side that we should call good.
Then, if we
study the question on the side that we regard as evil, we may take a similar [Page
18] set
of three stages in connection with pain. Pain is caused by two antagonists
meeting each other, when their meeting gives rise, say by a blow inflicted
by one on the other, to a sensation of pain — a response from the astral
body, unpleasant, inharmonious, troublesome in its character. That, as a
simple sensation, would be nothing more than pain. But gradually that passes,
being connected with the one who inflicted the pain, into what we may call
the passion of resentment, and the astral body feels an impulse to return
the pain it has received; and this passion of resentment, looked at from
the standpoint merely of the pairs of opposites, is the corresponding correlative
of the passion of attraction on the other side. Then, passing on to the time
when the intelligence begins to touch this feeling, or passion, of
resentment, we have hatred evolved, just the opposite of love, the
repulsion as against attraction, that also belonging to the kãma-mãnasic
region. Hatred is an emotion, not simply a feeling, having this intellectual
quality which has deepened and enriched it and made it keener and more
subtle in its nature, capable of giving rise to other vibrations exceedingly
destructive in their character, just as those given rise to by the vibrations
of the emotion of love are constructive in their character. For here we have
indeed one of [Page
19] those great pairs of opposites
which are working throughout the whole of the universe.
These two illustrations will probably enable you
to bear in mind, in a somewhat concrete fashion, what I mean (whether I am
defining them rightly is a matter for debate) by these three classes of sensations,
passions and emotions, or sensations, feelings — if you like to use that
word instead of passions — and emotions. Now coming from that to an analysis
of the action of consciousness on the intellectual, the mental plane, we shall
find that its working takes on an entirely different character, that there
are certain broad lines of division which separate off its experiences as mãnasic
from its experiences as kãmic.
First
of all, if you look at the kãmic experiences broadly, you will find
that they are all of the nature of rushing outwards, that they all are pouring
themselves out to seek, that they are never satisfied by an expression
which is contained within the consciousness — which is a feeling — but
that the consciousness is always trying to reach outwards to something which
it looks at as external to itself. That is a broad characteristic of the whole
of those — whether you take sensation, or passion, or emotion, it does
not matter — they are all marked by this common peculiarity, that they
are all part of [Page
20] the
outward-rushing energy of ãtmã; they rush outwards to
seek expression and satisfaction in the phenomenal world, they cannot be
satisfied alone. In fact, if we think for a moment, we cannot imagine any
of these things as existing alone; if we could think of a person as perfectly
isolated in the universe, this outward-rushing energy would be stopped; it
could not express itself except in connection with another. That is the great
mark of action on the kãmic plane, and it is a mark of enormous importance
if you want to understand some of the problems I alluded to at the
beginning.
But
now, when we come to deal with the mental plane, we are at once struck
with this immense difference — that it is self-contained. When the
consciousness begins to work in its intellectual aspect, and to work with
pure mãnasic matter undisturbed by these astral vibrations — leaving
out the kãma-mãnasic entirely — it draws itself in, it
concentrates itself, it endeavors to shut out the external world, and looks
on everything that comes from outside as a disturbing influence which prevents
it from concentrating itself and from exercising its faculties in the natural
way. So that the very first thing that the consciousness will do when it begins
to work on the mental plane will be to draw itself inwards, carrying with it
that with which it has come into [Page
21] contact
on the astral plane. It cannot get ideas until it draws in from the astral
body a large number of those emotions, which grow out of the feelings and
sensations on the astral plane, and which have been worked up in the astral
body and have been handed on by it, for the next activity, to the mental plane.
All the great ideas with which that consciousness is going to work will be
drawn from the sensations which have been obtained by the astral body coming
into contact with the outer universe. There, again, western psychology is right;
it is continually right in its earlier analysis, while it breaks down when
it comes to deal with the deeper phases of consciousness. It is quite true
that when dealing with the awakening mentality in man everything is found
to depend upon what is supplied to it from outside: it cannot start itself,
it must answer; and the earlier vibrations of the mãnasic consciousness
can only be awakened by receiving vibrations from outside which shall stir
it into activity. It will then send out a little answer, and as it sends
it out it will draw back again, drawing with it the experiences it has obtained;
but it cannot make any use of those experiences outside its own limits, it
can do nothing with them as mental food, until it draws them within the circle
of the mind and begins then to work upon them in its own sphere. [Page
22] And in order
to do that successfully, having drawn itself in, it must shut out the external
world and must not permit all these surging vibrations to come in and
confuse its attention, for its attention has to be directed to that which
it has drawn into itself if it is to make any use of those experiences and
so develop germinal intellectual faculties. Bear in mind, then, that fundamental
difference of intellectual working. True, it must gather from outside,
the astral body must hand on; but the condition of success for the intellectual
working is that it shall concentrate itself on that which is obtained from
the lower vehicle. Drawing in these results, these threads, it sets to work
upon them, and all its characteristic workings are these internal vibrations
which deal with the fruits of the experience gathered from outside. It puts
side by side number of these things which we call at this stage perceptions,
and these perceptions or percepts are ranged side by side, and the mind
contemplates them and begins to develop what we call the power of
comparison. Looking at them all, it sees their likenesses and their
differences and compares one with another. Having thus considered and
compared them, it begins to draw out their likenesses and puts those
likenesses together, and out of them forms an idea of a rather more
elaborate character: it [Page
23] then
takes all the differences and makes those into dividing marks. We find
now an immense amount of what we call analysis — that is, the breaking
up of these things by the comparison which recognizes identities and
differences; and by fixing the attention on differences the process of
analysis goes on.
Thus
the mind, in its lower stages, by taking all these concrete ideas which
it evolves from all that it has obtained from the outer world, by putting them
together and classifying them, by building up more complicated ideas out of
them, develops, by means of this concrete activity, all the powers that we
recognize as the intellectual powers — judgment, reasoning, comparison,
memory, then the drawing of conclusions, the deductive and inductive
faculties, the logical faculties — all these things are gradually evolved.
But if we consider them, we shall see that their evolution must depend on the
power of the mind to isolate itself, so that it shall not be confused by
inrushes from the outer world. It wants to be alone, it wants to be quiet,
it wants to shut the doors of the senses, and within its own self-contained
realm to apply itself to those results which it has obtained from the lower
vehicles in which the consciousness has been functioning. It is only as this
has gone on to a very great extent, as the phenomenal world has been
used [Page
24] for
the shaping of all these concrete ideas and the working upon them and the
reasoning upon them, it is only then that the higher faculties of the intelligence
will begin to evolve on the formless plane, and abstract thought — the
drawing out of the common element in these various separated concrete ideas — will
begin. Slowly and gradually that lower activity will make active the higher
manas; on its own plane it will enter on its own especial work of abstract
thinking, and the highest intellectual faculties will then be gradually developed.
These higher faculties are classified as synthetical rather than as analytical:
they are no longer engaged in breaking up into their component parts the ideas
on which the mental activity has been working, but are re-combining them and
by synthesis are creating new ideas — ideas which are the images
of realities in the Universal Mind. This is the quality in man which makes
it possible that he in turn shall become universal, which evolves within the
limits of the causal body that third aspect of the life of the first LOGOS,
that quality of the Universal Mind which is to be the essence of individuality
when the limits of the individual have fallen away.
Looking
at that, then, as a rough definition of mental working, we come back again
to the idea which is so important for our understanding [Page
25]
of its place in evolution, that
the mind is the self-contained part of the consciousness, and that the
self-containing is necessary for its perfect evolution. The mental plane
is, as we have seen, the balance, the center of the whole evolution. The
plane above and the plane below have a certain definite relation the one
to the other, and this relation lies in the common characteristic that in
both of them is the consciousness pouring itself out. On the buddhic plane
the consciousness is pouring itself outwards; on the kãmic plane the
consciousness is pouring itself out. In both cases it is seeking expression
by unifying. On the kãmic plane it does this
on a very much lower level by gaining possession of an object and bringing
it into itself, by taking possession of it as mine, by holding it
and assimilating it; whereas on the higher plane, the buddhic, it pours
itself forth to include, and not feeling the sense of difference of the "I " and
of the " mine", it is
conscious of a unity which sees all that it touches as part of itself and
includes all within itself. Thus the outpouring differs in this subtle
way from the outpouring on the kãmic plane, that the one is pouring
out to the external, while the other, if I may use the phrase, is pouring
internally. The consciousness on the higher plane recognizes everything
as part of its own life and its own [Page
26] nature;
it does not need to go forth in order to find, finding all as within
itself, yet still having that expansive character which is continually
including, never excluding, which does not know limitations, which does
not recognize boundaries. Hence it has sometimes been said that the kãmic
plane is the reflection of the buddhic on a lower level; it shows, as it
were, in an image down below a kind of reflection of the qualities which
are found above. Just as may be seen in the water the reflection of a mountain
which is by the side of a lake, so in kãma there is a
kind of reflection of certain buddhic qualities. And thinking, as we
are taught to think, of the whole of these creative activities as pairs
continually reflected, we find these pairs existing on the nirvãnic
and the physical planes, on the buddhic and the kãmic, and once
more the intellectual region as the point of balance for the whole.
Now
this, if carefully worked out in our thought, will throw considerable light
upon those curious problems that I spoke of with regard to the wonderful
and unexpected change that sometimes takes place in the life of an
individual, with regard also to that problem as to why we find a touch of
deeper insight in some who — especially in old age after a life of
unselfishness and of compassion — are able to give us counsel [Page
27] and
advice marked by that deeper insight which we are accustomed to connect
with the idea of spiritual activity. Let us think of the change itself. We
find, perhaps, a person in whom the rush of the emotional nature is
tremendously strong; he is marked by great enthusiasm, by a headlong
quality, by lack of balance, by lack of consideration, by a tendency to rush
with enormous energy into some undertaking which attracts the feelings
and the emotions. Perhaps it is some scheme of benevolence which may
be exceedingly ill-considered, which may have in it innumerable flaws and
blunders, all of which will work mischief as that scheme of benevolence is
put into activity. But the strong emotional nature has no time to think of
that; the tremendous surge of emotion carries it right away and it only sees
that the scheme promises to do good, promises to end misery, to sweep
away poverty, to change the face of the world. It cannot stop for all the
cold consideration as to whether means are adapted to ends, and all the rest;
it must go out in a tremendous rush, and out it goes. It does a considerable
amount of good, and also a very large amount of evil; it breaks down a
great many things that might have helped, it gives life to a great many
things that are bitter exceedingly; and the whole thing is a great
wave — with all the force of a wave [Page
28] certainly — but also
with, destructive power which ill-regulated force must always present. It
destroys, truly, but yet has within it that great constructive force of
the universe, the emotion of love, the desire to help. In that outrush, therefore,
it is also constructing, and having in it that quality of love, it brings
about a certain answering vibration on the buddhic plane. By the self-surrender
that will continually go with that great outrush of emotion and enthusiasm,
by the willingness of the person who feels it to throw his own life away
if only he may serve the larger life that he sees suffering around him, by
the great impulse of self-sacrifice that does not count the cost but is willing
to give itself completely — health and life and everything else — if
only the suffering may be relieved, is added to the kãmic passion
and emotion a touch from the buddhic plane, some recognition of the unity
which makes it seem well that the separated life should give itself for the
life of the whole. Thus is set stirring within the evolving life, the evolving
Self, a little vibration on the buddhic plane which will throw down on to
the kãmic a slight
ray of light, giving to it its own beauty and attractive power and working,
in him who feels it, however ill-considered his action, however foolish
that which he does, for the evolution of the [Page
29] spiritual
nature and thus enabling a step forward to be made in that incarnation.
The light from the buddhic plane, thrown upon the intelligence, brings
it also into greater activity, enables it to see an idea of which, intellectually
recognized, the intellect takes hold. The intellect seizes this great
force which was started in the kãmic nature, changes its direction,
while leaving it as a force, and utilizes that tremendous energy, directing
it to a wiser end, and by a wiser method, so that the whole nature evolves
forwards and upwards and a great change is seen even within the limits
of one life.
For it must be remembered
that for progress force is absolutely necessary and that force is continually
being evolved by way of the emotions. Granted that in the earlier stages
of that emotional rush it may be a force which is working very foolishly,
none the less is it a force; whereas if there is no force there is not the
motive-power which will get the creature on. He lacks the steam, and however
perfect the machine, it will not go if there is no steam in it. We may have
a piece of magnificent machinery which, if we could set it going, might do
wonders; but if we cannot get any steam into the boiler, or if the boiler
is too small to give sufficient energy for the moving of the machine, it
will remain there without motion for want of that very energy [Page
30] that
should come from its boiler. Now the kãmic nature
is the boiler of the evolving Self, and no machinery that it can make
anywhere, however admirable it may be and whatever its possibilities in the
future, can work in any given incarnation if that force is lacking which
will move it. But given the force, we can turn it to any end that is recognized
as good; and when the gleam of buddhic light flows down, upon the
intelligence, that illuminated intelligence will recognize a great ideal
and will begin to utilize the force and turn it in a better direction. A
change in the object is all that is needed in these cases. Turn the same
force towards a higher object and the aim will be achieved. The great force
in the kãmic
nature that was being used for the sake of the personal self, when turned
to the service of the common Self of man will make the hero, the pioneer
and the saint. It is a change in the direction of the force caused by the
change of the object which is recognized as desirable: make that change—
and it is sometimes done by a flash of illumination — and then the whole
of that energy will be turned towards the achieving of the higher end.
Suppose, however,
that there is a great development of the pure intellect only, while this
emotional side of the nature has been dwarfed [Page
31] and
stunted in any given incarnation; or suppose that in the course of evolution
the tendency has been especially towards the intellectual, while the emotional
nature life after life has been little developed — which is quite
possible, because our development is often exceedingly lop-sided — there
will then be building on the mental plane a piece of magnificent machinery
that in a future incarnation will be of priceless value. Do not imagine
for one moment that its building is to be deprecated; do not imagine that
it is to be considered undesirable; it is necessary for the full
and perfect evolution, it has to be made at some time or another,
it has gradually to be achieved in one incarnation or another,
but I am simply considering one incarnation for the sake
of clearing the mind. Imagine, then, that the whole of it has been
devoted to the intellectual building — towards analysis, towards
synthesis, towards working out ideas on the mental plane — what is
the end of that working ? Isolation. We build round us a wall to keep
the outer impacts away, trying to be calm and still and untouched
by anything from outside, in order that the mental energy,
balanced naturally, may do its work. There we have the building
up of the great mãnasic possibilities; but such a nature may
find in any one incarnation insuperable difficulties in the way of achieving
the spiritual [Page
32] life.
The isolation is that which makes the very expansion which is a necessity
of the spiritual life impossible for the time and the whole conditions
of the working are those which are least favorable to the expansive and inclusive
qualities. And although such a life would have a most useful and
necessary place in the total evolution — as bringing the
intellect into magnificent working order and ensuring a splendid and rapid
evolution in a future birth, yet, for the time being, spiritual
aid would be practically thrown away upon it, because the whole
force of the evolution would be turned towards the
concentrated, isolated growth, and not towards the pouring
forth of life.
Now
in looking at the whole of our nature in this way, we shall see how necessary
the evolution of each of the planes is for the perfect growth, the perfect
expression of the Self. We shall see how, instead of putting the one against
the other — the
intellectual man decrying the emotional, and the emotional
man saying hard things about the intellectual, the one
scornfully saying that it is only cold intellect, and the
other saying, with equal scorn, that it is only ill-regulated
emotion — the balanced and thoughtful person would see
in each a necessary stage of evolution and, if he had reached
the point where able to give help to each, [Page
33] would consider only the
nature of the aid that he should give, in order to help forward a man to
the best possible advantage in the activities to which the Self in him was
chiefly turning its attention. For we continually fail to recognize that it
is the Self in each of us that should be the guiding force in our evolution;
that it is not for one to say how the Self in another shall evolve, what activities
he shall develop in one incarnation, what line he shall follow in any particular
birth. The Self itself chooses the pathway along which it will go, and it is
for that inner Self to decide for its vehicles which of them it will develop,
along which path lies for it the line of least resistance in any given birth.
And anyone who, having evolved to a higher life is able to help those who have
not reached so far, will not consider which qualities to him may be most
attractive, which path to him may seem most intrinsically desirable; he will
rather consider what the Self is working out in that individual and how he
can bring energy to bear to assist the Self in its work in that incarnation
which it has in hand. So that in all the dealings of the great Masters with
evolving humanity, this question of means and methods, of times and
seasons, exercises determining force on the nature of the help. They give;
and many people would sometimes [Page
34] feel less discouraged, would,
in their judgment of the great work which goes on around them, be better
balanced and would be seeing things more clearly, if they recognized that
the Master gives help in the way that it is most needed by the individual,
and does not think for one moment whether in giving that help its nature
may be misconstrued, or whether He may be thought to be more or less
generous in His contact with any particular soul. He gives what he knows
to be the best; He does not give what might bring Him the greatest outrush
of gratitude from the limited consciousness with which He is dealing. It
often happens, therefore, that in dealing with a man of keen intellect, of
great mental power, the Master gives help which is never appreciated by that
man during the whole of his incarnation. He helps him onwards in his
intellectual growth, helps him to strengthen and to build more perfectly
his intellectual apparatus, not minding at all, in His perfect selflessness,
in His perfect compassion, whether that man, if he knows of the Master's
existence, may think himself neglected, unhelped, or left on one side;
but giving, as all Those do give Who stand on those heights of selflessness,
the exact aid which is wanted by the evolving Self to quicken its evolution,
the exact kind of succor which makes the [Page
35] final achievement easier
than it would otherwise be.
I
cannot but think that if, as students, we were sometimes to look at the matter
in this broader way, dealing with it in the light of Theosophical knowledge,
we should become more compassionate, more tolerant, more charitable to the infinite
diversity of evolution that we see around us on every side; more able to help
our brothers, more grateful for the help that we ourselves receive.