Theosophy - The Re-incarnating Ego - by Jerome A.Anderson, F.T.S. - as published in Theosophical Siftings, Volume 7
THE RE-INCARNATING EGO
by Jerome A. Anderson, M.D. F.T.S
(Reprinted from the “New Californian,” July
1892
and as published in “Theosophical Siftings” - Volume 7
[Page 3] A PROPER conception of re-incarnation on the human plane, or the repeated rebirth of the same human
soul in new bodies, after the old have been destroyed by death, requires a close inquiry as to how much and what
portion of the man as we know him returns to earth by this process. This will be best accomplished, perhaps,
by a study of the nature and history of the Higher Manas, or his true Re-incarnating Ego, including necessarily
that of its reflection in matter, the Lower Manas, or Personal Self.
The material Universe, according to Theosophic teaching, is embodied
consciousness, or consciousness of infinite gradations, clothed in equally infinite expressions of form. As
the Universe ebbs and flows from subjective to objective states throughout the eternities of Duration, it follows
that worlds appear and disappear endlessly, the Great Pralaya even, being only a subjective arc of larger immensity.
In the life history of all worlds, as is proven by the records now visible in the heavens, there comes a time
when they cool down sufficiently to become habitable; when they pass through this stage; when, by the ebbing
of their life force, or the completion of their limiting cycle, humanities can no longer exist on them in material
form. There is no doubt but that their minor pralayas or deaths overtake them with the consciousness of their
entities in states of infinite diversity such as we now perceive upon the earth. Hence, there would be those,
passing through the human stage, overtaken when their world became uninhabitable for them; for the life cycle
of a planet pursues its course perfectly uninterrupted and uncontrolled by the evolution of any humanity upon
it. So, were pralaya to strike for this earth today, would every entity, human, animal or elemental, be arrested
in its material evolution and be compelled to remain in subjective states, until matter in other worlds had
arrived at stages capable of affording them material expression in suitable forms.
This has happened to our Higher Egos, it may be an infinite number
of times, for who can estimate the period necessary in material states of consciousness for them to arrive
at their present stage ? At any rate, when their last world went into pralaya they had not yet passed beyond
the desire for material or sensuous existence, and so were, under the law of cause and effect, drawn to bodies
which nature, or the lower "Builders" of
Theosophy, had been preparing for their occupation daring those interminable periods which even geology is beginning
to recognize as necessary actors in human evolution. This re-incarnation of already highly-advanced [Page
4] entities in human-animal forms, prepared for them under quite a distinct phase of the triple-sided
process of evolutionary activity, is the key to the whole scheme of human evolution on this planet, as well as
to the many otherwise hopelessly insoluble problems in human consciousness, such as clairvoyance, prophetic dream,
and the "buried
selves", so strangely dug out of their unsuspected graves by hypnotic processes.
If, then, the Higher Manas, or our Re-incarnating Egos, had evolved self-consciousness upon material planes
on other worlds, in former planetary manvantaras, it does not, it seems to me, follow as a necessary corollary
that they had also evolved perfect spiritual self-consciousness, or self-consciousness on spiritual planes. On
the contrary, it seems reasonable to suppose that their consciousness, when their planet went into pralaya, thus
compelling them to abandon it, would resemble, if not be identical with, the devachanic consciousness, obtaining
after death. This would not contra-indicate an immense store of wisdom acquired on material planes, which would
be only partially available here, because of the inability of the Higher Ego to express or function upon this
earth, through the slow evolutionary processes of nature not yet having wrought matter up to the requisite fineness.
But having through its reflection, the Lower Manas, our ordinary selves, attained to partial self-consciousness
here, it now becomes possible for it to quicken the laggard steps of nature, to widen self-consciousness upon
the material plane, and to begin to transfer it to the spiritual planes where it has its own proper being. For
self-consciousness is the crown, end and aim of consciousness upon any plane, material or spiritual.
There may be stores of wisdom in the monad now expressing in the mineral kingdom, but how can this be utilized
intelligently until self-consciousness enables it to be specifically drawn upon ? Therefore, it seems that the
Re-incarnating Ego is a monadic centre of potential self-consciousness upon all the planes of nature in the Cosmos.
This potentiality has become a potency upon many of these planes, some of which, as shown by its powers, must
be infinitely superior to consciousness upon this earth. It now seeks cosmic perfection by the evolution or attainment
of this same or perfect self-consciousness, upon all those planes yet remaining unexplored.
Being a Ray from the Absolute, emanating as it must from the CAUSELESS
CAUSE, lying hidden behind all manifestation, the Higher Ego possesses the creative and ideative functions
involved in its own expression, or being. This creative power in the Re-incarnating Ego — creative in
the sense of changing or renewing form, only — is most
important to bear in mind. It must not be supposed that ordinary men consciously create — a power reached
by Adeptship alone — or even that the Re-incarnating Ego [Page 5] consciously
creates or builds its own bodies; that again is only possible for those in whom the Higher and Lower Egos have
become one. But the Re-incarnating Ego does build astral and thought forms unconsciously, under the potency of
that power or force which it carries with it in its emanation from the CAUSELESS CAUSE. This creative power is
the source of the Linga Shârîra,
the third human principle; the latter being the Thought Form, or Astral Image, of the Higher Ego, by the creative
force of the latter calling into activity, unconsciously to itself and to them, the " Lower Builders",
upon its again seeking re-incarnation under the law of cyclic Karma. These Lower Builders — the same which
are concerned in the production of all animal or vegetable forms, under Universal or Dhyân-Chohanic Ideation — having
thus received the necessary impulse from the Higher Ego, mould around the Linga Shârîra, or Higher
Manas Thought Form, the physical molecules which constitute the Sthula Shârîra, or physical form.
This impulse thus given must not be looked upon as an active supervision by the Higher Ego. It is not; else would
purely physical heredity of form and feature be unaccounted for, if not impossible.
Under this pressure coming from the Higher Ego, the Builders must
set to work, but this work is very greatly modified by the stamp upon the physical cells, given by the parents
of the physical form, under the law of physical heredity, the lowest phase of the triple evolution. On the
other hand, this physical impress is again modified, in a greater or lesser degree, by the urgent tendencies
of the Higher Ego to express in certain dominant directions, under the force of skandhas or results of past
incarnations. Unmodified by the Higher Ego, the physical form would represent the exact average of the sum
of the parents' qualities, both physical and mental, as is seen in the almost endless continuation of identical
forms in the vegetable kingdom and in the lower animal — in
molluscs. Unmodified by the Lower Builders, the Higher Ego would have no real karmic hold upon the earth; and
working unconsciously, as far at least as this plane is concerned, might fail entirely to construct those sense
organs by which alone it can relate its consciousness to terms of matter. The physical impress given by the parents
under the lower law of physical heredity, affords the opportunity required to develop the Higher Ego's functions
and potencies upon this plane of consciousness, and satisfies the law of cause and effect, or Karma, which compels
egos having certain characteristics to seek parents having similar ones, in order that Karma may be satisfied.
Did physical heredity not modify the habitation and powers of the Reincarnating Ego, there would be no reason
why it should seek expression through one parent rather than another, and we would be forced back upon the old,
unjust Christian hypothesis of the human soul having no voice in [Page 6] the selection
of its body. Did not the Re-incarnating Ego have the power to very greatly modify its material tenement, the
faculties and mental powers of the child would represent the average of the sum of its parents at best, and the
innumerable instances where these are very greatly transcended, as well as those where the account is on the
debit side, would be wholly unaccounted for.
The creative power of the Higher Manas, then, acting upon sub-conscious
planes, produces or creates a Linga Shârîra; just as on the subconscious planes of the Lower Manas,
our personal self, all the vital activities, as well as the repair of wounded or diseased tissue, goes on quite
independently of our conscious supervision.
On its own planes its creative potencies are exercised consciously in the production of those higher astral
forms, which the Adept uses when he abandons the physical, in his journeyings. With this higher creative faculty
mankind at large are not, at present at least, concerned. But since the Higher Manas builds, or rather, causes
to be built, its physical body, through creative forces thus unconsciously exercised, in what manner is it consciously,
and so karmically, connected with the body ?
This calls for an examination of its creative functions on ideative
or mental planes, or the reflection in matter of its true, individualizing consciousness. This reflection — perhaps
refraction would be the better term —of
itself is quite another process to that concerned in the formation of the Linga Shârîra, which we
have been considering, and is the most important of all. The Linga Shârîra may be said to represent
its purely physical expression, so to speak; this refraction, the Lower Manas, is itself, mirrored in material
thought processes. The former expresses its purely physical karma, or its physical creative force taking the
lines of least resistance; the latter connects it karmically with the thoughts and mental processes of past
lives. Being, when its devachanic or subjective existence between two lives is closing, drawn to the parents
presenting the greatest sum of karmic affinities, its presence, and brooding over the expanding form sets up
in the physical brain of the latter a thinking principle, just as a magnet upon being brought in contact with
non-magnetic iron imparts magnetism to this, without having caused the smallest change in those physical qualities
which constitute it iron. And, as the evolution of the physical.form, which it took ages for the "Lower
Builders", or the ordinary evolutionary forces in nature to accomplish, is repeated swiftly during the first
few weeks of gestation, so is the entire evolution of the Lower Manas also repeated during the first few years
of the child's life. For these monadic Lower Builders only push matter up to the animal or kamic plane; the
brooding presence of the Higher Manas must impart the stimulus which brings it where it is of sufficient transparency,
so to speak, [Page 7] to receive and refract its image. It will be at once plain
that our Lower Manas, the ordinary self, is thus a portion of the very essence of the Higher, just as the magnetism
in the iron is a portion of that in the magnet. And just as the magnet may be withdrawn from its contact with
the iron, leaving a portion of its magnetic qualities to slowly dissipate, so may the Higher Manas be separated
entirely from its lower reflection, thus constituting a veritable "loss of the soul".
For this portion of the Higher Manas actually refracted or "incarnated" in
matter is ourselves, the "I am Myself", of our earthly life. Could it remain simply a portion of
the Higher, its functions and fate might be different, but this is impossible. As the pure ray of light is
coloured by the colour of the glass, which transmits it until it is indistinguishable from that tint, so is
the Lower Manas coloured and changed by its contact with Karma [Sensuous Desire], the chief and ruler of the
earthly Quaternary. All the fierce desires, the unrest, the sensuous appetites, the "lusts of the flesh", of
the latter at once seize upon it, and impart to it that curious mixture of the animal with the Divine which
we name the Lower Self, or Personality. This could not occur had not the Kamic Principle in the Lower Quaternary
already been evolved to a point where it is able to receive the magnetic impress of Manas and to colour this
with its own qualities of sensuous passion and desire.
It must not be inferred from the above that only a portion, as it
were, of the Higher Manas incarnates in the Lower Quaternary, leaving the rest to enjoy a kind of superior
consciousness upon other planes. While the teaching is somewhat reserved upon this point, still there is enough
given out, in the Secret Doctrine and elsewhere, to make it certain that each individuality has but one centre
of consciousness, and that this can not be in full activity in two places, nor in two or more states, at the
same time. While it is active upon one plane it may have a sub-consciousness on others, just as we may be reading
and yet be conscious of noise about us, But this is only a sub-consciousness, not a splitting of it. Therefore,
when once the Higher Manas has perfected its vehicle sufficiently to permit this, it only functions through
that vehicle when this is active, for its very activity compels its use as a vehicle. In other words, our "I
am myself", or
individualising centre of consciousness which comes from the Higher Manas and is its distinguishing characteristic,
is functioning actively only through the body when this is in the waking state, although its sub-consciousness
may extend over many higher planes. When the body ceases its activity, as in sleep or death, then it can of
course retire to its own proper spheres, to be dragged down from these by its karmic connection with the body
when this awakens. It follows, then, that when awake and occupied by material or sensuous thoughts only, the
Higher Manas is [Page 8] simply paralyzed; its consciousness a potentiality only, somewhat, perhaps, like that
of the lower consciousness when paralyzed by hypnotism. This is its daily crucifixion, and the true meaning
of all the religious myths of crucified Saviours.
Yet, though the Higher Manas be paralyzed as to conscious functioning,
it cannot be said to be wholly or even partially incarnated in the body, nor is it even ever fully conscious
on this plane except when its Higher and Lower aspects have been enabled to unite, through the latter having
conquered in its contest with Kama. The one-ness and yet the separateness of the Higher and Lower Manas is
one of the hardest of mystic teachings to understand. It is another illustration of "the Same and the
Other", of which Plato taught that the Universe was
constructed. Perhaps the phenomena of an ordinary Faradic electrical battery may help us, by analogy, to a better
conception. In this, the current, generated by the zinc and carbon, or other elements, in the presence of an
acid or saline solution, is passed through a coil of insulated wire. Around this, in what is technically termed
the helix, is coiled another wire, also completely insulated, and entirely disconnected from the first, or "primary" coil.
There ought, therefore, to be no current in this latter or "secondary" coil, yet the instant the current
from the chemical cell is passed through the primary coil there is set up in the secondary a greatly modified
or differentiated current, known as "induced" electricity. Because there has been no actual contact
between the two coils, this secondary current is thus said to have been produced by "induction" — one
of those convenient terms by means of which science seems to explain so much, while really explaining nothing.
To account for the appearance of a current by saying that it has been "induced" is exactly equivalent
to Topsy's explanation of her origin by saying that she "spected she just growed". However, Theosophy
may explain or account for this second current, as the analogy to the origin of the Lower Manas and its relation
to the Higher, is very close. The presence of the Higher Manas, overshadowing the body, originates a distinct
Thinking Principle in the brain of the latter, in a manner exactly similar, it seems to me, to the induced current
of electricity — that is, by imparting to the latter its own essential qualities. Thus it can be at once
seen, that while the Lower Manas is caused by, and is of the very essence of the Higher, it is yet distinct without
being separate. Withdraw the primary current, and the induced will disappear; withdraw the Higher Manas, and
the Lower perishes, the chief distinction being in the slower process in the latter case.
A closer analogy to the behaviour of the Higher and Lower Thinking
Principles after death is afforded in the phenomena of transferred magnetism, referred to in the beginning
of this paper. For, in the illustration [Page 9] given, when artificial magnetism
has been imparted to non-magnetic iron, upon the withdrawal of the true magnet is seen almost identically that
phenomenon which takes place upon the separation of the Higher and Lower Manas. A portion of magnetism remains
in the iron, to be slowly or quickly dissipated, as the case may be; it having apparently become entangled,
so to speak, in the molecules of the latter, or having, more correctly, caused a polarized arrangement among
those molecules whose vibratory ratio exhibits the qualities of magnetism. So, at death, only that portion
of the Lower Manas is withdrawn which is untainted by Kama. That portion coloured by Kama is left; a residue,
having by virtue of its original Manasic origin, enough still of the unconscious creative power, before referred
to, to clothe itself with an astral form; thus constituting the "Kama Rûpa", which,
senseless and fallen as it is, is still the "guide" of many a poor, obsessed "medium". For
while having no centre of consciousness capable of feeling and functioning as such, still it is capable, again
by virtue of its Mânasic origin, of having a false feeling of personality reflected into it by the Lower
Manas of a "Medium". This reflection may so synthesize its fading consciousness as to enable it to
connect it with its past life, and to relate the leading events of this quite accurately. Its feeling of, "I
am myself", is thus an illusion of an illusion, if we may be allowed the expression, for the feeling of "I
am myself", which we experience in our waking state, real as it seems, is entirely illusive, being reflected
there in a similar manner by the overshadowing of the Higher Manas. It only exists because of its connection
with the latter, and is added to the sum total of the experience of its parent at death as the memory of each
day may be said to be added to the sum of the consciousness of our personal selves. For, having drawn what of
wisdom it may, from each association with a body, the Higher Manas returns to its own state, leaving the compound
of Lower Manas and Kama, which, no longer an entity, can survive only as a memory in the consciousness of the
former. And as there are many days that leave little or no impress upon the consciousness of our personal selves,
so there may be many lives having but small record on the tablets of the Higher Manas, while some may be forgotten
altogether.
These "forgotten lives" are the most dreadful fate which
may befall a personality, for they are truly "lost
souls". The whole of the reflected portion of the Higher Manas has been sunk so low in Kamic desires and
passions that there is no union possible after death, and the personality, strong by virtue of this robbing of
the qualities of its parent, clothes itself in an astral form and becomes an active agent for evil, meanwhile
descending its own arc to utter annihilation amidst indescribable suffering, of which the realisation of its
impending fate is not the least. [Page 10]
We may now, perhaps, faintly perceive
the relation between Higher Manas, the Thinker, which, with Atma and Buddhi, is the Re-incarnating Ego, and Kama
Manas, its reflection in matter which is the personal self. The one is the result of the evolution through unthinkable
aeons of time, of individualised, spiritual consciousness; a potentially self-conscious Ray of the Great Cosmic
Thinking Principle; the potency of Pure Thought in the Monadic Ray individualised. It persists throughout all
minor manvantaras and pralayas; through all obscurations or destructions of worlds or systems. Yet of itself
it is not immortal. It must become one in essence with Buddhi, the Eternal KNOWER, to win eternal persistence
as an individual entity, just as the Lower Manas can only survive one life by becoming one in essence with its
source; by freeing itself from the attractions of Kama and returning to its parent with the tribute of its conscious
experiences in matter, to add to the already stored wisdom of the latter. The other, the Lower Manas, is thus
but the illusory reflection of the Higher, when this has been karmically drawn to a human animal-body by its
desire and necessity for complete knowledge of the material and sensuous state of consciousness on this plane
of existence. This reflection, or refraction, thus produced, wins its immortality according as it approximates
towards its Divine parent or yields to the sensuous delights of Kama. And not only this, but of even more importance,
since personal immortality is more the concern of many incarnations, it determines, in each life, by its thoughts
and acts, the social environment, the race, the nation, the family, the intellectual trend and capacity, and
the ease or difficulty, even, with which the Higher Manas can control the following life or personality; so
intimate is the Karmic relation between the two. For while the Higher Manas, as compared to its reflection, is
god-like in its wisdom and powers, it by no means follows that it has perfected wisdom on this plane. If it had,
the necessity for repeated incarnations might be questioned. And the tendencies of our finite minds is, all the
time, to take the finite view of everything; to want to complete and round out the whole scheme and plan of
the Cosmos in a few years. This is the pitiful mistake which Christian theology falls into in predicating the
completion of man's earthly destiny in one short life. Our Higher Manas may have spent manvantaras in other humanities
developing on quite distinct lines from those which we vaingloriously imagine include all possible mental and
spiritual characteristics; it may spend manvantaras to come, evolving consciousness along equally unsuspected
lines.
Yet, god-like and wise as is the Higher Manas, it has, as we have
thus shown, to descend life after life to overshadow, impart its own essence to, and acquire wisdom through
and from the human bodies with which it is
[Page 11] karmically, or under the law of Cause and Effect, associated. During
the waking state of these bodies it can only function through them by means of its reflection, the Lower Manas,
which is thus during this time its only conscious avenue. Yet so dimmed and discoloured is the Lower Manas
by the desires and passions of Kama, that the consciousness transmitted through it by the Higher Manas, may
well be compared to the light from a sunbeam struggling to penetrate an opaque, densely-stained, prison window.
To the prisoner within, who has never known any other light, the purity and brilliancy of the source of the
dim, scarcely-discernable ray, penetrating the gloom of the cell, might well remain a matter of doubt, or even
of absolute disbelief. Yet in a precisely similar manner does our Higher Ego overshadow our gross, material
body, struggling to penetrate and enlighten its inner darkness; whispering to our Lower Soul in the Divine
voice we recognise as conscience; prompting us to altruistic work for humanity; filling our hearts with its
divine compassion; the true source of every aspiration to become purer, wiser, and more unselfish than we
feel ourselves to be.
And the task of every human soul is to help in this great evolution
of spiritual consciousness; to turn the strength of a purified will consciously to the aid of nature in the
warfare between good and evil; between light and darkness; between Life and Death. This struggling, sinning,
suffering Personality can only return to, and become one with, its divine progenitor, by freeing itself from
all colouring of Kama; by the utter killing out of desire. How important, then, a correct conception and realisation
of the nature, interrelations and mutual dependence, of our Higher and Lower Egos, becomes ! By this knowledge,
and only by it, is it possible to formulate a theory of ethics, a rule for human action, for right living and
thinking, which shall explain why a man ought to strive to be pure, passionless, altruistic; to live in the
spiritual portion of his nature; to yield a willing, loving obedience to the dictates of his Higher Self;
to treasure each glimmering Ray from its Divine Light, even though it take the form of stern rebuke, as of
a million times more value than all the gold of Ophir !