Theosophy - Secret Doctrine-Volume -3- by H.P.Blavatsky - Part 4 of 4
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SECRET DOCTRINE -VOLUME -3-
by H.P.Blavatsky -
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The
Seven Hierarchies (Page
475) In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the Hierarchies
directly connected and for ever linked with man.
Enough
has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane masses
the
sentence, “Om Mani Padma Hum,” means simply “Oh the
Jewel of the Lotus,” Esoterically it signifies “Oh my God within
me.” Yes; there is a God in each human being, for man was, and will
re-become, God. The sentence points to the indissoluble union between Man
and the Universe. For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as the
absolute
totality, and the Jewel is Spiritual Man or God.
In
the preceding Paper, the correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and “Principles”
were given; and those who have read our second volume will remember that these
seven principles are derived from the seven great Hierarchies of Angels, or
Dhyân Chohans, which are, in their turn, associated with Colours and
Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested Logos.
In
the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding
to
the colours, and in the number, determined by the vibrations of colour and
sound, which “underlies every form and guides every sound,” we
find the summing-up of the Manifested Universe.
We
may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of colour and
sound to the geometrical figures which [See supra, i. 34: i,
4, et seq., and 625, et seq.] express the progressive
stages in the manifestation of Kosmos.
But
the student will certainly be liable to confusion if, in studying the Diagrams,
he does not remember two things: (1) That, our plane being a plane of reflection,
and therefore illusionary, the various notations are reversed and must
be counted from below upwards. The musical scale begins from below upwards,
commencing with the deep Do and ending with the far more acute Si. (2) That
Kâma Rûpa (corresponding to Do in the musical scale), containing
as it does all potentialities of Matter, is necessarily the starting-point
on our plane. Further, it commences the notation on every plane, as corresponding
to the “matter” of that plane. Again, the student must also remember
that these notes have to be arranged in a circle, thus showing how Fa is
the
middle note of Nature. In short, musical notes, or Sounds, Colours (Page
476) and Numbers proceed from one to seven, and not from seven
to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the prismatic colours, in which
Red is counted first; a fact which necessitated my putting the principles
and the days of the week at random in Diagram II. The musical scale and colours,
according to the number of vibrations, proceed from the world of gross Matter
to that of Spirit thus:
Principles |
Colours |
Notes |
Numbers |
States
of Matter |
Chhâyâ,Shadow
or Double |
Violet |
Si |
7 |
Ether |
Higher
Manas, Spiritual Intelligence |
Indigo |
La |
6 |
Critical
State, called Air in Occultism |
Auric
Envelope |
Blue |
Sol |
5 |
Steam
or Vapour |
Lower
Manas or Animal Soul |
Green |
Fa |
4 |
Critical
State |
Buddhi,
or Spiritual Soul |
Yellow |
Mi |
3 |
Water |
Prâna,
or Life Principle |
Orange |
Re |
2 |
Critical
State |
Kâmâ Rûpa,
the Seat of Animal Life |
Red |
Do |
1 |
Ice |
Here
again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondences
between “principles” and numbers, for reasons already given.
The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the conventional
exoteric. The
one is the reality, the other is classified according to illusive appearances.
The human principles, as given in Esoteric Buddhism, were tabulated
for beginners, so as not to confuse their minds. It was half a blind.
ORIGINS
(Page
477)
Colours,
Sounds and Forms |
To
proceed:
The
point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos,
corresponding to Absolute Life and absolute
Sound.
The
first geometrical figure after the Circle or
the Spheroid is the Triangle. It corresonds
to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus he
Point in the Triangle represents the Second
Logos, “Father-Mother,” or the White Ray
which is no colour, since it contains potentially
all colours. It is shown radiating from
the Unmanifested Logos, or the Un-spoken
Word. Around the first Triangle is formed
on the plane of Primordial Substance in
this order (reversed as to our plane):
(a)
The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.
(b)
Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.
(c)
The synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahmâ, containing
all and radiating all.
(d)
Animal of Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable intelligence
and instinct.
[The Master-Key or Tonic of Manifested Nature.]
(Page
478)
(e)
The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligence, Fohat.
(f)
Life Principle in Nature.
(g)
The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the spiritual plane,
corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.
Mirrored
on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed, and becomes
on Earth and our plane:
(a)
Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it is shown
in its lowest animal form.
(b)
Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests
the colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.
(c)
Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual, Divine Ray in every
atom; in man of Buddhi.
(d)
Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green
absorbs
the Red, as being stronger in its vibrations than the latter; and Green is
the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why the Lower Manas
and Kâma
Rûpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.
(c)
The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.
(f)
The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.
(g)
The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole, standing
in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to the Red.
The
above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the Manifested
Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician alone is concerned.
In
Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and therefore
of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for it is ascertained
that there exist slow vibrations than those of the Red, the slowest perceptible
to us, and far more rapid vibrations than those of the Violet, the most rapid
that our senses can perceive. But on Earth, in our physical world, the range
of perceptible vibrations is limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance
of vibrations above and below the septenary and limited gradations of the
prismatic colours, for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the
sensation of colour and sound.
Colours
and Principles (Page
479) It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless
we learn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and inferior
vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper Triangle.
Now,
on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as
demonstrated
by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange-Yellow). Expressed
in terms of the human principles they are; (1) Kâma Rûpa, the
seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a vehicle for the
Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being interchangeable);
(2) Auric envelope, or the essence of man; and (3) Prâna, or Life Principle.
But if from the realm of illusion, or the living man as he is on our Earth,
subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we pass to that of semi-illusion,
and observe the natural colours themselves, or those of the principles, that
is, if we try to find which are those in the perfect man absorb all others,
we shall find that the colours correspond and become complementary in the
following way:
Violet
|
1 |
Red |
Green |
2 |
Orange |
Blue |
3 |
Yellow |
Indigo |
Violet
|
A
faint violet, mist-like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform bluish
circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic colours.
That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle is the most
active generally, or at the particular moment when the clairvoyant perceives
it. Such man appears during his waking states; and it is by the predominance
of this or that colour, and by the intensity of its vibrations, that a clairvoyant,
if he be acquainted with correspondences, can judge of the inner state
or character of a person, for the latter is an open book to every practical
Occultist.
In
the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours
being
no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For
those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, viz.,
Yellow, Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will
be either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is
free during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of
it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in realms
which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of illusion.
(Page
480) A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of
seeing a Yogî in the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by
side, would learn an important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know
the difference between self-induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting
from extraneous influence. In the Yogî, the “principles”
of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red-Violet
nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible
vibrations of the golden-hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked
with gold rushing upwards from the head, in the region where the Third Eye
rests, and culminating in a point. If the student remembers that the true
Violet, or the extreme end of the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red
and
Blue, but a homogeneous colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than
those of the Red, [ and
that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from Orange-Red
to Yellow-Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why: he lives
in
his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas. On the other
hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance,
an effect
of unconscious when not of conscious Black Magic, unless produced by a high
Adept, the whole set of the principles will be present, with the Higher Manas
paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis, and the red-violet
Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa
(the green and red animal monsters in us).
Colours |
Wave-Lengths
in Millimetres |
Number
of Vibrations in Trillions |
Violet
extreme |
406 |
759 |
Violet |
423 |
709 |
Violet-
Indigo |
439 |
683 |
Indigo |
449 |
668 |
Indigo-Blue |
459 |
654 |
Blue |
479 |
631 |
Blue-Green |
492 |
610 |
Green |
512 |
586 |
Green-Yellow |
532 |
564 |
Yellow |
551 |
544 |
Yellow-Orange |
571 |
525 |
Orange |
583 |
514 |
Orange-Red |
596 |
503 |
Red |
620 |
484 |
Red-extreme |
645 |
465 |
One
who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how important
it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical Occult powers
or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of clairvoyance and metaphysical
knowledge, to master thoroughly the right correspondences between the human,
or nature principles, and those of Kosmos.
The
Primordial Seven (Page
481) It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny
the inner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that
allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as swimming
to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the possibility
of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding board of a violin, producing
comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the Seven-Stringed Lyre
of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has shrouded ancient knowledge,
men’s faculties are no better than the loose strings of the violin
to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to tighten them and tune
his
violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour and sound, will extract divine
harmony from them. The combination of these powers and the attuning of the
Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the geometrical equivalent of the invocation “Om Mani Padme Hum.”
This
was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the
School of Pythagoras.
The
Roots of Colour and Sound
|
Further,
each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested
Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colours of the solar spectrum
correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of these latter has
again its seven divisions corresponding to the same series of colours. But
in this case one colour, viz., that which characterizes the particular
Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more intense than the others.
These
Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic
colours;
each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven concentric circles,
each circle representing one of the prismatic colours in their negative
order.
But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be brighter and
more vivid in colour than the rest, and the wheel will have a surrounding
Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that colour. This colour will
be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a whole. Each of these Hierarchies
furnishes the essence (the Soul) and is the “Builder” of one
of the seven kingdoms of Nature which are the three elemental kingdoms, the
mineral,
the vegetable, the (Page
482) animal, and the kingdom of spiritual man. [See Five Years
of Theosophy. pp. 273 to 278.] Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the
Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour. Further,
as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it
will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real
Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.
The
symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven Hierarchies
of
creative Powers is a wheel of seven concentric circles, each circle being
coloured with one of the seven colours; call them Angels, if you will,
or
Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of the Seven Sacred Planets
of our system, as in our present case. At all events, the concentric
circles
stand as symbols for Ezekiel’s Wheels with some Western Occultists and
Kabalists, and for the “Builders” or Prajâpati with us.
The
student should carefully examine the following Diagram.
DIAGRAM
III
|
The
Human Principles |
The
Seven Hierarchies and their Subdivisions |
VIOLET
Linga Sharira |
VIOLET |
Indigo |
Blue |
Green |
Yellow |
Orange |
Red |
INDIGO
Higher Manas
|
Violet |
INDIGO |
Blue |
Green |
Yellow |
Orange |
Red |
BLUE
Auric Egg |
Violet |
Indigo |
BLUE |
Green |
Yellow |
Orange |
Red |
GREEN
Lower Manas |
Violet |
Indigo |
Blue |
GREEN |
Yellow |
Orange |
Red |
YELLOW
Buddhi
|
Violet |
Indigo |
Blue |
Green |
YELLOW |
Orange |
Red |
ORANGE
Prâna
|
Violet |
Indigo |
Blue |
Green |
Yellow |
ORANGE |
Red |
RED
Kâma Rupa |
Violet |
Indigo |
Blue |
Green |
Yellow |
Orange |
RED |
Thus
the Linga Sharîra is derived from the Violet sub-ray of the Violet Hierarchy;
the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub-ray of the Indigo
Hierarchy, and so on. Every man being born under a certain planet, there will
always be a predominance of that planet’s colour in him, because that
“principle” will rule in him which has its origin in the Hierarchy
in question. There will also be a certain amount of the colour derived from
the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling planet will
be strongest. Now a person in whom say, the Mercury principle is predominant,
will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another person born under a
different planet, be able to get him entirely under his control. For the
stronger
Mercury principle in him will overpower the weaker Mercurial element in the
other. But he will have little power over persons born under the same planet
as himself. This is the Key to the Occult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.
The
student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named after
their corresponding colours, so as to avoid using numerals, which would be
confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter have no proper
numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these Hierarchies cannot now
be given.
The
Hierarchies and Man (Page
483)
The
student must, however, remember
that the colours which
we see with our physical
eyes are not the true colours
of Occult Nature, but are
merely the effects produced
on the mechanism of our
physical organs by certain rates
of vibration. For instance, Clerk
Maxwell has demonstrated
that the retinal effects of
any colour may be initiated by
properly combining three other
colours. It follows, therefore,
that our retina has only three
distinct colour sensations and
we therefore do not perceive
the seven colours which
really exist, but only their “imitations” so to speak, in our physical
organism.
Thus,
for instance, the Orange-Red
of the first “Triangle” is not a
combination of Orange and Red,
but the true “spiritual” Red, if
the term may be allowed, while, the
Red (blood-red) of the spectrum
is the colour of Kâma animal desire,
and is inseparable from the
material plane.
Esotericism,
pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we considered as
Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is based absolutely
on the ubiquitous presence of God, the
(Page 484) Absolute Deity; and if IT Itself is not speculated upon,
as being too sacred and yet incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect,
yet the entire Philosophy is based upon Its Divine Powers as being the Source
of all that breathes and lives and has existence. In every ancient Religion
the ONE was demonstrated by the many.
In Egypt and India, in Chaldæ and Phœnicia,
and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples
of three, five and seven; and also by eight, nine and twelve great Gods,
which
symbolized the powers and properties of the One and Only Deity. This was
related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to which
the metaphysics
of these nations subjected their ONE
DIVINITY. Thus constituted, the cycle of the Gods has all the qualities
and attributes of the ONE
SUPREME
AND UNKNOWABLE; for in this collection of divine Personalities, or
rather of Symbols personified, dwells the ONE
GOD, the GOD
ONE, that God which, in India, is said to have no Second.
O
God Ani [the Spiritual Sun], thou residest in the agglomeration of thy divine
personages.
[Apud Grebaat Papyrus Orbiney. p. 101.]
These
words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation proceeds from
one and the same Source, all emanating from the one identical Principle which
can never be completely developed except in and through the collective and
entire aggregate of Its emanations.
The
Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy;
for Pleroma
means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total
of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or
totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE differentiating on all the planes,
and transforming themselves into Divine Powers, called Angels and
Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation. The Gnostic Æons
and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Siddhas of the Purânas. The
Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus, holds the same
language as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the purely
esoteric Alêtheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are
taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the magnificent
hymn
of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old:
The
Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth.
Wisdom
and Truth (Page
485) And addressing Ra, they add:
The
Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that which produces
them . . . and say to thee, Peace to all emanations from the Unconscious Father
of the Conscious Fathers of the Gods . . . Thou producer of beings, we adore
the souls which emanate from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and
we greet thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from thee and
liveth in us.
This
is the source of the assertion:
Know
ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.
This
is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” in Lucifer for
March, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess Truth (Alêtheia) except he participate in
the Gnosis.” So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he
studies the secrets of the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all
in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Alêtheia
of Occult Science.
PAPER
III
A
Word Concerning the Earlier Papers
|
(Page
486) AS many have written and almost complained to me that they
could find no practical clear application of certain diagrams appended to
the first two Papers, and others have spoken of their abstruseness, a short
explanation is necessary.
The
reason of this difficulty in most cases has been that the point of
view taken
was erroneous; the purely abstract and metaphysical was mistaken for, and
confused with, the concrete and the physical. Let us take for example
the
diagrams on page 477 (Paper II ), and say that these are entirely macrocosmic
and ideal. It must be remembered that the study of Occultism proceeds
from
Universals to Particulars and not the reverse way, as accepted by Science.
As Plato was an Initiate, he very naturally used the former method,
while
Aristotle, never having been initiated, scoffed at his master, and, elaborating
a system of his own, left it as an heirloom to be adopted and improved
by
Bacon. Of a truth the aphorism of Hermetic Wisdom, “As above, so below,
“ applies to all Esoteric instruction; but we must begin with the above;
we must learn the formula before we can sum the series.
The
two figures, therefore, are not meant to represent any two particular planes,
but are the abstraction of a pair of planes, explanatory of the law of reflection,
just as the Lower Manas is a reflection of the Higher. They must therefore
be taken in the highest metaphysical sense.
The
diagrams are only intended to familiarize students with the leading ideas
of Occult correspondences, 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.
Occult
Secrecy (Page
487) Figures must be used as ladders to scale the battlements,
ladders to be disregarded when once the foot is set upon the rampart.
Let
students, therefore, be very careful to spiritualize the Papers 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 Papers, so far as they from the right understanding
of them. This is especially the case with these first Papers and Diagrams,
for as in all true arts, so in Occultism, we must first learn the theory before
we are taught the practice.
Students
ask: Why such secrecy about the details of a doctrine the body of
which has been publicly revealed, as in Esoteric
Buddhism and the Secret Doctrine?
To
this Occultism would reply: for two reasons:—
(a)
The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.
(b)
The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric teachings
is too dangerous in profane hands.
The
truths revealed to man by the “Planetary Spirits”—the highest
Kumâras, those who incarnate no longer in the Universe during this Mahâmanvantara—who
will appear on earth as Avatâras only at the beginning of every new
human Race, and at the junctions or close of the two ends of the small and
great cycles—in time, as man became more animalized, were made to fade
away from his memory. Yet, though these Teachers remain with man no longer
than the time required to impress upon the plastic minds of child-humanity
the eternal verities they teach, Their Spirit remains vivid though latent
in mankind. And the full knowledge of the primitive revelation has remained
always with a few elect, and has been transmitted from that time up to the
present, from one generation of Adepts to another. As the Teachers say in
the Occult Primer:
This
is done so as to ensure them [the eternal truths] from being utterly
lost or forgotten in ages hereafter by the forthcoming generations.
The
mission of the Planetary Spirit is but to strike the key-note of Truth. When
once He has directed the vibration of the latter to run its course uninterruptedly
along the concatenation of the race to the end of the cycle, He disappears
from our earth until the following Planetary Manvantara. The mission of any
teacher of Esoteric truths, (Page
488) whether he stands at the top or the foot of the ladder of
knowledge, is precisely the same; as above, so below. I have only orders
to
strike the key-note of the various Esoteric truths among the learners as
a body. Those units among you who will have raised themselves on the “Path”
over their fellow-students, in their Esoteric sphere, will, as the “Elect” spoken
of did and do in the Parent Brotherhoods, receive the last explanatory details
and the ultimate key to what they learn. No one, however, can hope
to gain this privilege before the MASTERS—not
my humble self—find him or her worthy.
If
you wish to know the real raison d’être for this policy,
I now give it to you. No use my repeating and explaining what all of you know
as well as myself; at the very beginning, events have shown that no caution
can be dispensed with. Of our body of several hundred men and women, many
did not seem to realize either the awful sacredness of the pledge (which some
took at the end of their pen), or the fact that their personality has
to be entirely disregarded, when brought face to face with their HIGHER
SELF; or that all their words and professions went for naught unless
corroborated by actions. This was human nature, and no more; therefore it
was passed leniently by, and a new lease accorded by the MASTER. But
apart from this there is a danger lurking in the nature of the present cycle
itself. Civilized humanity, however carefully guarded by its invisible
Watchers, the Nirmânakâyas, who watch over our respective races
and nations, is yet, owing to its collective Karma, terribly under the sway
of the traditional opposers of the Nirmânakâyas—the “Brothers
of the Shadow,” embodied and disembodied; and this, as has already been
told you, will last to the end of the first Kali Yuga cycle (1897), and a
few years beyond, as the smaller dark cycle happens to overlap the great one.
Thus, notwithstanding all precautions, terrible secrets are often revealed
to entirely unworthy persons by the efforts of the “Dark Brothers”
and their working on human brains. This is entirely owning to the simple fact
that in certain privileged organisms, vibrations of the primitive truth put
in motion by the Planetary Beings are set up, in what Western philosophy would
term innate ideas, and Occultism “flashes of genius,” * [See “Genius,”
Lucifer. Nov., 1889. p.227] Some such idea based on eternal truth is
awakened, and all that the watchful Powers can do is to prevent its entire
revelation.
Everything
in this Universe of differentiated matter has its two aspects, the light and
the dark side, and these two attributes applied practically, lead the one
to use, the other to abuse.
The
Light and Dark Sides of Nature (Page
489) Every man may become a Botanist without apparent danger to
his fellow-creatures; and many a Chemist who has mastered the science of
essences
knows that every one of them can both heal and kill. Not an ingredient, not
a poison, but can be used for both purposes—aye, from harmless wax to
deadly prussic acid, from the saliva of an infant to that of the cobra di
capella. This every tyro in medicine knows—theoretically, at any rate.
But where is the learned chemist in our day who has been permitted to discover
the “night side” of an attribute of any substance in the three
kingdoms of Science, let alone in the seven of the Occultists? Who of them
has penetrated into its Arcana, into the innermost Essence of things and its
primary correlations? Yet it is this knowledge alone which makes of an Occultist
a genuine practical Initiate, whether he turn out a Brother of Light or a
Brother of Darkness. The essence of that subtle, traceless poison, the most
potent in nature, which entered into the composition of the so-called Medici
and Borgia poisons, if used with discrimination by one well versed in the
septenary degrees of its potentiality on each of the planes accessible to
man on earth—could heal or kill every man in the world; the result depending,
of course, on whether the operator was a Brother of the Light or a Brother
of the Shadow. The former is prevented from doing the good he might, by racial,
national, and individual Karma; the second is impeded in his fiendish work
by the joint efforts of the human “Stones” of the “Guardian
Wall.” [See Voice of the Silence. pp.68 and 94. art 28. Glossary.]
It
is incorrect to think that there exists any special “powder of projection”
or “philosopher’s stone,” or “elixir of life.” The
latter lurks in every flower, in every stone and mineral throughout the globe.
It is the ultimate essence of everything on its way to higher and
higher evolution. As there is no good or evil per se, so there
is neither “elixir of life” nor “elixir of death,” nor
poison, per se, but all this is contained in one and the same universal
Essence, this or the other effect, or result, depending on the degree of its
differentiation and its various correlations. The light side of it
produces life, health, bliss, divine peace, etc; the dark side brings
death, disease, sorrow and strife. This is proven by the knowledge of the
nature of the most violent poisons; of some of them even a large quantity
will produce no evil effect on the organism, whereas a grain of the same poison
kills with (Page
490) the rapidity of lightning; while the same grain, again, altered
by a certain combination, though its quantity remains almost identical, will
heal. The number of the degrees of its differentiation is septenary, as are
the planes of its action, each degree being either beneficent or maleficent
in its effects, according to the system into which it is introduced. He who
is skilled in these degrees is on the high road to practical Adeptship; he
who acts at haphazard—as do the enormous majority of the “Mind
Curers,” whether “Mental” or “Christian Scientists”—is
likely to rue the effects on himself as well as on others. Put on the track
by the example of the Indian Yogis, and of their broadly but incorrectly outlined
practices, which they have only read about, but have have no opportunity to
study—these new sects have rushed headlong and guideless into the practice
of denying and affirming. Thus they have done more harm than
good. Those who are successful owe it to their innate magnetic and healing
powers which very often counteract that which would otherwise be conductive
to much evil. Beware, I say: Satan and the Archangel are more than twins;
they are one body and one mind—Deus est Demon inversus.
Is
the Practice of Concentration Beneficent?
|
Such
is another question often asked. I answer: Genuine concentration and meditation,
conscious and cautious, upon one’s lower self in the light of
the inner divine man and the Pâramitâs, is an excellent thing.
But to “sit for Yoga,” with only a superficial and often distorted
knowledge of the real practice, is almost invariably fatal: for ten to one
the student will either develop mediumistic powers in himself or lose time
and get disgusted both with practice and theory. Before one rushes into such
a dangerous experiment and seeks to go beyond a minute examination of one’s
lower self and its walk in life, or that which is called in our phraseology, “The Chelâ’s Daily Life Ledger,” he would do well
to learn at least the difference between the two aspects of “Magic,”
the White or Divine, and the Black or Devilish, and assure himself that by
“sitting for Yoga,” with no experience, as well as with no guide
to show him the dangers, he does not daily and hourly cross the boundaries
of the Divine to fall into the Satanic. Nevertheless, the way to learn the
difference is very easy; one has only to remember that no Esoteric truths
entirely unveiled will ever be given in public print, in book or magazine.
Nature's
Finer Forces (Page
491) I ask students to turn to the Theosophist of November,
1887. On page 98 they will find the beginning of an excellent article by
Mr.
Râma Prasâd on “Nature’s Finer Forces.” * [The
references to “Nature’s Finer Forces” which follow, have
respect to the eight articles which appeared in the pages of the Theosophist
and not to the fifteen essays and the translation of a chapter of the Shivâgama
which are contained in the book called Nature’s Finer Forces.
The Shivâgama in its details is purely Tântric, and nothing
but harm can result from any practical following of its precepts. I would
most strongly dissuade any student from attempting any of these Hatha Yoga
practices, for he will either ruin himself entirely, or throw himself so far
back that it will be almost impossible to regain the lost ground in this incarnation.
The translation referred to has been considerably expurgated, and even now
is hardly fit for publication. It recommends Black Magic of the worst kind,
and is the very antipodes of spiritual Râja Yoga. Beware, I say.] The
value of this work is not so much in its literary merit, though it gained
its author the gold medal of the Theosophist, as in its exposition
of tenets hitherto concealed in a rare and ancient Sanskrit work on Occultism.
But Mr. Râma Prasâd is not an Occultist, only an excellent Sanskrit
scholar, a university graduate and a man of remarkable intelligence. His essays
are almost entirely based on Tântra works, which, if read indiscriminately
by a tyro in Occultism, will lead to the practice of most unmitigated Black
Magic. Now, since the difference of primary importance between Black and
White
Magic is the object with which it is practised, and that of secondary importance
the nature of the agents used for the production of phenomenal results, the
line of demarcation between the two is very—very thin. The danger
is lessened only by the fact that every Occult book, so-called, is
Occult only in a certain sense: that is, the text is Occult merely by reason
of its blinds. The symbolism has to be thoroughly understood before the reader
can get at the correct sense of the teaching. Moreover, it is never complete,
its several portions each being under a different title, and each containing
a portion of some other work; so that without a key to these no such work
divulges the whole truth. Even the famous Shivâgama, on which
Nature’s Finer Forces is based, “is nowhere to be found
in complete form,” as the author tells us. Thus, like all others, it
treats of only five Tattvas instead of seven as in Esoteric teachings.
Now
the Tattvas being simple, the substratum of the seven forces of Nature,
how
can this be? There are seven forms of Prakriti, as Kapila’s Sânkhya,
the Vishnu Purâna, and other works teach. Prakriti is Nature,
Matter (primordial and elemental); therefore logic demands that the Tattvas
also should be seven. For whether Tattvas mean, as Occultism teaches, “forces
of Nature,” or, as the learned Râma Prâsad explains, “the
substance out of which the universe is formed” and “the power
by which it is sustained,” it is all one; they (Page
492) are Force, Purusha, and Matter, Prakriti. And
if the forms, or rather planes, of the latter are seven, then its forces
must be seven also. In other words, the degrees of the solidity of matter
and the degrees of the power that ensouls it must go hand in hand.
The
Universe is made out of the Tattva, it is sustained by the Tattva, and it
disappears into the Tattva,
says
Shiva, as quoted from the Shivâgama in Nature’s Finer
Forces. This settles the question; if Prakriti is septenary, then the
Tattvas must be seven, for, as said, they are both Substance and Force, or
atomic Matter and the Spirit that ensouls it.
This
is explained here to enable the student to read between the lines of
the so-called
Occult articles on Sanskrit Philosophy by which they must not be misled.
The doctrine of the seven Tattvas (the principles of the Universe and
also of
man ) was held in great sacredness and therefore secrecy, in the days of
old, by the Brâhmans, who have now almost forgotten the teaching. Yet it
is taught to this day in the Schools beyond the Himâlayan Range, though
now hardly remembered or heard of in India except through rare Initiates.
The policy has, however, been changed gradually; Chelâs began to be
taught the broad outlines of it, and at the advent of the T.S. in India,
in
1879, I was ordered to teach it in is exoteric form to one or two. I now
give it out Esoterically.
Knowing
that some students try to follow a system of Yoga in their own fashion, guided
only by the rare hints they find in Theosophical books and magazines, which
must naturally be incomplete, I chose one of the best expositions upon ancient
Occult works, Nature’s Finer Forces, in order to point out how
very easily one can be misled by their blinds.
The
author seems to have been himself deceived. The Tantras read Esoterically
are as full of wisdom as the noblest Occult works. Studied without
a guide
and applied to practice, they may lead to the production of various phenomenal
results, on the moral and physiological planes. But let anyone accept
their
dead-letter rules and practices, let him try with some selfish motive in
view to carry out the rites prescribed therein, and—he is lost.
Followed with pure heart and unselfish devotion merely for the sake
of experiment,
either no results will follow, or such as can only throw back the performer.
The “Seven
Principles” (Page
493) But woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop Occult powers
only to attain earthly benefits or revenge, or to satisfy his ambition; the
separation of the Higher from the Lower Principles and the severing of Buddhi-Manas
from the Tantrist’s personality will speedily follow, the terrible
Karmic results to the dabbler in Magic.
In
the East, in India and China, Soulless men and women are as frequently
met with as in the West, though vice is, in truth, far less developed there
than it is here.
It
is Black Magic and oblivion of their ancestral wisdom that lead them thereunto.
But of this I will speak later, now merely adding: you have to be warned and
know the danger.
Meanwhile,
in view of what follows, the real Occult division of the Principles in their
correspondences with the Tattvas and other minor forces has to be well studied.
About “Principles” and “Aspects”
|
Speaking
metaphysically and philosophically, on strict Esoteric lines, man as a complete
unit is composed of Four basic Principles and their Three Aspects on this
earth. In the semi-esoteric teachings, these Four and Three have been called
Seven Principles, to facilitate the comprehension of the masses.
THE
ETERNAL BASIC PRINCIPLES |
TRANSITORY
ASPECTS
PRODUCED BY THE PRINCIPLES |
1- Atmâ, or
Jiva, "the One Life", which permeates the Monadic Trio. (One
in three and three in One) |
1- Prâna, the
Breath of Life, the same as Nephesh. At the death of a livinb
being, Prâna re-becomes Jiva * |
2- Auric
envelope; because the substratum of the Aura around man is
the universally diffused primordial and pure Akâsha, the
first film on the boundless and shoreless expanse of Jiva, the
immutable Root of all |
2- Linga
Sharira, the Astral Form, the transitory emanation of the Auric
Egg. This form precedes the formation of the living Body, and after
death clings to it, dissipating only with the disappearance of
its last atom (the skeleton excepted). |
3- Buddhi; for
Buddhi is a ray of the Universal Spiritual Soul (ALAYA) |
3-
Lower Manas, the Animal Soul, the reflection or shadow
of the Buddhi-Manas, having the potentialities of both, but conquered
generally
by its association with the Kâma elements. |
4- Manas (the
Higher Ego); for it proceeds from Mahat, the first product or emanation
of Pradhâna, which contains potentially all the Gunas
(attributes). Mahat is Cosmic Intelligence, called the "Great
Principle". [Remember that our reincanating Egos are called
the Mânasaputras, "Sons of Manas" (or Mahat), Intelligence,
Wisdom ] |
*
- Prâna, on earth at any rate, is thus but a mode of life,
a constant cyclic motion from within outwardly and back again, an
out-breathing and in-breathing of the One Life, or Jiva, the synonym
of the Absolute and Unknowable Deity. Prâna is not absolute
life, or Jiva, but its aspect in a world of delusion. In the Theosophist,
May 1888, page 478, Prâna is said to be "one stage
finer than the gross matter of the earth." |
As
the lower man is the combined product of two aspects—physically, of
his Astral Form, and psycho-physiologically of Kâma-Manas—he
is not looked upon even as an aspect, but as an illusion.
The
Auric Egg, on account of its nature and manifold functions, has to
be well
studied. As Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Womb or Egg, contains Brahmâ,
the collective symbol of the Seven Universal Forces, so the Auric Egg contains,
and is directly related to, both the divine and the physical man. In its
essence,
as said, it is eternal; in its constant correlations and transformations,
during the reincarnating progress of the Ego on this earth, it is a kind
of
perpetual motion machine.
As
given out in our second volume, the Egos or Kumâras, incarnating in
man, at the end of the Third Root-Race, are not human Egos of this earth or
plane, but become such only from the moment they ensoul the Animal Man, thus
endowing him with his Higher Mind. Each is a “Breath” or Principle,
called the Human Soul, or Manas, the Mind. As the teachings say:
“Each
is a pillar of light. Having chosen its vehicle, it expanded, surrounding
with an Ãkâshic Aura the human animal, while the Divine (Mânasic)
Principle settled within that human form.”
Ancient
Wisdom teaches us, moreover, that from this first incarnation, the
Lunar Pitris,
who had made men out of their Chhâyâs or Shadows, are absorbed
by this Auric Essence, and a distinct Astral Form is now produced for each
forthcoming personality of the reincarnating series of each Ego.
The
Auric Egg (Page
495) Thus the Auric Egg, reflecting all the thoughts, words and
deeds of man is:
(a)
The preserver of every Karmic record.
(b)
The storehouse of all the good and evil powers in man, receiving and
giving
out at his will—nay, at his very thought—every potentiality which
becomes, then and there, an acting potency: this Aura is the mirror in which
sensitives and clairvoyants sense and perceive the real man, and see him as
he is, not as he appears.
(c)
As it furnished man with his Astral Form, around which the physical
entity
models itself, first as a fœtus, then as a child and man, the astral
growing apace with the human being, so it furnishes him during life, if an
Adept, with his Mâyâvic Rûpa, or Illusion Body, which is
not his Vital-Astral Body; and after death, with his Devachanic Entity
and Kâma Rûpa, or Body of Desire (the Spook). [It is erroneous
to call the fourth human principle “Kâma Rûpa.” It
is no Rûpa” or form at all until after death, but stands for the
Kâmic elements in man, his animal desires and passions, such as anger,
lust, envy, revenge, etc., the progeny of selfishness and matter.]
In
the case of the Devachanic Entity, the Ego, in order to be able to
go into
a state of bliss, as the “I” of its immediately preceding incarnation,
has to be clothed (metaphorically speaking) with the spiritual elements of
the ideas, aspirations and thoughts of the now disembodied personality; otherwise
what is it that enjoys bliss and reward? Surely not the impersonal Ego, the
Divine Individuality. Therefore it must be the good Karmic records of the
deceased, impressed upon the Auric Substance, which furnish the Human Soul
with just enough of the spiritual elements of the ex-personality, to enable
it to still believe itself that body from which it has just been severed,
and to receive its fruition, during a more or less prolonged period of “spiritual
gestation.” For Devachan is a “spiritual gestation” within
an ideal matrix state, a birth of the Ego into the world of effects, which
ideal, subjective birth precedes its next terrestrial birth, the latter being
determined by its bad Karma, into the world of causes.[Here the world of
effects
is the Devachanic state, and the world of causes, earth life.]
In
the case of the Spook, the Kâma Rûpa is furnished from the animal
dregs of the Auric Envelope, with its daily Karmic record of animal life,
so full of animal desires and selfish aspirations. [It is this Kâma
Rûpa alone that can materialize in mediumistic séances,
which occasionally happens when it is not the Astral Double or Linga Sharîra,
of the medium himself which appears. How, then, can this vile bundle of passions
and terrestrial lusts, resurrected by, and gaining consciousness only through
the organism of the medium, be accepted as a “departed angel” or
the Spirit of a once human body? As well say of the microbic pest which fastens
on a person, that it is a sweet departed angel.]
(Page
496) Now the Linga Sharira remains with the Physical Body, and
fades out along with it. An astral entity then has to be created, a new Linga
Sharîra provided, to become the bearer of all the past Tanhas and future
Karma. How is this accomplished? The mediumistic Spook, the “departed
angel,” fades out and vanishes also in its turn [This is accomplished
in more or less time, according to the degree in which the personality (whose
dregs it now is) was spiritual or material. If spirituality prevailed, then
the Larva, or Spook, will fade out very soon; but if the personality was very
materialistic, the Kâma Rûpa may last for centuries and—in
some, though very exceptional cases—even survive with the help of some
of its scattered Skandhas, which are all transformed in time into Elementals.
See the Key to Theosophy, pp. 141 et
seq., in which it was impossible to go into details, but where the Skandhas
are spoken.] as an entity or full image of the personality that was, and
leaves
in the Kâmalokic world of effects only the record of its misdeeds and
sinful thoughts and acts, known in the phraseology of Occultists as Tânhic
or human Elementals. Entering into the composition of the Astral Form of
the
new body, into which the Ego, upon its quitting the Devachanic state, is
to enter according to Karmic decree, the Elementals form that new astral
entity
which is born within the Auric Envelope, and of which it is often said:
Bad
Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan, with its army of Skandhas. [Key
to Theosophy. p.141.]
For
no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended, than the Ego is indissolubly
united with (or rather follows in the track of) the new Astral Form. Both
are Karmically propelled towards the family or woman from whom is to be born
the animal chila chosen by Karma to become the vehicle of the Ego which
has just awakened from the Devachanic state. Then the new Astral Form,
composed partly of the pure Akâshic Essence of the Auric Egg, and partly
of the terrestrial elements of the punishable sins and misdeeds of the last
personality, is drawn into the woman. Once there, Nature models the fœtus
of flesh around the Astral, out of the growing materials of the male seed
in the female soil. Thus grows out of the essence of a decayed seed the fruit
or eidolon of the dead seed, the physical fruit producing in its turn within
itself another, and other seeds for future plants.
And
now we may return to the Tattvas, and see what they mean in nature and man,
showing thereby the great danger of indulging in fancy, amateur Yoga, without
knowing what we are about.
Five
or Seven Tattvas (Page
497)
THE
TÃTTVIC CORRELATIONS AND MEANING
|
In
Nature, then, 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. I have not exhausted its
nomenclature and proofs in the earlier volumes, yet enough is given to show
every thinker that the facts adduced are no coincidences, but very weighty
testimony.
There
are several reasons why only five Tattvas are given in the Hindu systems.
One of these I have already mentioned; another is that owing to our
having
reached only the Fifth Race, and being (so far as Science is able to ascertain)
endowed with only five senses, the two remaining senses that are still
latent
in man can have their existence proven only on phenomenal evidence, which
to the Materialist is no evidence at all. The five physical senses
are made
to correspond with the five lower Tattvas, the two yet undeveloped senses
in man; and the two forces, or Tattvas, forgotten by Brâhmans and still
unrecognized by Science, being so subjective and the highest of them so sacred,
that they can only be recognized by, and known through, the highest Occult
Sciences. It is easy to see that these two Tattvas and the two senses (the
sixth and the seventh) correspond to the two highest human principles, Buddhi
and the Auric Envelope, impregnated with the light of Atmâ. Unless
we open in ourselves, by Occult training, the sixth and seventh senses, we
can
never comprehend correctly their corresponding types. Thus the statement
in Nature’s Finer Forces that, in the Tâttvic scale, the highest
Tattva of all is Ãkâsha * [Following Shivâgama, the
said author enumerates the correspondences in this wise: Ãkâsha,
Ether, is followed by Vâyu, Gas: Tejas, Heat: Ãpas, Liquid: and
Prithivî, Solid.] (followed by [only] four, each of which becomes grosser
than its predecessor), if made from the Esoteric standpoint, is erroneous.
For once Ãkâsha, an almost homogeneous and certainly universal
Principle, is translated Ether, then Ãkâsha is dwarfed and limited
to our visible Universe, for assuredly it is not the Ether of Space. Ether,
whatever Modern Science makes of it, is differentiated Substance; Ãkâsha,
having no attributes save one—SOUND,
of which it is the substratum—is no substance even exoterically
and in the minds of some Orientalists, [See Fitz-Edward Hall’s notes
on the Vishnu Purânas.] but rather Chaos, or the Great Spatial
Void. ‡ [The pair which we refer to as the One Life, the Root of All,
and Ãkâsha in its pre-differentiating period answers to the Brahma
(neuter) and Aditi of some Hindus, and stands in the same relation as the
Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântins.]
(Page
498) Esoterically, Ãkâsha alone is Divine Space,
and becomes Ether only on the lowest and last plane, or our visible Universe
and Earth. In this case the blind is in the word “attribute,”
which is said to be Sound. But Sound is no attribute of Ãkasha , but
its primary correlation, its primordial manifestation, the LOGOS, or Divine
Ideation made WORD,
and that “WORD”
made “Flesh.” Sound may be considered an “attribute”
of Ãkâsha only on the condition of anthropomorphizing the latter.
It is not a characteristic of it, though it is certainly as innate in it as
the idea “I am I” is innate in our thoughts.
Occultism
teaches that Ãkâsha contains and includes the seven Centres of
Force, therefore the six Tattvas, of which it is the seventh, or rather their
synthesis. But if Ãkâsha be taken, as we believe it is in this
case, to represent only the exoteric idea, then the author is right; because,
seeing that Ãkâsha is universally omnipresent, following the
Paurânic limitation, for the better comprehension of our infinite
intellects, he places its commencement only beyond the four planes of
our Earth Chain, [See above. i. diagram. p.221.] the two higher
Tattvas being as concealed to the average mortal as the sixth and seventh
senses are to the materialistic mind.
Therefore,
while Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy generally speak of five Tattvas only,
Occultists name seven, thus making them correspond with every septenary in
Nature. The Tattvas stand in the same order as the seven macro- and micro-cosmic
Forces: and as taught in Esotericism, are as follows:
(1)
ÃDI
TATTVA, the primordial universal Force, issuing at the beginning of
manifestation, or of the “creative” period, from the eternal immutable
SAT, the substratum of ALL. It corresponds with the Auric Envelope or Brahmâ’s
Egg, which surrounds every globe, as well as every man, animal and thing.
It is the vehicle containing potentially everything—Spirit and Substance,
Force and Matter. Ãdi Tattva, in Esoteric Cosmogony, is the Force
which we refer to as proceeding from the First or Unmanifested LOGOS.
(2)
ANUPÃDAKA
TATTVA, [Anupâdaka, Opapatika in Pâli, means the “parentless,” born
without father or mother, from itself, as a transformation, e.g., the
God Brahmâ sprung from the Lotus (the symbol of the Universe) that
grows from Vishnu’s navel, Vishnu typifying eternal and limitless Space,
and Brahmâ the Universe and LOGOS: the mythical Buddha is also born
from a Lotus. ] the first differentiation on the plane of being—the
first being an ideal one—or that which is born by transformation from
something higher than itself. With the Occultists, this Force proceeds from
the SECOND
LOGOS.
The
Tattvas (Page
499) (3) ÃKÃSHA
TATTVA, this is the point from which all exoteric Philosophies
and Religions start. Ãkâsha Tattva is explained in them as Etheric
Force, Ether. Hence Jupiter, the “highest” God, was named after
Pater Æther; Indra, once the highest God in India, is the etheric or
heavenly expanse, and so with Uranus, etc. The Christian biblical God, also,
is spoken of as the Holy Ghost, Pneuma, rarefied wind or air. This the Occultists
call the Force of the Third LOGOS,
the Creative Force in the already Manifested Universe.
(4)
VÃYU
TATTVA, the aërial plane where substance is gaseous.
(5)
TAIJAS
TATTVA, the plane of our atmosphere, from tejas, luminous.
(6)
ÃPAS
TATTVA, watery or liquid substance or force.
(7)
PRITHIVÎ TATTVA, solid earthly substance, the terrestrial spirit or force, the
lowest of all.
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.
Now,
what I have to say here is addressed especially to those members who
are anxious
to develop powers by “sitting for Yoga.” You have seen, from what
has been already said, that in the development of Râja Yoga, no extant
works made public are of the least good; they can at best give inklings of
Hatha Yoga, something that may develop mediumship at best, and in the worst
case—consumption. If those who practice “meditation,” and
try to learn “the Science of Breath,” will read attentively Nature’s
Finer Forces, they will find that it is by utilizing the five Tattvas
only that this dangerous science is acquired. For in the exoteric Yoga Philosophy,
and the Hatha Yoga practice, Ãkâsha Tattva is placed in the head
(or physical brain) of man; Tejas Tattva in the shoulders; Vâyu Tattva
in the navel (the seat of all the phallic Gods, “creators” of
the universe and man); Ãpas Tattva in the knees’ and Prithivî
Tattva in the feet. Hence the two higher Tattvas and their correspondences
are ignored and excluded; and, as these are the chief factors in Râja
Yoga, no spiritual or intellectual phenomena of a high nature can take place.
The best results obtainable will be physical phenomena and no more. As the
“Five Breaths,” or rather the five states of the human breath,
in Hatha Yoga correspond to the above terrestrial planes and colours,
what spiritual results can be obtained? On the contrary they are the very
reverse of the plane of Spirit, or the higher macrocosmic plane, reflected
(Page
500) as they are upside down, in the Astral Light. This is proven
in the Tântra work, Shivâgama, itself. Let us compare.
First
of all, remember that the Septenary of visible and also invisible Nature is
said in Occultism to consist of the three (and four) Fires, which
grow into the forty-nine Fires. This shows that as the Macrocosm is divided
into
seven great planes of various differentiations of Substance—from the
spiritual or subjective, to the fully objective or material, from Akâsha
down to the sin-laden atmosphere of our earth—so, in its turn, each
of these great planes has three aspects, based on four Principles, as already
shown above. This seems to be quite natural, as even modern Science has her
three states of matter and what are generally called the “critical” or
intermediate states between the solid, the fluidic, and the gaseous.
Now,
the Astral Light is not a universally diffused stuff, but pertains
only to
our earth and all other bodies of the system on the same plane of matter
with it. Our Astral Light is, so to speak, the Linga Sharîra of our earth;
only instead of being its primordial prototype, as in the case of our Chhâyâ,
or Double, it is the reverse. Human and animal bodies grow and develop on
the model of their antetypal Doubles; whereas the Astral Light is born from
the terrene emanations, grows and develops after its prototypal parent, and
in its treacherous waves everything from the upper planes and from the lower
solid plane, the earth, both ways, is reflected reversed. Hence the
confusion of its colours and sounds in the clairvoyance and clairaudience
of the sensitive who trusts to its records, be that sensitive a Hatha Yogî
or a medium. The following parallel between the Esoteric and the Tântra
Tables of the Tattvas in relation to Sounds and Colours shows this very clearly:
(Page
501)
Esoteric
and Tântra Tables of the Tattvas |
Esoteric
Principles, Tattvas or Forces, and their Correspondences with the Human
Body, States of Matter and Colour |
Tântra
Tattvas and their Correspondences, with the Human Body, States of matter
and Colour |
Tattvas |
Principles |
States
of Matter |
Parts
of Body |
Colour
|
Tattvas |
States
of Matter |
Parts
of Body |
Colour |
(a)
Adi |
Auric
Egg |
Priomardial,
Spiritual Substance; Akâsha; Substratum of the Spirit of Ether |
Envelopes
the whole body and penetrates it. Reciprocal emanation, endosmotic and
exosmotic |
Synthesis
of all Colours. Blue
|
(a)
Ignored |
Ignored |
Ignored |
Ignored |
(b)
Anupâdaka |
Buddhi |
Spiritual
Essence, or Spirit; "Primordial Waters of the Deep" |
Third
Eye or Pineal Gland |
Yellow |
(b)
Ignored |
Ignored |
Ignored |
Ignored |
(c)
Alaya or Akâsha |
Manas
Ego
|
Ether
of Space or Akâsha in its third differentiation. Critical state
of Vapour |
Head |
Indigo |
(c)
Akâsha |
Ether |
Head |
Black
or Colourless |
(d)
Vâyu |
Kâma
Manas |
Critical
state of Matter |
Throat
or Navel |
Green |
(d)
Vâyu |
Gas |
Navel |
Blue |
(e)
Tejas |
Kâma
(Rûpa) |
Essence
of gross Matter; corresponds to Ice |
Shoulders
and Arms to Thighs |
Red |
(e)
Tejas |
Head
(?) |
Shoulders |
Red |
(f)
Apas |
Linga
Sharira |
Gross
Ether or Liquid - Air |
Thighs
to Knees |
Violet
|
(f)
Apas |
Liquid |
Knees |
White |
(g)
Prithivi |
Living
Body in Prâna or animal life |
Solid
and Critical State |
Knees
to feet |
Orange-Red
* |
(g)
Prithivi |
Solid |
Feet |
Yellow
** |
*
One may see at a glance how reversed are the colours of the Tattvas,
reflected in the Astral Light, when we find the Indigo called black;
the green blue; the violet, white; and the orange yellow. |
**
The colours, I repeat, do not here follow the prismatic scale - red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo nd violet - because this scale
is
a false reflection, a true Mâyâ; whereas our esoteric scale
is that of the spiritual spheres, the seven planes of the Macrocosm. |
(Page
502) Such, then, is the Occult Science on which the modern Ascetics
and Yogîs of India base their Soul development and powers. They are
known as the Hatha Yogîs. Now, the science of Hatha Yoga rests upon
the “suppression of breath,” or Prânâyâma? Literally
translated, it means the “death of (vital) breath.” Prâna,
as said, is not Jîva, the eternal fount of life immortal; nor is it
connected in any way with Pranava, as some think, for Pranava is a synonym
of AUM in a mystic sense. As much as has ever been taught publicly and clearly
about it is to be found in Nature’s Finer Forces. If such directions,
however, are followed, they can only lead to Black Magic and mediumship.
Several
impatient Chelâs, whom we know personally in India, went in for the
practice of Hatha Yoga, notwithstanding our warnings. Of these, two developed
consumption, of which one died; others became almost idiotic; another committed
suicide; and one developed into a regular Tântrika, a Black Magician,
but his career, fortunately for himself, was cut short by death.
The
science of the Five Breaths, the moist, the fiery, the airy, etc.,
has a twofold
significance and two applications. The Tântrikas take it literally,
as relating to the regulation of the vital, lung breath, whereas the ancient
Râja Yogîs understood it as referring to the mental or “will”
breath, which alone leads to the highest clairvoyant powers, to the function
of the Third Eye, and the acquisition of the true Râja Yoga Occult powers.
The difference between the two is enormous. The former, as shown, use the
five lower Tattvas; the latter begin by using the three higher alone, for
mental and will development, and the rest only when they have completely mastered
the three; hence, they use only one (Ãkâsha Tattva) out of the
Tântric five. As well said in the above stated work, “Tattvas
are the modifications of Svara.” Now, the Svara is the root of all
sound, the substratum of the Pythagorean music of the spheres, Svara being
that which
is beyond Spirit, in the modern acceptation of the word, the Spirit
within Spirit, or as very properly translated, the “current of the life-wave,”
the emanation of the One Life. The Great Breath spoken of in our first volume
in ÃTMÃ, the etymology of which is “eternal motion.” Now
while the ascetic Chelâ of our school, for his mental development,
follows carefully the process of the evolution of the Universe, that is, proceeds
from universals to particulars, the Hatha Yogî reverses the conditions
and begins by sitting for the suppression of his (vital) breath.
Hatha
and Râja Yoga (Page
503) And if, as Hindu philosophy teaches, at the beginning of
kosmic evolution, “Svara threw itself into the form of Ãkâsha,”
and thence successively into the forms of Vâyu (air) Agni (fire), Apas
(water), and Prithivî (solid matter), [See Theosophist,
February, 1888, p.276] then it stands to reason that we have to begin
by the higher supersensuous Tattvas. The Râja Yogî does
not descend on the planes of substance beyond Sûkshma (subtle matter),
while the Hatha Yogî develops and uses his powers only on the material
plane. Some Tântrikas locate the three Nadîs, Sushumnâ,
Îdâ and Pingalâ, in the medulla oblongata, the central line
of which they call Sushumnâ, and the right and left divisions, Pingalâ
and Îdâ, and also in the heart, to the divisions of which they
apply the same names. The Trans-Himâlayan school of the ancient Indian
Râja Yogîs, with which the modern Yogîs of India have little
to do, locates Sushumnâ, the chief seat of these three Nadîs,
in the central tube of the spinal cord, and Îdâ and Pingalâ
on its left and right sides. Sushumnâ is the Brahmadanda. It is that
canal (of the spinal cord), of the use of which Physiology knows no more than
it does of the spleen and the pineal gland. Îdâ and Pingalâ are
simply the sharps and flats of that Fa of human nature, the keynote
and the middle key in the scale of the septenary harmony of the Principles,
which, when struck in a proper way, awakens the sentries on either side,
the
spiritual Manas and the physical Kâma, and subdues the lower through
the higher. But this effect had to be produced by the exercise of will-power,
not through the scientific or trained suppression of the breath. Take a transverse
section of the spinal region, and you will find sections across three columns,
one of which columns transmits the volitional orders, and a second a life
current of Jîva—not of Prâna, which animates the body of
man—during what is called Samâdhi and like states.
He
who has studied both systems, the Hatha and Râja Yoga, finds an enormous
difference between the two: one is purely psycho-physiological, the other
purely psycho-spiritual. The Tântrists do not seem to go higher than
the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect the Tattvas;
and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the Mûladhâra
Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent of their
efforts
towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and five Tattvas are
chiefly concerned
(Page 504) with the prostatic, epigastric, cardiac, and laryngeal
plexuses. Almost ignoring the Ãjñâ, they are positively
ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus. But with the followers of the
old school it is different. We begin with the mastery of that organ which
is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and called by Western
Anatomists the Pituitary Body. In the series of the objective cranial organs,
corresponding to the subjective Tâttvic principles, it stands to the
Third Eye (Pineal Gland) as Manas stands to Buddhi; the arousing and awakening
of the Third Eye must be performed by that vascular organ, that insignificant
little body, of which, once again, Physiology knows nothing at all. The one
is the Energizer of Will, the other that of Clairvoyant Perception.
Those
who are Physicians, Physiologists, Anatomists, etc., will understand me better
than the rest in the following explanation.
Now,
as to the functions of the Pineal Gland, or Conarium and of the Pituitary
Body, we find no explanations vouchsafed by the standard authorities. Indeed,
on looking through the works of the greatest specialists, it is curious to
observe how much confused ignorance on the human vital economy, physiological
as well as psychological, is openly confessed. The following is all that can
be gleaned from the authorities upon these two important organs.
(1)
The Pineal Gland, or Conarium, is a rounded, oblong body, from three to four
lines long, of a deep reddish grey, connected with the posterior part of the
third ventricle of the brain. It is attached at its base by two thin medullary
cords, which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami. Remember that the latter
are found by the best Physiologists to be the organs of reception and condensation
of the most sensitive and sensorial incitations from the periphery of the
body (according to Occultism, from the periphery of the Auric Egg, which is
our point of communication with the higher universal planes). We are further
told that the two bands of the Optic Thalami, which are inflected to meet
each other, unite on the median line, where they become the two peduncles
of the Pineal Gland.
(2)
The Pituitary Body, or Hypophysis Cerebri, is a small and hard organ, about
six lines broad, three long and three high. It is formed of an anterior bean-shaped,
and of a posterior and more rounded lobe, which are uniformly united. Its
component parts, we are told, are almost identical with those of the Pineal
Gland; yet not the slightest connection can be traced between the two centres.
To this, however, Occultists take exception; they know that there is
a connection, and this even anatomically and physically.
The
Awakening of the Seventh Sense (Page
505) Dissectors, on the other hand, have to deal with corpses;
and, as they themselves admit, brain matter, of all tissues and organs, collapses
and changes form the soonest—in fact, a few minutes after death. When,
then, the pulsating life which expanded the mass of the brain, filled all
its cavities and energized all its organs, vanishes, the cerebral mass shrinks
into a sort of pasty condition, and once open passages become closed. But
the contraction and even interblending of parts in this process of shrinking,
and the subsequent pasty state of the brain, do not imply that there is no
connection between these two organs before death. In point of fact, as Professor
Owen has shown, a connection as objective as a groove and tube exists in the
crania of the human fœtus and of certain fishes. When a man is in his
normal condition, an Adept can see the golden Aura pulsating in both the centres,
like the pulsation of the heart, which never ceases throughout life. This
motion, however, under the abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant
faculties, becomes intensified, and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory
or swinging action. The arc of the pulsation of the Pituitary Body mounts
upward, more and more, until, just as when the electric current strikes some
solid object the current finally strikes the Pineal Gland, and the dormant
organ is awakened and set all glowing with the pure Ãkâshic
Fire. This is the psycho-physiological illustration of two organs on the
physical
plane, which are, respectively, the concrete symbols of the metaphysical
concepts called Manas and Buddhi. The latter, in order to become conscious
on this
plane, needs the more differentiated fire of Manas: but once the sixth
sense has awakened the seventh, the light which radiates from this seventh
sense illumines the fields of infinitude. For a brief space of time man becomes
omniscient; the Past and the Future, Space and Time, disappear and become
for him the Present. If an Adept, he will store the knowledge he thus gains
in his physical memory, and nothing, save the crime of indulging in Black
Magic, can obliterate the remembrance of it. If only a Chelâ, portions
alone of the whole truth will impress themselves on his memory, and he will
have to repeat the process for years, never allowing one speck of impurity
to stain him mentally or physically, before he becomes a fully initiated
Adept.
It
may seem strange, almost incomprehensible, that the chief success of
Gupta
Vidyâ, or Occult Knowledge, should depend upon flashes (Page
506) of clairvoyance, and that the latter should depend in man
on two such insignificant excrescences in his cranial cavity, “two
horny warts covered with grey sand (acervulus cerebri),” as
expressed by Bichat in his Anatomic Descriptive; yet so it is. But
this sand is not to be despised; nay, in truth, it is only this landmark
of the internal,
independent activity of the Conarium that prevents Physiologists from classifying
it with absolutely useless atrophied organs, the relics of a previous and
now utterly changed anatomy of man during some period of his unknown evolution.
This “sand” is very mysterious and baffles the inquiry of every
Materialist. In the cavity on the anterior surface of this gland, in young
persons, and in its substance, in people of advanced years, is found
A
yellowish substance, semi-transparent, brilliant and hard, the diameter of
which does not exceed half a line. [Sœmmerring, De Acervulo
Cerebri, vol. ii. p.322.]
Such
is the acervulus cerebri.
This
brilliant “sand” is the concretion of the gland itself, so say
the Physiologists. Perhaps not, we answer. The Pineal Gland is that which
the Eastern Occultist calls Devâksha, the “Divine Eye.”
To this day, it is the chief organ of spirituality in the human brain, the
seat of genius, the magical Sesame uttered by the purified will of the Mystic,
which opens all the avenues of truth for him who knows how to use it. The
Esoteric Science teaches that Manas, the Mind Ego, does not accomplish its
full union with the child before he is six or seven years of age , before
which period, even according to the canon of the Church and Law, no child
is deemed responsible. [In the Greek Eastern Church no child is allowed to
go to confession before the age of seven after which he is considered to have
reached the age of reason.] Manas becomes a prisoner, one with the body, only
at that age. Now a strange thing was observed in several thousand cases by
the famous German anatomist, Wengel. With a few extremely rare exceptions,
this “sand,” or golden-coloured concretion, is found only in
subjects after the completion of their seventh year. In the case of fools
these calculi
are very few indeed; in congenital idiots they are completely absent. Morgagni,
[De Caus. Ep ., vol.xii.] Grading, [Advers. Med., ii.322.] and
Gum [De Lapillis Glandulæ Pinealis in Quinque. Ment. Alien. 1753.]
were wise men in their generation, and are wise men today, since the are the
only Physiologists, so far who connect the calculi with mind.
The
Master Chakras (Page
507) For, sum up the facts, that they are absent in young children,
in very old people, and in idiots, and the unavoidable conclusion will be
that they are connected with mind.
Now
since every mineral, vegetable and other atom is only a concretion
of crystallized
Spirit, or Ãkâsha, the Universal Soul, why, asks Occultism,
should the fact that these concretions of the Pineal Gland, are, upon analysis,
found
to be composed of animal matter, phosphate of lime and carbonate, serve as
an objection to the statement that they are the result of the work of mental
electricity upon surrounding matter?
Our
seven Chakras are all situated in the head, and it is these Master
Chakras
which govern and rule the seven (for there are seven) principal plexuses
in the body, besides the forty-two minor ones to which Physiology refuses
that
name. The fact that no microscope can detect such centres on the objective
plane goes for nothing; no microscope has ever yet detected, nor ever
will,
the difference between the motor and sensory nerve-tubes, the conductors
of all our bodily and psychic sensations; and yet logic alone would
show that
such difference exists. And if the term plexus, in this application, does
not represent to the Western mind the idea conveyed by the term of
the Anatomist,
then call them Chakras or Padmas, or the Wheels, the Lotus Heart and Petals.
Remember that Physiology, imperfect as it is, shows septenary groups
all over
the exterior and interior of the body; the seven head orifices, the seven “organs” at
the base of the brain, the seven plexuses, the pharyngeal, laryngeal, cavernous,
cardiac, epigastric, prostatic, and sacral, etc.
When
the time comes, advanced students will be given the minute details
about the
Master Chakras and taught the use of them; till then, less difficult subjects
have to be learned. If asked whether the seven plexuses, or Tâttvic
centres of action, are the centres where the seven Rays of the Logos
vibrate,
I answer in the affirmative, simply remarking that the rays of the Logos
vibrate in every atom, for the matter of that.
In
these volumes it is almost revealed that the “Sons of Fohat” are
the personified Forces known in a general way as Motion, Sound, Heat,
Light,
Cohesion, Electricity or Electric Fluid, and Nerve-Force or Magnetism. This
truth, however, cannot teach the student to attune and moderate the
Kundalini
of the cosmic plane with the vital Kundalini, (Page
508) the Electric Fluid with the Nerve-Force, and unless he does
so, he is sure to kill himself; for the one travels at the rate of about
90
feet, and the other at the rate of 115,000 leagues a second. The seven Shaktis
respectively called Para Shakti, Jñâna Shakti, etc., are synonymous
with the “Sons of Fohat,” for they are their female aspects.
At the present stage, however, as their names would only be confusing to
the
Western student, it is better to remember the English equivalents as translated
above. As each Force is septenary, their sum is, of course, forty-nine.
The
question now mooted in Science, whether a sound is capable of calling forth
impressions of light and colour in addition to its natural sound impressions,
has been answered by Occult Science ages ago. Every impulse or vibration of
a physical object producing a certain vibration of the air, that is, causing
the collision of physical particles, the sound of which is capable of affecting
the ear produces at the same time a corresponding flash of light, which will
assume some particular colour. For, in the realm of hidden Forces, an audible
sound is but a subjective colour; and a perceptible colour, but an inaudible
sound; both proceed from the same potential substance, which Physicists
used to call ether, and now refer to under various other names; but which
we call plastic, through invisible SPACE. This may appear a paradoxical hypothesis,
but facts are there to prove it. Complete deafness, for instance, does not
preclude the possibility of discerning sounds; medical science has several
cases on record which prove that these sounds are received by, and conveyed
to, the patient’s organ of sight, through the mind, under the form
of chromatic impressions. The very fact that the intermediate tones of the
chromatic
musical scale were formerly written in colours shows an unconscious reminiscence
of the ancient Occult teaching that colour and sound are two out of the seven
correlative aspects, on our plane, of one and the same thing, viz., Nature’s
first differentiated Substance.
Here
is an example of the relation of colour to vibration well worthy of
the attention
of Occultists. Not only adepts and advanced Chelâs, but also the lower
order of Psychics, such as clairvoyants and psychometrists, can perceive
a
psychic Aura of various colours around every individual, corresponding to
the temperament of the person, within it. In other words, the mysterious
records
within the Auric Egg are not the heirloom of trained Adepts alone, but sometimes
also of natural Psychics.
The
Human Harp (Page
509) Every human passion, every thought and quality, is indicated
in this Aura by corresponding colours and shades of colour, and certain of
these are sensed and felt rather than perceived. The best of such Psychics,
as shown by Galton, can also perceive colours produced by the vibrations
of
musical instruments, every note suggesting a different colour. As a string
vibrates and gives forth an audible note, so the nerves of the human body
vibrate and thrill in correspondence with various emotions under the general
impulse of the circulating vitality of Pranâ, thus producing undulations
in the psychic Aura of the person which result in chromatic effects.
The
human nervous system as a whole, then, may be regarded as an Æolian
Harp, responding to the impact of the vital force, which is no abstraction,
but a dynamic reality, and manifests the subtlest shades of the individual
character in colour phenomena. If these nerve vibrations are made intense
enough and brought into vibratory relation with an astral element, the result
is—sound. How, then, can anyone doubt the relation between the microcosmic
and macrocosmic forces?
And
now that I have shown that the Tântric works as explained by Râma
Prâsad, and other Yoga treatises of the same character which have appeared
from time to time in Theosophical journals—for note well that those
of true Râja Yoga are never published—tend to Black Magic and
are most dangerous to take for guides in self-training, I hope that students
will be on their guard.
For,
considering that no two authorities up to the present day agree as to the
real location of the Chakras and Padmas in the body, and, seeing that the
colours of the Tattvas as given are reversed, e.g.:
(a) Ãkâsha
is made black or colourless, whereas, corresponding, to Manas, it is
indigo;
(b)
Vâyu is made blue, whereas, corresponding to the lower Manas,
it is green.
(c) Ãpas
is made white, whereas, corresponding to the Astral Body, it is violet,
with a silver, moonlike white substratum;
Tejas,
red, is the only colour given correctly—from such considerations,
I say, it is easy to see that these disagreements are dangerous blinds.
Further,
the practice of the Five Breaths results in deadly injury, both physiologically
and psychically, as already shown. It is indeed that which it is called,
Prânâyâma,
or the death of the breath, for it results, for the practiser, in death—in
moral death always, and in physical death very frequently.
On
Exoteric “Blinds” and “The Death of the Soul”
|
(Page
510) As a corollary to this, and before going into still more abstruse
teachings, I must redeem the promise already given. I have to illustrate by
tenets you already know, the awful doctrine of personal annihilation. Banish
from your minds all that you have hitherto read in such works as Esoteric
Buddhism, and thought you understood, of such hypotheses as the eighth
sphere and the moon, and that man shares a common ancestor with the ape. Even
the details occasionally given out by myself in the Theosophist and
Lucifer were nothing like the whole truth, but only broad general
ideas, hardly touched upon in their details. Certain passages, however, give
out
hints, especially my foot-notes on articles translated from Êliphas
Lévi’s Letters on Magic. [See “Stray Thoughts on
Death and Satan” in the Theosophist, vol. iii, No.1: also “Fragments
of Occult Truth,” vols.iii, and iv.]
Nevertheless,
personal immortality is conditional, for there are such things as “soulless
men,” a teaching barely mentioned, although it is spoken of even in Isis Unveiled; † [Op. cit. ii.368. et seq.]
and there is an Avîchi, rightly called Hell, though it has no connection
with, or similitude to, the good Christian’s Hell, either geographically
or psychically. The truth known to Occultists and Adepts in every age could
not be given out to a promiscuous public: hence, though almost every mystery
of Occult Philosophy lies half concealed in Isis and the two earlier
volumes of the present work, I had no right to amplify or correct the details
of others. Readers may now compare those four volumes and such books as Esoteric
Buddhism with the diagrams and explanations in these Papers, and see for
themselves.
Paramâtmâ,
the Spiritual Sun, may be thought of as outside the human Auric Egg, as it
is also outside the Macrocosmic or Brahmâ’s Egg. Why? Because,
though every particle and atom are, so to speak, cemented with and soaked
through by this Paramâtmic essence, yet it is wrong to call it a “human”
or even a “universal” Principle, for the term is very likely to
give rise to naught but an erroneous idea of the philosophical and purely
metaphysical concept; it is not a Principle, but the cause of every Principle,
the latter term being applied by Occultists only to its shadow—the
Universal Spirit that ensouls the boundless Kosmos whether within or beyond
Space and
Time.
The
Duality in Manas (Page
511) Buddhi serves as a vehicle for that Paramâtmic shadow.
This Buddhi is universal, and so also is the human Ãtmâ. Within
the Auric Egg is the macrocosmic pentacle of
LIFE, Prâna, containing within itself the pentagram which represents
man. The universal pentacle must be pictured with its point soaring upwards,
the sign of White Magic—in the human pentacle it is the lower limbs
which are upward, forming the “Horns of Satan,” as the Christian
Kabbalists call them. This is the symbol of Matter, that of the personal man,
and the recognized pentacle of the Black Magician. For this reversed pentacle
does not stand only for Kâma the fourth Principle exoterically, but
it also represents physical man, the animal of flesh with its desires and
passions.
Now,
mark well, in order to understand that which follows, that Manas may
be pictured
as an upper triangle connected with the lower Manas by a thin line which
binds the two together. This is the Antahkarana, 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.” This thinking
Manu alone is that which reincarnates. In truth and in nature, the two Minds,
the spiritual and the physical or animal, are one, but separates into two
at reincarnation. For while that portion of the Divine which goes to animate
the personality, consciously separating itself, like a dense but pure shadow,
from the Divine Ego, [The essence of the Divine Ego is “pure flame,”
an entity to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken:
it cannot, therefore, be diminished, even by countless numbers of lower minds,
detached from it like flames from a flame. This is in answer to an objection
by an Esotericist who asked whence was that inexhaustible essence of one and
the same Individuality which was called upon to furnish a human intellect
for every new personality in which it is incarnated.] wedges itself into the
brain and the senses [The brain, or thinking machinery, is not only in the
head, but, as every physiologist who is not quote a materialist will tell
you, every organ in man, heart, liver, lungs, etc., down to every nerve and
muscle, has, so to speak, its own distinct brain or thinking apparatus. As
our brain has naught to do in the guidance of the collective and individual
work of every organ in us, what is that which guides each so unerringly in
its incessant functions: that makes these struggle, and that too with disease,
throws it off and acts, each of them, even to the smallest, not in a clock-work
manner as alleged by some materialists (for, at the slightest disturbance
or breakage the clock stops), but as an entity endowed with instinct? To say
it is Nature is to say nothing, if it is not the enunciation of a fallacy;
for Nature after all is but a name for these very same functions, the sum
of the qualities and attributes, physical, mental, etc., in the universe and
man, the total of agencies and forces guided by intelligent laws.] of the
fœtus, at the completion of it seventh month, the Higher Manas does
not unite itself with the child before the completion of the first seven
years
of its life. This detached essence, or rather the reflection or shadow of
the Higher Manas, becomes, as the (Page
512) child grows, a distinct thinking Principle in man, its chief
agent being the physical brain. No wonder the Materialists, who perceive only
this “rational soul,” or mind, will not disconnect it with
the brain and matter. But Occult Philosophy has ages ago solved the problem
of mind, and discovered the duality of Manas. The Divine Ego tends with its
point upwards towards Buddhi, and the human Ego gravitates downwards, immersed
in Matter, connected with its higher, subjective half only by the Antahkarana.
As its derivation suggests, this is the only connecting link during life between
the two minds—the higher consciousness of the Ego and the human intelligence
of the lower mind.
To
understand this abstruse metaphysical doctrine fully and correctly,
one has
to be thoroughly impressed with an idea, which I have in vain endeavoured
to impart to Theosophists at large, namely, the great axiomatic truth
that
the only eternal and living Reality is that which the Hindus call Paramâtmâ and
Parabrahman. This is the one ever-existing Root Essence, immutable and unknowable
to our physical senses, but manifest and clearly perceptible to
our spiritual natures. Once imbued with that basic idea and the further conception
that if It is omnipresent, universal and eternal, like abstract Space itself,
we must have emanated from It and we must some day, return into It, and all
the rest becomes easy.
If
so, then it stands to reason that life and death, good and evil, past and
future, are all empty words, or at best, figures of speech. If the objective
Universe itself is but a passing illusion on account of its beginning and
finitude, then both life and death must also be aspects and illusions. They
are changes of state, in fact, and no more. Real life is in the spiritual
consciousness of that life, in a conscious existence in Spirit, not Matter;
and real death is the limited perception of life, the impossibility of sensing
conscious or even individual existence outside of form, or at least, of some
form of Matter. Those who sincerely reject the possibility of conscious life
divorced from Matter and brain-substance are dead units. The words
of Paul, an Initiate, become comprehensive. “Ye are dead, and your life is
hid with Christ in God;” which is to say: Ye are personally dead
matter, unconscious of its own spiritual essence, and your real life is hid
with your Divine Ego (Christos) in, or merged with, God (Ãtmâ);
now it has departed from you, ye soulless people. [See Coloss.,]
The
Living and the Dead (Page
513) Speaking on Esoteric lines, every irrevocably materialistic
person is a dead man, a living automaton, in spite of his being endowed
with great brain power. Listen to what Aryasangha says, stating the same fact:
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 on 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 become 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.
This
is the first lesson to learn. The second is to study well the Principles of
both the Kosmos and ourselves, dividing the group into the permanent and the
impermanent, the higher and immortal and the lower and mortal, for thus only
can we master and guide, first the lower cosmic and personal, then the higher
cosmic and impersonal.
Once
we can do that we have secured our immorality. But some may say: “How
few are those who can do so. All such are great Adepts, and none can reach
such Adeptship in one short life.” Agreed; but there is an alternative.
“If the Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble Planet,” says
the Book of the Golden Precepts. And if even that is beyond our reach,
then let us at least endeavour to keep within the ray of some lesser star,
so that is silvery light may penetrate the murky darkness, through which the
stone path of life treads onwards: for without this divine radiance we risk
losing more than we imagine.
With
regard, then, to “soulless” men, and the “second death”
of the “Soul,” mentioned in the second volume of Isis Unveiled,
you will there find that I have spoken of such soulless people, and even
of
Avîtchi, though I leave the latter unnamed. Read from the last paragraph
on page 367 to the end of the first paragraph on page 370, and then collate
what is there said with what I have now to say.
The
higher triad, Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas, may be recognized from
the first line of the quotation from the Egyptian papyrus. In the Ritual, now
the Book of the Dead, the purified Soul, the dual Manas, appears as “the victim of the dark influence of the Dragon Apophis,” the
physical personality of Kâmarûpic man, with his passions. “If
it has attained the final knowledge of the heavenly and infernal Mysteries,
the Gnosis”—the divine and the terrestrial Mysteries, of White
and Black Magic—then the defunct personality “will triumph over
its enemy”—death. This alludes to the case of a complete re-union,
at the end of (Page
514) earth life, of the lower Manas, full of “the harvest
of life,” with its Ego. But if Apophis conquers the Soul, then it “cannot
escape a second death.”
These
few lines from a papyrus, many thousands of years old, contain a whole
revelation,
known, in those days, only to the Hierophants and the Initiates. The “harvest
of life” consists of the finest spiritual thoughts, of the memory or
the noblest and most unselfish deeds of the personality, and the constant
presence during its bliss after death of all those it loved with divine,
spiritual
devotion. [See Key to Theosophy. pp.
147, 148, et seq.] Remember the teaching: The Human Soul, lower Manas,
is the only and direct mediator between the personality and the Divine
Ego. That which goes to make up on this earth the personality miscalled
individuality by the majority, is the sum of all its mental, physical,
and spiritual characteristics, which, being impressed on the Human Soul, produces
the man. Now, of all these characteristics it is the purified thoughts
alone which can be impressed on the higher, immortal Ego. This is done by
the Human Soul merging again, in its essence, into its parent source, commingling
with its Divine Ego during life, and re-uniting itself entirely with it after
the death of the physical man. Therefore, unless Kâma-Manas transmits
to Buddhi-Manas such personal ideations, and such consciousness of its “I”
as can be assimilated by the Divine Ego, nothing of that “I” or
personality can survive in the Eternal. Only that which is worthy of the immortal
God within us, and identical in its nature with the divine quintessence, can
survive; for in this case it is its own the Divine Ego’s “shadows”
or emanations which ascend to it and are indrawn by it into itself again,
to become once more part of its own, Essence. No noble thought, no grand aspiration,
desire, or divine immortal love, can come into the brain of the man of clay
and settle there, except as a direct emanation from the Higher to, and through,
the lower Ego: all the rest, intellectual as it may seem, proceeds from the
“shadow,” the lower mind, in its association and commingling
with Kâma, and passes away and disappears for ever. But the mental and
spiritual ideations of the personal “I” return to it, as parts
of the Ego’s Essence, and can never fade out. Thus of the personality
that was, only its spiritual experiences, the memory of all that is good and
noble, with the consciousness of its “I” blended with that of
all the other personal “I’s” that preceded it, survive
and become immortal.
Gaining
Immortality (Page
515) There is no distinct or separate immortality for the men of
earth outside of the Ego which informed them. That Higher Ego is the sole
bearer of all its alter egos on earth and their sole representative
in the mental state called Devachan. As the last embodied personality, however,
has a right to its own special state of bliss, unalloyed and free from the
memories of all others, it is the last life only which is fully and realistically
vivid. Devachan is often compared to the happiest day in a series of
many thousands of other “days” in the life of a person. The intensity
of its happiness makes the man entirely forget all others, his past becomes
obliterated.
This
is what we call the Devachanic state, the reward of the personality, and it
is on this old teaching that the hazy Christian notion of Paradise was built,
borrowed with many other things from the Egyptian Mysteries, wherein the doctrine
was enacted. And this is the meaning of the passage quoted in Isis.
The Soul has triumphed over Apophis, the Dragon of Flesh. Henceforth, the
personality will live in eternity, in its highest and noblest elements, the
memory of its past deeds, while the “characteristics” of the “Dragon”
will be fading out in Kâma Loka. If the question be asked, “How
live in eternity, when Devachan lasts but from 1,000 to 2,000 years,”
the answer is: “In the same way as the recollection of each day which
is worth remembering lives in the memory of each one of us.” For the
sake of an example, the days passed in one personal life may be taken as
an
illustration of each personal life, and this or that person may stand for
the Divine Ego.
To
obtain the key which will open the door of many a psychological mystery it
is sufficient to understand and remember that which precedes and that which
follows. Many a Spiritualist has felt terribly indignant on being told that
personal immortality was conditional; and yet such is the philosophical
and logical fact. Much has been said already on the subject, but no one to
this day seems to have fully understood the doctrine. Moreover, it is not
enough to know that such a fact is said to exist. An Occultist, or he who
would become one, must know why it is so; for having learned and comprehended
the raison d’être, it becomes easier to set others right
in their erroneous speculations, and, most important of all, it affords one
an opportunity, without saying too much, to teach other people to avoid a
calamity which, sad to say, occurs in our age almost daily. This calamity
will now be explained at length.
(Page
516) One must know little indeed of the Eastern modes of expression
to fail to see in this passage quoted from the Book of the Dead, and
the pages of Isis, (a) an allegory for the uninitiated, containing
our Esoteric teaching; and (b) that the two terms “second death”
and “Soul” are, in one sense, blinds. “Soul” refers
indifferently to Buddhi-Manas and Kâma-Manas. As to the term “second
death,” the qualification “second” applies to several deaths
which have to be undergone by the “Principles” during their incarnation,
Occultists alone understanding fully the sense in which such a statement is
made. For we have (1) the death of the Body; (2) the death of the Animal Soul
in Kâma Loka; (3) the death of the Astral Linga Sharîra, following
that of the Body; (4) the metaphysical death of the Higher Ego, the immortal, every
time it “falls into matter,” or incarnates in a new personality.
The Animal Soul, or lower Manas, that shadow of the Divine Ego which separates
from it to inform the personality, cannot by any possible means escape
death in Kâma Loka, at any rate that portion of this reflection
which remains as a terrestrial residue and cannot be impressed on the Ego.
Thus the chief and most important secret with regard to that “second
death,” in the Esoteric teaching, was and is to this day the terrible
possibility of the death of the Soul, that is, its severance from
the Ego on earth during a person’s lifetime. This is a real death
(though with chances of resurrection), which shows no traces in a person and
yet leaves him morally a living corpse. It is difficult to see why this teaching
should have been preserved until now with such secrecy, when, by spreading
it among people, at any rate among those who believe in reincarnation, so
much good might be done. But so it was, and I had no right to question the
wisdom of the prohibition, but have given it hitherto, as it was given to
myself, under pledge not to reveal it to the world at large. But now
I have permission to give it to all, revealing its tenets first to the Esotericists,
and then when they have assimilated them thoroughly it will be their duty
to teach others this special tenet of the “second death,” and
warn all the Theosophists of its dangers.
To
make the teaching clearer, I shall seemingly have to go over old ground; in
reality, however, it is given out with new light and new details. I have tried
to hint at it in the Theosophist as I have done in Isis, but
have failed to make myself understood. I will now explain it, point by point.
The
Philosophical Rationale of the Tenet
|
LIGHT
AND LIFE(Page
517) (1) Imagine, for illustration’s sake, the one homogeneous,
absolute and omnipresent Essence, above the upper step of the “stair
of the seven planes of worlds,” ready to start on its evolutionary
journey. As its correlating reflection gradually descends, it differentiates
and transforms
into subjective, and finally into objective matter. Let us call it at its
north pole Absolute Light; at its south pole, which to us would be the fourth
or middle step, or plane, counting either way, we know it Esoterically as
the One and Universal Life. Now mark the difference. Above, LIGHT;
below, Life. The former is ever immutable, the latter manifests under
the aspects of countless differentiations. According to the Occult law, all
potentialities included in the higher become differentiated reflections in
the lower; and according to the same law, nothing which is differentiated
can be blended with the homogeneous.
Again,
nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its being
in the
seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation. Thus Buddhi and
Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame, the former the vehicle,
the upâdhi or vâhana, of the one eternal Essence, the latter the
vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Mahâ-Buddhi in the Purânas),
the Universal Intelligent Soul—neither of them, as such, can become
extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But the physical
personality with its Linga Sharîra, and the animal soul, with its Kâma,
[Kâma Rûpa, the vehicle of the Lower Manas, is said to dwell
in the physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense-organs
of the physical body.] can and do become so. They are born in the realm of
illusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal sky.
He
who has read these volumes with any degree of attention, must know
the origin
of the human Egos, called Monads, generically, and what they were before
they were forced to incarnate in the human animal. The divine beings
whom Karma
led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life, are entities from higher and
earlier worlds and planets, whose Karma had not been exhausted when
their
world went into Pralaya. Such is the teaching; but whether it is so or not,
the Higher Egos are—as compared to such forms of transitory, terrestrial
mud as ourselves—Divine Beings, Gods, immortal throughout the Mahâmanvantara,
or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during which the Age of Brahmâ lasts.
And as the Divine Egos, in
(Page 518) order to re-become the One Essence, or be indrawn again
into the AUM, have to purify themselves in the fire of suffering and individual
experience, so also have the terrestrial Egos, the personalities, to do likewise,
if they would partake of the immortality of the Higher Egos. This they can
achieve by crushing in themselves all that benefits only the lower personal
nature of their “selves” and by aspiring to transfuse their thinking
Kâmic Principle into that of the Higher Ego. We (i.e., our personalities)
become immortal by the mere fact of our thinking moral nature being grafted
on our Divine Triune Monad, Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas, the three in
one and one in three (aspects). For the Monad manifested on earth by the
incarnating
Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life Eternal, that can only be approached
by eating the fruit of knowledge, the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or of GNOSIS,
Divine Wisdom.
In
the Esoteric teachings, this Ego is the fifth Principle in man. But the student
who had read and understood the first two Papers, knows something more. He
is aware that the seventh is not a human, but a universal Principle in which
man participates; but so does equally every physical and subjective atom,
and also every blade of grass and everything that lives or is in Space, whether
it be sensible of it or not. He knows, moreover, that if man is more closely
connected with it, and assimilates it with a hundredfold more power, it is
simply because he is endowed with the highest consciousness on this earth;
that man, in short, may become a Spirit, a Deva, or a God, in his next transformation,
whereas neither a stone nor a vegetable, nor an animal, can do so before they
become men in their proper turn.
(2)
Now what are the functions of Buddhi? On this plane it has none, unless
it
is united with Manas, the conscious Ego. Buddhi stands to the divine Root
Essence in the same relation as Mûlaprakriti to Parabrahman, in the
Vedânta School; or as Alaya the Universal Soul to the One Eternal Spirit,
or that which is beyond Spirit. It is its human vehicle, one remove from
that
Absolute, which can have no relation whatever to the finite and the conditioned.
(3)
What, again, is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical aspect,
Manas, though one remove on the downward plane from Buddhi, is still so immeasurably
higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter into direct relation with
the personality, except through its reflection, the lower mind. Manas is Spiritual
Self-Consciousness in itself, and Divine Consciousness when united with
Buddhi, which is the true “producer” of that “production”
(vikâra), or Self-Consciousness, through Mahat.
The
Two Egos (Page
519) Buddhi-Manas, therefore, is entirely unfit to manifest during
its periodical incarnations, except through the human mind or lower Manas.
Both are linked together and are inseparable, and can have as little to do
with the lower Tanmâtras, [Tanmâtra means subtle and rudimentary
form, the gross type of the finer elements. The five Tanmâtras are really
the characteristic properties or qualities of matter and of all the elements;
the real spirit of the word is “something” or “merely transcendental,” in
the sense of properties or qualities.] or rudimentary atoms as the
homogeneous with the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower
Manas, or thinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the
Divine Ego, to dissipate and paralyse the Tanmâtras, or properties of
the material form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of
Man. It is Kâma-Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion
of independent existence, as the “producer” in its turn and the
sovereign of the five Tanmâtras, becomes Ego-ism, the selfish
Self, in which case it has to be considered as Mahâbhûtic and
finite, in the sense of its being connected with Ahankâra, the personal
“I-creating” faculty. Hence
Manas
has to be regarded as eternal and non-eternal in its atomic nature
(paramanu
rûpa), as eternal substance (dravya), finite (kârya-rûpa)
when linked as a duad with Kâma (animal desire or human egoistic
volition), a lower production, in short. [See Theosophist, August.
1883. “The Real and the Unreal.”]
While,
therefore, the INDIVIDUAL EGO, owing to its essence and nature, is
immortal
throughout eternity, with a form (rûpa), which prevails during the
whole life cycles of the Fourth Round, its Sosie, or resemblance, the personal
Ego, has to win its immortality.
(4)
Antahkarana is the name of that imaginary bridge, the path which lies
between the Divine and the human Egos, for they are Egos, during human
life, to rebecome one Ego in Devachan or Nirvâna. This may seem
difficult to understand, but in reality, with the help of a familiar, though
fanciful illustration, it becomes quite simple. Let us figure to ourselves
a bright lamp in the middle of the room, casting its light upon the wall.
Let the lamp represent the Divine Ego, and the light thrown on the wall the
lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. That portion of the atmosphere
which transmits the ray from the lamp to the wall, will then present the
Antahkarana.
We must further suppose that the light thus cast is endowed with reason and
intelligence, and (Page
520) possesses, moreover, the faculty of dissipating all the evil
shadows which pass across the wall, and of attracting all brightness to itself,
receiving their indelible impressions. Now, it is in the power of the human
Ego to chase away the shadows, or sins, and multiply the brightnesses, or
good deeds, which make these impressions, and thus through Antahkarana, ensure
its own permanent connection, and its final re-union, with the Divine Ego.
Remember that the latter cannot take place while there remains a single taint
of the terrestrial, of matter, in the purity of that light. On the other hand,
the connection cannot be entirely ruptured and final re-union prevented, so
long as there remains one spiritual deed, or potentiality to serve as a thread
of union; but the moment this last spark is extinguished, and the last potentiality
exhausted, then comes the severance. In an Eastern parable, the Divine Ego
is likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the ground and
to gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long as
it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes absolutely
sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the labourer also (the lower Manas)
perishes.
On
the other hand, however, still using our simile, when the light thrown
on
the wall, or the rational human Ego, reaches the point of actual spiritual
exhaustion, the Antahkarana disappears, no more light is transmitted,
and
the lamp becomes non-existent to the ray. The light which has been absorbed
gradually disappears and “Soul eclipse” occurs; the being lives
on earth and then passes into Kâma Loka as a mere surviving congeries
of material qualities; it can never pass onwards towards Devachan, but is
reborn immediately, a human animal and scourge.
This
simile, however fantasic will help us to seize the correct idea. Save
through
the blending of the moral nature with the Divine Ego, there is no immortality
for the personal Ego. It is only the most spiritual emanations of the
personal
Human Soul which survive. Having, during a lifetime, been imbued with the
notion and feeling of the “I am I” of its personality, the Human
Soul, the bearer of the very essence of the Karmic deeds of the physical man,
becomes, after the death of the latter, part and parcel of the Divine Flame,
the Ego. It becomes immortal through the mere fact that it is now strongly
grafted on the Monad, which is the “Tree of Life Eternal.”
And
now we must speak of the tenet of the “second death.” What happens
to the Kâmic Human Soul, which is always that of a debased and wicked
man or of a soulless person? This mystery will now be explained.
Death
of the Soul (Page
521) The personal Soul in this case, viz., in that of one
who has never had a thought not concerned with the animal self, having nothing
to transmit to the Higher, or to add to the sum of the experiences gleaned
from past incarnations which its memory is to preserve throughout eternity—this
personal Soul becomes separated from the Ego. It can graft nothing of self
on that eternal trunk whose sap throws out millions of personalities, like
leaves from its branches, leaves which wither, die and fall at the end of
their season. These personalities bud, blossom forth and expire, some without
leaving a trace behind, others after commingling their own life with that
of the parent stem. It is the Souls of the former class that are doomed to
annihilation, or Avîtchi, a state so badly understood, and still worse
described by some Theosophical writers, but which is not only located on
our
earth, but is in fact this very earth itself.
Thus
we see that Antahkarana has been destroyed before the lower man has
had an
opportunity of assimilating the Higher and becoming at one with it; and therefore
the Kâmic “Soul” becomes a separate entity, to live henceforth,
for a short or long period according to its Karma, as a “soulless” creature.
But
before I elaborate this question, I must explain more clearly the meaning
and functions of the Antahkarana. As already said, it may be represented as
a narrow bridge connecting the Higher and the lower Manas. If you look at
the Glossary of the Voice of the Silence, pp.88 and 89, you will find
it is a projection of the lower Manas, or, rather, the link between the latter
and the Higher Ego, or, between the Human and the Divine or Spiritual Soul.
[As the author of Esoteric Buddhism and the Occult World called
Manas the Human Soul, and Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, I have left these terms
unchanged in the Voice, seeing that it was a book intended for the
public.
At
death it is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication, and its remains
survive as Kâma Rûpa.
the “shell.” It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing
in the séance rooms as materialized “forms,” which they
foolishly mistake for the “Spirits of the Departed.” [In the exoteric
teachings of Râja Yoga, Antahkarana is called the inner organ of perception
and is divided into four parts: the (lower) Manas, Buddhi (reason), Ahankâra
(personality), and Chitta (thinking faculty). It also, together with several
other organs, forms a part of Jîva, Sou called also Lingadeh. Esotericists,
however, must not be misled by this popular version.] So far is this from
being
(Page 522) the case that in dreams, though Antahkarana is there,
the personality is only half awake; therefore, Antahkarana is said to be drunk
or insane during our normal sleeping state. If such is the case during
the periodical death, or sleep, of the living body, one may judge what the
consciousness of Antahkarana is like when it has been transformed after the “eternal sleep” into Kâma Rûpa.
But
to return. In order not to confuse the mind of the Western student
with the
abstruse difficulties of Indian metaphysics, let him view the lower Manas,
or Mind, as the personal Ego during the waking state, and as Antahkarana
only
during those moments when it aspires towards its Higher Ego, and thus becomes
the medium of communication between the two. It is for this reason
that it
is called the “Path.” Now, when a limb or organ belonging to
the physical organism is left in disuse, it becomes weak and finally atrophies.
So also it is with mental faculties; and hence the atrophy of the lower mind-function
called Antahkarana, becomes comprehensible in both completely materialistic
and depraved natures.
According
to Esoteric Philosophy, however, the teaching is as follows: Seeing
that the
faculty and function of Antahkarana is as necessary as the medium of the
ear for hearing, or that of the eye for seeing; then so long as the
feeling of
Ahankâra, that is, of the personal “I” or selfishness,
is not entirely crushed out in a man, and the lower mind not entirely merged
into and become one with the Higher Buddhi-Manas, it stands to reason that
to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over an impassable chasm; the traveller can never reach the goal on the other shore. And
here lies the difference between the exoteric and Esoteric teaching. The
former
makes the Vedânta state that so long as Mind (the lower) clings through
Antahkarana to Spirit (Buddhi-Manas) it is impossible for it to acquire true
Spiritual Wisdom, Gnyâna, and that this can only be attained by seeking
to come en rapport, with the Universal Soul (Ãtmâ); that,
in fact it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether that one reaches Râja
Yoga. We say it is not so. No single rung of the ladder leading to knowledge
can be skipped. No personality can ever reach or bring itself into communications
with Ãtmâ, except through Buddhi-Manas; to try and become a Jîvanmukta
or a Mahâtma, 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.
Reincarnation
of Lower Soul (Page
523) It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence
of the Divine Mind, that we have to destroy Antahkarana.
Like
as a solitary warrior pursued by an army, seeks refuge in a stronghold;
to
cut himself off from the enemy, he first destroys the drawbridge, and then
only commences to destroy the pursuer; so must the Srotâpatti
act before he slays Antahkarana.
Or
as an Occult axiom has it:
The
Unit becomes Three, and Three generate Four. It is for the latter [the Quarternary]
to rebecome Three, and for the Divine Three to expand into the Absolute One.
Monads,
which become Duads on the differentiated plane, to develop into Triads
during
the cycle of incarnations, even when incarnated know neither space nor time,
but are diffused through the lower Principles of the Quarternary, being
omnipresent
and omniscient in their nature. But this omniscience is innate, and can manifest
its reflected light only through that which is at least semi-terrestrial
or
material; even as the physical brain which, in its turn, is the vehicle of
the lower Manas enthroned in Kâma Rûpa. And it is this which is
gradually annihilated in cases of “second death.”
But
such annihilation—which is in reality the absence of the slightest
trace of the doomed Soul from the eternal MEMORY,
and therefore signifies annihilation in eternity—does not mean simply discontinuation
of human life on earth, for earth is Avîtchi, and the worst Avîtchi
possible. Expelled forever from the consciousness of the Individuality, the
reincarnating Ego, the physical atoms and psychic vibrations of the now separate
personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth, only in a lower
and still more abject creature, a human being only in form, doomed to Karmic
torments during the whole of its new life. Moreover, if it persists in its
criminal or debauched course, it will suffer a long series of immediate reincarnations.
Here
two questions present themselves: (1) What becomes of the Higher Ego in such
cases? (2) What kind of an animal is a human creature born soulless?
Before
answering these two very natural queries, I have to draw the attention of
all of you who are born in Christian countries to the fact that the romance
of the vicarious atonement and the mission of Jesus (Page
524) as it now stands, was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal
Initiates from the mysterious and weird tenet of the earthly experience of
the reincarnating Ego. The latter is indeed the sacrificial victim of, and
through, its own Karma in previous Manvantaras, which takes upon itself voluntarily
the duty of saving what would be otherwise soulless men or personalities.
Eastern truth is thus more philosophical and logical than Western fiction.
The Christos or Buddhi-Manas of each man, is not quite an innocent and sinless
God, though in one sense it is the “Father,” being of the same
essence with the Universal Spirit, and at the same time the “Son,”
for Manas is the second remove from the “Father.” By incarnation
the Divine Son makes itself responsible for the sins of all the personalities
which it will inform. This it can do only through its proxy or reflection,
the lower Manas. The only case in which the Divine Ego can escape individual
penalty and responsibility as a guiding Principle, is when it has to break
off from the personality, because matter, with its psychic and astral vibrations,
is then, by the very intensity of its combinations, placed beyond the control
of the Ego. Apophis, the Dragon, having become the conqueror, the reincarnating
Manas, separating itself gradually from its tabernacle, breaks finally asunder
from the psycho-animal Soul.
Thus,
in answer to the first question, I say:
(1)
The Divine Ego does one of two things: either (a) it recommences immediately
under its own Karmic impulses a fresh series of incarnations; or (b)
it seeks and finds refuge in the bosom of the Mother, Alaya, the Universal
Soul, of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat. Freed from the life-impressions
of the personality, it merges into a kind of Nirvânic interlude, wherein
there can be nothing but the eternal Present, which absorbs the Past and Future.
Bereft of the “labourer,” both field and harvest now being lost,
the Master, in the infinitude of his thought, naturally preserves no recollection
of the finite and evanescent illusion which had been his last personality.
And then, indeed, is the latter annihilated.
(2)
The future of the lower Manas is more terrible, and still more terrible
to
humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that after the
separation the exhausted Soul, now become supremely animal, fades out
in Kâma Loka,
as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the more material is the human
mind, the longer it lasts, even in the intermediate stage, it frequently
happens
that after the present life of the soulless man is ended, he is again and
again reincarnated into new personalities, each one more abject than
the other.
The
Dweller on the Threshold (Page
525) The impulse of animal life is too strong; it cannot
wear itself out in one or two lives only. In rarer cases, however, when the
lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself by starvation; when there
is no longer hope that even a remnant of a lower light will, owing to favourable
conditions—say, even a short period of spiritual aspiration and repentance—attract
back to itself its Parent Ego, and Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new
incarnations, then something far more dreadful may happen. The Kâma-Mânasic
spook may become that which is called in Occultism the “Dweller on the
Threshold.” This Dweller is not like that which is described so graphically
in Zanoni, but an actual fact in Nature and not a fiction in romance,
however beautiful the latter may be. Bulwer, however, must have got the idea
from some Eastern Initiate. This Dweller, led by affinity and attraction,
forces itself into the astral current, and through the Auric Envelope, of
the new tabernacle inhabited by the Parent Ego, and declares war to the lower
light which has replaced it. This, of course, can only happen in the case
of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed.
No
one strong in virtue, and righteous in his walk of life, can risk or dread
any such thing; but only those depraved in heart. Robert Louis Stevenson had
a glimpse of a true vision indeed when he wrote his Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His story is a true allegory. Every Chelâ will
recognize in it a substratum of truth, and in Mr. Hyde a Dweller, an obsessor
of the personality, the tabernacle of the Parent Spirit.
“This
is a nightmare tale!” I was often told by one, now no more in our ranks,
who had a most pronounced “Dweller,” a “Mr. Hyde,”
as an almost constant companion. “How can such a process take place
without one’s knowledge?” It can and does so happen, and I have
almost described it once before in the Theosophist.
The
Soul, the lower Mind, becomes as a half animal principle almost paralyzed
with daily vice, and grows gradually unconscious of its subjective half, the
Lord, and of the mighty Host; [and] in proportion to the rapid sensuous development
of the brain and nerves, sooner or later, it (the personal Soul) finally loses
sight of its divine mission on earth.
Truly,
Like
the vampire, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength at the expense
of its spiritual parent . . . and the personal half-unconscious Soul becomes
senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It is powerless to discern the voice
of its (Page
526) God. It aims but at the development and fuller comprehension
of natural, earthly life; and thus can discover but the mysteries of physical
nature . . . . It begins by becoming virtually dead, during the life of the
body; and ends by dying completely—that is, by being annihilated
as a complete immortal Soul. Such a catastrophe may often happen long
years before one’s physical death; “We elbow soulless men and
women at every step in life.” And when death arrives . . . there is
no more a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego) to liberate . . . for it
has fled years before.
Result: Bereft
of its guiding Principles, but strengthened by the material elements,
Kâma-Manas, from being a “derived light” now becomes an
independent Entity. After thus suffering itself to sink lower and lower on
the animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one of
two things happen: either Kâma-Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba,
the state of Avîtchi on earth, [The Earth, or earth-life rather,
is the only Avîtchi (Hell) that exists for the men of our humanity on
this globe. Avîtchi is a state, not a locality, a counterpart of Devachan.
Such a state follows the Soul wherever it goes, whether into Kâma Loka
as a semi-conscious Spook, or into a human body when reborn to suffer Avîtchi.
Our Philosophy recognizes no other Hell.] or, if it become too strong
in evil—“immortal in Satan” is the Occult expression—it
is sometimes allowed, for Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of
Avîtchi in the terrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all
hope it becomes like the mythical “devil” in its endless wickedness;
it continues in its elements, which are imbued through and through with the
essence of Matter; for evil is coeval with Matter rent asunder from Spirit.
And when its Higher Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection,
or Kâma-Manas, the doomed lower Ego, like a Frankenstein’s monster,
will ever feel attracted to its Father, who repudiates his son, and will become
a regular “Dweller on the Threshold” of terrestrial life. I gave
the outlines of the Occult doctrine in the Theosophist of October,
1881, and November, 1882, but could not go into details, and therefore got
very much embarrassed when called upon to explain. Yet I have written there
plainly enough about “useless drones,” those who refuse to become
co-workers with Nature and who perish by millions during the Manvantaric life-cycle;
those, as in the case in hand, who prefer to be ever suffering in Avîtchi
under Karmic law rather than give up their lives “in evil,” and
finally those who are co-workers with Nature for destruction. These are thoroughly
wicked and depraved men, but yet as highly intellectual and acutely spiritual
for evil, as those who, are spiritual for good.
The
(lower) Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction or annihilation
for ages to come.
The
Word (Page
527) Thus we find two kinds of soulless beings on earth: those
who have lost their Higher Ego in the present incarnation, and those who
are
born soulless, having been severed from their Spiritual Soul in the preceding
birth. The former are candidates for Avîtchi; the latter are “Mr.
Hydes,” whether in or out of human bodies, whether incarnated
or hanging about as invisible though potent ghouls. In such men, cunning develops
to an enormous degree, and no one except those who are familiar with the doctrine
would suspect them of being soulless, for neither Religion nor Science has
the least suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.
There
is, however, still hope for a person who has lost his Higher Soul through
his vices, while he is yet in the body. He may be still redeemed and
made
to turn on his material nature. For either an intense feeling of repentance,
or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled, or best of all,
an
active effort to amend one’s ways, may bring the Higher Ego back again.
The thread of connection is not altogether broken, though the Ego is now beyond
forcible reach, for “Antahkarana is destroyed,” and the personal
Entity has one foot already in Myalba; [See Voice
of the Silence, p. 97.] yet it is not entirely beyond hearing
a strong spiritual appeal. There is another statement made in Isis Unveiled
†[Loc. cit.] on this subject. It is said that this
terrible death may be sometimes avoided by the knowledge of the mysterious
NAME, the “WORD.”
[Read the last footnote on p.368, vol. ii. of Isis Unveiled, and
you will see that even profane Egyptologists and men who, like Bunsen were
ignorant of Initiation, were struck by their own discoverers when they
found the “Word,” mentioned in old papyri.] What this “WORD,”
which is not a “Word” but a Sound, is, you all know. Its
potency lies in the rhythm or the accent. This means simply that even a bad
person may, by the study of the Sacred Science, be redeemed and stopped on
the path of destruction. But unless he is in thorough union with his Higher
Ego, he may repeat it parrot-like, ten thousand times a day, and the “Word”
will not help him. On the contrary, if not entirely at one with his Higher
Triad, it may produce quite the reverse of a beneficent effect, the Brothers
of the Shadow using it very often for malicious objects; in which case it
awakens and stirs up naught but the evil, material elements of Nature. But,
if one’s nature is good, and sincerely strives towards the HIGHER
SELF, which is that Aum, through one’s Higher Ego, which is
its third (Page
528) letter, and Buddhi the second, there is no attack of the
Dragon Apophis which it will not repel. From those to whom much is given
much is
expected. He who knocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of
its sacredness, and after obtaining admission, departs from the threshold,
or turns round and says, “Oh there’s nothing in it!” and
thus loses his chance of learning the whole truth—can but await his
Karma.
Such
are then the Esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so many
who
have found what they thought contradictions in various Theosophical writings,
including “Fragments of Occult Truth,” in vols. iii, and
iv, of The Theosophist, etc. Before finally dismissing the subject,
I must add a caution, which pray keep well in mind. It will be very
natural for those
of you who are Esotericists to hope that none of you belong so far to the
soulless portion of mankind, and that you can feel quite easy about
Avîtchi,
even as the good citizen is about the penal laws. Though not, perhaps, exactly
on the Path as yet, you are skirting its border, and many of you in the right
direction. Between such venal faults as are inevitable under our social environment,
and the blasting wickedness described in the Editor’s note on Êliphas
Lêvi’s “Satan,” [See Theosophist, vol. iii.,
October, 1882, p.13.] there is an abyss. If not become “immortal in
good by identification with (our) God,” or AUM, Ãtma-Buddhi-Manas,
we have surely not made ourselves “immortal in evil” by coalescing
with Satan, the lower Self. You forget, however, that everything must have
a beginning; that the first step on a slippery mountain slope is the necessary
antecedent to one’s falling precipitately to the bottom and into the
arms of death. Be it far from me the suspicion that any of the Esoteric students
have reached to any considerable point down the plane of spiritual descent.
All the same I warn you to avoid taking the first step. You may not reach
the bottom in this life or the next, but you may now generate causes which
will insure your spiritual destruction in your third, fourth, fifth, or even
some subsequent birth. In the great Indian epic you may read how a mother
whose whole family of warrior sons were slaughtered in battle, complained
to Krishna that though she had the spiritual vision to enable her to look
back fifty incarnations, yet she could see no sin of hers that could have
begotten so dreadful a Karma; and Krishna answered her: “If thou could’st
look back to thy fifty-first anterior birth, as I can, thou would’st
see thyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of ants as that of the
sons thou hast now lost.” This, of course, is only a poetical exaggeration;
yet it is a striking image to show how great results come from apparently
trifling causes.
The
Divine Witness (Page
529) Good and evil are relative, and are intensified or lessened
according to the conditions by which man is surrounded. One who belongs to
that which we call the “useless portion of mankind,” that is to
say, the lay majority, is in many cases irresponsible. Crimes committed in
Avidyâ, or ignorance, involve physical but not moral responsibilities
or Karma. Take, for example, the case of idiots, children, savages, and people
who know no better. But the case of each who is pledged to the HIGHER SELF
is quite another matter. You cannot invoke this Divine Witness with Impunity, and
once that you have put yourselves under its tutelage, you have asked the
Radiant Light to shine and search through all the dark corners of your being;
consciously you have invoked the Divine Justice of Karma to take note of
your
motive, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in your account.
The step is irrevocable as that of the infant taking birth. Never again can
you
force yourselves back into the matrix of Avidyâ and irresponsibility.
Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and hide yourselves
from
the sight of men, or seek oblivion in the tumult of the social whirl, that
Light will find you out and lighten your every thought, word and deed. All
H.P.B can do is to send to each earnest one among you a most sincerely fraternal
sympathy and hope for a good outcome to your endeavours. Nevertheless, be
not discouraged, but try, ever keep trying; [Read pp. 40 and 63 in the Voice
of the Silence.] twenty failures are not irremediable if followed
by as many undaunted struggles upward. Is it not so that mountains are climbed?
And know further, that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist’s
account, bad deeds that in the ignorant would be overlooked, yet, equally
true is it that each of his good deeds is, by reason of his association with
the Higher Self, a hundredfold intensified as a potentiality for good.
Finally,
keep ever in mind the consciousness that though you see no Master at
your
bedside, nor hear one audible whisper in the silence of the still night,
yet the Holy Power is about you, the Holy Light is shining into your
hour of spiritual
need and aspirations, and it will be no fault of the MASTERS, or of their
humble mouthpiece and servant, if through perversity or moral feebleness
some
of you cut yourselves off from these higher potencies, and step upon the
delivery that leads to Avîtchi.
Appendix
Notes
on Papers I, II, III.
PAGE
436
|
(Page
530) Students in the west have little or no idea of the forces
that lie latent in Sound, the Ãkashic vibrations that may be set up
by those who understand how to pronounce certain words. The Om, or the “Om
mani padme hum” are in spiritual
affinity with cosmic forces, but without a knowledge of the natural
arrangement, or of the order in which the syllables stand, very little can
be achieved. “Om” is, of course, Aum, that may be pronounced
as two, three or seven syllables, setting up different vibrations.
Now,
letters, as vocal sounds, cannot fail to correspond with musical notes, and
therefore with numbers and colours; hence also with forces and Tattvas. He
who remembers the Universe is built up from the Tattvas will readily understand
something of the power that may be exercised by vocal sounds. Every letter
in the alphabet, whether divided into three, four, or seven septenaries, or
forty-nine letters, has its own colour, or shade of colour. He who has learnt
the colours of the alphabetical letters, and the corresponding numbers of
the seven and the forty-nine colours and shades on the scale of planes and
forces, and knows their respective order in the seven planes, will easily
master the art of bringing them into affinity or interplay. But here a difficulty
arises. The Senzar and Sanskrit alphabets, and other Occult tongues, besides
other potencies, have a number, colour, and distinct syllable for every letter,
and so had also the old Mosaic Hebrew. But how many students know any of these
tongues? When the time comes, therefore, it must suffice to teach the students
the numbers and colours attached to the Latin letters only (N.B. as pronounced
in Latin, not in Anglo-Saxon, Scotch, or Irish). This, however, would be at
present premature.
A
Mantra Operative (Page
531) The colour and number of not only the planets but also
the zodiacal constellations corresponding to every letter of the alphabet,
are necessary to make any special syllable, and even letter, operative.
[See The Voice of the Silence. p. viii.]
therefore if a student would make Buddhi operative, for instance, he would
have to intone the first words of the Mantra on the note mi. But he
would have still further to accentuate the mi, and produce mentally
the yellow colour corresponding to this sound and note, on every letter M
in “Om mani padme hum”; this, not because the note bears
the same name in the vernacular, Sanskrit, or even the Senzar, for it does
not—but because the letter M follows the first letter, and is in this
sacred formula also the seventh and the fourth. As Buddhi it is second; as
Buddhi-Manas it is the second and third combined.
H.
P. B.
PAGE
439
[The following notes were contributed by students and approved by H.P.B]
The
Pythagorean Four, or Tetraktys, was the symbol of the Kosmos, as containing
within itself, the point, the line, the superficies, the solid; in other words,
the essentials of all forms. Its mystical representation is the point within
the triangle. The Decad or perfect number is contained in the Four; thus,
1+2+3+4=10.
PAGE
453
O
PAGE
477
The
difficult passage: “Bear in mind . . . . a mystery below truly, ‡ [See
Page 444] may become a little more clear to the student if slightly amplified.”
(Page
532) The “primordial Triangle” is the Second
Logos, which reflects itself as a Triangle in the Third Logos, or Heavenly
Man, and then disappears. The Third Logos, containing the “potency of
formative creation,” develops the Tetraktys from the Triangle, and so
becomes the Seven the Creative Force, making a Decad with the primordial Triangle
which originated it. When this heavenly Triangle and Tetraktys are reflected
in the Universe of Matter, as the astral paradigmatic man, they are reversed,
and the Triangle, or formative potency, is thrown below the Quaternary, with
its apex pointing downwards: the Monad of this astral paradigmatic man is
itself a Triangle, bearing to the Quaternary and Triangle the relation born
by the primordial Triangle to the Heavenly Man. Hence the phrase, “the
upper Triangle . . . is shifted in the man of clay below the seven.”
Here again the point tracing the Triangle, the Monad becoming the Ternary,
with the Quaternary and the lower creative triangle, make up the Decad, the
perfect number. “As above, so below.”
The
student will do well to relate the knowledge here acquired to that given
on
p.477. Here the upper Triangle is given as Violet, Indigo, Blue, associating
Violet as the paradigm of all forms with Indigo as Mahat, and blue as
the Ãtmic Aura. In the Quaternary, Yellow, as substance, is associated
with Yellow-Orange, Life, and Red-Orange, the creative potency. Green
is the
plane between.
The
next stage is now explained. Green passes upward to Violet, Indigo, Blue,
the Triangle opening out to receive it, and so forming the square, Violet,
Indigo, Blue, Green. This leaves the Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, and Yellow,
and these, having thus lost their fourth member, can only form a triangle.
This triangle revolves, to point downwards for the descent into matter,
and “mirrored on the plane of gross nature, it is reversed,” and
appears as in the diagram following these words.
[See
supra, i. 89, 90, and 95.]
Colour
and Spiritual Sound (Page
533) In the perfect man the Red will be absorbed by the Green;
Yellow will become one with Indigo; Yellow-Orange will be absorbed in Blue;
Violet will remain outside the True Man, though connected with him. Or,
to
translate the colours: Kâma will be absorbed in the Lower Manas; Buddhi
will become one with Manas; Prâna will be absorbed in the Auric Egg;
the physical body remains, connected but outside the real life.
A.Besant
Page
481
To
the five senses at present the property of mankind two more on this globe
are to be added. The sixth sense is the psychic sense of colour. The seventh
is that of spiritual sound. In the second instruction, the corrected rates
of vibration for the seven primary colours and their modulations are given.
Inspecting these, it appears that each colour differs from the preceding one
by a step of 42, or 6x7.
462
|
Red
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
504
|
Third
Octave
of psychic
colour perceptions |
504
|
Orange
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
546
|
546
|
Yellow
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
588
|
588
|
Green
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
630
|
630
|
Blue
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
672
|
672
|
Indigo
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
714
|
714
|
Violet
|
+
|
42
|
=
|
756
|
756
|
Red
|
+
|
|
|
|
Carrying
the process backward, and subtracting 42, we find that the first or ground
colour is green, for this globe.
|
Green |
First
semi-octave |
42 |
Blue |
84 |
Indigo |
126 |
Violet |
168 |
Red |
Second
octave |
210 |
Orange |
252 |
Yellow |
294 |
Green |
336 |
Blue |
378 |
Indigo |
420 |
Violet |
462 |
Red |
The
third and fourth octaves would be heat and actinic rays, and are invisible
to our present perception.
The
seventh sense is that of spiritual sound; and since the vibrations of the
sixth progress by steps of 6x7 those of the seventh progress by steps of 7x7.
This is their table:
|
Fa |
Green
Sound |
First
semi-octave |
49 |
Sol |
Blue
Sound |
98 |
La |
Indigo
Sound |
147 |
Si |
Violet
Sound |
196 |
Do |
Red
Sound |
Second
Octave |
245 |
Re |
Orange
Sound |
294 |
Mi |
Yellow
Sound |
343 |
Fa |
Green
Sound |
392 |
Sol |
Blue
Sound |
441 |
La |
Indigo
Sound |
490 |
Si |
Violet
Sound |
539 |
Do |
Red
Sound |
etc,etc, |
The
fifth sense is in our possession: it is possibly that of geometrical form,
and its steps of progression would be 5x7, or 35.
The
fourth sense is that of physical hearing, music, and its progressions are
28, or 4x7. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that it is in accord
with the theories of Science as to the vibrations of musical notes. Our scale
is as follows.
—,
28, 56, 84, 112, 140, 168, 196, 224, 252, 280, 308, 336, 364, 392,
420, 448,
476, 504, 532, 560, 588, 616, 644, 672, 700.
According
to musical science, the notes C, E, G, are as 4, 5, 6, in their ratios of
vibrations. The same ratio obtains between the notes of the triplet G, B,
D, and F, A, C. This gives the scale, and reducing the vibrations to C as
I, the ratios of the seven notes to C are
1 |
9/8 |
5/4 |
4/3 |
3/2 |
5/3 |
15/8 |
2 |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
B |
C |
Reducing
these to whole numbers, we get for one octave:
24 |
27 |
30 |
32 |
36 |
40 |
45 |
48 |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
B |
C |
(Page
535) By a similar calculation we can put an octave below C’,
and above C.” Writing these three octaves in line, and multiplying
by seven we obtain a nearly exact correspondence with our table of vibration
for the fourth sense.
MUSICAL
TABLE
|
Fourth
Sense |
Scale
Ratio |
|
|
|
Product |
|
28 |
4 |
x |
7 |
= |
28 |
E |
|
56 |
8 |
x |
7 |
= |
56 |
F |
|
84 |
12 |
x |
7 |
= |
84 |
G |
|
112 |
16 |
x |
7 |
= |
112 |
A |
140 |
20 |
x |
7 |
= |
140 |
B |
168 |
24 |
x |
7 |
= |
168 |
C |
|
196 |
27 |
x |
7 |
= |
189 |
D |
|
... |
30 |
x |
7 |
= |
210 |
E |
224 |
32 |
x |
7 |
= |
224 |
F |
252 |
36 |
x |
7 |
= |
252 |
G |
280 |
40 |
x |
7 |
= |
280 |
A |
308 |
45 |
x |
7 |
= |
315 |
B |
336 |
48 |
x |
7 |
= |
336 |
C |
|
364 |
54 |
x |
7 |
= |
378 |
D |
392 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
420 |
60 |
x |
7 |
= |
420 |
E |
448 |
64 |
x |
7 |
= |
448 |
F |
476 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
504 |
72 |
x |
7 |
= |
504 |
G |
532 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
560 |
80 |
x |
7 |
= |
560 |
A |
588 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
616 |
90 |
x |
7 |
= |
630 |
B |
644 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
672 |
96 |
x |
7 |
= |
672 |
C |
|
H.C.
NOTES
ON SOME ORAL TEACHINGS
|
The
Three Vital Airs
(Page
537) IT is the pure Ãkâsha that passes up Sushumnâ:
its two aspects flow in Idâ and Pingalâ. These are the three vital
airs, and are symbolized by the Brâhmanical thread. They are ruled
by the Will. Will and Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and
the
same thing. Hence the importance of the purity of the canals; for if they
soil the vital airs energized by the Will, Black Magic results. This is
why
all sexual intercourse is forbidden in practical Occultism.
From
Sushumnâ, Idâ and Pingalâ a circulation is set up, and from
the central canal passes into the whole body. (Man is a tree; he has in him
the macrocosm and the microcosm. Hence the trees used as symbols; the Dhyân-Chohanic
body is thus figured.)
The
Auric Egg
The
Auric Egg is formed in curves, which may be conceived from the curves
formed
by sand on a vibrating metal disk. Each atom, as each body, has its Auric
Egg, each centre forming its own. This Auric Egg, with the appropriate
materials
thrown into it, is a defence; no wild animal, however ferocious, will approach
te Yogî thus guarded: it flings back from its surface all malign
influences. No Will power is manifested through the Auric Egg.
Q.
What is the connection between the circulation of the vital airs and
the power
of the Yogî to make his Auric Egg a defence against aggression?
A.
It is impossible to answer this question. The knowledge is the last word of
Magic. It is connected with Kundalini, that can as easily destroy as preserve.
The ignorant tyro might kill himself.
Q.
Is the Auric Egg of a child a differentiation of Ãkâsha, into
which may be thrown by the Adept the materials he needs for special purposes—e.g.,
the Mâyâvi Rûpa?
[The
question was somewhat obscurely worded. Evidently what the questioner
wanted
to know was if the Auric Egg was a differentiation (Page 538) of Akâsha,
into which, as the child became a man, he might, if an Adept, weave the
materials
needed for special purposes, etc.]
A.
Taking the question in the sense of an Adept putting something into or acting
on the Auric Egg of a child, then this could not be done, as the Auric Egg
is Karmic, and not even an Adept must interfere with such Karmic record. If
the Adept were to put anything into the Auric Egg of another, for which the
person is not responsible, or which does not come from the Higher Self of
that personality, how could Karmic justice be maintained?
The
Adept can draw into his own Auric Egg from his planet, or even from that of
the globe or of the universe, according to his degree. This envelope is the
receptacle of all Karmic causes, and photographs all things like a sensitive
plate.
The
child has a very small Auric Egg which is in colour almost pure white.
At
birth the Auric Egg consists of almost pure Ãkâsha plus the Tanhâs,
which, until the seventh year, remain potential or in latency.
The
Auric Egg of an idiot cannot be said to be human, that is, it is not
tinged
with Manas. It is Ãkâshic vibrations rather than an Auric Egg—the
material envelope, such as that of the plant, the mineral or other object.
The
Auric Egg is the transmitter from the periodical lives to the Life eternal,
i.e., from Prâna to Jîva. It disappears, but remains.
The
reason why the confession of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches is so great
a sin is because the confessor interferes with the Auric Egg of the penitent
by means of his will power, engrafting artificially emanations from his own
Auric Egg and casting seeds for germination into the Auric Egg of his subject.
It is on the same lines as hypnotic suggestion.
The
above remarks apply equally to Hypnotism, although the latter is a psycho-physical
force, and it is this which constitutes one of its many serious dangers.
At
the same time “a good thing may pass through dirty channels,” as
in the case of the breaking by suggestion of the alcohol or opium habit.
Mesmerism may be used by the Occultist to remove evil habits, if the intention
be perfectly pure; as on the higher plane intention is everything, and
good
intention must work for good.
Q.
Is the Auric Egg the expansion of the “Pillar of Light,” the Mânasic
Principle, and so not surrounding the child till its seventh year?
The
Dweller on the Threshold (Page
539) A. It is the Auric Egg. The Auric Egg is quite pure
at birth, but it is a question whether the higher or lower Manas will colour
it at the seventh year. The Mânasic expansion is pure Ãkâsha.
The ray of Manas is let down into the vortex of the lower Principles, and
being discoloured, and so limited by the Kamic Tanhâs and by the
defects of the bodily organism, forms the personality. Hereditary Karma
can reach
the child before the seventh year, but no individual Karma can come into
play till the descent of the Manas.
The Auric Egg is
to the Man
As the Astral Light is to the Earth
As the Ether is to the Astral Light
As the Akâsha is to the Ether
The
critical states are left out in the enumeration. They are the Laya Centres,
or missing links in our consciousness, and separate these four planes from
one another.
The
Dweller
The “Dweller on the Threshold” is
found in two cases: (a) In
the case of the separation of the Triangle from the Quaternary; (b)
When Kâmic desires and passions are so intense that the Kâma Rûpa
persists in Kâma Loka beyond the Devachanic period of the Ego, and
thus survives the reincarnation of the Devachanic Entity (e.g., when
reincarnation occurs within two hundred or three hundred years). The “Dweller”
being drawn by affinity towards the Reincarnating Ego to whom it had belonged,
and being unable to reach it, fastens on the Kâma of the new personality,
and becomes the Dweller on the Threshold, strengthening the Kâmic element
and thus lending it a dangerous potency. Some become mad from this cause.
Intellect
The
white Adept is not always at first of powerful intellect. In fact,
H.P.B had
known Adepts whose intellectual powers were originally below the average.
It is the Adept’s purity, his equal love to all, his working with Nature,
with Karma, with his “Inner God,” that give him his power. Intellect
by itself alone will make the Black Magician. For intellect alone is accompanied
with pride and selfishness: it is the intellectual plus the spiritual
that raises man. For spirituality prevents pride and vanity.
Metaphysics
are the domain of the Higher Manas; whereas (Page
540) Physics are that of Kâma-Manas, which does
the thinking in Physical Science and on material things. Kâma-Manas,
like every other Principle, is of seven degrees. The Mathematician
without spirituality, however great he may be, will not reach Metaphysics;
but the Metaphysician will master the highest conceptions of Mathematics
and will apply them without learning the latter. To be born Metaphysician
the Psychic Plane will not be of much account: he will see its errors
immediately he enters it, inasmuch as it is not the thing he seeks.
With respect to Music and other Arts, they are the children of either
the Mânasic or Kâma-Mânasic Principle, proportionately
as Soul or technicality predominates.
Karma
After
each incarnation, when the Mânasic Ray returns to its Father, the Ego,
some of its atoms remain behind and scatter. These Mânasic atoms, Tânhic
and other “causes,” being of the same nature as the Manas, are
attracted to it by strong bonds of affinity, and on the reincarnation of
the
Ego are unerringly attracted to it and constitute its Karma. Until these
are all gathered up, the individuality is not free from rebirth. The Higher
Manas
is responsible for the Ray it sends forth. If the Ray be not soiled, no bad
Karma is generated.
The
Turîya State
You
should bear in mind that, in becoming Karma-less, good Karma, as well
as bad,
has to be gotten rid of, and that Nidânas, started towards the acquisition
of good Karma, are binding as those induced in the other direction. For both
are Karma.
Yogis
cannot attain the Turîya state unless the Triangle is separated
from the Quaternary.
Mahat
Mahat
is the manifested universal Parabrâhmic Mind (for one Manvantara) on
the Third Plane [of Kosmos]. It is the Law whereby the Light falls from plane
to plane and differentiates. The Mânasaputras are its emanations.
Man
alone is capable of conceiving the Universe on this plane of existence.
Existence
is; but when the entity does not feel it, for that eternity it is not.
The pain of an operation exists, though the patient does not feel it, and
for the patient it is not.
FEAR
AND HATRED (Page
541)
How
to Advance
Q.
What is the correct pronunciation of AUM?
A.
It should first be practised physically; always at the same pitch, which
must be discovered in the same way as the particular colour of the student
is found, for each has its own tone.
AUM
consists of two vowels and one semi-vowel, which latter must be prolonged.
Just as Nature has its Fa, so each man has his: man being differentiated from
Nature. The body may be compared to an instrument and the Ego to the player.
You begin by producing effect on yourself; then little by little you learn
to play on the Tattvas and Principles; learn first the notes, then the chords,
then the melodies. Once the student is master of every chord, he may begin
to be a co-worker with Nature and for others. He may then, by the experience
he has gained of his own nature, and by the knowledge of the chords, strike
such as will be beneficial in another, and so will serve as a keynote for
beneficial results.
Try
to have a clear representation of the geometrical triangle on every
plane,
the conception gradually growing more metaphysical, and ending with the subjective
Triangle, Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas. It is only by the knowledge
of this Triangle under all forms that you can succeed, e.g., in
enclosing the past and the future in the present. Remember that you
have to merge the Quaternary
in the Triangle. The Lower Manas is drawn upwards, with the Kâma, Prâna
and Linga, leaving only the physical body behind, the lower reinforcing the
higher.
Advance
may be made in Occultism even in Devachan, if the Mind and Soul be set thereon
during life; but it is only as in a dream, and the knowledge will fade away
as memory of a dream fades, unless it be kept alive by conscious study.
Fear
and Hatred
Fear
and hatred are essentially one and the same. He who fears nothing will never
hate, and he who hates nothing will never fear.
The
Triangle
Q.
What is the meaning of the phrase: “Form a clear image of the Triangle
on every plane;” e.g., on the Astral Plane, what should one think of
as the Triangle?
A.
[H.P.B asked whether the question signified the meaning of (Page
542) the Triangle or the way to represent the Triangle on the “screen
of light.” The questioner explaining that the latter was the meaning,
H.P.B said that] it was only in the Turîa state, the fourth of the seven
steps of Râja Yoga that the Yogî can represent to himself that
which is abstract. Below this state, the perceptive power, being conditioned,
must have some form to contemplate; it cannot represent to itself the Arûpa.
In the Turîya state the Triangle is in yourself and is felt. Below the
Turîya state there must be a symbol to represent Atmâ-Buddhi-Manas.
It is not a mere geometrical Triangle, but the Triad imaged, to make thought
possible. Of this Triad, we can make some kind of representation of Manas,
however indistinct; while of Atmâ no image can be formed. We must try
to represent the Triangle to ourselves on higher and higher planes. We must
figure Manas as overshadowed by Buddhi, and immersed in Ãtmâ.
Only Manas, the Higher Ego, can be represented; we may think it as the Augoeides,
the radiant figure in Zanoni. A very good Psychic might see this.
Psychic
Vision
Psychic
vision, however, is not to be desired, since Psyche is earthly and evil. More
and more as Science advances, the psychic will be reached and understood;
Psychism has in it nothing that is spiritual. Science is right on its own
plane, from its own standpoint. The law of the Conservation of Energy implies
that psychic motion is generated by motion. Psychic motion being only motion
on the Psychic Plane, a material plane, the Psychologist is right who sees
in it nothing beyond matter. Animals have no Spirit, but they have psychic
vision, and are sensitive to psychic conditions; observe how these react on
their health, their bodily state.
Motion
is the abstract Deity; on the highest plane it is Arûpa, absoolute;
but on the lowest it is merely mechanical. Psychic action is within the sphere
of physical motion. Ere psychic action can be developed in the brain and nerves,
there must be adequate action which generates it on the Physical Plane. The
paralysed animal that cannot generate action in the physical body, cannot
think. Psychics merely see on a plane of different material density; the spiritual
glimpses sometimes obtained by them come from a plane beyond. A Psychic’s
vision is that of one coming, as it were, into the lighted room, and seeing
everything there by an artificial light; when the light is extinguished,
vision
is lost. Spiritual vision sees by the light within, the light hidden beneath
the bushel of the body, by which we can see clearly and independently of
all
outiside.
Triangle
and Quaternary (Page
543) The Psychic seeing by an external light, the vision is coloured
by the nature of that light.
X.
saying that she felt as though she saw on three planes, H.P.B answered that
each plane was sevenfold, the Astral as every other. She gave as an example
on the Physical Plane the vision of a table with the sense of sight; seeing
it still, with the eyes closed, by retinal impression; the image of it conserved
in the brain; it can be recalled by memory; it can be seen in dream; or as
an aggregate of atoms; or as disintegrated. All these are on the Physical
Plane. Then we can begin again on the Astral Plane, and obtain another septenary.
This hint should be followed and worked out.
Triangle
and Quaternary
Q.
Why is the violet, the colour of the Linga Sharîra, placed
at the apex of the △,
when the Macrocosm is figured as △,
thus throwing the yellow, Buddhi, into the lower Quaternary? □
A.
It is wrong to speak of the “lower Quaternary” in the Macrocosm.
It is the Tetraktys, the highest, the most sacred of all symbols. There
comes
a moment when, in the highest meditation, the Lower Manas is withdrawn into
the Triad, which thus becomes the Quaternary, the Tetraktys of Pythagoras,
leaving what was the Quaternay as the lower Triad, which is then reversed.
The Triad is reflected in the Lower Manas. The Higher Manas cannot
reflect
itself, but when the Green passes upwards it becomes a mirror for the Higher;
it is then no more Green, having passed from its associations. The
Psyche
then becomes spiritual, the Ternary is reflected in the Fourth, and the Tetraktys
is formed. So long as you are not dead, there must be something to
reflect
the Higher Triad; for there must be something to bring back to the waking
consciousness the experiences passed through on the higher planes.
The Lower
Manas is as a tablet which retains the impressions made on it during trance.
The
Turîya state is entered on the Fourth Path; it is figured in
the diagram on p.478, in the Second Paper.
Q.
What is the meaning of a triangle formed of lines of light appearing in the
midst of intense vibrating blue?
A.
Seeing the Triangle outside is nothing; it is merely a reflection of the
Triad on the Auric Envelope, and proves that the seer is outside the Triangle.
It should be seen in quite another way. You must (Page
544) endeavour to merge yourself
in it, to assimilate yourself with it. You are merely seeing things
in the Astral. “When the Third Eye is opened in any one of you, you
will have something very different to tell me.”
Q.
With reference to the “Pillar of Light” in a previous
question, is the Auric Envelope the Higher Ego, and does it correspond
to the Ring-Pass-Not?
[This
question was not answered, as going too far. The Ring-Pass-Not is at the circumference
of the manifested Universe.]
Nidânas
Q.
The root of the Nidânas is Avidyâ. How does this differ from Mâyâ?
How many Nidânas are there Esoterically?
A.
Again too much is asked. The Nidânas, the concatenations of causes
and effects (not in the sense of the Orientalists), are not caused by ignorance.
They are produced by Dhyân Chohans and Devas, who certainly cannot be
said to act in ignorance. We produce Nidânas in ignorance. Each cause
started on the Physical Plane sets up action on every plane to all eternity.
They are eternal effects reflected from plane to plane on the “screen
of eternity.”
Manas
Q.
What is the septenary classification of Manas? There are seven degrees
of
the Lower Manas, and presumably there are seven degrees of the Higher. Are
there then fourteen degrees of Manas, or is Manas, taken as a whole,
divided
into forty-nine Mânasic fires?
A.
Certainly there are fourteen, but you want to run before you can walk.
First learn the three, and then go on to the forty-nine. There are three
Sons
of Agni; they become seven, and then evolve to the forty-nine. But you are
still ignorant how to produce the three. Learn first how to produce the “Sacred
Fire,” spoken of in the Puranas. The forty-nine fires are all
states of Kundalinî, to be produced in ourselves by the friction of
the triad. First learn the septenary body, and then that of each Principle.
But first of all learn the first Triad (the three vital airs).
The
Spinal Cord
Q.
What is the sympathetic nerve and its function in Occultism? Is it found only
after a certain stage of animal evolution, and would seem to be evolving in
complexity towards a second spinal cord.
Prâna
and Antahkarana (Page
545) A. At the end of the next Round, Humanity will again
become male-female, and then there will be two spinal cords. In the Seventh
Race the two will merge into one. The evolution corresponds to the Races,
and with the evolution of the Races the sympathetic develops into a true
spinal
cord. We are returning up the arc only with self-consciousness added. The
Sixth Race will correspond to the “pudding bags,” but will have
the perfection of form with the highest intelligence and spirituality.
Anatomists
are beginning to find new ramifications and new modifications in the human
body. They are in error on many points, e.g., as to the spleen, which
they call the manufactory of white blood corpuscles, but which is really
the
vehicle of the Linga Sharîra. Occultists know each minute portion of
the heart, and have a name for each. They call them by the names of the Gods,
as Brahmâ’s Hall, Vishnu’s Hall, etc. They correspond with
parts of the brain. The very atoms of the body are the thirty-three crores
of Gods.
The
sympathetic nerve is played on by the Tântrikas, who call it Shiva’s
Vînâ.
Prâna
Q.
What is the relation of man to Prâna—the periodical life?
A.
Jîva becomes Prâna only when the child is born and begins
to breathe. It is the breath of life, Nephesh. There is no Prâna on
the Astral Plane.
Antahkarana
Q.
The Antahkarana is the link between the Higher and the Lower Egos; does it
correspond to the umbilical cord in projection?
A.
No; the umbilical cord joining the astral to the physical body is a real
thing. Antahkarana is imaginary, a figure of speech, and is only the bridging
over from the Higher to the Lower Manas. Antahkarana only exists when you
commence to “throw your thought upwards and downwards.” The Mâyâvi
Rûpa, or Mânasic body, has no material connection with the physical
body, no umbilical cord. It is spiritual and ethereal, and passes everywhere
without let or hindrance. It entirely differs from the astral body, which,
if injured, acts by repercussion on the physical body. The Devachanic entity,
even previous to birth, can be affected by the Skandhas, but these have nothing
to do with the Antahkarana. It is affected, e.g., by the desire for
reincarnation.
Q.
We are told in The Voice of the Silence
that we have to become (Page
546) “the path itself,” and in another passage
that Antahkarana is that path. Does this mean anything more than that we
have to
bridge over the gap between the consciousness of the Lower and the Higher
Egos?
A.
That is all.
Q.
We are told that there are seven portals on the Path: is there then a sevenfold
division of Antahkarana? Also, is Antahkarana the battlefield?
A.
It is the battlefield. There are seven divisions in the Antahkarana. As you
pass from each to the next you approach the Higher Manas. When you have bridged
the fourth you may consider yourself fortunate.
Miscellaneous
Q.
We are told that AUM “should be practised physically.” Does
this mean that, colour being more differentiated than sound, it is only through
the colours that we shall get at the real sound of each of us? and
that AUM can only have its Spiritual and Occult signification when
attained to the Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas of each person?
A.
AUM means good action, not merely lip-sound. You must say it in deeds.
Q.
With reference to the △,
is not the Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas different for each entity, according
to the plane on which he is?
A.
Each Principle is on a different plane. The Chelâ must rise to
one after the other, assimilating each, until the three are one. This is
the root
of the Trinity.
Q.
In The Secret Doctrine we are told that Ãkâsha is the
same as Pradhâna. Akasha is the Auric Egg of the earth, and yet Ãkâsha
is the same as Pradhâna. Ãkâsha is the Auric Egg of the
earth, and yet Ãkâsha is Mahat. What then is the relation of
Manas to the Auric Egg?
A. Mûlaprakriti is the same as Ãkâsha (seven degrees). Mahat
is the positive aspect of Akasha, and is the Manas of the Kosmic Body. Mahat
is to Ãkâsha as Manas is to Buddhi, and Pradhâna is but
another name for Mûlaprakriti.
The
Auric Egg is Ãkâsha and has seven degrees. Being pure
abstract substance, it reflects abstract ideas, but also reflects lower
concrete things.
The
Third Logos and Mahat are one, and are the same as the Universal Mind, Alaya.
The
Tetraktys is the Chatur Vidyâ, or the fourfold knowledge in one, the
four-faced Brahmâ.
Sacred
Centres of Body (Page
547)
Nâdîs
Q.
Have the Nâdîs any fixed relationship
to the vertebræ? can they be located opposite to or between
any vertebrae? Can they be regarded as occupying each a given and
fixed extent in the cord?
Do they correspond to the divisions of the cord known to Anatomists?
A.
H.P.B believed that the Nâdîs corresponded to regions of the
spinal cord known to Anatomists. There are thus six or seven Nâdîs
or plexuses along the spinal cord. The term, however, is not technical but
general, and applies to any knot, centre, ganglion, etc. The sacred Nâdîs
are those which run along or above Sushumnâ. Six are known to Science,
and one (near the atlas) unknown. Even the Târaka Râja Yogîs
speak only of six, and will not mention the sacred seventh.
Idâ
and Pingalâ play along the curved wall of the cord in which is Sushumnâ.
They are semi-material, positive and negative, sun and moon , and start into
action the free and spiritual current of Sushumnâ. They have distinct
paths of their own, otherwise they would radiate all over the body. By concentration
on Idâ and Pingalâ is generated the “sacred fire.”
Another
name for Shiva’s Vînâ (sympathetic system) is Kâlî’s
Vînâ.
The
sympathetic cords and Idâ and Pingalâ start from a sacred
spot above the medulla oblongata, called Triveni. This is one of the
sacred centres,
another of which is Brahmarandra, which is, if you like, the grey matter
of the brain. It is also the anterior fontanelle in the new-born child.
The
spinal column is called Brahmadanda, the stick of Brahmâ. This is again
symbolized by the bamboo rod carried by Ascetics. The Yogis on the other sides
of the Himâlayas, who assemble regularly at Lake Mânsarovara,
carry a triple knotted bamboo stick, and are called Tridandins. This has the
same signification as the Brâhmanical cord, which has many meanings
besides the three vital airs; e.g., it symbolizes the three initiations
of a Brâhman, taking place: (a) at birth, when he receives his
mystery name from the family Astrologer, who is supposed to have received
it from the Devas (he is also thus said to be initiated by the Devas); a Hindu
will sooner die than reveal this name; (b) at seven, when he receives
the cord; and (c) at eleven or twelve, when he is initiated into his
caste.
(Page
548) Q. If it is right to study the body and its organs, with
their correspondences, will you give the main outline of these in connection
with the Nâdîs and with the diagram of the orifices?
The
|
Corresponds
to the
|
Spleen |
Linga
Sharira |
Liver |
Kâma |
Heart |
Prâna |
Corpora-quadrigemina |
Kâma-Manas |
Pictuitary
body |
Manas-Antahkarana |
Pineal
gland |
Manas |
until
it is touched by the vibrating light of Kundalinî, which proceeds
from Buddhi, when it becomes Buddhi-Manas.
The
pineal gland corresponds with Divine Thought. The pituitary body is the organ
of the Psychic Plane. Psychic vision is caused by the molecular motion of
this body, which is directly connected with the optic nerve, and thus affects
the sight and gives rise to hallucinations. Its motion may readily cause flashes
of light, such as may be obtained by pressing the eyeballs. Drunkenness and
fever produce illusions of sight and hearing by the action of the pituitary
body. This body is sometimes so affected by drunkenness that it is paralysed.
If an influence on the optic nerve is thus produced and the current thus reversed,
the colour will probably be compementary.
Sevens
Q.
If the physical body is no part of the real human septenary, is the physical
material world one of the seven planes of the Kosmic septenary?
A. It
is. The body is not a Principle in Esoteric parlance, because the body
and the Linga are both on the same plane; then the Auric Egg makes
the seventh.
The body is an Upâdhi rather than a Principle. The earth and its astral
light are as closely related to each other as the body and its Linga, the
earth being the Upâdhi. Our plane in its lowest division is the earth,
in its highest the astral. The terrestrial astral light should of course
not
be confounded with the universal Astral Light.
Q.
A physical object was spoken of as a septenary on the physical plane, inasmuch
as we could (1) directly contact it; (2) retinally reproduce
it; (3) remember it; (4) dream of it; (5) view it atomically;
(6) view it disintegrated; (7) —What is the seventh?
These
are seven ways in which we view it: the septenary is our way of seeing one
thing. Is it objectively septenary?
Ãkâsha
Nature's Sounding-Board (Page
549) A. The seventh bridges across from one plane
to another. The last is the idea, the privation of matter, and carries you
to the next plane. The highest of one plane touches the lowest of the next.
Seven is a factor in nature, as in colours and sounds. There are seven degrees
in the same piece of wood, each perceived by one of the seven senses. In wood
the smell is the most material degree, while in other substances it may be
the sixth. Substances are septenary apart from the consciousness of the viewer.
The
psychometer, seeing a morsel, say of a table a thousand years hence, would
see the whole; for every atom reflects the whole body to which it belongs,
just as with the Monads of Leibnitz.
After
the seven material subdivisions are the seven divisions of the Astral,
which
is its second Principle. The disintegrated matter—the highest of the
material subdivisions—is the privation of the idea of it—the
fourth.
The
number fourteen is the first step between seven and forty-nine. Each septenary
is really a fourteen, because each of the seven has its two aspects. Thus
fourteen signifies the inter-relation of two planes in its turn. The septenary
is to be clearly traced in the lunar months, fevers, gestations, etc. On it
is based the week of the Jews and the septenary Hierarchies of the Lord of
Hosts.
Sounds
Q.
Sound is an attribute of Ãkâsha; but we cannot cognize anything
on the Ãkâshic plane; on what plane then do we recognize sound?
On what plane is sound produced by the physical contact of bodies? Is there
sound on seven planes, and is the physical plane one of them?
A.
The physical plane is one of them. You cannot see Ãkâsha,
but you can sense it from the Fourth Path. You may not be fully conscious
of it, and yet you may sense it. Ãkâsha is at the root of the
manifestation of all sounds. Sound is the expression and manifestation of
that which is behind it, and which is the parent of many correlations. All
Nature is a sounding-board; or rather Ãkâsha is the sounding-board
of Nature. It is the Deity, the one Life, the one Existence. (Hearing is the
vibration of molecular particles; the order is seen in the sentence, “The
disciple feels, hears, sees.”)
Sound
can have no end. H.P.B remarked with regard to a tap made by a pencil
on the
table: “By this time it has affected the whole universe. The particle
which has had its wear and tear destroys some (Page 550) thing which passes
into something else. It is eternal in the Nidânas it produces.”
A sound, if not previously produced on the Astral Plane, and before that on
the Ãkâshic, could not be produced at all. Ãkâsha
is the bridge between nerve cells and mental powers.
Q. “Colours are psychic, and sounds are spiritual.” What,
assuming that these are vibrations, is the successive order (these
corresponding to
sight and hearing) of the other senses?
A.
This phrase was not to be taken out of its context, otherwise confusion
would arise. All are on all planes. The First Race had touch all over like
a sounding board; this touch differentiated into the other senses, which
developed
with the Races. The “sense” of the First Race was that of touch,
meaning the power of their atoms to vibrate in unison with external atoms.
The “touch” would be almost the same as sympathy.
The
senses were on a different plane with each Race; e.g., the Fourth
Race had very much more developed senses than ourselves, but on another plane.
It was also a very material Race. The sixth and seventh senses will merge
into the Ãkâshic Sound. “It depends to what degree of
matter the sense of touch relates itself as to what we call it.”
Prâna
Q.
Is Prâna the production of the countless “lives” of
the human body, and therefore, to some extent, of the congeries of
the cells or
atoms of the body?
A.
No; Prâna is the parent of the “lives.” As an example,
a sponge may be immersed in an ocean. The water in the sponge’s interior
may be compared to Prâna; outside is Jîva. Prâna is the
motor-principle in life. The “lives” leave Prâna; Prâna
does not leave them. Take out the sponge from the water, and it becomes dry,
thus symbolizing death. Every principle is a differentiation of Jîva,
but the life-motion in each is Prâna, the “breath of life.”
Kâma depends on Prâna, without which there would be no Kâma.
Prâna wakes the Kâmic germs to life; it makes all desires vital
and living.
The
Second Spinal Cord
Q.
With reference to the answer to the question on the second cord,
what is it
that will become a second spinal cord in the Sixth Race? Will Idâ and
Pingalâ have separate physical ducts?
A.
It is the sympathetic cords which will grow together and form another
spinal cord. Idâ and Pingalâ will be joined with Sushumnâ,
and they will become one. Idâ is on the left side of the cord, and Pingalâ on
the right.
Kosmic
Consciousness (Page
551)
Initiates
Pythagoras was an Initiate, one of the grandest of Scientists. His disciple,
Archytas, was marvellously apt in applied Science. Plato and Euclid were Initiates,
but not Socrates. No real Initiates were married. Euclid learned his Geometry
in the Mysteries. Modern men of Science only rediscover the old truths.
Kosmic
Consciousness
H.P.B
proceeded to explain Kosmic Consciousness, which is, like all else, on seven
planes, of which three are inconceivable and four are cognizable by the highest
Adept. She sketched the planes as in the following diagram.
|
|
Manas-Ego
|
|
Kâma-Manas
or Higher Psychic
|
Prânic-Kâma
or Lower Psychic
|
Astral
|
Prakritic
or Terrestrial
|
Taking
the lowest only, the Terrestrial (it was afterwards decided to call
this
plane Prâkritic), it is divisible into seven planes, and these again
into seven, making the forty-nine.
(Page
552) She then took the lowest plane of Prakriti, or the true Terrestrial,
and divided it as follows:—
True
terrestrial planes
or 7th Prâkritic |
7 |
Para-Ego
or Atmic |
6 |
Inner-Ego
or Buddhic |
5 |
Ego-Manas |
4 |
Kâma-Manas
or Lower Manas |
3 |
Prânic
Kâma or Psychic |
2 |
Astral |
1 |
Objective |
Its
objective or sensuous plane is that which is sensed by the five physical senses.
On
its second plane things are reversed.
Its
third plane is psychic: here is the instinct which prevents a kitten going
into the water and getting drowned.
The
following table of the terrestrial, objective consciousness was given:
1 |
Sensuous |
2 |
Instinctual |
3 |
Physiological-emotional |
4 |
Passional
- emotional |
5 |
Mental-
emotional |
6 |
Spiritual-emotional |
7 |
x |
Divisions
of the Astral Plane (Page
553)
Astral
The
three lower Prâkritic are related to the three lower of the Astral
Plane immediately succeeding.
7 |
|
6 |
Astral
Buddhi |
5 |
Astral
Manas |
4 |
Astral
Kâma-Manas |
3 |
Astral
Psychic or Prânic |
2 |
Astral
Astral |
1 |
Astral
Objective |
With
regard to the first division of the second plane, H.P.B reminded her pupils
that all seen on it must be reversed in translating it, e.g., with
numbers which appeared backwards. The Astral Objective corresponds in everything
to the Terrestrial Objective.
The
second division corresponds to the second of the lower plane, but the objects
are of extreme tenuity, an astralized Astral. This plane is the limit of the
ordinary medium, beyond which he cannot go. A non-mediumistic person to reach
it must be asleep or in a trance, or under the influence of laughing-gas;
or in ordinary delirium people pass on to this plane.
The
third, the Prânic, is of an intensely vivid nature. Extreme delirium
carried the patient to this plane. In delirium tremens the sufferer
passes
to this and to the one above it. Lunatics are often conscious on this plane,
where they see terrible visions. It runs into the—
Fourth
division, the worst of the astral planes, Kâmic and terrible. Hence
come the images that tempt; images of drunkards in Kâma Loka impelling
others to drink; images of all vices inoculating men with the desire to commit
crimes. The weak imitate these images in a kind of monkeyish fashion, so
falling
beneath their influence. This is also the cause of epidemics of vices, and
cycles of disaster, of accidents of all kinds coming in groups. Extreme delirium
tremens is on this plane.
(Page
554)
The fifth division is that of premonitions in dreams, of reflections from
the lower mentality, glimpses into the past and future, the plane of things
mental and not spiritual. The mesmerized clairvoyant can reach this plane,
and even, if good, may go higher.
The
sixth is the plane from which come all beautiful inspirations of art, poetry,
and music, high types of dreams, flashes of genius. Here we have glimpses
of past incarnations, without being able to locate or analyse them.
We
are on the seventh plane at the moment of death or in exceptional visions.
The drowning man is here when he remembers his past life. The memory
of events
of this plane must be centred in the heart, “the seat of Buddha.” There
it will remain, but impressions from this plane are not made on the physical
brain.
4th
Kosmic Plane |
|
|
Kosmic
Kâma-Mans |
Fohat |
|
3rd
Kosmic Plane |
|
Kosmic
Life |
Jiva-Fohat |
Prânic-Kâma |
2nd
Kosmic Plane |
|
|
Kosmic
Astral |
1st
Kosmic Prakiristic |
|
|
Kosmic
Body |
(next
graphic part of this one) |
[In
this diagram all the Kosmic Planes should be figured as of one size—the
size given to the lowest plane, Prakriti. Further, within the circle all the
Prâkritic Planes should be of one size—that given to the first,
or lowest. To do this would make so large a diagram that the planes are compressed.—Ed.]
Kosmic
Planes(Page
555)
General
Notes
The
two planes above dealt with are the only two used in the Hatha Yoga.
Prâna
and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and again, as Jîva,
it is the same as the Universal Deity. This, in its Fifth Principle, is Mahat,
in its Sixth, Alaya. (The Universal Life is also seven-principled.) Mahat
is the highest Entity in Kosmos; beyond this is no diviner Entity;
it is of subtlest matter, Sûkshma. In us this is Manas, and the very
Logoi are less high, not having gained experience. The Mânasic Entity
will not be destroyed, even at the end of the Mahâmanvantara, when all
the Gods are absorbed, but will re-emerge from Parabrâhmic latency.
Consciousness
is the Kosmic seed of superkosmic omniscience. It has the potentiality of
budding into the Divine Consciousness.
Rude
physical health is a drawback to seership. This was the case with Swedenborg.
Fohat
is everywhere: it runs like a thread through all, and has its own seven divisions.
In
the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe.
This
is the Hiranyagarbha. Jîva is everywhere, and so with the other Principles.
(Page
556)
The above diagram
represents the type of all the Solar Systems.
Mahat, single
before informing the Universe, differentiates when informing it, as does
Manas in man
Taking this figure
to represent the human Principles and planes of consciousness, then
Differentiation
(Page
557)
7,
6, 5, represent respectively, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahmâ being the
lowest.
Shiva
is the four-faced Brahmâ; the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer,
and Regenerator.
Between
5 and 4 comes the Antahkarana. The △ represents
the Christos, the Sacrificial Victim crucified between the thieves: this
is the double-faced entity. The Vedântins make this a quarternary
for a blind: Antahkarana, Chit, Buddhi, and Manas.
Manvantaric
Aspect of Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti
N.B. The number
of rays is arbitrary and without significance.
Perceptive
life begins with the Astral: it is not our physical atoms which see, etc.
Consciousness
proper begins between Kâma and Manas. Ãtmâ-buddhi
acts more in the atoms of the body, in the bacilli, microbes, etc.,
than in Man
himself.
Objective
Consciousness
Sensuous
objective consciousness includes all that pertains to the five physical
senses
in man, and rules in animals, birds, fishes and some insects. Here are the “Lives;” their consciousness is in Ãtma-Buddhi;
these are entirely without Manas.
Astral
Consciousness
(Page
558) That of some plants (e.g., sensitive) of ants, spiders,
and some night-flies (Indian), but not of bees.
The
vertebrate animals in general are without this consciousness, but the placental
Mammals have all the potentialities of human consciousness, though at present,
of course, dormant.
Idiots
are on this plane. The common expression “he has lost his mind”
is an Occult truth. For when through fright or other cause the lower mind
becomes paralysed, then the consciousness is on the Astral Plane. The study
of lunacy will throw much light on these points. This may be called the “nerve
plane.” It is cognized by our “nervous centres” of which
Physiology knows nothing, e.g., the clairvoyant reading with the eyes
bandaged, reading with the tips of the fingers, the pit of the stomach, etc.
This sense is greatly developed in the deaf and dumb.
Kâma-Prânic
Consciousness
The
general life-consciousness which belongs to all the objective world,
even
to the stones; for if stones were not living they could not decay, emit a
spark, etc. Affinity between chemical elements is a manifestation of
this
Kâmic consciousness.
Kâma-Mânasic
Consciousness
The
instinctual consciousness of animals and idiots in its lowest degrees, the
planes of sensation; in man these are rationalized, e.g., a dog shut
in a room has the instinct to get out, but cannot because its instinct is
not sufficiently rationalized to take the necessary means; whereas a man
at
once takes in the situation and extricates himself. The highest degree of
this Kâma-Mânasic consciousness is the psychic. Thus there are
seven degrees from the instinctual animal to the rationalized instinctual
and psychic.
Mânasic
Consciousness
From
this plane Manas stretches upwards to Mahat.
Buddhic
Consciousness
The
plane of Buddhi and the Auric Envelope. From here it goes to the Father
in
heaven, Ãtmâ, and reflects all that is in the Auric Envelope.
Five and six therefore cover the planes from the psychic to the divine.
Men
and Pitris (Page
559)
Miscellaneous
Reason
is a thing that oscillates between right and wrong. But Intelligence—Intuition—is
higher, it is the clear vision.
To
get rid of Kâma we must crush out all out material instincts—“crush
out matter.” The flesh is a thing of habit; it will repeat mechanically
a good impulse as well as a bad one. It is not the flesh which is always
the
tempter; in nine cases out of ten it is the Lower Manas, which, by its images,
leads the flesh into temptation.
The
highest Adept begins his Samâdhi on the Fourth Solar Plane, but cannot
go outside the Solar System. When he begins Samâdhi he is on a par with
some of the Dhyân Chohans, but he transcends them as he rises to the
seventh plane (Nirvâna).
The
Silent Watcher is on the Fourth Kosmic Plane.
The
higher Mind directs the Will: the lower turns it into selfish Desire.
The
head should not be covered in meditation. It is covered in Samâdhi.
The
Dhyân Chohans are passionless, pure and mindless. They have no
struggle, no passion to crush.
The
Dhyân Chohans are made to pass through the School of Life. “God
goes to School.”
The
best of us in the future will be Mânasaputras; the lowest will
be Pitris. We are seven intellectual Hierarchies here. This earth becomes
the moon of
the next earth.
The “Pitris” are the Astral overshadowed by Ãtma-Buddhi, falling
into matter. T he “Pudding-bags” has Life and Ãtmâ-Buddhi,
but no Manas. They were therefore senseless. The reason for all evolution
is the gaining of experience.
In
the Fifth Round all of us will pay the part of the Pitris. We shall
have to
go and shoot out our Chhâyâs into another humanity, and remain
until that humanity is perfected. The Pitris have finished their office in
this Round and have gone into Nirvâna; but they will return to do the
same office up to the middle point of the Fifth Round. The Fourth or Kâmic
Hierarchy of the Pitris becomes the “man of flesh.”
The
astral body is first in the womb; then comes the germ that fructifies it.
It is then clothed with matter, as were the Pitris.
The
Chhâyâ is really the lower Manas, the shadow of the higher Mind.
This Chhâyâ makes the Mâyâvi Rûpa. The Ray
clothes itself (Page
560) in the highest degree of the Astral Plane. The Mâyâvi
Rûpa is composed of the astral body as Upâdhi, the guiding intelligence
from the heart, the attributes and qualities from the Auric Envelopes.
The
Auric Envelope takes up the light of Ãtmâ, and overshadows
the coronal circling round the head.
The
Auric Fluid is a combination of the Life and Will principles, the life and
the will being one and the same in Kosmos. It emanates from the eyes and hands,
when directed by the will of the operator.
The
Auric Light surrounds all bodies: it is the “aura” emanating
from them, whether they be animal, vegetable, or mineral. It is the
light, e.g.,
seen round magnets.
Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas
in man corresponds to the three Logoi in Kosmos. They not only correspond,
but each is the radiation from Kosmos to Microcosmos. The third Logos,
Mahat,
becomes Manas in man, Manas being only Mahat individualized, as the sun-rays
are individualized in bodies that absorb them. The sun-rays give life,
they
fertilize what is already there, and the individual is formed. Mahat, so
to say fertilizes, and Manas is the result.
Buddhi-Manas
is the Kshetrajña.
There
are seven planes of Mahat, as of all else.
The
Human Principles
Here
H.P.B drew two diagrams, illustrating different ways of representing the human
principles. In the first:
the
two lower are disregarded; they go out, disintegrate, are of not account.
Remain five, under the radiation of Ãtmâ.
Power
of Imagination (Page
561)
In the second:
the
lower Quaternary is regarded as mere matter, objective illusion, and there
remain Manas and the Auric Egg, the higher Principles being reflected in the
Auric Egg. In all these systems remember the main principle, the descent and
re-ascent of the Spirit, in man as in Kosmos. The Spirit is drawn downwards
as by spiritual gravitation.
Seeking
further for the cause of this, the students were checked, H.P.B giving only
a suggestion on the three Logoi:
1. Potentiality
of Mind (Absolute Thought).
2. Thought
in Germ.
3. Ideation
in Activity.
Notes
Protective
variation, e.g.,identity of colouring of insects and of that on which
they feed, was explained to be the work of Nature Elementals.
Form
is on different planes, and the forms of one plane may be formless to
dwellers
on another. The Kosmocratores build on planes in the Divine Mind, visible
to them though not to us. The principle of limitation—principium
individuationis—is Form: this principle is Divine Law manifested
in Kosmic Matter, which, in its essence, is limitless. The Auric Egg is the
limit of man as Hiranyagarbha of the Kosmos.
The
first step towards the accomplishment of Kriyâshakti is the use of the
Imagination. To imagine a thing is to firmly create a model of what you desire,
perfect in all its details. The Will is then brought into action, and the
form is thereby transferred to the objective world. This is creation by Kriyâshakti.
Suns
and Planets
(Page
562) A comet partially cools and settles down as a sun. It then
gradually attracts round it planets that are as yet unattached to any centre,
and thus, in millions of years, a Solar System is formed. The worn-out planet
becomes a moon to the planet of another system.
The
sun we see is a reflection of the true Sun: this reflection, as an outward
concrete thing, is a Kâma-Rûpa, all the suns forming the Kâma-Rûpa
of Kosmos. To its own system the sun is Buddhi, as being the reflection and
vehicle of the true Sun, which is Ãtmâ, invisible on this plane.
All the Fohatic forces—electricity, etc—are in this reflection.
The
Moon
At
the beginning of the evolution of our globe, the moon was much nearer
to the
earth, and larger than it is now. It has retreated from us, and shrunk
much in size. (The moon gave all her Principles to the earth, while the
Pitris
gave only their Chhâyâs to man.)
The
influences of the moon are wholly psycho-physiological. It is dead, sending
out injurious emanations like a corpse. It vampirizes the earth and its inhabitants,
so that any one sleeping in its rays suffers, losing some of his life-force.
A white cloth is a protection, the rays not passing through it, and the head
especially should be thus guarded. It has most power when it is full. It throws
off particles which we absorb, and is gradually disintegrating. Where there
is snow the moon looks like a corpse, being unable, through the white snow,
to vampirize effectually. Hence snow-covered mountains are free from its bad
influences. The moon is phosphorescent.
The
Râkshakas of Lanka and the Atlanteans are said to have subjected
the moon. The Thessalians learned from them their Magic.
Esoterically,
the moon is the symbol of the Lower Manas; it is also the symbol of the Astral.
Plants
which under the sun’s rays are beneficent are maleficent under those
of the moon. Herbs containing poisons are most active when gathered under
the moon’s rays.
A
new moon will appear during the Seventh Round, and our moon will finally
disintegrate
and disappear. There is now a planet, the “Mystery Planet,” behind
the moon, and it is gradually dying. Finally the time will come for it
to
send its Principles to a new Laya Centre, and there a new planet will form,
to belong to another Solar System, the present Mystery Planet then functioning
as moon to that new globe. This moon will have nothing to do with our earth,
though it will come within our range of vision.
Why
Cycles Return (Page
563
The
Solar System
All the visible planets placed in our Solar System by Astronomers belong to
it, except Neptune. There are also some others not known to Science,
belonging to it, and “all moons which are not yet visible for next
things.”
The
planets only move in our consciousness. The Rulers of the seven Secret
Planets
have no influence on this earth, as this earth has on other planets. It
is the sun and moon which really have not only a mental, but also a physical
effect. The effect of the sun on humanity is connected with Kâma-Prâna,
with the most physical Kâmic elements in us; it is the vital principle
which helps growth. The effect of the moon is chiefly Kâma-Mânasic
or psycho-physiological; it acts on the psychological brain, on the brain
mind.
Precious
Stones
In
answer to a question, H.P.B said that the diamond and the ruby were under
the sun, the saphire under the moon—“but what does it matter
to you?”
Time
When
once out of the body, and not subject to the habit of consciousness formed
by others, time does not exist.
Cycles
and epochs depend on consciousness: we are not here for the first time; the
cycles return because we come back into conscious existence. Cycles are measured
by the consciousness of humanity and not by Nature. It is because we are the
same people as in past epochs that these events occur to us.
Death
The
Hindus look upon death as impure, owing to the disintegration of the
body
and the passing from one plane to another. “I believe in transformation,
not in death.”
Atoms
The
Atom is the Soul of the molecule. It is the six Principles, and the molecule
is the body thereof. The Atom is the Ãtman of the objective Kosmos, i.e., it is on the seventh plane of the lowest Prakriti.
Terms
(Page
564) H.P.B began by saying that students ought to know the correct
meaning of the Sanskrit terms used in Occultism, and should learn the Occult
Symbology. To begin with one had better learn the correct Esoteric classification
and names of the fourteen (7 X 2 ) and seven (Sapta) Lokas found in the
exoteric
texts. These are given there in a very confused manner, and are full of “blinds.” To
illustrate this three classifications are given below.
Lokas
LOKAS
|
1 |
The
general exoteric, orthodox and tântric category: |
Bhûr-loka |
|
Bhuvar-loka |
|
Swar-loka |
|
Mahar-loka |
The
second seven are reflected. |
Janar-loka |
|
Tapar-loka |
|
Satya-loka |
|
2 |
The
Sânkhya category, and that of some Vedântins |
Brahmâ-loka |
|
Pitri-loka |
|
Soma-loka |
|
Indra-loka |
|
Gandharva-loka |
|
Râkshasa-loka |
|
Yaksha-loka |
|
And
an eighth. |
|
3 |
The
Vedântic, the nearest approach to the Esoteric: |
Atala |
|
Vitala |
|
Sutala |
|
Talâtala
(or Karatala). |
|
Rasâtala |
|
Mahâtala |
|
Pâtâla |
|
Each
and all correspond Esoterically to the Kosmic or Dhyân Chohanic Hierarchies,
and to the human States of Consciousness and their subdivisions (forty-nine).
To appreciate this the meanings of the terms used in the Vedântic classification
must be first understood.
Talas
and Lokas (Page 565)
Word |
means |
Tala
|
place
|
Atala
|
no
place
|
Vitala
|
some
change for the better: i.e., better for matter, in that more matter
enters into it, or, in other words, it becomes more differentiated.
This is an ancient Occult term.
|
Sutala
|
good,
excellent, place.
|
Karatala
|
something
that can be grasped or touched (from kara, a hand): i.e., the
state in which matter becomes tangible.
|
Rasâtala
|
place
of taste; a place you can sense with one of the organs of sense.
|
Mahâtala
|
exoterically “great
place”; but, Esoterically, a place including all others
subjectively, and potentially including all that precedes it.
|
Pâtâla
|
something
under the feet (from pada, foot), the upâdhi, or basis
of anything, the antipodes, America, etc.
|
Each
of the Lokas, places, worlds, states, etc., corresponds with and is transformed
into five (exoterically) and seven (Esoterically) states or Tattvas, for which
there are no definite names. These in the main divisions cited below make
up the forty-nine Fires:
5
and 7 Tanmâtras, outer and inner senses.
5
and 7 Bhûtas, or elements.
5
and 7 Gnyânendryas, or organs of sensation.
5
and 7 Karmendryas, or organs of action.
These
correspond in general to States of Consciousness, to the Hierarchies
of Dhyân
Chohans, to the Tattvas, etc. These Tattvas transform themselves into the
whole Universe. The fourteen Lokas are made of seven with seven reflections:
above, below; within, without; subjective, objective; pure, impure;
positive,
negative; etc.
Explanation
of the States of Consciousness
Corresponding
to the Vedântic Classification of Lokas
7.
Atala The Ãtmic or Auric state or locality: it
emanates directly from ABSOLUTENESS, and is the
first something in the Universe. Its correspondence is the Hierarchy
of non-substantial primordial
Beings, in a place which is no place (for us), a state which is no state.
This Hierarchy contains the primordial plane, all that was, and will
be, from
the beginning to the end of the Mahâmanvantara; all is there. This
statement should not, however, be taken to imply Kismet: the latter is contrary
to all
the teachings of Occultism.
Here
are the Hierarchies of the Dhyâni Buddhas. Their state is that of Parasamâdhi,
of the Dharmakâya; a state where no progress is possible. The entities
there may be said to be crystallized in purity, in homogeneity.
6.
Vitala. Here are the Hierarchies of the celestial Buddhas,
or Bodhisattvas, who are said to emanate from the seven Dhyâni Buddhas.
It is related on earth to Samâdhi, to the Buddhic consciousness in man.
No adept, save one, can be higher than this and live; if he passes into the
Ãtmic or Dharmakâya state (Alaya) he can return to earth no
more. These two states are purely hyper-metaphysical.
5.
Sutala. A differential state corresponding on earth with
the Higher Manas, and therefore with Shabda (Sound), the Logos, our
Higher Ego;
and also to the Manushi Buddha state, like that of Gautama, on earth. This
is the third stage of Samâdhi (which is septenary). Here belong the
Hierachies of the Kumâras—the Agnishvattas, etc.
4.
Karatala corresponds with Sparsha (touch) and to the Hierarchies
of ethereal, semi-objective Dhyân Chohans of the astral matter of the
Mânasa-Manas, or the pure ray of Manas, that is the Lower Manas before
it is mixed with Kâma (as in the young child). They are called Sparsha
Devas, the Devas endowed with touch. These Hierarchies of Devas are progressive:
the first have one sense; the second two; and so on to seven: each containing
all the senses potentially, but not yet developed. Sparsha would be rendered
better by affinity, contact.
3.
Rasâtala, or Rûpatala: corresponds
to the Hierachies of Rûpa or Sight Devas, possessed of three senses, sight,
hearing, and touch. These are the Kâma-Mânasic entities, and
the higher Elementals. With the Rosicrucians they were the Sylphs and Undines.
It corresponds on earth with an artificial state of consciousness, such as
that produced by hypnotism and drugs (morphia, etc.).
2.
Mahâtala. Corresponds to the Hierachies of Rasa
or Taste Devas , and includes a state of consciousness embracing the
lower five senses
and emanations of life and being. It corresponds to Kâma and Prâna
in man, and to Salamanders and Gnomes in nature.
1.
Pâtala. Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Gandha
or Smell Devas, the underworld or antipodes: Myalba. The sphere of
irrational animals,
having no feeling save that of self-preservation and gratification of the
senses: also of intensely selfish human beings, walking or sleeping.
This
is why Nârada is said to have visited Pâtâla when he was
cursed to be reborn. He reported that life there was very pleasant for those
“who had never left their birth-place”; they were happy. It is
the earthly state, and corresponds with the sense of smell. Here are also
animal Dugpas, Elementals of animals, and Nature Spirits.
States
of Consciousness (Page 567)
Further
Explanations of the Same Classifications
7.
Auric, Ãtmic, Alayic, sense or state. One of full potentiality,
but not of activity.
6.
Buddhic; the sense of being one with the universe; the impossibility of imagining
oneself apart from it.
(It
was asked why the term Alayic was here given to the Ãtmic and
not to the Buddhic state. Ans. These classifications are not hard and fast
divisions. A term may change places according as the classification is exoteric,
Esoteric or practical. For students the effort should be to bring all things
down to states of consciousness. Buddhi is really one and indivisible. It
is a feeling within, absolutely inexpressible in words. All cataloguing is
useless to explain it.)
5.
Shâbdic, sense of hearing.
4.
Spârshic, sense of touch.
3.
Rûpîc, the state of feeling oneself a body and perceiving it (rûpa
= form).
2.
Râsic, sense of taste.
1.
Gândhic, sense of smell.
All
the Kosmic and anthropic states and senses correspond with our organs
of sensation,
Gnyânendryas, rudimentary organs for receiving knowledge through direct
contact, sight, etc. These are the faculties of Sharîra, through Netra
(eyes), nose, speech, etc., and also with the organs of action, Karmendryas,
hands, feet, etc.
Exoterically,
there are five sets of five, giving twenty-five. Of these twenty are
facultative
and five Buddhic. Exoterically Buddhi is said to perceive; Esoterically it
reaches perception only through the Higher Manas. Each of these twenty
is
both positive and negative, thus making forty in all. There are two subjective
states answering to each of the four sets of five, hence eight in all.
These
being subjective can (Page 568) not be doubled. Thus we have 40 + 8 = 48 “cognitions
of Buddhi.” These with Mâya, which includes them all, make 49.
(Once that you have reached the cognition of Mâya, you are an Adept.)
|
5 |
+ |
5 |
Tanmâtras |
2 |
|
|
|
5 |
+ |
5 |
Bhûta |
2 |
|
|
|
5 |
+ |
5 |
Gnyânendryas |
2 |
|
|
|
5 |
+ |
5 |
Karmendryas |
2 |
|
|
|
TOTALS |
20 |
+ |
20 |
+ |
8 |
+ |
Mâyâ |
= |
49 |
The
Lokas
In
their exoteric blinds the Brâhmans count fourteen Lokas earth
included), of which seven are objective, though not apparent, and seven
subjective, yet
fully demonstrable to the Inner Man. There are seven Divine Lokas and seven
infernal (terrestrial) Lokas.
|
SEVEN
DIVINE LOKAS |
|
SEVEN
INFERNAL (TERRESTRIAL) LOKAS |
1 |
Bhûrloka
(the earth). |
1 |
Pâtâla
(our earth). |
2 |
Bhuvarloka
(between the earth and the sun [Munîs]). |
2 |
Mahâtala |
3 |
Svarloka
(between the sun and the Pole Star [Yogîs]). |
3 |
Rasâtala |
4 |
Maharloka
(between the earth and the and the utmost limit
of the Solar System * |
4 |
Talâtala
(or Karatala). |
5 |
Janarloka
(beyond the Solar System, the abode of
the Kumâras who do not belong to this plane). |
5 |
Sutala |
6 |
Taparloka
(still beyond the Mahâtmic region, the
dwelling of the Vairâja deities). |
6 |
Vitala |
7 |
Satyaloka
(the abode of the Nirvanîs). |
7 |
Atala |
*
[All these “spaces” denote the special magnetic currents,
the planes of substance, and the degrees of approach that the consciousness
of the Yogi, or Chela, performs towards assimilation with the inhabitants
of the Lokas.] |
[GRAPHIC
PAGE 568A missing)
Man
and Lokas (Page
569)
These
the Brâhmans read from the bottom.
Now
all these fourteen are planes from without within, and (the seven Divine)
States of Consciousness through which man can pass—and must pass,
once he is determined to go through the seven paths and portals of
Dhyâni;
one need not be disembodied for this, and all this is reached on earth, and
in one or many of the incarnations.
See
the order: the four lower ones (1,2,3,4), are rûpa; i.e., they
are performed by the Inner Man with the full concurrence of the diviner portions,
or elements, of the Lower Manas, and consciously by the personal
man. The three higher states cannot be reached and remembered by the latter,
unless he is a fully initiated Adept. A Hatha Yogî will never pass beyond
the Maharloka, psychically, and the Talâtala (double or dual place),
physico-mentally. To become a Râja Yogî, one has to ascend up
to the seventh portal, the Satyaloka. For such, the Master Yogîs tells
us, is the fruition of Yajna, or sacrifice. When the Bhûr, Bhuvar and
Svarga (states) are once passed, and the Yogi’s consciousness centered
in Maharloka, it is in the last plane and state between entire identification
of the Personal and the Higher Manas.
One
thing to remember: while the infernal (or terrestrial) states are also
the
seven divisions of the earth, for planes and states, as much as they are
Kosmic divisions, the divine Saptaloka are purely subjective, and begin
with the
psychic Astral Light plane, ending with the Satya or Jîvanmukta state.
These fourteen Lokas, or spheres, form the extent of the whole Brahmânda
(world). The four lower are transitory, with all their dwellers, and the
three
higher eternal; i.e., the former states, planes and subjects, to these,
last only a Day of Brahmâ, changing with every Kalpa: the latter endure
for an Age of Brahmâ.
In
Diagram V. only Body, Astral, Kâma, Lower Manas, Higher Manas, Buddhi
and Auric Ãtmâ are given. Life is a Universal Kosmic Principle,
and no more than Ãtman does it belong to individuals.
In
answer to questions on the diagram, H.P.B, said that Touch and Taste have
no order. Elements have a regular order, but Fire pervades them all. Every
sense pervades every other. There is no universal order, that being first
in each which is most developed.
Students
must learn the correspondences: then concentrate on the organs and so reach
their corresponding states of consciousness. Take them in order beginning
with the lowest, and working steadily (Page
570) upwards. A medium might irregularly catch glimpses of higher,
but would not thus gain orderly development.
The
greatest phenomena are produced by touching and centering the attention upon
the little finger.
The
Lokas and Talas are reflections the one of the other. So also are the Hierarchies
in each, in pairs of opposites, at the two poles of the sphere. Everywhere
are such opposites: good and evil, light and darkness, male and female.
H.P.B
could not say why blue was the colour of the earth. Blue is a colour by itself,
a primary. Indigo is a colour, not a shade of blue, so is violet.
The
Vairâjas belong to, are the fiery Egos of, other Manvantaras. They have
already been purified in the fire of passions. It is they who refused to create.
They have reached the Seventh Portal, and have refused Nirvâna, remaining
for succeeding Manvantaras.
The
seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the Lokas.
Samâdhi
is the highest state on earth that can be reached in the body.
Beyond
that the Initiate must have become a Nirmânakâya.
Purity
of mind is of greater importance than purity of body. If the Upâdhi
be not perfectly pure, it cannot preserve recollections coming from
a higher
state. An act may be performed to which little or no attention is paid, and
it is of comparatively small importance. But if thought of, dwelt on
in the
mind, the effect is a thousand times greater.
The
thoughts must be kept pure.
Remember
that Kâma, while having bad passions and emotions, helps you
to evolve by giving also the desire and impulse necessary for rising.
The
flesh, the body, the human being in his material part, is, on this plane,
the most difficult thing to subject. The highest Adept, put into a new body,
has to struggle against it and subdue it, and finds its subjugation difficult.
The
Liver is the General, the Spleen is the Aide-de-Camp. All that the Liver does
not accomplish is taken up and completed by the Spleen.
H.P.B
was asked whether each person must pass through the fourteen states, and answered
that the Lokas and Talas represented planes on this earth, through some of
which all must pass, and through all of which the disciple must pass, on his
way to Adeptship. Everyone passes through the lower Lokas, but not necessarily
through the corresponding Talas. There are two poles in everything; seven
states in every state.
Yogîs
in Svarloka (Page
571)
Vitala represents a sublime as well as an infernal state. That state which
for the mortal is a complete separation of the Ego from the personality is
for a Buddha a mere temporary separation. For the Buddha it is a Kosmic state.
The
Brâhmans and Buddhists regard the Talas as hells, but in reality
the term is figurative. We are in hell whenever we are in misery, suffer
misfortune
and so on.
Forms
in the Astral Light
The
Elementals in the Astral light are reflections. Everything on earth
is reflected
there. It is from these that photographs are sometimes obtained through mediums.
The mediums unconsciously produce them as forms. The Adepts produce
them consciously
through Kriyâshakti, bringing them down by a process that may be compared
to the focussing of rays of light by a burning glass.
States
of Consciousness
Bhûrloka
is the waking state in which we normally live; it is the state in which animals
also are, when they sense food, a danger, etc. To be in Svarloka is to be
completely abstracted on this plane, leaving only instinct to work, so that
on the material plane you would behave as an animal. Yogîs are known
who have become crystallized in this state, and then they must be nourished
by others. A Yogî near Allahabad had been for fifty-three years sitting
on a stone; his Chelâs plunge him into the river every night and then
replace him. During the day his consciousness returns to Bhûrloka, and
he talks and teaches. A Yogî was found on an island near Calcutta round
whose limbs the roots of trees had grown. He was cut out, and in the endeavour
to awaken him so many outrages were inflicted on him that he died.
Q.
Is it possible to be in more than one state of consciousness at once?
A.
The consciousness cannot be entirely on two planes at once. The higher
and lower states are not wholly incompatible, but if you are on the higher
you will wool-gather on the lower. In order to remember the higher state on
returning to the lower, the memory must be carried upwards to the higher.
An Adept may apparently enjoy a dual consciousness; when he desires not to
see he can abstract himself; he may be in a higher state and yet return answers
to questions (Page
572) addressed to him. But in this case he will momentarily return
to the material plane, shooting up again to the higher plane. This is his
only salvation in adverse conditions.
The
lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the
less spiritual.
You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Intellect may remain very
closely related to Kâma. A man may be in a Loka to which he belongs.
Thus a man in Bhûrloka only may pass into the Talas and go to the devil.
If he dwells in Bhuvarloka he cannot become as bad. If he has reached the
Satya state he can go into any Tala without danger; buoyed up by his own purity
he can never be engulfed. The Talas are brain intellect states, while the
Lokas—or more accurately the three higher—are spiritual.
Manas
absorbs the light of Buddhi. Buddhi is Arûpa, and can absorb nothing.
When the Ego takes all the light of Buddhi, it takes that of Ãtmâ,
Buddhi being the vehicle, and thus the three become one. This done, the full
Adept is one spiritually, but has a body. The fourfold Path is finished and
he is one. The Masters bodies are, as far as they are concerned, illusionary,
and hence do not grow old, become wrinkled, etc.
The
student, who is not naturally psychic, should fix the fourfold consciousness
in a higher plane and nail it there. Let him make a bundle of the four lower
and pin them to a higher state. He should centre on this higher, trying not
to permit the body and intellect to draw him down and carry him away. Play
ducks and drakes with the body, eating, drinking and sleeping, but living
always on the ideal.
Mother-Love
Mother-love
is an instinct, the same in the human being and in the animal, and
often stronger
in the latter. The continuance of this love in human beings is due to association,
to blood magnetism and to psychic affinity. Families are sometimes
formed
of those who have lived together before, but often not. The causes at work
are very complex and have to be balanced. Sometimes when a child with
very
bad karma is to be born, parents of a callous type are chosen, or they may
die before the Karmic results appear. Or the suffering through the
child may
be their own Karma. Mother-love as an instinct is between Rasâtala and
Talâtala.
Consciousness
and Self-Consciousness(Page
573) The
Lipikas keep man’s Karmic record, and impress it on the Astral Light.
Vacillating
people pass from one state of consciousness to another.
Thought
arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on the
organ,
and then desire awakes. It is not the outer stimulus that arouses the organ.
Thought therefore must be slain ere desire can be extinguished. The
student
must guard his thoughts. Five minutes’ thought may undo the work of
five years; and though the five years’ work will be run through more
rapidly the second time, yet time is lost.
Consciousness
H.P.B
began by challenging the views of consciousness in the West, commenting on
the lack of definition in the leading Philosphies. No distinction was made
between consciousness and self-consciousness, and yet in this lay the difference
between man and the animal. The animal was conscious only, not self-conscious;
the animal does not know the Ego as Subject, as does man. There is therefore
an enormous difference between the consciousness of the bird, the insect,
the beast, and that of man.
But
the full consciousness of man is self-consciousness—that which
makes us say, “I do that.” If there is pleasure is must be traced
to some one experiencing it. Now the difference between the consciousness
of man and animals is that while there is a Self in the animal, the animal
is not conscious of the Self. Spencer reasons on consciousness, but when he
comes to a gap he merely jumps over it. So again Hume, when he says that on
introspection he sees merely feelings and can never find any “I,”
forgets that without an “I” no seeing of feelings would be possible.
What is it that studies the feelings? The animal is not conscious of the feeling
“I am I,” It has instinct, but instinct is not self-consciousness.
Self-consciousness is an attribute of the mind, not of the soul, the anima,
whence the very name animal is taken. Humanity had no self-consciousness
until the coming of the Mânasaputras in the Third Race. Consciousness,
brain-consciousness, is the field of the light of the Ego, of the Auric Egg,
of the Higher Manas. The cells of the leg are conscious, but they are the
slaves of the idea; they are not self-conscious, they cannot originate an
idea although when they are tired they can convey to the brain an uneasy
sensation,
and so give rise to the idea of fatigue. Instinct is the lower state of consciousness.
Man has consciousness running through the (Page
574) four lower keys of his septenary consciousness; there are
seven scales of consciousness in his consciousness, which is none the less
essentially and pre-eminently one, a unit. There are millions and millions
of states of consciousness, as there are millions and millions of leaves;
but as you cannot find two leaves alike, so you cannot find two states of
consciousness alike; a state is never exactly repeated.
Is
memory a thing born in us that it can give birth to the Ego? Knowledge, feeling,
volition, are colleagues of the mind, not faculties of it. Memory is an artificial
thing, an adjunct of relativeness; it can be sharpened or left dull, and it
depends on the condition of the brain-cells which store all impressions; knowledge,
feeling, volition, cannot be correlated, do what you will. They are not produced
from each other, nor produced from mind, but are principles, colleagues. You
cannot have knowledge without memory, for memory stores all things, garnishing
and furnishing. If you teach a child nothing, it will know nothing. Brain-consciousness
depends on the intensity of the light shed by the Higher Manas on the Lower,
and the extent of affinity between the brain to this light. Brain-mind is
conditioned by the responsiveneness of the brain to this light; it is the
field of consciousness of the Manas. The animal has the Monad and the Manas
latent, but its brain cannot respond. All potentialities are there, but are
dormant. There are certain accepted errors in the West which vitiate all their
theories.
How
many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his consciousness and
record? The Western say one: Occultists say normally seven, and abnormally
fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, up to forty-nine, impressions can
be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches that the consciousness always
receives a sevenfold impression and stores it in the memory. You can prove
it by striking at once the seven notes of the musical scale: the seven sounds
reach the consciousness simultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize
them one after another, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The
trained ear will hear the seven notes at once simultaneously. And experiment
has shown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen
or eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with patience.
Memory
is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the greatest responsiveness
of the brain and brain-memory to the Higher Manas. Impressions on any sense
are stored in the memory.
Scales
of Consciousness(Page
575)
Before a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which proceeds
to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the deep sea,
or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a few generations
develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense of seeing, though
no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness find their way, avoid
dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all kinds of things mechanically
and unconsciously, and will throw them into the memory as unconscious perceptions.
If the attention is greatly engrossed in any way, the sense perception of
any injury is not felt at the time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness.
So, returning to our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we
have one impression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one
after another, so that they are stored in the brain-mind in order, for the
untrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends on
training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing from
any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your attention is
fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then it will take
a fraction more of a second before it reaches your consciousness. The Occultist
should train himself to receive and transmit along the line of the seven scales
of his consciousness every impression, or impressions, simultaneously. He
who reduces the intervals of physical time the most has made the most progress.
Consciousness,
Its Seven Scales
There
are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; e.g., in
a moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher.
Consciousness,
Its Seven Scales
|
1 |
Physical
sense-perception: |
Perception
of the cell (if paralyzed, the sense is there, though you do not
feel it). |
2 |
Self-perception
or apperception: |
I.e.,
self-perception of cell. |
3 |
Psychic
apperception: |
Of
astral double, döppelganger, carrying it higher to the Physical
feeling, sensations of pleasure and pain, of quality. |
4 |
Vital
perception |
These
are the four lower scales, and belong to the psycho-physiological
man. |
5 |
Manasic
discernment of the Mânasic self-perception. Lower
Manas. |
|
6 |
Will
perception: |
Volitional
perception, the voluntary taking in of an idea;
you can regard or disregard physical pain. |
7 |
Spiritual,
entirely conscious apperception: ** |
Because
it reaches the Higher, self- conscious conscious
Manas. |
**Apperception
means self-perception, conscious action, not as with Leibnitz,
but when attention is fixed on the perception |
(Page
576) You can take these on any planes: e.g., bad news passes
through the four lower stages before coming to the heart.
Or
take Sound:
1.
It strikes the ear.
2.
Self-perception of the ear.
3.
On the psychic or mental, which carries it to
4.
Vital (harsh, soft; strong, weak; etc.).
The
Ego
One
of the best proofs that there is an Ego, a true Field of Consciousness is
the fact already mentionned, that a state of consciousness, is never exactly
reproduced, though you should live a hundred years, and pass through milliards
and milliards. In an active day, how many states and substates there are;
it would be impossible to have cells enough for all. This will help you to
understand why some mental states and abstract things follow the Ego into
Devachan, and why others merely scatter in space. That which touches the Entity
has an affinity for it, as a noble action is immortal and goes with it into
Devachan, forming part and parcel of the biography of the personality which
is disintegrating. A lofty emotion runs through the seven stages, and touches
the Ego, the mind that plays its tunes in the mind-cells. We can analyze the
work of consciousness and describe it; but we cannot define consciousness
unless we postulate a Subject.
Bhûrloka
The
Bhûrloka begins with the Lower Manas. Animals do not feel as
do men. The dog thinks more of his master being angry than of the actual
pain of the
lash. The animal does not suffer in memory and in imagination, feeling past
and future as well as actual present pain.
Vibrations
and Impressions (Page
577)
Pineal
Gland
The special physical organ of perception is the brain, and perception is located
in the aura of the pineal gland. This aura answers in vibrations to any impressions,
but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the living man. During the process
of thought manifesting in consciousness, a constant vibration occurs in the
light of this aura, and a clairvoyant looking at the brain of a living man
may almost count, see with the spiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven
shades of light, passing from the dullest to the brightest. You touch your
hand; before you touch it the vibration is already in the aura of the pineal
gland, and has its own shade of colour. It is this aura which causes the wear
and tear of the organ, by the vibrations its sets up. The brain, set vibrating,
conveys the vibrations to the spinal cord, and so to the rest of the body.
Happiness as well as sorrow sets up these strong vibrations, and so wears
out the body. Powerful vibrations of joy or sorrow may thus kill.
The
Heart
The
septenary disturbance and play of light around the pineal gland are reflected
in the heart, or rather the aura of the heart, which vibrates and illumines
the seven brains of the heart, just as does the aura round the pineal gland.
This is the exoterically four- but Esoterically seven-leaved lotus, the Saptaparna,
the cave of Buddha, with its seven compartments.
Astral
and Ego
There
is a difference between the nature and the essence of the Astral Body and
the Ego. The Astral Body is molecular, however etherealized it may be: the
Ego is atomic, spiritual. The Atoms are spiritual, and are for ever invisible
on this plane; molecules form around them, they remaining as the higher invisible
principles of the molecules. The eyes are the most Occult of our senses; close
them and you pass to the mental plane. Stop all the senses and you are entirely
on another plane.
Individuality
If
twelve people are smoking together, the smoke of their cigarettes may mingle,
but the molecules of the smoke from each have an affinity with each other,
and they remain distinct for ever and ever, no matter (Page
578) how the whole mass may interblend. So a drop of water, though
it fall into the ocean retains its individuality. It has become a drop with
a life of its own, like a man, and cannot be annihilated. Any group of people
would appear as a group in the Astral Light, but would not be permanent; but
a group meeting to study Occultism would cohere and the impression would be
more permanent. The higher and the more spiritual the affinity, the more permanent
the cohesion.
Lower
Manas
The
Lower Manas is an emanation from the Higher Manas, and is of the same nature
as the Higher. This nature can make no impression on this plane, nor receive
any: an Archangel, having no experience, would be senseless on this plane,
and could neither give nor receive impressions. So the Lower Manas clothes
itself with the essence of the Astral Light; this astral envelope shuts it
out from its Parent, except through the Antahkarana which is its only salvation.
Break this and you become an animal.
Kâma
Kâma
is life, it is the essence of the blood. When this leaves the blood the latter
congeals. Prâna is universal on this plane; it is in us the vital principle,
Prânic, rather than Pranâ.
Self-Hood
Qualities
determine the properties of “Self-hood.” As, for instance
two wolves placed in the same environment would probably not act differently.
The
field of the consciousness of the Higher Ego is never reflected in
the Astral
Light. The Auric Envelope receives the impressions of both the Higher and
the Lower Manas, and it is the latter impressions that are also reflected
in the Astral Light. Whereas the essence of all things spiritual, all
that
which reaches, or is not rejected by the Higher Ego is not reflected in the
Astral Light, because it is on too low a plane. But during the life
of a man,
this essence, with a view to Karmîc ends, is impressed on the Auric
Envelope, and after death and the separation of the Principles is united with
the Universal Mind (that is to say, those “impressions” which
are superior to even the Devachanic Plane), to await there Karmically until
the day when the Ego is to be reincarnated. [There are thus three sets of
impressions, which we may call the Kâmic, Devachanic and Mânasic.]
For the entities no matter how high, must have their Karmic rewards and punishments
on earth.
The
Crucifixion of the Christos (Page
579)
These spiritual impressions are made more or less on the brain, otherwise
the Lower Ego would not be responsible. There are some impressions, however,
received through the brain, which are not of our previous experience. In the
case of the Adept the brain is trained to retain these impressions.
The
reincarnating Ray may, for convenience, be separated into two aspects:
the
lower Kâmic Ego is scattered in Kâma Loka; the Mânasic
part accomplishes its cycle and returns to the Higher Ego. It is, in reality,
this
Higher Ego which is, so to speak, punished, which suffers. This is the true
crucifixion of the Christos — the most abstruse but yet the most important
mystery of Occultism; all the cycle of our lives hangs on it. It is indeed
the Higher Ego that is the sufferer; for remember that the abstract consciousness
of the higher personal consciousness will remained impressed on the Ego,
since
it must be part and parcel of its eternity. All our grandest impressions
are impressed on the Higher Ego, because they are of the same nature as itself.
Patriotism
and great actions in national service are not altogether good, from the point
of view of the highest. To benefit a portion of humanity is good; but to do
so at the expense of the rest is bad. Therefore, in patriotism, etc., the
venom is present with the good. For though the inner essence of the Higher
Ego is unsoilable, the outer garment may be soiled. Thus both the bad and
the good of such thoughts and actions are impressed on the Auric Envelope
and the Karma of the bad is taken up by the Higher Ego, though it is perfectly
guiltless of it. Thus both sets of impressions after death, scatter in the
Universal Mind, and at reincarnation the Ego sends out a Ray which is itself,
into a new personality, and there suffers. It suffers in the Self-consciousness
that it has created by its own accumulated experiences.
Every
one of our Egos has the Karma of past Manvantaras behind. There are seven
Hierarchies of Egos, some of which, e.g., in inferior tribes, may be
said to be only just beginning the present cycle. The Ego starts with Divine
Consciousness; no past, no future, no separation. It is long before realizing
that it is itself. Only after many births does it begin to discern, by this
collectivity of experience, that it is individual. At the end of its cycle
of reincarnation it is still the same Divine Consciousness, but it has now
become individualized Self-consciousness.
(Page
580) The feeling of responsibility is inspired by the presence
of the Light of the Higher Ego. As the Ego in its cycle of re-birth becomes
more and more individualized, it learns more and more by suffering to recognize
its own responsibility, by which it finally gains Self-consciousness, the
consciousness of all the Egos of the whole Universe. Absolute Being, to have
the idea of sensation of all this, must pass through all experience individually,
not universally, so that when it returns it should be of the same omniscience
as the Universal Mind plus the memory of all that it has passed through.
At
the Day “Be with us” every Ego has to remember all the cycles
of its past reincarnations for Manvantaras. The Ego comes in contact with
this earth, all seven Principles become one, it sees all that it has done
therein. It sees the stream of its past reincarnations by a certain divine
light. It sees all humanity at once, but still there is ever, as it were,
a stream which is always the “I.”
We
should therefore always endeavour to accentuate our responsibility.
The
Higher Ego is, as it were, a globe of pure divine light, a Unit from
a higher
plane, on which is no differentiation. Descending to a plane of differentiation
it emanates a Ray, which it can only manifest through the personality
which
is already differentiated. A portion of this Ray, the Lower Manas, during
life, may so crystallize itself and become one with Kâma that it will
remain assimilated with Matter. That portion which retains its purity forms
Antahkarana. The whole fate of an incarnation depends on whether Antahkarana
will be able to restrain the Kâma-Manas or not. After death the higher
light (Antahkarana) which bears the impressions and memory of all good and
noble aspirations, assimilates itself with the Higher Ego, the bad is dissociated
in space, and comes back as bad Karma awaiting the personality.
The
feeling of responsibility is the beginning of Wisdom, a proof that
Ahankâra
is beginning to fade out, the beginning of losing the sense of separateness.
Kâma
Rûpa
The
Kâma Rûpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals. All red-blooded
animals come from man. The cold-blooded are from the matter of the past. The
blood is the Kâma Rûpa.
The
white corpuscles are the scavengers, “devourers”; they are oozed
out of the Astral through the spleen, and are of the same essence as the Astral.
They are the seat-born of the Chhâyâ. Kâma is everywhere
in the body. The red cells are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration
of all the organs oozed out from every cell. They are the progeny of the
Fohatic
Principle.
Rising
Above the Brain (Page
581)
Heart
There
are seven brains in the heart, the Upâdhis and symbols of the
seven Hierarchies.
The
Fires
The
fires are always playing round the pineal gland, but when Kundalini illuminates
them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in deep sleep the
Third Eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it, though we ourselves
do not remember.
Perception
In
answer to a question on the seven stages of perception, H.P.B said
that thought
should be centred on the highest, the seventh, and then an attempt to transcend
this will prove that it is impossible to go beyond it on this plane.
There
is nothing in the brain to carry the thinker on, and if thought is to rise
yet further it might be thought without a brain. Let the eyes be closed,
the
will set not to let the brain work, and then the point may be transcended
and the student will pass to the next plane. All the seen stages of
perception
come before Antahkarana; if you can pass beyond them you are on the Mânasic
Plane.
Try
to imagine something which transcends your power of thought, say, the
nature
of the Dhyân Chohans. Then make the brain passive, and pass beyond;
you will see a white radiant light, like silver, but opalescent as mother
of pearl; then waves of colour will pass over it, beginning in the tenderest
violet, and through bronze shades of green to indigo with metallic lustre,
and that colour will remain. If you see this you are on another plane. You
should pass through seven stages.
When
a colour comes, glance at it, and if it is not good reject it. Let your attention
be arrested only on the green, indigo and yellow. These are good colours.
The eyes being connected with the brain, the colour you see most easily will
be the colour of the personality. If you see red, it is merely physiological,
and is to be disregarded. Green-bronze is the Lower Manas: yellow-bronze the
Antahkarana, (Page
582) indigo-bronze is Manas. These are to be observed, and when
the yellow-bronze merges into the indigo you are on the Mânasic Plane.
On
the Mânasic Plane you see the Noumena, the essence of phenomena.
You do not see people or other consciousnesses, but have enough to
do to keep
your own. The trained Seer can see Noumena always. The Adept sees the Noumena
on this plane, the reality of things, so cannot be deceived.
In
meditation the beginner may waver backwards and forwards between two
planes.
You hear the ticking of a clock on this plane, then on the astral—the
soul of the ticking. When clocks are stopped here the ticking goes on on
higher
planes, in the astral, and then in the ether, until the last bit of the clock
is gone. It is the same as with a dead body, which sends out emanations until
the last molecule is disintegrated.
There
is no time in meditation, because there is no succession of states of consciousness
on this plane.
Violet
is the colour of the Astral. You begin with it, but should not stay
in it;
try to pass on. When you see a sheet of violet, you are beginning unconsciously
to form a Mâyâvi Rûpa. Fix your attention, and if you go
away keep your consciousness firmly to the Mâyâvic Body; do not
lose sight of it, hold on like grim death.
Consciousness
The
consciousness which is merely the animal consciousness is made up of
the consciousness
of all the cells in the body except those of the heart. The heart is the
king, the most important organ in the body of man. Even if the head
be severed from
the body, the heart will continue to beat for thirty minutes. It will beat
for some hours if wrapped in cotton wool and put in a warm place. The
spot
in the heart which is the last of all to die is the seat of life, the centre
of all, Brahmâ, the first spot that lives in the fœtus and the
last that dies. When a Yogi is buried in a trance it is this spot that lives,
though the rest of the body be dead, and as long as this is alive the Yogî
can be resurrected. This spot contains potentially mind, life, energy, and
will. During life it radiates prismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The
heart is the centre of spiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre
of intellectual. But this consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor
its energy directed by him until he is at one with Buddhi-Manas; until then
it guides him—if it can. Hence the pangs of remorse, the prickings of
conscience, they come from the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only
manifested God, the other two are invisible, and it is this which represents
the Triad. Ãtmâ-Buddhi-Manas.
Christ
and Apollonius (Page
583)
In
reply to a question whether the consciousness might not be concentrated
in the heart, and so the promptings of the Spirit caught. H.P.B said
that
any one who could thus concentrate would be at one with Manas, would have
united Kâma-Manas to the Higher Manas. The Higher Manas could
not directly guide man, it could only act through the Lower Manas.
There
are three principal centres in man, Heart, Head, and Navel: any two
of which
may be + or – to each other, according to the relative predominance
of the centres.
The
heart represents the Higher Triad; the liver and spleen represent the Quaternary.
The solar plexus is the brain of the stomach.
H.P.B
was asked if the three centres above-named would represent the Christos,
crucified
between two thieves; she said it might serve as an analogy, but these figures
must not be over-driven. It must never be forgotten that the Lower
Manas is
the same in its essence as the Higher, and may become one with it by rejecting
Kâmic impulses. The crucifixion of the Christos represents the
self-sacrifice of the Higher Manas, the Father that sends his only
begotten Son into the
world to take upon him our sins: the Christ-myth came from the Mysteries.
So also did the life of Apollonius of Tyana; this was suppressed by
the Fathers
of the Church because of its striking similarity to the life of Christ.
The
psycho-intellectual man is all in the head with its seven gateways; the spiritual
man is in the heart. The convolutions are formed by thought.
The
third ventricle in life is filled with light, and not with a liquid as after
death.
There
are seven cavities in the brain which are quite empty during life,
and it
is in these that visions must be reflected if they are to remain in the memory.
These centres are, in Occultism, called the seven harmonies, the scale
of
the divine harmonies. They are filled with Ãkâsha, each with
its own colour, according to the state of consciousness in which you are.
The sixth is the pineal gland, which is hollow and empty during life; the
seventh is the whole; the fifth is the third ventricle; the fourth the pituitary
body. When Manas is united (Page
584) to Ãtmâ-Buddhi, or when Ãtmâ-Buddhi
is centred in Manas, it acts in the three higher cavities, radiating, sending
forth a halo of light, and this is visible in the case of a very holy person.
The
cerebellum is the centre, the storehouse of all the forces; it is the
Kâma
of the head. The pineal gland corresponds to the uterus; its peduncles to
the Fallopian tubes. The pituitary body is only its servant, its torch-bearer,
like the servants bearing lights that used to run before the carriage
of a
princess. Man is thus androgyne so far as his head is concerned.
Man
contains in himself every element that is found in the Universe. There is
nothing in the Macrocosm that is not in the Microcosm. The pineal gland, as
was said, is quite empty during life; the pituitary contains various essences.
The granules in the pineal gland are precipitated after death within the cavity.
The
cerebellum furnishes the materials for ideation; the frontal lobes of the
cerebrum are the finishers and polishers of the materials, but they cannot
create of themselves.
Clairvoyant
perception is the consciousness of touch: thus reading letters, psychometrizing
substances, etc., may be done at the pit of the stomach. Every sense has its
consciousness, and you can have consciousness through every sense. There may
be consciousness on the plane of sight, though the brain be paralyzed; the
eyes of a paralyzed person will show terror. So with the sense of hearing.
Those who are physically blind, deaf or dumb, are still possessed of the psychic
counterparts of these senses.
Will
and Desire
Eros
in man is the will of the genius to create great pictures, great music, things
that will live and serve the race. It has nothing in common with the animal
desire to create. Will is the Higher Manas. It is the universal harmonious
tendency acting by the Higher Manas. Desire is the outcome of separateness,
aiming at the satisfaction of Self in Matter. The path opened between the
Higher Ego and the Lower enables the Ego to act on the personal self.
Conversion
It
is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and
become
as powerfully for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at best but
neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes he has set
in motion,
at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring barrel and use
it for attar of roses; the wood is too soaked through with the drippings.
When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on the physical
nature,
they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the body have been set
in a Kâmic direction, and though they have sufficient intelligence
to discern between things on their own plane, i.e., to avoid things harmful to
themselves, they cannot understand a change of direction, the impulse to which
is from another plane. If they are forced too violently, disease, madness
or death will result.
The
Beginnings (Page
585)
Origines
Absolute
eternal motion, Parabrahman, which is nothing and everything, motion
inconceivably rapid, in this motion throws off a film which is Energy,
Eros.
It thus transforms itself to Mûlaprakrity, primordial Substance which
is still Energy. This Energy, still transforming itself in its ceaseless
and
inconceivable motion, becomes the Atom, or rather the germ of the Atom, and
then it is on the Third Plane.
Our
Manas is a Ray from the World-Soul and is withdrawn at Pralaya; “it
is perhaps the Lower Manas of Parabrahman,” that is, of the Parabrahman
of the manifested Universe. The first film is Energy, or motion on the manifested
plane; Alaya is the Third Logos, Mahâ-Buddhi, Mahat. We always begin
on the Third Plane; beyond that all is inconceivable. Ãtmâ is
focussed in Buddhi, but is embodied only in Manas, these being the Spirit,
Soul and Body of the Universe.
Dreams
We
may have evil experiences in dreams as well as good. We should, therefore,
train ourselves so as to awaken directly we tend to do wrong.
The
Lower Manas is asleep in sense-dreams, the animal consciousness being
then
guided towards the Astral Light by Kâma; the tendency of such sense-dreams
is always towards the animal.
If
we could remember our dreams in deep sleep, then we should be able to remember
all our past incarnations.
Nidânas
There
are twelve Nidânas, exoteric and Esoteric, the fundamental doctrine
of Buddhism. (Page
586) So also there are twelve exoteric Buddhist Sûttas called
Nidânas, each giving one Nidâna.
The
Nidânas have a dual meaning. They are:
(1)
The twelve causes of sentient existence, through the twelve links of subjective
with objective Nature, or between the subjective and objective Natures.
(2)
A concatenation of causes and effects.
Every
cause produces an effect, and this effect becomes in its turn a cause.
Each
of these has an Upâdhi (basis), one of the sub-divisions of one of the
Nidânas, and also an effect or consequence.
Both
bases and effects belong to one or another Nidâna, each having
from three to seventeen, eighteen and twenty-one sub-divisions.
The
names of the twelve Nidânas are:
THE TWELVE NIDANAS
|
1 |
Jarâmarana |
2 |
Jâti |
3 |
Bhava |
4 |
Upâdâna |
5 |
Trishnâ |
6 |
Vedanâ |
7 |
Sparsha |
8 |
Chadayâtana |
9 |
Nâmarûpa |
10 |
Vigñâna |
11 |
Samskâra |
12 |
Avidyâ * |
*
If the Nidânas are read the reverse way, i.e., from 12
to 1, they give the evolutionary order.—Ed.J] |
(1)
JARÂMARANA, lit death in consequence of decrepitude. Notice that death
and not life comes as the first of the Nidânas. This is the first fundamental
in Buddhist Philosophy; every Atom, at every moment, as soon as it is born
begins dying.
The
five Skandhahas are founded on it; they are its effects or product. Moreover,
in its turn, it is based on the five Skandhas. They are mutual things, one
gives to the other.
(2)
JÂTI, lit. Birth.
That
is to say, Birth according to one of the four modes of Chaturyoni (the four
wombs), viz.,:
(i)
Through the womb, like Mammalia.
(ii)
Through Eggs.
(iii)
Ethereal or liquid Germs—fish spawn, pollen, insects, etc.
(iv)
Anupâdaka—Nirmânakâyas, Gods, etc.
That
is to say that birth takes place by one of these modes. You must be born in
one of the six objective modes of existence, or in the seventh which is subjective.
These four are within six modes of existence, vis.:
Karmic
Effects(Page
587)
Exoterically:—
(i)
Devas; (ii) Men; (iii) Asuras; (iv) Men in Hell; (v) Pretas, devouring demons
on earth; (vi) animals.
Esoterically:---
(i)
Higher Gods; (ii) Devas or Pitris (all classes); (iii) Nirmânakâyas;
(iv) Bodhisattvas; (v) Men in Myalba; (vi) Kâma Rûpic existences,
whether of men or animals, in Kâma Loka or the Astral Light; (vii)
Elementals (Subjective Existences).
(3)
BHAVA = Karmic existence, not life existence, but as a moral agent which determines
where you will be born, i.e., in which of the Triloka,
Bhûr,
Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in reality).
The
cause or Nidâna of Bhava is Upâdâna, that is, the
clinging to existence, that which makes us desire life in whatever
form.
Its
effect is Jatî in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever
conditions.
Nidânas
are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve aspects; or we
might say the law of Karma under twelve Nidânic aspects.
Skandhas
Skandhas
are the germs of life on all the seven planes of Being, and make up the totality
of the subjective and objective man. Every vibration we have made is a Skandha.
The Skandhas are closely united to the pictures in the Astral Light, which
is the medium of impressions, and the Skandhas, or vibrations, connected with
subjective or objective man, are the links which attract the Reincarnating
Ego, the germs left behind when it went into Devachan which have to be picked
up again and exhausted by a new personality. The exoteric Skandhas have to
do with the physical atoms and vibrations, or objective man; the Esoteric
with the internal and subjective man.
A
mental change, or a glimpse of spiritual truth, may make a man suddenly change
to the truth even at his death, thus creating good Skandhas for the next life.
The last acts or thoughts of a man have an enormous effect upon his future
life, but he would still have to suffer for his misdeeds, and this is the
basis of the idea of a death-bed repentance. But the Karmic effects of the
past life must follow, for the man in his next birth must pick up the Skandhas
or vibratory impressions that he left in the Astral Light, since nothing comes
from nothing in Occultism, and there must be a link between the lives. New
Skandhas are born from their old parents.
(Page
588) It is wrong to speak of Tanhâs in the plural; there
is only one Tanhâ, the desire to live. This develops into a
multitude or one might say a congeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic
and non-Karmic.
Skandhas may produce Elementals by unconscious Kriyâshakti. Every Elemental
that is thrown out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is
his own vibration. They thus become his Frankenstein. Elementals are simply
effects producing effects. They are disembodied thoughts, good and bad. They
remain crystallized in the Astral Light and are attracted by affinity and
galvanized back into life again, when their originator returns to earth-life.
You can paralyze them by reverse effects. Elementals are caught like a disease
and hence are dangerous to ourselves and to others. This is why it is dangerous
to influence others. The Elementals which live after your death are those
which you implant in others: the rest remain latent till you are reincarnated,
when they come to life in you. “Thus,” H.P.B said, “if you
are badly taught by me or incited thereby to do something wrong, you would
go on after my death and sin through me, but I should have to bear the Karma.
Calvin, for instance, will have to suffer for all the wrong teaching he has
given, though he gave it with good intentions. The worst **** does is to arrest
the progress of truth. Even Buddha made mistakes. He applied his teaching
to people who were not ready; and this has produced Nidânas.”
Subtle
Bodies
When
a man visits another in his Astral Body, it is the Linga Sharira which goes,
but this cannot happen at any great distance. When a man thinks of
another at a distance very intently, he sometimes appears to that person.
In
this case it is the Mâyâvî Rûpa, which is created
by unconscious Kriyâshakti, and the man himself is not conscious of
appearing. If he were, and projected his Mâyâvi Rûpa consciously,
he would be an Adept.[ I.e., an Initiate, the word Adept being used
by H.P.B. to cover all grades of Initiation. As above seen, she used the
words
Mâyâvi Rûpa in more than one sense.- Editor ] No
two persons can be simultaneously conscious of one another’s presence,
unless one be an Adept. Dugpas use the Mâyâvi Rûpa and sorcerers
also. Dugpas work on the Linga Sharîra of other people.
The
Linga Sharîra in the spleen is the perfect picture of the man, and is
good or bad, according to his own nature. The Astral Body is the subjective
image of the man which is to be, the first germ in the matrix, the model of
the physical body in which the child is formed and developed. The Linga Sharîra
may be hurt by a sharp instrument, and would not face a sword or a bayonet,
although it would easily pass through a table or other piece of furniture.
Fire
is Kriyâshakti (Page
589)
Nothing
however can hurt the Mâyâvi Rûpa or thought-body,
since it is purely subjective. When swords are struck at shades, it is the
sword itself, not its Linga Sharîra or Astral that cuts. Sharp instruments
alone can penetrate Astrals, e.g., under water, a blow will not affect
you, but a cut will.
The
projection of the Astral Body should not be attempted, but the power
of Kriyâshakti
should be exercised in the projection of the Mâyâvi Rûpa.
Fire
Fire
is not an Element but a divine thing. The physical flame is the objective
vehicle of the highest Spirit. The Fire Elementals are the highest.
Everything
in this world has its Aura and its Spirit. The flame you apply to the candle
has nothing to do with the candle itself. The Aura of the object comes
into
conjunction with the lowest part of the other. Granite cannot burn because
its Aura is Fire. Fire Elementals have no consciousness on this plane,
they
are too high, reflecting the divinity of their own source. Other Elementals
have consciousness on this plane as they reflect man and his nature.
There
is a very great difference between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The
wick of the lamp, for instance, is negative. It is made positive by
fire,
the oil being the medium. Æther is Fire. The lowest part of Æther
is the flame which you see. Fire is Divinity in its subjective presence throughout
the universe. Under other conditions, this Universal Fire manifests as water,
air and earth. It is the one Element in our visible Universe which is the
Kriyâshakti of all forms of life. It is that which gives light, heat,
death, life, etc. It is even the blood. In all its various manifestations
it is essentially one.
It
is the “seven Cosmocratores.”
Evidence
of the esteem in which Fire was held are to be found in the Old Testament.
The Pillar of Fire, the Burning Bush, the Shining Face of Moses—all
Fire. Fire is like a looking-glass in its nature, and reflects the beams
of
the first order of subjective manifestations which are supposed to be thrown
on to the screen of the first outlines of the created universe; in their
lower
aspect these are the creations of Fire.
(Page
590) Fire in the grossest aspect of its essence is the first form
and reflects the lower forms of the first subjective beings which are in the
universe. The first divine chaotic thoughts are the Fire Elementals. When
on earth they take form and come flitting in the flame in the form of the
Salamanders or lower Fire Elementals. In the air you have millions of living
and conscious beings, besides our thoughts which they catch up. The Fire Elementals
are related to the sense of sight and absorb the Elements of all the other
senses. Thus through sight you can have the consciousness of feeling, hearing,
tasting, etc., since all are included in the sense of sight.
Hints
on the Future
As
time passes on there will be more and more ether in the air. When ether fills
the air, then will be born children without fathers. In Virginia there is
an apple tree of a special kind. It does not blossom but bears fruit from
a kind of berry without any seeds. This will gradually extend to animals and
then to men. Women will bear children without impregnation, and in the Seventh
Round there will appear men who can reproduce themselves. In the Seventh Race
of the Fourth Round, men will change their skins every year and will have
new toe and finger nails. People will become more psychic, then spiritual.
Last of all in the Seventh Round, Buddhas will be born without sin. The Fourth
Round is the longest in the Kali Yuga, then the Fifth, then the Sixth, and
the Seventh Round will be very short.
The
Egos
In
explaining the relations of the Higher and Lower Ego, Devachan, and
the “Death
of the Soul,” the following figure was drawn:
On
the separation of the Principles at death the Higher Ego may be said
to go
to Devachan by reason of the experiences of the Lower. The Higher Ego in
its own plane is the Kumâra.
The
Lower Quaternary dissolves; the body rots, the Linga Sharîra
fades out.
At
reincarnation the Higher Ego shoots out a Ray, the Lower Ego. Its energies
are upward and downward. The upward tendencies become its Devachanic
experiences;
the lower are Kâmic. The Higher Manas stands to Buddhi as the Lower
Manas to the Higher.
Responsibility
and the Ego (Page
591)
As to the question of responsibility, it may be understood by an example.
If you take the form of Jack the Ripper, you must suffer for its misdeeds,
for the law will punish the murderer and hold him responsible. You are the
sacrificial victim. In the same way the Higher Ego takes the responsibility
of every body it informs.
You
borrow some money to lend it to another; the other runs away, but it is you
who are responsible. The mission of the Higher Ego is to shoot out a Ray to
be a Soul in a child.
Thus
the Ego incarnates in a thousand bodies, taking upon itself the sins and responsibilities
of each body. At every incarnation a new Ray is emitted, and yet it is the
same Ray in essence, the same in you and me and every one. The dross of the
incarnation disintegrates, the good goes to Devachan.
The
Flame is eternal. From the Flame of the Higher Ego, the Lower is lighted,
and from this a lower vehicle and so on.
And
yet the Lower Manas is such as it makes itself. It is possible for it to act
differently in like conditions, for it has reason and self-conscious knowledge
of right and wrong, and good and evil, given to it. It is in fact endowed
with all the attributes of the Divine Soul. In this the Ray is the Higher
Manas, the speck of responsibility on earth.
The
part of the essence is the essence, but while it is out of itself,
so to say,
it can get soiled and polluted. The Ray can be manifested on this earth because
it can send forth its Mâyâvi Rûpa. But the Higher
cannot, so it has to send forth a Ray. We may look upon the Higher
Ego as the Sun,
and the personal Manases as its Rays. If we take away the surrounding air
and light the Ray may be said to return to the Sun, so with the Lower
Manas
and Lower Quaternary.
The
Higher Ego can only manifest through its attributes.
In
cases of sudden death, the Lower Manas no more disappears than does
the Kâma
Rûpa after death. After the severance the Ray may be said to snap or
be dropped. After death such a man cannot go to Devachan, nor yet remain in
Kâma Loka; his fate is to reincarnate immediately. Such an entity is
then an animal Soul plus the intelligence of the severed Ray. The manifestation
of this intelligence in (Page
592) the next birth will depend entirely on the physical formation
of the brain and on education.
Such
a Soul may be re-united with its Higher Ego in the next birth, if the
environment
is such as to give it a chance of aspiration (this is the “grace” of
the Christians); or it may go on for two or three incarnations, the Ray becoming
weaker and weaker, and gradually dissipating, until it is born a
congenital idiot and then finally dissipated in lower forms.
There
are enormous mysteries connected with the Lower Manas.
With
regard to some intellectual giants, they are in somewhat the same condition
as smaller men, for their Higher Ego is paralyzed, that is to say, their spiritual
nature is atrophied.
The
Manas can pass its essence to several vehicles, e.g., the Mâyâvi
Rûpa, etc., and even to Elementals which it can ensoul, as the Rosicrucians
taught.
The
Mâyâvi Rûpa may be sometimes so vitalized that it
goes on to another plane and unites with the beings of that plane and
so ensouls them.
People
who bestow great affection upon animal pets are ensouling them to a certain
extent, and such animal souls progress rapidly; in return such persons get
back the animal vitality and magnetism. It is, however, against Nature to
thus accentuate animal evolution, and on the whole is bad.
Monadic
Evolution
The
Kumâras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris. To understand
the latter, we might take the analogy of the blood.
The
blood maybe compared to the universal Life Principle, the corpuscles
to the
Monads. The different kinds of corpuscles are the same as the various classes
of Monads and various kingdoms, not, however, because of their essence
being
different, but because of the environment in which they are. The Chhâyâ the
permanent seed, and Weissmann in his hereditary germ theory is very near
truth.
H.P.B
was asked whether there was one Ego to one permanent Chhâyâ seed,
oversouling it in a series of incarnations; her answer was: “No, it
is Heaven and Earth kissing each other.”
The
animal Souls are in temporary forms and shells in which they gain experience,
and in which they prepare materials for higher evolution.
Functions
of the Astral Body (Page
593)
Until the age of seven the astral atavic germ forms and moulds the body; after
that the body forms the Astral.
The
Astral and the Mind Mutually react on each other.
The
meaning of the passage in the Upanishads, where it says that the Gods
feed on men, is that the Higher Ego obtains its earth experience through the
Lower.
Astral
Body
The
Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about.
The
Chhâyâ is the same as the Astral Body.
The
germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.
“The
Chhâyâ is coiled up in the spleen.” It is from this that
the Astral is formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence
like smoke, gradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from
the physical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the Kâmâ
Rûpa. At death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from
it is formed the Astral of the Kâma Rûpa; but this can never
come out during life.
The
Chhâyâ in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding atmosphere,
attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Sharîra could not form in
vacuo. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and
Eastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc.
In
spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly
caused
by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from the living
atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing to do
with the
clothing of the medium. “All the clothing of a materialization has
been paid for.”
The
Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering
it
up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary between
the kingdoms of Prânic and physical life.
Life
cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for Nature
goes
gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Sharîra is the intermediary
between Prâna and our physical body, and pumps in the life.
The
spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen is only
a cover for the real spleen.
Now
Life is in reality Divinity; Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on the
physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is too gross,
it must have a medium, viz., the Astral.
(Page
594) Astral matter is not homogeneous, and the Astral Light is
nothing but the shadow of the real Divine Light; it is however not molecular.
Those
(Kâmarûpic) entities which are below the Devachanic Plane
are in Kama Loka and only possess intelligence like monkeys. There
are no entities
in the four lower kingdoms possessing intelligence which can communicate
with men, but the Elementals have instincts like animals. It is, however
possible
for the Sylphs (the Air Elementals, the wickedest things in the world) to
commuicate, but they require to be propitiated.
Spooks
(Kâmarûpic entities) can only give the information they
see immediately before them. They see things in the Aura of people,
although the people may
not be aware of them themselves.
Earth-bound
spirits are Kâmalokic entities that have been so materialistic
that they cannot be dissolved for a long time. They have only a glimmering
of consciousness
and do not know why they are held, some sleep, some preserve a glimmering
of consciousness and suffer torture.
In
the case of people who have very little Devachan, the greater part
of the
consciousness remains in Kâma Loka, and may last far beyond the normal
period of one hundred and fifty years and remain over until the next reincarnation
of the Spirit. This then, becomes the Dweller on the Threshold and fights
with the new Astral.
The
acme of Kâma is the sexual instinct, e.g., idiots have such desires
and also food appetites, etc., and nothing else.
Devachan
is a state on a plane of spiritual consciousness; Kâma Loka is
a place of physical consciousness. It is the shadow of the animal world
and that of
instinctual feeling. When the consciousness thinks of spiritual things, it
is on a spiritual plane.
If
one’s thoughts are of nature, flowers, etc., then the consciousness
is on the material plane.
But
if thoughts are about eating, drinking, etc., and the passions, then
the consciousness
is in the Kâmalokic plane, which is the plane of animal instincts pure
and simple.
PEACE
TO ALL BEINGS
This
ends Part 4 of 4 of Volume 3 of the Secret Doctrine by H.P.Blavatsky
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