Where
is the school of this Science, and who are its masters
? The school is nowhere in particular, it is the wide
world; the masters are inaccessible to any but the most
advanced and resolute students. To such an one a certain
place, or a certain course of life may be indicated,
but this is only essential after a comparatively high
standard has been reached. At first the student is required
to fulfil those duties which he may owe to those around
him, to exhaust his old “Karma”, to learn to know, and,
above all, to be master of SELF.
That the masters, adepts, or mahatmas, as they have been variously
termed, are inaccessible to any but those who diligently seek, stands to
reason. These men are the custodians of the knowledge of the occult
powers of nature. They are men who have advanced so far in front of the
race, that the world in which they live, their moral qualities, and their
knowledge and control of physical law, and of forces of which the modern
world knows absolutely nothing, are so great as to place them on a height,
which to our limited ideas appears to transcend altogether that of the
human. So far removed are they from the reach of the curious, that many,
who have for years endeavoured to follow the path which they supposed
would lead to their acceptance as pupils, have come to deny their very
existence. Were it otherwise, the lower intelligence would worship them as
gods, the curious and the dilettante would seek mere amusement or
sensation in the exhibition of occult powers, whilst many would consider
[Page 3] themselves entitled to become pupils, who were totally unable to
grasp even the first principle of occultism, which is the conquest of SELF.
It
has been written that “they
who seek shall find, and to those who knock it shall
be opened”. This is something more than a promise,
it is a fundamental law of our growth. Truth is a constant
quantity, but the knowledge of it is only discovered
to us in the exact ratio of our capacity for receiving
it, and this again depends on the amount of effort which
we put forth in the right direction. Truth is the unchangeable
law of our being; it is written in every phase of nature
and in each human heart in characters which never alter;
but, like children learning to read, we require to have
each single letter presented to our sight again and again
before we can grasp its significance. When the characters
have become familiar, words may be formed, and then sentences;
at first we spell out letter by letter; finally, we read
without effort, and our attention being relieved from
the mere understanding of the symbols, we begin to inquire
the meaning of what we read. Does the man remember his
childish difficulties in learning the alphabet, or the
tears which he shed over his copybook ? And if he cannot
remember the particulars of such a recent part of his
history, is it any wonder that he fails to remember the
process by which his self-consciousness has dawned, and
by which he acquired those instincts and predispositions
with which he is born ? Indeed, he has quite forgotten
that he had any past at all, and imagines
himself a new creation. This process of acquiring knowledge — experience — is,
however, the universal law of evolution. It is the effort
on the
part of the individual unit, from the lowest to the
highest, to grasp its environment, to reach out on every
side and obtain a fuller touch with those forces which
are acting upon it, which develops through long ages
those organisms in the physical world that are the manifestation
of what we call Life. Man stands at the head of the
list with the largest faculties for grasping his environment,
but his faculties are not yet fully developed, nor
are they physical merely; they are intellectual, moral,
and spiritual. Man has a self-consciousness, a knowledge
that I am I, and a feeling that the real I, the Ego,
is something higher than, and independent of, the physical
body and functions.
It is here that Physical Science stops short, and Occult Science takes up
the problem. The mind, the intellect, the reason, the soul, these have no
existence for Physical Science outside of the brain. Occult Science, on
the other hand, knows that it is a mere matter of development to be able to
separate the whole consciousness from the physical body. Spirit is a
term not recognised by Physical Science, but Occult Science teaches that
spirit is more real than matter, that it is the only real, and that matter, as
we know it, is phenomenal and transitory, the manifestation on one plane
of nature only of those forces which are the components and essence of
nature itself. The material world is a necessary phase of that
vast [Page 4] evolution, in which the whole life and history of such a globe as
ours is less than the individual history of one single drop of water.
We have said that the methods of Occult Science are essentially different
from those of Physical Science, and we shall now endeavour to elucidate
this point a little further.
In
the first place, Physical Science, as we have already
pointed out, deals simply and solely with matter and
force as manifested on the physical plane, and through
the physical senses. When it seeks to aid the physical
faculties in their functions of observation, it does so by
skilful combinations and mechanical devices. Occult science,
on the other hand, works by the development in the individual
of certain faculties which enable him absolutely to transcend
matter. The object of Occult Science is to penetrate
the veil of matter, to raise the consciousness to a higher
plane. It has been for the most part supposed that the
veil of matter will only be penetrated when the soul
is released from the physical body by the death of the
latter; but Occult Science teaches that the object of
LIFE is the evolution of our higher principles, and that
the mere casting off of the lower ones cannot give an
increase of consciousness to that which is for the present
dependent upon the lower ones for its progress. It is
only when our higher principles have been so developed
that they can move, act, and think independently of the
lower ones; only when the consciousness has been altogether
transferred to the spiritual plane as a voluntary act,
that life in the physical plane becomes no longer necessary.
We do not now drop our material body voluntarily, or
because we have no longer need of it. It wears out like
an old garment, and we have still need of another so
long as we are on the physical plane, so long as we are
conditioned by matter, and have material desires and
wants. But when we have completely developed our higher
principles, when we have transferred our consciousness
entirely to the spiritual plane, and our wills and desires
are completely free from every taint of earth, then we
obtain the victory over Death, because we have no longer
any need to live as we name Life. Until then Death simply
means re-birth, and both Death and re-birth are involuntary.
How can we be said to have gained the victory over that
which we are compelled to submit to, whether we like it or
not ? The mere conquest of the fear of Death is not a
conquest of the conditions. Neither Science nor Religion
know anything of these conditions, and where the latter
has endeavoured to formulate and dogmatise, its conceptions
are found to be grossly material It is true, that when
the physical body dies the soul is for the time being
released from the conditions of matter, but it does not
gain any sudden accession of consciousness or power
thereby. It passes gradually into the state known as “Devachan”,
where it enjoys to the full those spiritual desires which
it has developed. This, however, is not a state of growth,
but rather of dream. It may last for thousands of years
if the spiritual aspirations of the individual have been [Page
5] high.
Time on the spiritual plane has no meaning such as we
attach to it. But sooner or later the soul is drawn back
to earth by those material desires which still cling
to it, and which it has no means of gratifying on the
spiritual plane, It is drawn back by those forces which
it generated in its past incarnation, which have remained
in a latent condition, but which sooner or later must,
under the inevitable law of cause and effect, become potential.
This is “Karma”. It
is sometimes known as fate; it determines the principal
events of our lives, which we often feel instinctively
have been moulded by some unknown agency quite independently
of our own will.
It is very difficult to explain to the ordinary reader, to those who have not
studied the subject, or who have not come in contact with people who can
actually exercise the super-sensuous faculties, what these faculties are,
and how they may be used. There are, however, many phenomena which
are looked upon with suspicion or absolute incredulity by modern science,
but which give a clue as to the direction in which we may look for the more
immediate development of these faculties. The phenomena of mesmerism,
spiritism, clairvoyance, thought transference, and many others, are for the
most part tentative and involuntary manifestations of certain occult faculties
and powers. Occult Science has been well acquainted with these
phenomena for ages, and not merely familiar with the phenomena, but with
their meaning and the laws that govern them.
Let
us take clairvoyance for instance. There are more people
gifted with this faculty than is generally supposed,
but the faculty being in an embryonic and undeveloped
state, and not under the control of the will of the individual,
it is for the most part exercised involuntarily and in
an arbitrary and irregular manner, and consequently what
is seen does not appear to have any connection with the
ideas of the person, and is as often as not set down
to “illusion” or “unconscious cerebration”. Nevertheless
there is a faculty of sight which is quite independent of
the physical eye, and does not act through the medium which
conveys the reflected light of the sun from material
objects and by means of which we see these objects. There
is a medium which is known as the “Astral Light”, and
it is in this medium that clairvoyants see. The Astral
Light is the register of every event that has ever taken
place on the physical Plane; it is, so to speak, the
sensitive plate which receives an impression or picture
of every event, and it is no uncommon thing for a clairvoyant
to see in this light events, persons, or objects, which
have long since had their existence on the physical plane.
You may meet with people who see faces, flowers, or animals,
or other objects, in the Astral Light, as plainly as
they see material objects on the physical plane. The
doctor tells them that it is an illusion, a derangement
of the functions of the brain, and, perhaps, believing
this to be so, they discourage and fight against their “illusions”,
with the result that in time [Page
6] these
become less frequent or cease altogether. Others, however,
have sought to understand and cultivate this faculty,
and in doing so have presently found that they possess
a most valuable gift, and one which, used in a proper
manner, opens out a wide range of observation beyond
the reach of the physical sight, but which many are vainly
endeavouring to penetrate, with the aid of that faculty
alone. Now Occult Science is perfectly familiar with the
constitution and functions of the Astral Light, with the
faculties by which this is perceived, and with the means
of developing these faculties so that they can be exercised
at will.
We
may take one more illustration, that of mesmeric phenomena.
These phenomena have been too clearly demonstrated of
late years for the scientists to ignore them, or to cover
them with ridicule as they did when they were first propounded
in modern times by Mesmer. Still, however, they seek
their explanation in the mere physical constitution of
the brain, they cannot admit that mind can act independently
of the brain or nervous organisation. The student of
Occult Science, on the other hand, knows that it is a
mere matter of development for the whole consciousness
to be separated at will from the physical body, and move,
see and act on a higher plane than that which conditions
the senses. Occult Science gives to man a sevenfold constitution,
of which the physical body is the lowest, and in point
of time the least permanent. Each lower principle serves
as the vehicle of the one immediately above it, serves
as the mechanism, so to speak, through which the higher
principle can act and re-act on that plane of nature
to which the lower principle belongs. It will thus be
seen that the physical body is the necessary complement,
the gross counterpart on the material plane of those
higher principles which constitute the Ego. To manifest
on the plane of matter the Ego must have a material body,
just as electricity requires matter in certain forms,
and an arrangement of parts in the instrument in order
to manifest itself to our senses and perform certain
functions. So long, therefore, as we confine our attention
to the material plane, we cannot do more than discover the
laws which condition matter; but why electricity, light,
heat, vitality, or mind, manifest themselves through
matter, or why indeed matter exists at all, must remain
a hopeless problem so long as we have only our physical
faculties to help us. Here, indeed, is the blank wall,
the sheer face of the precipice rising into the mists
above, and up which there appears to the human eye to
be no way, though still humanity will strain its
vision to catch perchance some rift in the clouds, some
glimpse of the Divine glory into which it hopes, but
with many a doubt and many a fear, to enter some day
through the Gates of Death. But the entry is not through
the Gates of Death; it is through the Gates of Life.
That which we call Death is the disintegration of the
molecules of our physical body, and when this is accomplished,
and the spirit can no longer look through the window
of the physical senses upon the external world of form,
what [Page
7] then
? A dream of Heaven, or it may be of Hell, that is as
we have made it for ourselves. But our spiritual faculties,
where are they? Let each one answer this by asking himself
how far he has succeeded in transferring his perceptions
and desires from the physical to the spiritual. Let him
inquire how much the “I am” is merely the sense of
form, of personality, which is attached to the physical
body, or whether he has succeeded in any degree in developing
a spiritual self-consciousness. Let no man deceive himself
here. Nature works through the lower to the higher, from
the lower form to the higher, and from the lower Consciousness
to the higher, and so to the highest which is Absolute
Consciousness. Nature works through form, through three
dimensional space to that which is above form, which
includes all form, all space, and also all time, and
which we name God.
If
with our limited ideas of time we are unable to grasp
the vast eras which physical science discloses as having
been required to evolve this little speck of cosmic dust
which we call the Earth, which, however, is such a big
thing to our physical consciousness, how shall we realise
the time required to evolve the human soul, which is
what nature is endeavouring to do through the physical
world? If we believe anything at all we must
believe our spiritual nature to be superior to the physical
world, otherwise how shall we survive the day which will
surely come when that world shall utterly vanish, shall
perish, as all forms perish sooner or later. Shall we
not rather begin to be conscious of the fact that
one day in God's sight is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day. Here is a test which each one may apply
as to the measure of the fulness of his spiritual perceptions.
The aim of nature is to unite us with the Divine power of
the Universe. It is the root-idea of every Religion that
we may become “one
with God”. To do this we must become
one with the Divine consciousness. We must
realise that which is realised by the Divine. How far have
we realised this statement of the relation of time to the
Divine consciousness ? How far are our ideas of time disconnected
from our mere physical consciousness and transferred to our
spiritual perceptions ? “God is Love”, “God
is a Spirit”, these and
similar texts written by men who knew, may be to us
merely the heading of our copybook, which we are required
to write over and over again down the page of life, and during
many many lives, before we begin even to guess that there
is something in the matter besides the mere characters which
we are forming with our physical faculties, and if we have
not yet succeeded in transferring our consciousness from
the material to the spiritual, we have not yet accomplished
the purpose for which we live. The real Ego, the spiritual
monad, not having attained to self-consciousness, has no
perception on the higher plane of nature, and since it can
only reach the higher through the lower, it has again to
seek a form, and developing a new physical
body it is again disciplined in the school [Page
8] of life.
Like children learning to read, we may find the lesson
hard, and many a tear may be shed over the page, but
Nature is only a hard taskmaster to those who set their
will in opposition to her laws and methods of working.
That which we are today is the result of our past living,
of the opportunities gained or wasted. “Be
not deceived, God is not mocked; that which a man
soweth he shall also reap; he that soweth to the flesh
shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth
unto the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting”.
Men vaguely hope to become perfect and happy when they
have cast off this mortal coil, and to leave all their
sins and the dragons' teeth they have sown for others to
reap. They hope to obtain a knowledge of God before they
have learnt to know themselves. How can we understand the
greater if we do not comprehend the lesser ? How can
we attain to a knowledge of the Maker if we do not understand
that which he has made ? Medical Science is a ghastly
witness to the poverty of our knowledge of the physical
constitution of man, and as to any higher constitution
he may have, of this science, so-called, knows less
than nothing. And yet we say again that this knowledge
has been obtained ages ago, is now in the possession
of living men, and can be obtained by all who earnestly
and perseveringly seek. This knowledge will in time become
universal through the natural process of evolution. The
race, as a whole, is advancing, because the individual
units are advancing; the individual units of today being
the individual units of past generations, they advance
in virtue of the experience already gained. Experience
is the only tutor. A man can have no real knowledge of
that which he has not experienced. But to those who desire
to step out in front of the race, who have the will and
the courage to advance singly, to those who thirst for
the truth, and press forward towards the prize of their
high calling, their Divine birthright as Sons of God,
there is a path which leads direct to the Light. It is
rugged and precipitous, and all too hard for any but
the most resolute. It involves the sacrifice of all that
this world holds most precious. It involves the conquest
of every fond delusion which is the product of our earth-born
faculties. It involves in the first place the complete
conquest of self. The will must be absolute master of
the physical body, absolute master of the emotions, thoughts,
and desires. We cannot attain to the highest, to the
permanent, until we have learnt to recognise what is
the lowest — the
impermanent. What are those things which men most desire
now ? — wealth, fame, power, physical enjoyment,
and material well-being. And yet they know well that
these things will not last for ever, even if they last
to the end of one little life-time. Then, when that on
which our consciousness is centred is removed by Death,
or otherwise, what have we to fall back upon; what is
it that is permanent and cannot fade away ? The mere
indifference of satiety must not be confounded with the
absence of desire. It is, perhaps, only when some of
these thing are removed, that we find how much our life [Page
9] was
centred in them. But if our life is centred in that
which is permanent, the removal of the impermanent
will be a matter of no moment. Men truly look for a
miracle in nature when they expect that, at death,
the spirit shall suddenly acquire that which it is
the object of Life to attain, a knowledge of and unison
with the Divine, that which nature is patiently accomplishing
through ages and ages of evolution. Shall eighty
years suffice for the spirit, the higher principles,
when thousands and thousands of years have been required
for the development of the physical, the lowest faculties
?
The
spiritual develops by, with, and through the material.
The material is the counterpart, on the lowest plane
of nature, of those processes which are taking place
simultaneously on the higher plane. Where in nature do
you find a miracle — a break in continuity ? This is
the true “natural law in
the spiritual world”, the one working through and with the
other. Search the whole realm of your experience and find,
if you can, the counterpart of such a miracle as you expect
to be wrought at death, when you think to free yourself from
those forces and desires you have nourished and brought into
action during your stay on the material plane. The evil you
expect to drop away from you, while the good is supposed
to go along with you, and even to be intensified and reinforced
a thousand-fold! The law of the conservation of energy on
the physical plane might teach us a little better than this.
How then can we obtain this knowledge of and mastery over self, how
learn to recognise and follow the promptings of our higher nature, and
effect the transfer of our consciousness from the personal and illusive to
the higher and spiritual Ego ?
This
is the science we are endeavouring to elucidate, the
Higher Science, the knowledge of spiritual forces, Occultism.
It is the science of Religion as well as of matter; it
is the highest science of all — the science of
LIFE.
Each and all can study in the school of this science with more or less
success. Each one is compelled by the nature of his being so to do, but
whether he shall push his way to the head of the classes, or grind slowly
and painfully through the routine, depends upon his own individual efforts.
There is only one object in what is taught, one curriculum, and one law of
progress. We build up our spiritual self molecule by molecule, even as the
physical body is built. It is a growth from within outwards, and never
contrariwise: exactly analogous to what takes place on the physical plane.
Imperceptibly our physical body drops the actual atoms of matter of which it
is composed and assimilates new ones, developing functions and faculties
in some directions, or losing them in others, according as it conforms or
otherwise with the law of physical growth. There is a physical regeneration
continually taking place, and there is also a spiritual regeneration, working
with and through the physical. The spiritual body [Page 10] is nothing vague
and shadowy; it is governed by laws as inflexible as those which condition
the physical existence and consciousness. Occult science teaches what
those laws are.
It
is not our purpose here to recapitulate certain of the
doctrines which have recently been given to the world
through the medium of the Theosophical Society as more
or less accurate representations of what Occult Science
knows of the constitution of man, his origin and destiny.
Those teachings should be studied in the light of our
own individual experience, and in no case accepted as
dogmatic or authoritative. There is a great mass of Theosophical
literature from which we must extract the essence by
using the touchstone of our inner consciousness. We are
more concerned now to point out to such as seek for more
Light than either Religion or Science can give what is
the direction in which they must look for that Light.
Those who, resting upon dogma or creed, are carried easily
along in the conventional and orthodox rut, and
find religion a comparatively easy matter, being able
to enjoy this life to the full while giving just enough attention
to the affairs of the next to enable them, as they imagine,
to escape the penalty of their sins, and enter at death
into an exalted state of happiness for ever and ever;
to such as these — and they are only too numerous — any
notion of a Science of Life, of the working of natural
law in the spiritual world must be utterly foreign. They
live and move in a small ideal world of their own creation,
nursing the illusion of the senses, and fondly imagining
that their own little world of ideas is the raison d'être of
all the rest of creation, and that what does not correspond
with their own individual ideas must be false and atheistical.
It is these people who are the real A-theists. There
is more hope for the man whose intellect denies the existence
of a personal God, than for him who, not knowing himself,
whence he comes or whither he goes, will yet postulate
for such a God all the attributes of arrogance, jealousy,
hatred, and revenge which exist in the unregenerate and
sinful human heart. If they know not their own life,
how shall they know the source from whence that life
is derived ? God is revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures
and in the person of his Son, they will probably say.
Yea, truly, he is so revealed if they had but eyes to
see and ears to hear. But we may read the Scriptures
every day of our lives, and yet be as ignorant of their
real meaning as on the day we were born; nay, even more
so; for it is written that unto babes and sucklings such
things are revealed; while to the Scribes and Pharisees
of today, the Bible is nothing more than chapter and
verse for the accumulation of doctrine and dogma — of
ecclesiasticism and the superstition and rubbish of centuries.
It appears to us almost a hopeless task to endeavour
to illuminate the mind of the self-satisfied religionist.
We may focus the light of truth with the strongest lenses
we possess, and yet we shall hardly be able to penetrate [Page
11] the gross
materiality of their spiritual conceptions, the mists of
illusion with which they have surrounded themselves.
Let us turn to a more hopeful class, to those who take a wider survey of
life, and seek for a solution of its problems on a broader basis than that of
sectarian Religion or dogmatic Science. Recognising to a certain extent the
unity of creation, and that each individual is a part of the great whole, they
feel that unless they can explain the connection and show that whole to be
good, then creation must be a pandemonium, a chaos, a horror, and a
curse. And yet they cannot believe this. There is that in their hearts which
whispers God is Love; and seeking ever for more light, they come sooner
or later to find themselves in possession of a real faith, an intuitive
knowledge of the good, and the strength and will to obtain it. Faith we must
have, no man ever made a single effort to obtain that which he did not
realise as having an existence. But what we require is that our faith may be
changed into sight. A man who is born blind may have faith in the existence
of a world of form and colour, he can have no real knowledge of it; but,
learning from those who have the knowledge, he may form some ideas
concerning it, and believe in its existence. In the same way with our
spiritual sight; unless we believe in the existence of the spiritual world and
listen to the teachings of those who have cognizance of that world, we shall
never make any effort towards its realisation. If we wish our faith to become
sight, we must develop our spiritual faculties. We may so develop our
spiritual nature that it shall become more real to us than our physical
nature; the world of sense and matter shall become less tangible and real
to us than is the vague idea we now attach to the term spirit.
The
aim of occultism is identically the same as that which
is expressed in more or less imperfect language in every
exoteric religion. It is union with the Divine. This
can only be accomplished in one way, and that is by working
with and for the Divine purpose in creation, and since
that purpose is good and not evil, is life and not death,
is unity and not division, we can only progress according
to the energy we exert on the side of those forces which
make for righteousness. Our progress depends upon a knowledge
of the laws by which we are conditioned, not in a mere
faith in the existence of law. There is no means of separating
a cause from an effect, and whether that cause is set
in motion in ignorance or in knowledge the effect will
be the same. There is no caprice in the physical world,
and there can be no caprice in that higher world which
conditions the lower. Our spiritual evolution is dependent
upon laws which are as inflexible as those which operate
on the physical plane, and are indeed the counterpart
of those laws. We are only saved by faith in so far as
our faith suffices to lead us to a knowledge of and conformity
with law. Mankind advances in proportion as men come
to know and understand natural law. Our physical well-being
is recognised as dependent upon a knowledge of [Page
12] and
conformity with these laws. If we disobey them, nature
crushes us. Sin is a transgression of the Law. Not the
law of a personal God; every Religion has a different
set of such laws which it regards as infallible, and
to which it attaches purely human conceptions of authority
and penalty. The fact of the existence of Sin in the
world is as natural as the existence
of disease. We can only free ourselves from the one or the
other as we come to a knowledge of the laws which condition
us, and which are the only Divine laws. Being yet imperfect
and ignorant beings, we suffer for our transgressions,
and through suffering are led to a knowledge of that
which produces suffering.
The knowledge of the higher includes a knowledge of the lower, and,
therefore, we are not surprised to find that those who have become adepts
in the higher science have a knowledge of and control over physical forces
which are utterly unknown to the world at large, and which indeed it would
be disastrous to make known. The entrance to this knowledge is therefore
guarded with jealous care, and none of its secrets are ever imparted until
the student has by the most severe tests proved his moral qualities, and
placed himself without reserve and without possibility of blacksliding, on the
side of the powers of goodness. His work must be for humanity and not for
himself. So long as there remains in him one particle of selfishness, one
single personal desire, it will act as a deterrent to the attainment of the
highest perfection of his being. He must sacrifice everything to the
attainment of that purpose. This is that part of the teachings of Christ (the
only practical part) which modern Christianity finds all too hard, and quietly
ignores, endeavouring to accomplish a compromise between the good
things of this life and the Kingdom of Heaven, to get the best of both
worlds. And yet if there is one thing more than another that Christ taught in
the plainest of language it is that no such compromise is possible. The
hardest sayings of Christ are those which touch our pocket, and yet our
pocket must be empty, and there must be no desire to fill it before we can
obtain our final emancipation.
We
have stated previously that the methods which Occult
Science employs are essentially different from those
of Physical Science; that Occult Science subordinates
the physical and seeks to develop the spiritual, but
this cannot be done, as many have supposed, by allowing
the physical body to fall into dilapidation and disuse;
by mortifying the physical members in order that the
spiritual ones may develop. That which we have to mortify
is the physical desires, but the physical organs
and functions must be perfect and healthy, because the
higher principles are dependent on the lower ones for
their development, in our present stage of evolution;
and there are certain organs in the human body which are directly
concerned in this process. If the bodily functions are weak
or diseased they react upon the higher ones. The spiritual
faculties must be developed by
[Page
13] the subordination
of the physical faculties. The will must be absolute master
over the physical body; every merely animal passion must be
subdued and led into its proper channel.
This is a work of the greatest difficulty, yet it is the first step towards an
increase of spiritual life. It can seldom be accomplished in one lifetime. He
who has ever tried to conquer one desire, one besetting sin, knows the
magnitude of the task. No effort, however small, is ever lost; and though
we may appear to make little or no progress, because the goal is still far
off, and our sight not strong enough to estimate distances, yet we must
know that every time we succeed in subordinating one fond desire we have
made a forward step on the path.
We see, then, that as students of the Higher Science we are required to do
something more than merely acquire book learning, or the manipulation of
the occult forces of nature.
It cannot be too often reiterated that the knowledge we are to acquire is the
knowledge of self, and the power we are to exercise is the mastery over
self. The macrocosm is contained within the microcosm. If we cannot
command ourselves, our lower nature and desires, we are utterly unfit to
control those forces which we should be able to use as powerful aids to our
own selfish ends, or to oppress or destroy our fellow-creatures. When,
however, by working for the Divine purpose in humanity
instead of for our individual ends, we league ourselves with
those powers which make for good; when we have purified our
wills, our minds, and our bodies, then we shall acquire those faculties
which now lie dormant within us, unable to act because of the grossness of
our physical organization and conceptions. We shall then come to a real
perceptive knowledge cf the truth, we shall see not as in a glass darkly, but
face to face.
Writing in a Christian country and for the most part for those who are
familiar with the teachings of Christ, we have endeavoured to show how
the Christian ideal must be realised to the full by those who desire the
highest spiritual attainments. But it is not in the Bible alone that these truths
lie buried. The fundamental truth of every religion is the same, but we have
to clear away the human conceptions which have accumulated round the
central truth, before we can get at the real esoteric meaning which
underlies the letter and the form. The ancient Wisdom Religion, Secret
Doctrine, or Theosophy is the source of each, and every Exoteric Religion,
and we cannot do better than study at the fountain head. The Initiates
taught the mysteries in allegory and fable, which the outside world
accepted as literal and true, but the real meaning was only disclosed to the
student, to those who had the courage to enter the portals, which were
guarded with jealous care, and with terrors which it required a bold spirit to
face. It is still so. The kingdom of heaven must be taken by force. It is vain
and idle to try and reconcile the external forms of religion, to [Page 14] dispute
about the text and the literal meaning. When we have penetrated ever so
little beneath the surface we shall find a startling resemblance between one
religion and another.
The great founders of religion were Initiates, who, having a knowledge of
Cyclic laws by which the race as a whole progresses, proclaimed at certain
periods of the world's history that truth which has always existed and
always been known. They proclaimed it in the manner best calculated to be
received by those who had advanced sufficiently far to apprehend it. In
order that the universal truth may be perceived by the finite mind, it must
be manifested in some form, but the ultimate truth is as formless as the
ultimate cause.
The
great central truth of the unity of Nature, and the interdependence
and correlation of all forces, physical, mental, and
spiritual, together with the existence of the Divine
Spark in man which will enable him ultimately to merge
his individuality in the Divine Nature, and become the
conscious creative power of the Universe, is that which
was taught alike by Buddha and by Christ. We cannot perceive
it so long as our attention is directed to the external
form, and our energies wasted in the endeavour to reconcile
those theories or dogmas with which the Church has overlaid
the original teachings. The Church has lost the key to
the “Mysteries”, but that key is
still to be found, and with it we may unlock one by one every
secret in the Universe. Much may be learnt if we will
but have the courage to throw overboard our preconceived
notions; and without any very great effort we may come
to understand much that will remain an insoluble riddle
unless we have the key which Occult Science supplies.
A study of Theosophical literature, and more especially of certain teachings
which have recently been given to the world through the medium of the
Theosophical Society, will, in many cases, throw a flood of light into minds
which have long been groping in the dark, and will show the possibility of
advancing along certain lines which may be in harmony with religious
instincts, but which conventional religion has failed to demonstrate. But in
order that we may advance, we must make a real effort to develop our
spiritual nature, to assist Nature in the evolution which she is endeavouring
to accomplish. It is something to understand the theory, and to clear up our
intellectual difficulties. This is the first step, but those who would use the
key to unlock the higher mysteries of their life must not stop short at
intellectual acquirements. The possibilities which lie before us are as
boundless as the Universe itself. We cannot realise those possibilities with
our mere physical or intellectual faculties. The higher Wisdom is
foolishness to the world. It must first be intuitively perceived. The man must
have faith in his Divine Nature, otherwise he will never rise above those
things which belong to the world of matter and form, and which are
therefore temporal and perishable. Is not even this the teaching of Christ ?
and yet how [Page 15] little it is practically applied, because Theology takes
the place of Religion, and a belief in certain doctrines and dogmas is made
the essential part of spiritual regeneration. This must inevitably be so as
long as the spiritual man has not awakened to consciousness, and the
spiritual world is regarded as a thing vague, shadowy, mysterious, and
supernatural. The term supernatural is a fit one to hide our ignorance, but it
is utterly false in its first meaning. We may fitly use the term super-sensuous, but the further we progress the more we discover that Nature is
one in every part, the expression in an endless variety of forms of the one
central invisible cause. Even physical science is now able to explain on
perfectly Natural grounds many things which were formerly regarded as
manifestations of a supernatural agency.
But
why should the spiritual world remain a mystery and a
blank? The answer is very simple, and is contained in
the idea which most people have — that at death
they will enter that world. Men recognise, to a certain
extent, that it is the physical which throws a veil over
their spiritual sight, but having no real knowledge of their
spiritual nature, and of the relation which exists between
the spiritual and the physical, they draw a sharp line
of demarcation between the two. Not knowing that the spiritual
world is already within them, and is the raison d'être of
the physical, they relegate the operation of spiritual
laws to a supernatural sphere. If a man find not God
or the kingdom of Heaven within him, where else shall
he find it ?
It is only real knowledge gained by practical experience which can clear
away the mists of superstition and dogma which cloud our intellectual
vision, and it is only by the exercise of our spiritual faculties, and the
subordination of our physical ones that we can gain a real perception on
the spiritual plane.
Nature
is an open book for us to read, and the page is only
blank because we have not the necessary powers of sight
to distinguish the characters. We are for the most part
colour-blind, and cannot even tell black from white,
good from evil. Yet there have been men in all ages who
have seen with open eyes the world of spirit, and understood
the operation of spiritual laws. But how to communicate
their knowledge to those who had not sight, that was
the problem. It could only be done by symbolism and allegory,
with the certainty that the symbol would be mistaken for
the real, and the allegory for the truth. Eighteen hundred
years of “Christianity” have shown
us what can be done in this way.
Those who have apprehended the central truth will recognise it, whatever
may be the allegorical form in which it is expressed, and will never mistake
the form for the substance. Therefore it is that there is no religion (as that
word is commonly understood) possible for him who has recognised the
Truth, because there is no religion higher than Truth, and when that is
worshipped in the inmost sanctuary of the heart there is no [Page 16] longer
need for the external form of worship. This also Christ taught to the
woman of Samaria.
We
say again that Occult Science possesses a knowledge of
the constitution of man — a knowledge of the laws
of the universe, spiritual and physical, which are not
ever dreamt of by Theology or Science; that this is
not merely an intellectual knowledge, but a direct perception,
and that that perception may be obtained by all who have
sufficient faith and sufficient courage to lay claim
to their Divine birthright, and who will not sell this
for a mess of pottage. It is not easy to accomplish,
but Nature is infinitely patient, and what cannot be
accomplished in one lifetime may be done in the next.
This is but a sketch of the region which lies open to the bold explorer. It is
the region through which each and all must pass sooner or later to obtain
that which is the end and aim of his existence. It is the region towards
which the race, as a whole, is progressing through cycle after cycle of
experience and evolution. It lies before us, yet also behind, and all around.
It is only before and behind to our limited ideas of time and space. That
which has been, is, and will be.
Many will deny the existence of this Higher Science, but others will find in it
the possibility of that which their intuition teaches them, but which hitherto
they have been unable to formulate.
