BROTHERS, - When first the great Scriptures of the Hindu
nation made an impression on European thought, that impression was one of a
somewhat strange and remarkable character. There was a conflict amongst
European thinkers as to the origin and as to the value of this ancient
literature. On the one side, it was acknowledged that a profound Philosophy
might there be seen; on the other, the idea of finding such a Philosophy
amongst a people regarded as less civilized than those who became their
critics - that idea led to much of controversy as to the way in which these
books had originated, and as to the influence which had been at work in
their construction. And even today, when the depth of their Philosophy is
admitted, and the grandeur and width of their range of thought is no longer
challenged, you find men like Professor Max Müller, who have given their
lives to the study of these books, you [11] find them speaking of the
Vedas as the babblings of an infant people. You find them denying
that there is any kind of secret or hidden doctrine hidden under the veil
of symbolism, concealed under the mask of allegory. It seems to me as though
in the West it is impossible for thinkers to understand that you may have an
infant race, and yet that race have Divine Instructors; that you may have a
growing civilization, but have that civilization under the guidance of those
who are specially illumined by the Spirit that is Divine. And so they have
failed to understand the value of the Scriptures, seeing only the masses of
the ancient people, understanding nothing of the dignity of those who stood
above them as Teachers and as Guides. Trying to find what is called a purely
human origin for the Scriptures, they have lamentably failed in their
analysis: for where the Divine is put aside, the growth of no nation can be
understood, and where the hidden Deity in man is ignored, no real grasp can
be gained of Philosophy, or of Religion, or of civilization.
Now my attempt - and it must be a very imperfect attempt
- in these lectures, is to vindicate the position that within the Hindu
Scriptures you may find Philosophy, Science and Religion of the deepest, of
the widest and of the most inspiring kind; that the Science of the West
[12] is slowly beginning to tread the paths which in these Scriptures
are clearly traced; that the knowledge which the West is beginning to gather
from observations of the external universe, is knowledge which may be more
rapidly acquired by the study of the Scriptures, which were written by
those who studied the universe from within rather than from without. Thus
we may read that in the Lotus-chamber of the heart with its ether-filled
space we may see everything which in the external world may be found.
Both the heaven and earth exist within it. Both Agni and
Vayu, both the Sun and the Moon … and whatever else exists in this
Universe.
are there, so that in finding his Spirit, man also finds
everything which exists in the Kosmos. This is a statement not only
beautiful in its poetry, but accurate in its science; and by really finding
the eyes of the Spirit, those eyes that pierce through every veil of
external nature, we can gain knowledge at once more accurate and more
profound than can be discovered when the study is pursued purely through the
eyes of the flesh.
Now in pursuing this line of investigation, very great
help has been given to us by that Russian lady and great Teacher known to us
as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Her value to the world does not lie in the
question as to whether she were or were not able to perform certain acts
which others might be unable to rival. Her value to the world does not lie
in whether she be a wonder-worker [13] or whether she be a conjurer.
These points are not the points by which ultimately she will be
judged by posterity. From my own standpoint these so-called marvels are
matters of comparative indifference; the whole of these, while interesting
from one standpoint, I look upon as of comparatively small significance.
Her real value was that she unveiled to us the secret of the Ancient
Knowledge, that she put into our hands the keys by which we might
ourselves unlock the gates of the inner sanctuary, that she came to us
knowing the things of the Spirit and able to explain to us how we for
ourselves might follow the clues which she gave; so that those who are
instructed in this Esoteric Philosophy - spoken of in modern times as the
Theosophical Teachings - those who are instructed in it can turn to the
Vedas, can turn to the Puranas, and there find knowledge which
from the ordinary reader is hidden. Thus she acts as a great Teacher,
filling the function which in ancient times was carried on between the
Teacher and the disciple: taking the Scriptures and unfolding their inner
meaning and so opening the way for spiritual progress, making it possible
for us to attain to the Ancient Wisdom of the temples. I am going to
try to justify that view by showing - having taken certain teachings from
the ancient Hindu Scriptures - how these teachings become clearer and more
easy to grasp, when they are read in the light which she has thrown
upon them in the [14] volumes spoken of by the name of The Secret
Doctrine. I am going to support that teaching also by reference
to the most advanced Science of our own day, showing you how The Secret
Doctrine, which is really the most ancient Indian teaching, is
supported on the one side in the West by what is called Science, and on the
other side in the Past by the Scriptures, which may be made more
intelligible, more coherent, and of which the apparent contradictions
vanish, when they are viewed in the light of these Secret Teachings of which
a fragment only is given to the world.
Now speaking of the building of the Kosmos, I cannot at
the very outset deal with the question according to Science as it is
understood in Europe, because Science does not, in Europe, deal with the
beginning of things. It only deals with manifestation after it has reached
a certain point. It tells us nothing, as it were, of the first burgeoning
out into existence of the Kosmos. It deals with nothing until we have
Matter in a form which the physical senses can appreciate, or at least which
the imagination, following on the lines of the physical senses, is able to
construct. Tyndall has spoken of the scientific use of the imagination, and
in that way we can go on scientific lines beyond that which actually may be
sensated. It is no longer argued that that only is true which can be
perceived by means of the senses; that was the position held some thirty
years ago. It is one [15] which the progress of Science has made it
impossible to hold today. But you do find that Science still maintains that
nothing can come within its purview save such concepts as may be formed by
the intellect on the facts which have been collected by the senses; so that
when you are dealing with the existence of the manifested Kosmos, you must
not in your thought go beyond those material conceptions for which you
already have foundation in the material phenomena that you have observed.
That is, you may go beyond the aggregation of Matter that you can see, and
you may posit the existence of the atom which is invisible, and which can
only be seen by an effort of the scientific imagination. But you must not go
beyond that which this imagination can construct out of the material
supplied by the senses. Crookes, it is true, deals with the building of the
atom, but even then he only carries it as far as what is called protyle or
original Matter; beyond that Science will not go. It refuses to go further
into the origin of things. It refuses to ask: Is it possible that behind
this protyle we may still trace growth and evolution? So that in the first
tracing we have only The Secret Doctrine and the Scriptures. We
cannot bring in the scientific criticism and assistance until a little later
in the argument.
Now in order that this argument may be complete from our
own standpoint, I want to make a brief comparison between the beginning of
things [16] as we find it in the Shastras, and the beginning of
things as it is traced for us in the book called The Secret Doctrine;
so that we may see, as I think we shall see, that the coherent statement
that is made in the latter is exceedingly helpful, when we are puzzling
ourselves somewhat over the many statements of the different aspects of the
evolution that we find in the Shastras. For you must remember that blinds
have been deliberately used in these Scriptures that have been placed in our
hands. We cannot, by reading them consecutively, always gain a coherent
notion of the whole which in this fragment is represented, and we gain very
much in time if we get a glimpse of the whole, so that when we meet the
fragment, we can put it into its proper place in the edifice which we are
trying to construct, instead of searching everywhere, and keeping our
knowledge fragmentary, for need of that architectural plan which Madame
Blavatsky really supplies.
Let us turn first to the Shastras and see how they trace
for us the origin of things. Here there is a very noticeable difference
between the Puranas and the Upanishads. You will find more
detail - detail given in successive descriptions, as it wherein the
Puranas; you will find in the Upanishads a philosophic
rather than cosmological view, especially a view which starts from the
Spirit in man and shows the connection of that Spirit with the Source whence
it came. This will make a difference in [17] the view of the universe
presented in these two great divisions of the Shastras, and you will find
one point especially of difference that I will put to you, which may
sometimes have puzzled the reader as to the possibility of reconciliation
between the two. First of all then, if I may use what seems a paradox, but
is really a truth, before the “origin of things” thought is thrown
backwards; for the origin of things means manifestation, it means
differentiation. The very word “things” implies manifested existence. Before
the manifest, there must be the One; even in European Science this is
recognized, and they rightly allege the One to be inscrutable and the
phenomenal to be the object of observation. But you will very rarely find
that the existence of that which is behind phenomena is denied - save
perhaps in some comparatively small schools of thought, that see in the
universe nothing but a mass of changing phenomena, with no underlying unity
in which these phenomena inhere. Generally, if Science becomes Philosophy,
the One is posited as incognizable and unknowable to human thought. But
there is a yet deeper conception in the Hindu view of the universe: for that
which by human thought is unreachable, is still, as one may say, on the
outer limit of manifestation, and even behind that outer limit, behind and
beyond Brahman - who is described as invisible, intangible, unseeable, and
unseizable even by thought that which cannot be proved, and whose only proof
is [18] in the belief in the soul - behind that, there still is
posited that which has no name but only a descriptive epithet, that can
only be spoken of as the “beyond Brahman” - Para Brahman - of the
Philosopher, the “Unmodified Vishnu” of the Vishnu Purana. Now on
THAT, the Unmodified Vishnu, there is nothing to be said and nothing to be
thought. Neither thought nor speech has anything to do in that region, and
we can only begin either to think or to speak when manifestation occurs, and
when out of that darkness which may not be pierced, the first quiver comes
forth which is Light, the possibility of manifested existence.
And then we come in the Scriptures to the first of all
manifestations, to that which is spoken of sometimes - and notice the fact -
as manifested and sometimes as unmanifested; unmanifested in itself, but
manifested in the act of generation. For our thought soars, as it were, to
Brahman, albeit Brahman Itself is unseizable by human thought. And we find
Brahman or Its equivalent spoken of, in both those great sources of study,
Upanishads and Puranas, as triple in Itself, although not
triple in direct manifestation. The One, but with an inner and latent three-foldedness,
which will appear gradually in manifested sequence and make the universe of
things a possibility. Brahman Itself is essentially threefold; whether you
take it as you may find it in the Taittiriyopanishad, where Brahman
is spoken of as Truth, as Knowledge, as [19] Infinity, or in
that phrase which is more familiar to us, as Existence, as Bliss, as
Thought. Really in these words you have the same conception -
Sat-chit-ananda - so familiar always in speaking of the Supreme, and this
is but another phrase for that which you find in the Upanishad
quoted. For what are Satyam, Gnyanam, Anantam?
These are only different human words which fail in the attempt to represent
realities, and whether you take the one or the other threefold phrase it
matters not; what you do need to grasp is that these are latent in the first
Emanation, and that the beginning of the Kosmos is the unfolding of this
threefold latency into manifestation, is the becoming active of the latent
potentialities.
Now you have in the Vishnu Purana that which
represents this same thought of the triple latency; you have the first
manifestation of Vishnu which is Kala, Time, which is neither Matter nor
Spirit, but which exists when both of these have disappeared into it. You
may remember in the second chapter of Vishnu Purana we are told that
there is Pradhana, which is the essence of Matter, Purusha, which is the
essence of Spirit; when these disappear, the form of Vishnu that is Time
remains; thus there is this conception of Time without beginning and without
ending, which, as it were, stands behind the next manifestations, joins
them, and makes them possible. Then you come to the [20] second
stage, which in this Purana is given under the name of
Pradhana-Purusha, essential Matter, essential Spirit - out of the One, the
Two, which means manifestation; and that is why Brahman is spoken of as both
unmanifest and manifest. It is unmanifest in Itself; It is manifest when the
Two appear from the One, and this duality makes the Kosmos possible. Then
you may find many words in many books, all of which convey the same thought:
the duality on which so much stress has been laid by Subba Rao - whose death
every Philosopher must regret for the work that he might have done in this
unification of the secret and the published thought. You have Mulaprakriti
and Daiviprakriti - which are only other expressions for that which in Greek
thought is called the Logos - in manifestation. Again, you have the one
characteristic given you of that Pradhana, that it is Vyaya, extensible;
you cannot begin to describe, because attributes are not yet evolved, but
you have the one characteristic of extensibility, which always means the
possibility of form; so that in this Second, which is manifested from the
One, there is the essence of form - that which is to take on manifold
appearances - and you have also that which is to come out in form, the
Purusha which moulds, working on the Pradhana, and thereby makes the
manifoldness of the manifested universe possible. Then there is - still
following the Vishnu Purana - the third stage, or Mahat, that which
is to be the [21] controlling and directing force, that which is to
be the Over-ruler, as we may say, which in every case will guide the
evolution of the universe, and make it consistent, reasonable, right
through; and here I cannot but remind you for a moment that, in the last
expression, I have used a thought which we lately heard from Professor
Huxley. He speaks of an Intelligence that “pervades the universe”,
recognizing, as it were, such an Intelligence after professing Agnosticism
for so many years. There is an Intelligence of which he is obliged to admit
the pervading quality, which is essentially the same as that fundamental
conception of Mahat, which is intelligence without limitation, save such
limitation as the very fact of manifestation must imply.
Now these three stages in this clear, definite
presentment from the Vishnu Purana are somewhat difficult to trace
in the Upahishads, but let me say before leaving their
presentation in the Purana that the Three are but the unfoldment of
the One, of the Satchitananda which you have latent in the First. You have
differentiated Them when you regard Them as three. The First is then Sat,
pure Existence. What is the Second, which is dual, save Ananda, for the very
fact of bliss implies duality? What is Mahat but Chit in manifestation? So
that it is really a process of unfolding, as I said; all that which is
latent in the One becoming manifest in the Three. In the Upanishads
[22] this unfolding is somewhat veiled. There is a tendency
in the Upanishads to pass directly from the Brahman in which all is
latent, to the Spirit in man which is Brahman in the heart - the Logos of
the individual Soul. None the less in the Upanishads here and there
you will find traces given which show you that the same thought is present
which is more definitely unfolded in Pauranic writings. You will find if
you will turn to the Mundakopanishad, it is said there that from
Brahman is produced Life - which is Ananda - and Mind, which is Chit; then
it goes on to the five elements, ether, air, light and the rest.
So that you do have the same succession, although but little stress is laid
upon it, the object of the writer being different from the unfolding of the
Kosmos. So again you may find in the Brihadaranyakopanishad the
trinity of Life, Name and Form. Life, from which the Two proceed; and Life
is concealed by Name and Form, that is, the First is concealed by Its dual
manifestation. So also you will find the same idea in the Kathopanishad
in the succession which is traced in the gradual search after Spirit;
when you have gone through Manas to Buddhi, from Buddhi to Atma, beyond Atma
there is the Unmanifested, and beyond the Unmanifested there is the Great
Soul, therein spoken of as Purusha. Thus you get this most suggestive fact,
that between the Spirit in man, and that beyond which there is naught, there
[23] is given but one stage, “the Unmanifested”. What is the
underlying thought of that single instead of triple presentation? It is to
tell those whose eyes are opened that to the Spirit in man there is but One
between it and That which is unknowable, for the Logos of the Soul is one,
and one is the Ray of which the Spirit is the reflection in the heart; so
that in the Upanishad, which is meant to lead you to the finding of
the unity of the Spirit with its Lora, everything is ignored save that one
Logos to which the Spirit belongs, and the very Kosmos in its multiplicity
disappears when the Spirit itself is seeking the source whence it came.
Now turning from this sketch taken from the Scriptures
themselves, let us take The Secret Doctrine - I am using that name
simply for the book called by it - we shall find that the whole of these
most complicated teachings are presented in a form so simple, so clear, that
we may take it as a clue to guide us in studying the far more difficult form
in which it is presented to us in the Hindu writings. It being built
entirely on the same foundation as that of the Shastras, you find first
postulated Para Brahman, on Which nothing may be said; and then the
presentment of the three Logoi, the word Logos being used, as being more
familiar in Western thought, and as having as we shall see in a moment when
I come to deal with Sound - special significance with regard to the building
[24] of the Kosmos. The very word Logos implies the Builder, inasmuch
as the uttered sound is the Great Builder of all manifested forms. And then
we have traced for us the succession of these three Logoi, only the ancient
Trimurti under another name, that we have been studying in the Scriptures
themselves; we have the First Logos unmanifest, that is one title which is
given to it. The First, the Unmanifest, appears but to disappear, because so
far as Kosmos is concerned, the First Logos is unmanifested; it can only
become manifest to the Spirit in man which is one with Itself. Then the One
differentiated into Two, and, using the language of the West, this duality
is described as “Spirit-Matter” - not Spirit and Matter, for you have
but two aspects of the One, and if you divide them in thought you begin with
a mistaken conception. The universe does not grow out of Spirit and Matter
- two separate conceptions - it is an evolution from Spirit-Matter, or the
One with a dual aspect. And so in this second you have, as I said, the
Ananda aspect, and you find H. P. Blavatsky laying great stress on this
fundamental unity which yet becomes dual in manifestation, Spirit-Matter,
Purusha-Pradhana. These are but the two primeval aspects of the One and the
Secondless. And then when she went on to throw to the careful student a
hint as to the symbolism of the subject, by which he may unveil this
fundamental mystery of the Kosmos, you find her dealing with [25] the
symbolism of the moon and suddenly throwing into the paragraph on the moon
this phrase:
Lunar magnetism generates life, preserves and destroys
it; and Soma embodies the triple power of the Trimurti, though it passes
unrecognized by the profane.
Then a little further on she speaks of
The One Divine Essence, unmanifested, perpetually
begetting a Second Self, manifested, which Second Self, androgy,
nous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to every thing
macro- and micro-cosmical in this Universe.
In this sentence in which the writer throws in the notion
of the moon in an apparently somewhat curious way, you have the key to much
of the allegory which will explain to you these obscure beginnings of the
building of the Kosmos. From one side you have the sun and from the other
side the moon. On the one side you have the light, and on the other side the
water; fire and water everywhere, as that by which the building of the
universe may take place, and fire and water are but the names for Spirit and
Matter, and but express this duality of the Second Logos. In this second
manifestation fire is the Daiviprakriti or the Light of the Logos; water is
a manifestation of the Mulaprakriti or the root of all Matter. As they
proceed, it is along this dual line; and the moon (as is known by every
student) is constantly represented as androgynous, sometimes as male,
sometimes as female, today as God, King Soma, [26] tomorrow as
Goddess, so that this is always pressed on your attention. When you think of
the moon you have the double side, positive and negative, that which in our
world we recognize as sex. Thus we have perpetually this antithetical
duality, without which no building can be, for you must have the passive
which nourishes the universe, you must have the active which fecundates;
otherwise there is no possibility of reproduction, there is no existence
for the universe manifest at all. And then the Third is Mahat, the same name
for the ideating power, thought, intellect, which is to be at the very root
of existence. So that here again life and thought are to be primary;
wherever you find an atom of manifested existence, you will find in it this
duality, which it takes from its source; for out of the dual the dual must
proceed, and you will neither have unliving Matter nor senseless Energy.
Such existences are impossible in a universe that has been generated by Life
and by Thought. And this Trinity is, in the deepest sense, of sevenfold
constitution, for in the three lie enfolded the seven, as also in the
Trimurti, when you begin to think, you will find the seven involved; for in
the Trimurti you are obliged to recognize in each the Shakti side, or
duality in each, so that your three must become six; wherever you realize
the One you are obliged in manifestation to realize the Two; you cannot have
Vishnu without Lakshmi, you cannot have Shiva without Durga, the two are
[27] always recognizable, so that when you think of the Trimurti you are
really thinking of six, and the Seventh is that which synthesizes all, and
without which this differentiation could never appear; so that in the very
foundation of the Kosmos the septenary appears, and it is only the lack of
insight in us which has blinded us to that so long. When we reach this
stage, the stage of Mahat, or intelligence, at once we come to the
possibility of the manifestation in which Western Science also may play its
part; from the word Mahat, you have the threefold Ahamkara, which
essentially has the qualities so familiar to every student of the Gita, so
familiar to every student I may say of Philosophy as a whole - the true or
pure, the active or brilliant, the dark or elemental - that Matter of
threefold quality which is necessary for further manifestation, and in which
we shall find manifoldness will appear. So we learn, if we take the
Vishnu Purana, that from the Tamasic quality proceed the elements -not
the elements of which Western Science speaks, but the five ancient
elements; we have no good English equivalent for Bhutadi. It is from
Ahamkara that the material universe proceeds; first it generates Akasha,
from Akasha air, from air fire, from fire water, and from water earth. Now
why this succession? First Akasha: of that we are told the characteristic is
Sound; the rudiment of Sound is evolved, and that is the only attribute of
Akasha. Then air, [28] and what is air in this sense? Certainly not
the air of the atmosphere, certainly not that which is the air of later
manifestation, a mingling of gases where the atom has already appeared. The
great “Air” of the Upanishads and of the Puranas is the breath
of the Supreme, essentially Motion, for only when this conception of motion
comes in, is any manifestation possible. So that first you have the Akasha,
whose only attribute is Sound; then you have the Motion which is given to
that Akasha by the great Breath; and in these you have sound, and then
touch, which is the second sense, and from sound and touch - your very
Akasha and Air - you have Fire generated, for which this friction between
Breath and Akasha is necessary, and that is the Electricity, without which
no further growth can be, and not until you have this succession of Akasha,
which can take form from Breath, which can give form to Electricity, which
can build into aggregation, until this there does not become possible atomic
constitution, from which you may have your water and earth, or the liquid
and solid manifestations of that which hitherto has been the so-called
“immaterial”. And notice how that succession is, as it were, guaranteed to
us intellectually by the senses of man; see how the first is correlated
with the sense of hearing, how the second with both sound and touch, the
second sense; how with the fire there comes light which is correlated with
vision, so that then you have sound and touch [29] and vision; how
then there comes water which is correlated with taste, because without
moisture taste cannot be, and the four are present; and, lastly, earth,
whose essential characteristic is smell, the last of the senses to be
evolved in the physical, and therefore the first of the senses to be found
on the astral plane when the soul is passing backwards to seek itself. H. P.
Blavatsky, of course following this, has already pointed out that the Akasha
is that which is generated from the Third Logos, and that it’s only
characteristic is Sound. But here at once comes in our Modern Science, and
in this conception of the Akasha in which is working the great Breath, so
that by the Akasha and Vayu Agni may appear, we find ourselves face to face
with the very latest theories and discoveries of Science, and with that
genesis of the elements which is only another term for the building of the
Kosmos - which you may study in Western language in the writings of Mr.
Crookes. Madame Blavatsky in the first volume of The Secret Doctrine
wrote to a considerable extent on these discoveries of Crookes so far as
they had been published when that book was written; but she pointed out that
there were some points which still were lacking. And it is noticeable that
only just at the end of her life - it was in 1891, only a couple of months
before her death - Mr. Crookes, speaking before an audience of the picked
Scientists of England, stated that that which had been a [30]
hypothesis, had become a certainty, and that he was now able to put forward
as definitely ascertained theories, things which before he had only been
able to suggest as hypotheses which might be useful as a guide to discovery.
And what is this great discovery of his which it was said by one of those
who listened to him would put his name on a level with the greatest thinkers
and the greatest Scientists of our time? It was the discovery that the atom
was not eternal, that the atom was produced and not primary, that it was
destructible, and therefore had come into existence - for only that which is
indestructible is eternal, as every Philosophy will admit. And he showed
that the atom must be looked upon as dual, that it must be regarded as a
neutral body formed by the joining of the positive and negative elements in
Nature, and that the atom was permanent just because of its duality, because
as it were the two were knit together, and that gave it its stability and
its power to act as the brick, so to speak, in the building of the world;
and then behind the atom he placed what he called “the protyle”, borrowing
the name from an Occultist of mediaeval Europe, Roger Bacon, who had used
the same word to denote the primeval substance. When he wanted to trace how
these atoms were builded, then he found himself compelled to posit protyle
as primeval substance. Note how the professor closely followed on the line
of ancient thought, when he found himself obliged to [31] posit
Motion - that is, the great Breath, which is the second element after Akasha,
without which the Akasha would remain motionless and therefore without
generating anything. Having protyle and motion, he then posits the third,
that is the force allied to electricity, which he says traces for itself a
spiral course through the space filled with matter. As this spiral course is
traced, atom after atom is generated by the aggregation of the protyle; and
so all these atoms are formed, falling into definite chemical classes
according to the position that they hold in the spiral which is traced by
the electrical force. And the spiral is a necessary form; why? First you
have motion; imagine the motion is in one direction. As that motion in one
direction proceeds through homogeneous matter, it compresses the matter
together; and as the matter solidifies, it loses heat. It is a familiar
fact that such a fall of temperature must occur; it is one of the most
familiar experiments in elementary chemistry, that where matter passes from
one state to another, from gas to liquid, from liquid to solid, or from
solid to liquid, liquid to gas, that according to the process of the change
heat is either given out or else becomes latent. To take the common
illustration, if ice becomes water, heat becomes latent to an extent of what
is called 8o units, before there is any change in the outer appearance or
temperature of the ice. So when the temperature changes with the solidifying
of the elements, what [32] must be the result? The result must be
that the line representing the motion must change its direction; and with
the fall of temperature there will be a change in motion; if you want to
represent it, you must no longer have the straightforward line, but one
which is the resultant of two combined forces moving in different
directions, therefore the necessary tracing of a spiral; so that the
ancient symbol of the Serpent, so familiar in our literature - the Serpent
of which I shall have something to say tomorrow - is the most significant
symbol of the spiral coiling itself continually, and it thus gives us the
very picture of the Kosmic Motion. It is that which our great Scientists
were obliged to make when generalizing force in the Kosmos, and the genesis
of the elements comes about by this spiral or serpentine motion. This motion
H. P. Blavatsky calls the spiral motion of Fohat in Space, for Fohat
underlies all forces, and by it the force of electricity is generated.
With this there comes Sound. You cannot have Motion in
Matter without generating vibration; and all vibration is fundamentally
Sound; all vibration is changeable into Sound, transmutable into Sound; and
the old phrase that the Serpent glides hissing through Space carries with it
a very real signification. Therefore is it that the first property
generated in Akasha is Sound - the Word, the Logos; and you may remember
there again how Subba Rao has put this very plainly and very beautifully
[33] when he is speaking of the uttered Sound, of the
uttered Word, where he speaks of Fohat as instrument of the Word, and where
he points out to us that that which we utter is the Vaikari Vach - that is
“the whole Kosmos in its objective form”;
for the whole Universe is but the uttering of the Word which is latent in
the unmanifested Logos, and which is spoken in the second Logos; it is this
spoken Word which is the objective Kosmos. So alike in Kosmos and in man is
this power of Sound - Sound without which form cannot be, Sound which is the
builder of form, which generates form, every Sound having its own form, and
every Sound being of this triple character, that it generates form, that it
upholds form, that it destroys form. Thus, once again, the Trimurti appears,
the Creator, the Preserver, the Destroyer; they are all One in different
aspects, for the Divine is One, whatever the form of Its manifestation. And
here indeed may we bring together ancient and modern thought; Shabda
Brahman is the force that builds the Kosmos, but it is also the force by
which a Yogi brings about all the powers within himself; and so, as I say,
taking our Western Science, we can now bring, in support of this form -
building power of Sound, a number of what are called facts, which to some
persons are more convincing than those deeper realities of which the fact is
only the phenomenal expression. These facts which Modern [34] Science
has gathered with respect to Sound, are valuable to us, not as teaching us -
they ought not to have anything to teach us - but as enabling us to convince
others who have not understood the value of the Scriptures, though the
Scriptures give the essence of which Science only gives the outer
manifestation. What then are some of those facts which substantiate the
position of the ancient writers that Sound lies at the very origin of forms,
and that the multiplicity of forms simply depends upon the variety of the
sounds. First, we shall find one of the earliest experiments with regard to
Sound - one of the clumsiest, although at the time it seemed beautiful
enough. Take, for instance, an ordinary drum, so that in the parchment head
of this drum you have a vibrating surface. If you take the bow with which
you throw the strings of a violin into vibration, and draw this bow across
the edge of the parchment, then a note is given out - a note which depends
of course on the tension in the parchment and various other matters which
are not important to us. That is simple enough; but it was thought desirable
to try to discover what happened when the note was given out; and in order
that that which is invisible might be made visible, sand was lightly
scattered over the surface of the drum; then the bow was drawn across the
edge of the circle of the drum, and this experiment was done over and over
again at every point in this circle which was the circumference of [35]
the drum. Let me say in passing that European Science is admirable in
its patience, in the way in which it repeats over and over again until it
gets the fact; in that it is worthy of our admiration, for in that fashion
only can these phenomenal facts be discovered. In every portion of the
circumference that was experimented upon, it was found that as the bow was
drawn across, the sand was thrown up in the air, but it was also found that
when it came back it did not fall evenly over the surface, but formed a
geometrical figure. So that the sand spread over the parchment was by sound
compelled to assume definite geometrical shapes, different as the notes were
changed in character by bowing different points in the circumference. As
different intervals in the circumference gave out different harmonics of the
fundamental note, it was found different shapes were produced; that at
first, touching it at a particular point, you will only get the drum divided
into four, because that is the fundamental note given out by the parchment
vibrating as a whole. When you make it vibrate in harmonics you have
geometrical shapes of a far more elaborate character. And following out
these investigations of harmonics - as they were called - we discover that
in every note that is sounded, you have not got a single sound but a very
complex sound that can be divided and subdivided. What seems to us simple
is complex; when you strike a note you are sounding a large number of
[36] notes at the same time, and the highly trained ear can discover
such harmonics; it is the difference of harmonics that gives difference of
quality to the sound. Now it is found that the difference of quality, or
this splitting-up of one sound into many, was shown to the eyes by the
shapes that were traced by this falling of the sand. They then began to get
out this difference in a more delicate way, for the sand was a heavy
substance, and this parchment was rather a clumsy vibrating material, so
that they got more delicate substances, and lighter and lighter
finely-divided stuff, such as delicate seeds or the spores of the Lycopodium.
This is one of the best things to experiment with, because it is so very
light that a very fine vibration throws it into forms. Then they tried
tuning-forks - steel forks which, vibrating, give different notes. They
obtained the vibrations by means of mirrors arranged to throw a traced
picture of the vibrations by the magic lantern through a magnifying lens on
to a sheet; and in this way the invisible vibrations of the tuning-fork
were traced and magnified and were there seen to form beautiful geometrical
designs. On the sheet on which the image from the magic lantern was thrown,
it was found that every note gave rise to exquisite forms, which were
changed as the note was changed, so that really whenever you are playing any
piece of music you are forming the most exquisite shapes in the ether and
the air around. That is the way in which [37] pulses of sound are in
these ingenious fashions made visible to the eye by throwing them from the
magic lantern on to the screen; so that the invisible was made visible, and
the power of Sound was made manifest to the eye as well as to the ear.
Still further investigations were made, and Mrs.
Watts-Hughes proved that when notes were sung into a horn-shaped instrument
and a succession of notes thus sounded, more elaborate forms could be
builded, forms such as ferns, trees, and flowers - all these were generated
by the notes of the human voice. In order still further to analyze and see
how this was done, a clever instrument was invented, in which two pendulums
were set swinging, each of the pendulums having its own motion. These
pendulums were made to interact with each other, and the motion of one
pendulum modified the motion of the other; from these pendulums with their
interacting motions, with a pencil attached by means of a lever which could
be moved in the resultant direction obtained from the two pendulums, most
elaborate forms were traced on a card put under the point of the pencil, so
that successive motions might be observed; and most marvellously complicated
forms were thus obtained, forms like shells of the most elaborate
description, geometrical shapes perfect in their angles and perfect in
their curves. Now as the vibrations of a note are always in one direction,
and as the pendulum motions were simply swinging [38] backwards and
forwards, the interferences of the pendulums, which were made to modify
each other, were really the reproduction of the true vibrations interfering
with each other or modifying each other. Thus was obtained a graphic picture
of the modifications which might be caused by vibrations which were
interfering, although each separate one was in one direction; and you find
that the result of the interference was this marvellous elaboration of form;
and just similarly to that, you find that the result of the interference of
the light-waves is colour. Wherever you break up light-waves and thus make
one interfere with another, you get colour coming forth and manifesting
itself; so that what we call colour in mother-of-pearl is only the result of
a very delicate roughness in the surface which makes interference of the
light vibrations with each other; by these pendulums were shown the
interference of the vibrations of Sound. So Science has shown us how forms
are builded by Sound, and looking at the outside of Nature, we are struck by
the strange fact that everywhere we find geometrical shapes. Take the
crystal which is found in the mineral world. Every crystal is builded along
certain axes of direction. Every crystal takes its shape from these axes of
direction. The simplest crystals are built on the simplest lines, and the
more elaborate the crystal the more numerous will be the axes which have
their centre in the middle of the crystal. Each crystal is built [39]
along these axes, and the difference of the crystals depends upon this
fundamental arrangement of the axes; so that in the building of the crystals
in the mineral world geometrical shapes appear once more. But you cannot
separate the crystal from the crystalloid. The crystalloid is like the form
of the crystal in the mineral world, but it is found in the vegetable world.
No longer is the mineral in Nature divided from the vegetable world, but in
the vegetables these bodies are formed of a different kind of material and
they are not called crystals but crystalloids. Here again these axes appear
and the same suggestion of geometrical form on which the vegetable world is
to be built. When we study the vegetable world we go still further. Take for
instance a twig of a tree; note and study the arrangement of the leaves on
it. You will find that the leaves are arranged in a spiral. The spiral,
coming forth once more as the generating force, directs the arrangement of
the leaves; sometimes very simple, sometimes very complicated. Take a very
simple case like that of the apple tree - which is very familiar to us in
England - where the spiral is what we call 2/5; in this the spiral has a
double turn, and there are five leaves, which are placed on the points, so
to speak, of the spiral, until you have to begin again when five are
complete. You will find, if you take a bit of string and twist it twice
round the stem or twig of the tree, that on this spiral you have, touched
five leaves which are [40] arranged at equal intervals on the string.
If you take another kind of plant you will find a different arrangement, but
still the spiral; another plant will have another and different arrangement,
but still the spiral; so that when the plant is sending out its leaves, it
is always working under this law of spiral arrangement, and there is this
geometrical rule which governs the apparently irregular sending forth of
leaves and flowers. There is no irregularity; the most apparently irregular
arrangement is only a complicated series of interlacing spirals; for
sometimes instead of one spiral you have two; in a few cases you have three
spirals, and these three by going round the stem, interlacing, make
extremely complicated arrangements which look like confusion; but “that
which is Chaos to the senses is Kosmos to the reason”. You will always find
this geometrical arrangement underneath the apparently chaotic heaps which
you may observe by the eye or the senses. Is it not true as Plato said, that
“God geometrizes”? Is not this the fundamental conception of the Scriptures,
that Sound-vibration is the builder of form? Is that not justified by these
discoveries of Modern Science?
Not only can Sound build; Sound can also destroy.
Strange that the same force should produce opposite results. People have
laughed at it, when it is said in Religion. They are obliged to admit it,
when Science repeats what Religion so long has [41] said. That which
in Religion is incredible contradiction, in Science has to be reconciled by
the discovery of the unifying truth. Why cannot we apply the same theory in
Religion when we find what seems to be contradiction? Why cannot we study
and seek for that underlying truth, which will make the apparent
contradictions but aspects, as the two sides of one shield? Thus the builder
of form destroys it; and whereas gentle vibrations build, vehement
vibrations tear apart that which the gentle ones have brought together.
Inasmuch as no form is solid, but every form consists of molecules with
spaces between them, the vibration of the Sound going between the molecules
makes them vibrate more and more strongly, throws them further and further
apart, until the time comes when the attracting force which keeps them
together being overcome, they shoot out and the form becomes disintegrated.
If you take a glass, and you discover its fundamental
note - as you may very easily do by half filling it up with water, and
drawing a bow across it, and seeing how the water is divided - when you
discover the fundamental note, produce that note on some instrument from
which you are able to obtain great intensity and loudness of sound; then
your glass first will give out the note and you can hear it coming from the
glass; you will see the water in the glass thrown into vibration though no
one has touched it. The sound grows louder, and the wave [42] lets
of the water that show you how it is acting get bigger and bigger,
become more and more turbulent, until dashing against each other
they make wave tumults instead of harmony, and then the vibrations of
the molecules of the glass which cause all these movements in the water
become too great for the glass to stand them; it shivers in every direction.
So again Tyndall has taken a glass rod, and rubbing it gently has
produced a sound; but making that sound intense, the rod has shivered
and disappeared: there were only circular fragments of the glass rod,
showing the power of the note which the glass itself had generated.
So that everywhere we have the proof that Sound can disintegrate form
and can create form; as you see, Sound may act either as builder or
preserver or destroyer; for preserver I say it is, since without
Sound nothing exists. Everything is in constant motion; one sort of motion
builds the form, another preserves the form, a third destroys the form; and
the destruction of one form is only the building of another. That which is
destroyer in one shape is creator in another. There is no annihilation; for
every death in one sphere is a birth into another. So let us finish this
rough sketch of this part of the building of the Kosmos and of the power
of Sound, by showing how it justifies what has been called superstition
and folly, and the mere babblings of an ignorant people with regard to the
uses of Sound! As long as there has been a Hindu faith, [43] the
power of Sound has been recognized in the sacred Word; in that Word lie all
potencies; for the sacred Word expresses the One and only Being, every power
of generation, of preservation and of destruction. Therefore has been
forbidden the careless use of that Word; therefore forbidden its use amongst
mixed audiences; therefore should it never be sounded where many people are
gathered together, and where mingling and hostile magnetisms are making a
confused atmosphere, so that any great sound thrown into it must cause
tumult and not harmony; therefore was it never to be sounded save when the
mind was pure; never to be sounded save when the mind was tranquil; never to
be used save where the life was noble; because the sound that working in the
harmonious builds, working in the inharmonious destroys; arid everything
that is evil is tumultuous, while everything which is pure is harmonious.
For the great Breath, which is purity, goes forth in rhythmical vibration,
and all that is one with that rhythm is essentially pure and therefore
harmonious. But when the great Breath, working on Matter, finds friction,
then it is that impurity is set up, and if man in his own atmosphere - using
that breath which comes out from him, which is the reflection of the Supreme
Breath - is impure, that is, inharmonious, then to sound the name of the
Supreme under these circumstances is to invite his own destruction, his own
disintegration, for he throws the very force of [44] the Divine into
disharmony. What then can he do but destroy that which has nothing in common
with the divine harmony? And this is true not only of the sacred Word, but
of the mantra that is used to build. Why is it - have you ever thought of it
- that when a new life is to be builded within the womb of the mother,
mantras are repeated? Why? In order that their building forces may work on
the growing life and that it may be thrown into harmonious vibrations, so
that that which shall be born may be worthy to be the habitation of a noble
Soul. Why is it that from the moment of conception, religion begins for the
Hindu? It is because the Spirit must never be without Religion, because,
when the Spirit is coming towards its human birth, it is necessary that
these forces of Religion should surround it, and help in the building of its
earthly home. And so also with sacred Sound the new-born life is welcomed in
its very incoming into this world of manifestation; that the sacred harmony
may surround it, and give it the impulse in the birth hour, which shall send
it on towards harmonious development. Step by step this harmony is to mould
the growing life, and when the time comes that the Spirit can work more
directly on the physical body, you mark it by the ceremony of initiation
which gives to the child the mantra which is to be the key-note of the
future life. Therefore the mantra should come from one who knows the
key-note of that life, and [45] is able to give it the sounds which
are wanted to keep it harmonious right through life. Here comes in this
great preserving power of Sound; so that whenever that life is in danger
this Sound may protect; whenever that life is threatened by visible or
invisible menace, that murmur of the muttered mantra may come between it and
the danger, making around it waves of harmony, from which every evil thing
shall be thrown back by the force of the vibrations. Let any foe come
against it, that foe is flung backwards when it touches these vibrations.
And so onwards again right through life to the death hour. Every morning
through life that chanted mantram shall give the key-note to the day, and
the whole day shall be made harmonious and be brought into rhythm with the
sound with which the day has begun; and when the day closes and the sun is
sinking once more, the chant should be resounded, so that the disharmony of
the day may be rendered harmonious, and the Spirit may be made fit to go
onwards in the night time towards its Lord. And when the death hour has come
and the Spirit must pass onwards into other regions of the universe, the
chanted mantram accompanies it. In the ceremonies of Shraddha there are used
special sounds which shall break the bondage-house of the Soul, and which
shall destroy the body generated on the other side of death which keeps the
Soul in prison. So to the very threshold of Devaloka, Sound [46]
accompanies it, until it passes into that Loka where the chants of the Devas
shall ever surround it in its sojourning with an ocean of harmony, which is
not mingled with the discord of the earth; shall there keep it in perfect
rest and perfect bliss till the word comes to go backward to the earth, in
order that it may serve as harmonizer of Nature once again. [47]
THE BUILDING OF THE KOSMOS.
II. - FIRE.
My BROTHERS, - We saw yesterday, in dealing with the
building of the Kosmos, that the great Breath was the moving agent, and that
that Breath gave to the Akasha its property of Sound, its primary
characteristic. Now looking at things either from the standpoint of Eastern
knowledge or from that of modern Western investigation, we find that the
differences between what are called the reports of the senses are
differences in the translation by the consciousness of outside impulses,
those impulses being fundamentally the same. The result of the great
Breath, throwing the Akasha into action, may be translated in different
ways, when it reaches our consciousness, according to the fashion in which
we sensate it. So that it is true to say either from the Eastern or from the
Western standpoint that sensations differ according to the organ that
receives them, the differences being caused by the body through which the
sensations [51] are received, the consciousness translating into
different tones that which fundamentally is the same. So, in studying
Western Science you will learn that all senses belonging to the body are
developed from a primary sense, and that the primary sense is that which is
called the sense of touch.
There has lately been much investigation into the nature
and action of ether, which is the lowest form of what we know as Akasha. For
Akasha is the primary substance of which ether is one of the lower
manifestations in connection with our own solar system. That substance has
Motion, as we saw yesterday; but the Air is the great Breath in the Akasha,
and it is that which gives rise to this feeling of touch. We saw Sound was
evolved, with which hearing is correlated, and then we have touch,
correlated with Vayu, as the great Breath. All these vibrations in the
ether, from the standpoint of Modern Science, are but modes, as they are
called, of motion; and the reception of the mode of motion by the individual
decides the name which shall be given to it. Thus Modern Science teaches
that Sound is one mode of motion in which air takes part. Light is another
mode of motion, purely ethereal, it is said. Lately electricity has been
recognized as another mode of motion. Heat is another mode of motion, and so
on. Thus there has gradually appeared in Western Science that sense of unity
which has always characterized knowledge in the East; so that everything
which [52] in the phenomenal has a different appearance assumes to
the consciousness this fundamental unity. Therefore in dealing with Light we
are only dealing with another aspect in consciousness of primary motion, and
that which from one aspect to us is Sound, in another aspect to us is Light.
Therefore it will be reasonable to expect, as we shall indeed find, that the
same fundamental conceptions are expressed at one time as Sound and at
another time as Light, and that everywhere in the Kosmos, sound and colour
are interchangeable, as I shall show you that they have been proved to be
phenomenally interchangeable by some of the latest experiments which have
been carried on in the West. Taking then the vibration known as Light as
that which is to occupy our thought this morning, that Light would be the
synonym in all the ancient books for THAT which is beyond conception, THAT
which we spoke of yesterday as only to be expressed - if I may use again an
inaccurate phrase - by the descriptive phrase Para Brahman, or beyond
Brahman. “Darkness” is the word which in the Scriptures is always used to
convey to us this primary thought - Darkness infinite and complete; which
expresses nothing, for it is beyond the possibility of expression; which
conveys no idea, because idea is limitation and implies separation of that
which is thought from that which is not thought, and in this there can be no
separation; there is no thought, because thought means [53] that
difference has appeared; and therefore Darkness, in which there is neither
the visible nor the invisible, is the best symbol - Darkness, absolute,
eternal, incomprehensible; it is that which is behind every manifestation
of Light, as of everything else which we can put into human language. And
from the Darkness first is Light - but Light formless; visible indeed, as
coming into manifestation, but without form, for form would imply still
something beyond it; space which has no form. So that Brahman is described
as “luminous without form”, the pure idea of Light, an idea which needs, of
course, that use of the imagination which we spoke of, because to us it is
always the light - giving body of which we conceive; whereas here you must
not conceive of a body, you must not conceive of a form, you must think of
Light divorced from everything which would limit it, and therefore
'”luminous without form” - as you will find Brahman spoken of in the
Mundakopanishad.
That, then, will be the first idea: Darkness, and from that, Light.
And, strangely enough, in this conception of things
Modern Science has also a word to say; for taking the conception of Motion
with which we have connected the great Breath, darkness is consistent with
motion from the standpoint of human consciousness. Light is indeed a form of
motion, but vibration, which is too rapid or too slow to give [54]
light, gives us darkness - a most significant fact, if for a moment you let
it rest in the mind that where you think of vibrations so rapid that they
cannot be sensed by the eye, there darkness is the answer of consciousness
to this exceedingly rapid vibration. In truth, beyond human consciousness
as now existing, there is possibility - and we cannot say that there may not
be endless possibilities - of existence beyond that which our senses can
sensate. Thus Science tells us that vibrations so intensely rapid that the
eye cannot answer to them will be translated to the consciousness as
darkness, and only with the slackening of the vibration will there be light.
Now translate that scientific thought into metaphysical language, and you
have the very coming into manifestation of the universe; for as that which
is beyond thought slackens itself for manifestation, then it becomes
manifested as Light. And so even in the visible universe you will find that
we have that which is truly in its essence light, but which shows no light -
because the waves are too rapid; and we have to slacken those rapid
vibrations by throwing them through a particular preparation, if we desire
that luminosity should appear. So that when the universe is to become
manifested and substance is to evolve, as it were, there is slackening of
the Motion in the Infinite Darkness, and with the slackening of its
vibrations Light without form appears. It seems as though we have had from
the West a suggestion of the [55] depth of this ancient Eastern
thought, and as though Western thought in its experimental fashion were
groping towards the very idea which we find at the beginning of things in
the Eastern books.
From this radiance, which is without form, from this
luminosity, which is Light in its essence manifesting itself - it is
sometimes called “cold Flame” so as to exclude even the notion of heat from
this pure Light - we have that second manifestation, the Second Logos which
we spoke of yesterday, and then the Light becomes Fire. No longer
absolutely formless, no longer without heat; but with the further
slackening of the Light, as manifestation proceeds, there will be generated
heat, and you will then have Fire, of which the essence is heat, and the
cold, formless Flame will become the Fire which is the active agent in the
building of the Kosmos. But Fire cannot appear alone, its very nature
implying as it does something more than the Light whence it springs,
implying that by friction heat must come into existence; also it involves
the further conception of that duality which we spoke of yesterday when we
were dealing with the dual manifestation under Sound; and so when we have
Fire, we cannot think of it without its action, and always the first action
of Fire is the development of moisture. So that in this Second Logos or
manifestation in the dual form, Fire and Water are the two things that come
to us in thought; Fire which is Spirit in its essence, Water which is
[56] always the symbol for the essence of Matter; and just as we found
Spirit-Matter the Second Logos, and found there the very origin of the
possibility of Sound, so looking at it from the standpoint of Light, we have
this conception of Fire and Water, of the Light of the Logos and that in
which it works. Of this the Lotus has ever been the symbol, growing out of
the navel of Vishnu, hidden beneath the waters from which life is to
spring; for that Vishnu, who is not floating on the waters but is concealed
beneath them, is in this aspect the First Logos, and the Lotus that grows
upward from his navel is the Second Logos, and is the symbol of Fire and
Water; for in the Lotus leaves, rising to a point, you have the
upward-springing flames, and they float on the water. And the Lotus has been
ever held as the symbol of Creative Fire, in the womb of which is to be
generated heat, the active creative force. Therefore within the Lotus
blossom, or the Lotus bud as it is at first, there is the Third Logos,
Brahma, or the active creative agency, which is synonymous with Mahat, or
the creative intelligence in the womb of the Fire; and as the Fire opens
out then there comes the second form of Flame which is creative, not the
cold Flame of the First Logos, but the burning Flame of the Third, which
from the Sea of Fire is to build up the Kosmos, and make the universe
possible.
And when we turn to the light that has been [57]
thrown on this ancient and not difficult conception for those who have
carefully studied - when we turn to the writings of Madame Blavatsky, we
shall find that this is very clearly put; so that taking these as a clue, we
are able to unravel the symbolism to which we have just now referred. For
Fire she uses ether in its purest form, the substance of ether, before we
can speak of it as Akasha. And there are two Fires, and a distinction is
made between them in the Occult teaching; the first, purely formless and
invisible, is concealed in the Central Spiritual Sun, and is spoken of as
triple, metaphysically. There again we have the triple nature of the Logos
in which these Fires body themselves forth, and then the Fire manifesting as
Kosmos which is to be septenary, both throughout the universe and our solar
system; exactly the same as we found yesterday, where we had the triple
unfolding itself into seven. And here we have the formless Flame - the cold
Flame or Light - the Fire, and then the Heat or the creative Flame, the same
symbolism under another aspect, the same essential idea given in another
form. Therefore always have we learnt that the Light of the Logos,
Daiviprakriti, or the brilliant side of Substance, has been the generative
and creative agent; and you must remember that dealing with the symbolic
Lotus that I alluded to, you have heard of it as hermaphrodite, bringing
back the same idea of duality into our thought, that yesterday we found as
the characteristic of the [58] Second Logos or the second manifested
energy which is to build the universe. From this you get that force which in
its lower forms is electricity, magnetism, and heat; but another kind of
motion still, but another action of the great Breath, and it is that which
in Theosophical literature is so often spoken of as Fohat - rightly
translated by Subba Rao as the Light of the Logos; for it is the energizing
agent, it is that which, springing forth, has to build the Kosmos, that
Fiery Serpent which is the creative agency. You must remember how I
yesterday spoke of this, and how I alluded to it in the latest
discoveries of Mr. Crookes as symbolizing electricity, and the way in which
the spiral form was produced owing to the fall in temperature; here we see
it as the Fiery Serpent, and as the Fiery Dragon in the milky ocean
breathing forth Fire, and so building all forms of manifestation. Wherever
you see the Serpent of Fire, wherever you see it becoming a circle with the
tail in its mouth, then it is that you have passed from the spiral which
generates to the globe which is the result of the generation; and the
Serpent turning on itself, taking the tail into the mouth, that symbol is
the Kosmos evolved. It has formed into the globe which everywhere is the
Kosmos in its manifested shape. So the Serpent becomes the Egg; then
from that emerge the later forms in the Kosmos; and within that Egg
sometimes instead of within the Lotus you will have Brahma, the [59]
creative agency. He is in the Golden Egg, which is but another symbol for
the Lotus: he lives in that Egg for a while; then, coming forth from it, he
creates the worlds. Hence again the symbolism of the Serpent twining
round the mountain, in that churning of the ocean of substance from
which, as you read in the Puranas, life and immortality and other
things were generated; so that, as I have sometimes said, if the
learned amongst you would take the Puranas and, studying them, would
compare with them some of the statements of our Modern Science, you
would be able to predict the line of scientific discovery, and in
this fashion you would justify to the West, as nothing else could do, the
deeper nature of the Oriental thought, showing the West the lines along
which it should study and the way in which further investigations most
wisely might be made.
Let me turn from that to the next point of deep interest
that comes to us with regard to the Fire - an aspect of the Fire towards
man - and the connection of the generating Fire in the Kosmos with that
which is the root of life in the heart of the individual. Turn to the
Mundakopanishad - I think it is the beginning of the second
division - you will find the statement that “as from a blazing fire in a
thousand ways similar sparks proceed, so, O beloved, are produced living
souls of various kinds from the Indestructible One”.
What is the real [60] meaning of that shloka? It is from Fire, which
we have already seen as the central force in Kosmos, that are thrown out
sparks in every direction, when the blazing Fire has reached the stage of
Flame. The word “blazing” implies the stage of Flame, for it is only where
the fire has begun to blaze that you have flame, and that is the note of the
third of the Logoi. But the third of the Logoi is Mahat: that is, It is
Intelligence in its very essence; and so we may learn that it is from
Brahman as intelligence that these sparks are thrown out which
are found within every atom of the Kosmos, so that there might be nothing in
the Kosmos which is to be builded which would not have in it the essence of
the Divine Life. The spark which is thrown out is the Atma of the atom -
which you must remember is not confined to man - the Self not of men alone,
but of all beings, the innermost essence of the atom as much as the
innermost essence of the highest manifested God: for the universe once more
is one, and the spark which is thrown outward from the blazing fire is at
the root of everything that appears in manifestation, so that the grain of
sand - nay, the atoms which compose the grain of sand - has Atma as its
essence, and the Akasha as the form; which, binding as it were the ray
outgoing from Atma, makes manifestation by limitation and introduces the
principle of division into the one. As these sparks fly outwards you have
what is called in The Secret Doctrine a “fiery whirlwind” - a [61]
most expressive phrase - and this whirlwind passing outwards into space
carries ever with it the essence of the one Fire, or the one Life. And as
this whirlwind is breaking forth, there are differences in the nature of
the sparks which are evolved, not in their essential nature, but in that
which they bring with them into manifestation.
And here is hidden one of the greatest of the mysteries,
the deepest of the mysteries, of the Occult Teaching, to which I must lead
you up step by step; otherwise it will be difficult for some of you at least
to follow the thought, if you have not looked beneath the letter of the
Sacred Books and tried by a comparison of different passages to find out the
hidden meaning that unites them all into one. Follow me step by step as I
lead you to the heart of the mystery, which I do not want to state at the
outset, lest by suddenly stating it, before leading you up to it, I should
cause confusion of thought which might be afterwards difficult to unravel.
Conceive the spark coming forth as the spark of the fiery whirlwind;
conceive then that it is Atma, and that the ray from this Atma is cut off,
as I said, by the Akasha, is separated, so that although fundamentally one
- Atma is one, and in its oneness lies the hope of our liberation -still in
manifestation it becomes separated, as it were, not from its own standpoint,
which is the point from which all the radiating rays are seen as one, but
from the other side of manifestation, looked at not [62] immediately
as the Light, but as the Akasha that veils Light, and by limiting each ray
makes separation, where, essentially, separation there is none. That is,
looked at from within, the universe is but one; looked at from without, the
universe is manifold: because it is not seen from the standpoint of Atma. It
is as though you stood in the central Sun, and saw along each ray, so that
every part of the illuminated landscape would come to the eye through all
these different rays which, standing in the centre, are seen as one light;
but if you were out in the landscape, looking back along the ray, then there
would be many rays around you, and you could not see the Sun through any ray
save your own. Still you would see the same Sun, for all rays spread outward
from the one, and in that fashion there is unity in the centre while there
is impossibility of recognizing that unity so long as you are at the
circumference of this mighty circle, and see as it were but along one of the
rays that lead back to the centre of the whole. Now keeping that thought in
mind for a moment, let us take the next step. Every atom has Atma, now
called Jiva, and in this sense of the term it is separate, as seen from the
standpoint of the manifested individual, and no longer from the standpoint
of the manifested All. This is illusion, this is Maya, which we cannot
transcend, and which makes the universe in a very real sense illusory; for,
seeing with a vision that deceives us, seeing [63] these separate
rays in manifestation, we fail to see the unity from which they spring, and
so we often find used an expression which you should no longer
misunderstand, where it is said that each atom has its Atma, not as implying
fundamental separation, but only separation in manifestation. Having
reached that standpoint, let us realize that there is now in this
manifesting whirlwind of sparks a difference in nature which seems at first
incomprehensible. Some of them are, as it were, living Flames - conscious
and intelligent; out into this manifesting universe which is building they
come as Devas. They are Intelligences which have reached a high point of
spiritual development, and are far less bounded than the men who are to come
into existence later. So that we find that at this early stage of
manifestation there is, as it were, a whirlwind of these sparks that
manifest high intelligence, so that they will be able to act as living
agents of creative energy, and build the Kosmos under this coordinating and
controlling force. Thus amongst the first manifestations are these
manifestations of the Devas, those that are spoken of under so many names as
Indra, Vayu, and so on; those that our Orientalists say in their ignorance
are “personified powers of Nature”, personified in an infant civilization,
personified by the child-thought of man, which, taking the external
phenomena in Nature, such as air and sky and light, called them Vayu, Indra
and Agni and worshipped them as Gods! [64] Looked at from the true
standpoint, it is not that the infant mind of man personified phenomena in
Nature. It is that from the Supreme come out these sparks of Fire which are
living Intelligences, which come out from Him long before an infant humanity
has been born into the world at all, to build for that future humanity the
Kosmos that shall be. And though it is said in the West that the folly of
the untrained thinker, of infant humanity, personifies natural forces, what
is really true is this: that these Devas are behind every phenomenal
appearance, and are the Intelligences that guide everything that we
recognize as natural laws. They are entities. They are real existences
separated off from the one Atma in the sense I have ascribed to the word
separation, in order that they may build a universe and make that universe
intelligent from centre to circumference. Phenomena in Nature - what are
they? They are the outer appearances of the Devas, and the Deva is at the
heart of the phenomenon; as manifestation proceeds more and more, all those
in lower and lower grades are gradually evolved, until you get a hierarchy.
The lowest appearance that you have on earth is only an illusory covering of
the Atma, so that the Soul well trained and developed, in that it is one
with the creative force, can manipulate what we call Matter as it chooses,
because it can control these Intelligences of which Matter is only an outer
garment, and can stand as the manifested [65] God when once it has
overcome the illusions of Matter that surround it.
And tracing onwards this great hierarchy the question
arises - and here comes our difficulty - Why this difference in the
manifesting sparks? - Why, as they spring forth front the blazing fire,
does one appear as Deva? Why another as a lower grade of Deva? Why another
as the centre round which a man is builded? Why another as the centre of a
grain of sand? Why others as the centres of the atoms of which the grain of
sand is builded? How in that unity that you have spoken of is there this
possibility of difference in manifestation? That there is the fact of
difference is the first thing to realize. Devas, men, animals, vegetables,
minerals, elemental forces - these surround us and the difference is clear.
The Sons of Light that we read of are the higher Devas - as I said, are the
builders of the Kosmos; but we read in the sacred books of some who are
called the Sons of Fire. Who are the Sons of Fire? They are the Instructors
of infant humanity - those that I spoke of yesterday as teaching the infant
race - as giving them their Vedas - as giving them all their
Sacred Scriptures, as guiding them in their first efforts towards
civilization, as being in a very real sense the Teachers of men. What then
are they? They are Flames which have clearly brought out with them into this
stage of manifestation that highly developed intelligence which enables them
[66] to become instructors of others, who are the sparks thrown out
that have become incarnated in average men. It is between men in
incarnation, it is between Kumaras and men that some strange difference is
suggested. Is it possible that we can discover what it means? Cycles of
manifestations, comings and goings of the great Breath, Light that rebecomes
Darkness, Darkness that reemerges as Light, Souls that have become
differentiated in Matter, and men that climb upwards to their source, and
are liberated. They go “never to return”, it is said. If they never return,
why these differences in Manvantaras such as our own? Herein comes a point
of the Secret Teaching which has been much lost sight of, secret because in
the letter only of the published works the truth is concealed, not
expressed. For what says the Upanishad about Brahman?
He is concealed in the Upanishads, that are
concealed in the Vedas.
If you want to find Brahman, you must go beneath the
words of the Upanishads that are written, and find the secret meaning
that underlies them. There the necessity for the Guru comes in. Therefore it
was said that if a man was to find Brahman, he must seek and get the great
(Teachers) and attend,
for the mere word of the Upanishad itself would not reveal the God
that was hidden; and it needed the Flame that had developed in [67]
order that the spark might burn upwards and itself become a Flame. And so
let us seek the secret meaning which underlies the words “never returns”.
The spark in man develops (I use the word “man”; meaning
average humanity), that spark develops by Tapas - by burning. By what
burning? By the fire of knowledge. That is the real meaning of Tapas, and
in this “austerity”, as it is translated constantly into English, there is
the action of knowledge that burns and that purifies; and as it burns, it
burns the outer sheaths of the man in which denser ignorance has its seat;
and as one after another is burnt by the fire of knowledge, the Flame
becomes more manifest and begins to recognize its own nature. And this spark
that was smothered in Matter becomes the Flame that has liberated itself
from Matter, and when liberation is complete the Flame becomes one with its
source. If you take many flames and bring them together there is only one
flame as they touch; for the substance is one and the division between each
is lost. But let me go further with this illustration, and following out
that thought, you may conceive the truth very dimly - you cannot conceive it
clearly until you have been it, for you know nothing until you become it,
you understand nothing until you are one with it. Human knowledge is
separation, but Divine Wisdom is unity, and it is only as the outside form
of the Flame disappears that it [68] becomes merged in the One. It
has not been lost. It has gained infinitely by the many Flames that have
rebecome one Flame - and that is liberation. The loss of the limitation
which separates you, and the widening out into all knowledge - infinite
knowledge which has no limitation, is the essence of knowledge itself. But
is that “for ever” in the full sense of the term? It “never returns” from
Nirvana? Those of you who have studied deeply, in the light which is thrown
on this by those who know, you will have learnt that cycle after cycle is
taken as limit, and that each period of non-manifestation is correlated
with the manifestation that precedes it and follows it. As you have day and
night taken as symbols of manifestation and nonmanifestation, so you have
planetary manifestation and absorption, and planetary reemergence and
absorption again, and again planetary reemergence, until the time comes for
the solar system to pass into non-manifestation. But that is correlated with
the length of the solar system, and it again reemerges, having been
suspended in manifestation, and brings over to the next manifestation
everything which was gathered in the preceding. And just as you learn a
lesson in the day and are unconscious of that lesson in the night, but, the
knowledge remaining, when you wake up in the morning you find with you the
knowledge which had been acquired the day before; just as the planet passing
through its period of Pralaya brings [69] back to its next
manifestation all that in the previous one it had gained; just as the solar
system with its long life, passing into its long period of
non-manifestation, reemerges once more on a higher plane and becomes the
solar system of a higher type, so when you deal with a Kosmos as a whole,
with the Manvantara in the fullest sense of the term and the Pralaya that
succeeds it, so that all Flames have become one and no longer there is
differentiation, there is still a thread of Fire connecting each Flame, and
when differentiation is to begin the action is on these threads of Fire
that, slowly passing outwards, bring with them the Flame from out the One,
and they come out with this thread of individuality which even Pralayas or
Nirvanas of varying lengths cannot destroy. The One and the All have come
back into manifestation, and the differences in those emerging sparks are
differences which in the previous Manvantaras have been gradually developed
and have been preserved even in the apparent destruction. The “never” means
the length of the cycle. The “never” does not mean going absolutely out,
though I have no words by which I can do anything more than make you dimly
understand the sense that I am trying to convey. If it were only possible to
find a word which would imply a state which is no state at all, and which I
can only symbolize by taking this image of the union of the many Flames
into the One, and yet the possibility [70] of withdrawal and of each
Flame bringing out individually its Karma; merged in the central Fire, but
what has been called the golden thread persisting, and so preserving to the
Nirvani the possibility of future growth!
For the life of Brahman is not as the life of man. His
Life, as it were, includes the infinite lives that It generates, and each of
these is but as the wink of an eye to that Life which is eternal; and though
as He out-breathes He breathes out the Flames, and though as He in-breathes
He breathes the Flames in once more, still to Him it is but as the wink of
an eyelid; and what to us is millions of years is to Him but the shortest
space that we can imagine. What from that standpoint can be Nirvana, or
separation of consciousness? What from that standpoint can mean our words of
Manvantara and Pralaya? It is the Infinite Fire sending out Its Flames into
Space and gathering them back into Its Bosom again, and again sending them
out in ceaseless undulations; hence the possibility in each successive cycle
of diverging manifestations; for each brings back into the next Manvantara
whatever it has gathered in the endless Manvantaras behind. And so we begin
to understand that as consciousness can pass into the Turiya state and then
return into limitation, so this infinite consciousness of the Kosmos may
pass inward and then embody Itself once more; and that as we do not lose
experience but bring it back into [71] manifestation as we
return, so what is true in miniature may be true in some transcendent
sense of the Indestructible One, and His eternal life may in some sense
grow richer by the innumerable experiences of innumerable Manvantaras. This
ever growing evolution to us means growth: what it means to Him, none
but Himself can know!
Now see how, in our own Scriptures, there are hints
thrown out of that mystery; how you are told of one who is to be the
Indra of the next Manvantara; how you are told of one overshadowed by
Vishnu, who after the overshadowing passed away entered another stage of
consciousness, and will reappear in another Manvantara as the guiding force
of that. So you begin to catch the meaning when you read in the Scripture
how some great devotees disappeared beneath the waters, and remained on the
bed of the ocean in meditation for ten thousand years and then came back to
populate the earth.
What are all these but efforts of Teachers to make you understand, if you
will develop the intuition to listen, the inner meaning of these symbols, of
these nights and days, these recurrent periods of activity and meditation;
for Pralaya is the meditation of the whole, and then, out of the waters, it
comes back to populate the Kosmos. So are the worlds peopled by the command
of Brahma to some of his sons to go forth and give its population to the
[72] earth; for ever in Brahma, the Third Logos, there is the compelling
Word which sends out evolved children of his. These Sons of Brahma, these
Rishis by whom the work of creation is to be done, must come from somewhere,
and you cannot have creation save where there has been slow building
upwards beforehand. Those whom today we speak of as the Instructors of the
present, in the next Manvantara will have gone onward to systems far higher
than the planetary systems which we know; while the victors of the present
Humanity, those who are now evolving the spark into Flame, those who by
Tapas, by the fire of knowledge, are burning up ignorance and are becoming
living Flames, they in the next Manvantara will come forth as the Sons of
Fire - no longer as mere sparks thrown outwards, but developed Flames, who
are able to build up and to instruct future races.
And now coming back from this I would venture to suggest
to each of you who comes here with the desire to learn - not merely to find
amusement - I would venture to suggest to any such amongst you - for there
will be at least two or three such who come - that you will do well to take
that thought and meditate on it for days and weeks and months, until to you
it becomes a reality, for there is no other way of getting at the heart of
things. You can only get the outer word from me, though I have
striven in what I have been saying, [73] to speak from mind to mind
as well as from tongue to ear; you will only catch the full force of
instruction and thought if you will take it into your own heart and there
meditate upon it, evolving what is still concealed within.
Let us pass from that to the simpler question, which I
want to give row to the outer world and not to the inner - that which is
argument rather than food for meditation, still which will be useful to you
in the outer world into which we shall have to go, and to which we should
try to carry some light from the inner thought. I said at the very outset
that Science recognizing the identity of light and sound, you might find it
useful in the outside vindication of the Scriptures to point to many
experiments which have been made in the scientific world, by which sound
has been produced from light and light bas been produced from sound. For
instance, it has been discovered by some of our careful experimenters that
if you will take a mass of coloured substance, and throw upon it different
rays of light, some one ray will call sound from this coloured mass; that
you can literally in the physical universe generate sound from colour, which
is light; putting the physical colour into a ball of glass and then throwing
upon it physical light, you will find that a low sound will be heard, and so
you will transmute a light-ray into a ray of sound. This is an instructive
experiment in the lower world which is worth keeping in mind. If [74]
you go to one who talks to you jeeringly of the Scriptures in his ignorance,
you may show him that in Western Science they are coming back to this notion
of identity. Again, when you see in one of your own books that when you want
to communicate with the lower Devas you must speak in colour and not in
verbal language, what does it mean? It means, if you have learnt the
correlations of sound and colour, that what you say to the human brain by
means of spoken words which throw the coarser air into motion, you speak to
the more ethereal Deva in colour, which throws the astral matter of which
his body is composed into vibration. So that what would be word on the
physical plane is colour and light on the astral plane. If you want to
communicate with a Deva who has no Sthula Sharira, no visible body which
answers to the heavier vibrations of the air, you must understand how each
sound has its colour, and when you want to communicate, you must generate
colour instead of sound, for the language of the lower Gods is the language
of colours, and colours to them convey what we call an articulate idea -
idea on the mental plane. What speech is in the physical world, colour is in
the astral world. When you read that Devas have to be spoken to in the
language of colours, they will tell you “that is childish nonsense, foolish
superstition; there are no Devas, no language of colours; you are all very
foolish and you are talking as in the childhood of [75] the race; it
is fetishism, and you use all these words to cover your ignorance of
reality”. If they knew a little more - they are beginning to learn - they
would find that this language of colours is a reality, and the first step
has been taken in this experiment in Paris, when throwing light on coloured
objects, they obtained sound.
In clairvoyance, or clear vision, when a note is
sounded, a colour is seen; that is in the experience of everyone who has
developed the astral sense of sight. Many people are developing it in the
West today. There is a strange thing I have not heard of in India, that is
found in Egypt. It is possible that it may not be familiar to you that some
of the ancient books in Egypt were written in colours, not in the forms of
letters as we have in the Sanskrit, which is the very language of the Gods.
Many Egyptian books, which were meant for study by Occult Disciples,
were not written in characters as we should say, but were written in
colours; the understanding of them among the ancient Egyptians came to them
from their great Priest-Initiates, who really were great Adepts like the
Adepts of India. It is a significant thing that whenever a
Sacred Book was ordered to be transcribed, if the colours were in any way
altered, the transcriber was punished with death. In later times they only
knew that this use of colour was a custom which had come down to
them from the great Priests. They kept up the custom when the meaning that
[76] underlay the custom had passed away. The real meaning was, that
whereas the outsider read the written forms, the Adept read the colours;
that which conveyed one meaning by the letters, conveyed to the Occult
Disciple another meaning by the colour which each letter had; so that they
might publish a book which would to those who were uninitiated convey
knowledge which was simply written or spoken, but the Adept taking it and
reading it, had given to him that which was knowledge confined to the
Occultists, for he read colours and not shapes, and each successive letter
in its own colour had to him an Occult meaning. Thus the secrets of
antiquity were preserved for each Initiate, who was able, when he passed his
Initiation, to take over this ancient knowledge and have it as his own; and
that still exists, although of course still hidden. And the language of
colours is one of the stages of the training; when the student, the
disciple, reads in colours and gains his teaching by different colour
sensations, he learns to utilize them for the control of those forces that
are known as Devas in our literature. So again you will find it written of
the seven-tongued Fire - the seven tongues of Flame - which man has to
understand. Turn to the Prashnopanishad, in which you will find the
description of the life dividing itself into the vital airs. There it is
said of one of these that it has seven Flames.
If, then, you turn to the [77]
Mundakopanishad, you will have “seven flickering tongues
of the fire”, each of which has its own name, and if you read those names
you will find several of their names are colours.
That gives you the key to the understanding if you will take the passage and
meditate on it, instead of trying to reach it by intellectual argumentation;
for the key to that passage is in the colour of the flames, and the fact
that the life distributes them over the body is a symbol to convey to your
thought this hidden meaning: that life, Prana, is the active force of that
Atma which has seven powers and becomes a sevenfold force in man. Each
tongue of Fire becomes one of the “principles” in man, and when these are
reunited in the heart, then the one flame of Atma has been reached.
And so I might take you through much of symbolism,
through the symbolism of the household and other fires that ought to be
familiar to every thoughtful man amongst you. For why are the twice-born to
study the Vedas? Certainly not only that they may be able to
repeat shloka after shloka; the daily study of the Veda, which is the
duty of every twice-born, surely ought to mean that in the study knowledge
shall come; when he reads of the five fires that the household fires
symbolize in his house, that he should know something of what they mean and
be reminded of some of the hidden facts - for why is the one fire kept
lighted always, and [78] from that one others are to be lighted? Why
may it only be lighted by the bride and the bridegroom, and never be
extinguished so long as they both remain in this earthly life? It is the
ancient ideal of Hindu marriage. It is recognition of the fact in the
spiritual world that when the two rebecome one, when the dual aspects of
nature typified in man and woman are to be reunited, they are to form one
Spirit, and it is only as they unite that they become Fire; so the outer
fire lighted by the two is the symbol of the union of the Spirit that makes
them one, not in order that they may find sensual gratification, but in
order that they may become that Prajapati, the creator of the future world.
That is the Hindu ideal of marriage - the noblest ideal of marriage that the
world has ever known. No matter how much it may have become degraded, how
much it may have fallen, that it is which underlies the idea of marriage in
youth before the passions are awake, that the body may not have a share in
this union of the Souls and Spirits. That was the great truth on which the
custom was builded, and the custom has survived where the knowledge has
disappeared. For all men’s Spirits coming into reincarnation come for
spiritual growth, and not for mere sensual gratification; and the Spirits
that were to be joined together were not to come together by the impulses
of passion in youth, that speak through the senses and not through the
Spirit, and draw bodies [79] together, no matter how little affinity
there may be between the Souls that are within them. Therefore the
horoscope was studied, which threw light on the nature of the life that lay
before the incarnating Spirit. Therefore that was made the foundation of
marriage union, and therefore there is a symbolic act in your marriage
today, that when the bride and bridegroom are to see each other, there is a
screen dropped between them so that only the eyes of one may meet the eyes
of the other; for in the eye is the dwelling-place of the Spirit, and it is
that which should speak from the one to the other, and no other magnetism
should then pass between them. This is the ideal that underlay the ancient
institution of marriage, and therefore they lighted together the fire which
was the symbol of spiritual union; and therefore it is again that that fire
must never be extinguished while the Spirits remained joined outwardly and
within. And therefore if the wife died first, the husband gave to her the
fire that she might carry it onwards into the world on the other side of
death, that she might come back to him with the fire in her hands, that is,
as Spirit, and he might recognize it on the other side of death and know it
was his own, and that there also the two Souls were one. Now that is the
symbolism that underlay the holiest of all ideals of marriage, the
marriage at which the West of today is scoffing, and which some of the
younger amongst you, blinded by your ignorance, would degrade to [80]
the lower ideal of the West, instead of purifying it again into the ancient
ideal, thus giving back to India what India once had - men and women whom
you cannot parallel today, women like those who stand in our ancient
literature, noblest and purest and most glorious types of womanhood - types
that you cannot find in the records of any other people, even in those
pictures of imagination that are drawn by the inspiration of the poet and by
the dream of the enthusiast.
Thus you might get the meaning out of the fires so
familiar to you all; thus you might learn of the fires that teach you the
method of reincarnation; thus you might learn how every symbol means
something to the Soul that can see. And so, Brothers, I leave with you for
your own thought that which in this discourse has been so imperfectly
expressed; and I leave it with the prayer for you and for myself that those
Supreme Ones Who are the Fires of the Kosmos, from Whom we have sprung and
to Whom we return, that we - that are but sparks that would become Flames -
may by aspiration go upwards towards Them, and that as the Flame in our own
heart kindles it may kindle again the fire in other Souls. Then in our land
of India, the great Gods looking downward shall once more see the Fires
ascending towards heaven, not the household fires which remain as symbol,
but that Fire of the Spirit which, aspiring upwards towards Their Feet,
shall draw us upwards towards [81] Them, and make India again what
she should be - the very Light of the World, and the Child of the Gods.
Aye! her ancient people shall be the Children of the Gods once more, and
when love shall be burning in each heart as Fire, the whole will flame
upward to Their throne. [82]
YOGA.
BROTHERS, - In all ages, under every civilization, found
within the limits of each religion, there has been an upward yearning of the
Spirit of man - an attempt to find union with the Divine. It matters not
what the special form of religion to which the devotee may belong; it
matters not under what particular name he may worship Deity; it matters not,
so far as the inner struggle is concerned, in what way he may try to express
or to carry out these longings. The significant fact is that the yearning is
there, a constant witness to the world of the reality of the Spirit, a
constant witness of the truth of the spiritual life; the only witness, if
you speak with accuracy, of the existence of the Divine, either in the
universe or in man. For just as water will find its way through every
obstruction, in order to rise to the level of its source, so does the Spirit
in man strive upwards ever towards the source whence it came. Had it not
come from the Divine, it would not seek to rise to the Divine. Were it not
that it is the offspring of Deity, it [85] would not strive to
reunite itself with Deity; and the very fact that the yearning exists, the
very fact that efforts, however ignorant, are made to realize it, is the
constant and the perpetual witness of the Divine origin of man, is the
perpetual proof of that which we were studying yesterday, that the Spark may
re-become the Flame; being Flame in its origin, it may expand again into
Flame, no matter how cramped it has been within the limits of manifestation.
Now the word Yoga, as everyone knows, means
“union”. It expresses in a single term everything which the Spirit can
desire; for in this word “union” is implied everything; as everything comes
from the Divine, so union with the Divine means possession of everything -
all knowledge, all strength, all purity, all love; and the one word which
implies that union marks the highest aspiration which is possible for man.
I have said this aspiration is found in every religion. Take one of the
most modern of religions, that which is prevalent in the West under the name
of Christianity, and you will find there exactly the same attempt towards
union that you find carried out so methodically in the most ancient of all
religions, the Hindu. The great difference between the two is in the method.
You have the aspiration in Christianity; you have not, as a rule, the
training; although it is true that within the limits of a single body in the
Roman Catholic Church there is some distinct knowledge [86] as to the
methods whereby union may be sought. But taking Christianity as a whole, you
have aspiration, rather than sustained and deliberate effort. Yet still in
reading the lives of the saints, as they are called, you will find from time
to time descriptions of a state being reached, which anyone amongst you who
has studied the matter would recognize as identical with the state known to
us as that of Samadhi, where consciousness passes upward or rather inward,
out of the normal and into the Divine. And although that be obtained as it
were by the sheer force of devotion, it is still a testimony that under each
religion there is the possibility of union; as indeed we might expect to
find, when we remember that all Souls are essentially one, no matter how
much they may be divided by differences of birthplace or by differences of
religion. And this, it seems to me, is important; important because it
testifies continually to the unity that underlies different faiths, and
because it tends to break down the wall of separation, which is such a
barrier as far as spirituality is concerned, while it is, to some extent,
inevitable as long as we remain in the purely intellectual sphere.
But what I should be prepared to maintain, as a matter of
argument and of experience, is the enormous advantage of the Hindu religion
in that Yoga is there understood in method as well as in object. It is not
only that what the Christian calls the [87] “Beatific Vision” is
desired, but it is that the method whereby that Vision may be reached is
taught, so that the man of the world may, to a great extent, learn the steps
which, taken in this life, may in a future incarnation make possible for him
an advance in Yoga; while those that are prepared for further advance may,
by gaining special instruction; learn step by step that which will take
them onwards to the Divine.
Now it is clear that in a lecture like this, which to all
intents and purposes is a public lecture - it is clear that the inner side
of Yoga must be left practically untouched. Yoga, in the strictest sense of
the term, is never taught, save from mind to mind, from Guru to shishya; it
is not a matter for the platform, it is not a matter for discussion.
Discussion has no place in true Yoga. Discussion belongs to the intellect,
not to the Spirit; and Yoga is a matter of the Spirit and not of the
intellect. So far as the preliminary stages go, we can deal with them from
the platform; but the inner heart of Yoga is only for those who, having
realized that spiritual truth is attainable, have set their whole heart on
the discovery, and who go to seek it, not as controversialists into the
intellectual arena, not as disputants who think themselves as good as the
one to whom they nominally go as teacher, but who are willing to go to the
more highly advanced in spiritual matters to learn in silence and in
submission, grateful for every ray of light that comes [88] to them,
and who challenge not the light, because the Spirit in them has caught a
glimpse of the source whence it comes. What I am going to try to do this
morning, is to show you the preliminary stages which will gradually train a
man to become capable of seeking instruction in Yoga - to point out to you
what you might yourselves find out from your own Shastras as to the
published steps - if I may call them so - which lead up to the gate of the
Temple; but into the Temple you must go alone to meet there your Teacher;
only the pathway which leads to that gate may be shown to you, and you may
begin to tread it whenever you resolve to do so.
Now in order that you may understand the intellectual
side of this process of union, you need to understand your own constitution.
That is the first step. It is true that the constitution of man to a very
great extent only consists of the instruments whereby he may find himself.
None the less must he be able to use these instruments, otherwise the
preliminary steps cannot be taken; for, before you can enter on the Path at
all, there are certain obstacles that have to be overcome. And those
obstacles lie in your nature; they lie in the constitution of your own
being. And these external obstacles must be destroyed before any real
progress towards Yoga can be made. An understanding then - which will be
intellectual - of your own constitution is the first step you have to
[89] take. In studying the constitution of man you need to know
it, first from the standpoint of theory and then from that of practice.
Because man’s constitution may be looked at according as he exists in
relation to the different regions of the universe, or according as he can
practically divide himself when he desires to investigate these regions.
These divisions may be different; but you can learn how they are
correlated one to the other.
The divisions are, as I say, first theoretical and
then practical. Now the fullest theoretical division is that which you
may know as the sevenfold division in man that you may read in any ordinary
Theosophical book: you may trace it in your own Shastras, but you
will trace it with some difficulty. Because there stress was laid rather on
the fivefold division, that being the division of man as he is at present
developed, the two higher stages being left out of account, inasmuch
as man in his average present condition cannot possibly reach them; and
it was thought not desirable at that period to confuse the mind
by giving a division which could not be realizable in thought. Hints
are however thrown out, so that those who passed beyond the
average state of man might be able to seize the knowledge for which
they had become ready; and so you will find suggestions, such as that I
spoke of yesterday, the “seven-tongued flame”. So you will find
suggestions of seven vowel sounds; so you will find that Agni is drawn in a
chariot with [90] seven horses. So you will find that the great
serpent (more often spoken of as five-headed) is occasionally spoken of as
seven-headed. In this way you will catch a hint from time to time of
something beyond the five - of that fivefold constitution typified by the
pentacle, by the letter M, by the Zodiacal sign of Makara, the crocodile -
these will hint to you that while you have these as practical reality ever
to learn, there is something beyond if you have the intuition to follow the
hints thus thrown out.
Now the sevenfold constitution takes Atma as the Self,
which, gradually unfolding, runs outward through the successive envelopes
that are only differentiations of the Atma. Thus you get Buddhi, spoken of
as the spiritual soul; Manas, spoken of as the rational or human soul; Kama,
spoken of as the animal soul, which includes all passions and desires; and
Prana, life-principle, circulating through the ethereal body, which is
unfortunately called Linga Sharira - I say unfortunately, because the same
term has a different meaning in the Hindu Scriptures. Lastly, the body
itself, the Sthula Sharira, the physical and material outside portion of
man. That gives you the sevenfold division of man, or the six with Atma as
the seventh, Atma being really the whole, but differentiating itself in its
manifestation. “It willed, I will multiply.”
But come to the division which will be more [91]
familiar to many of you, in which man is regarded as Atma, taking on itself
five different sheaths - an exceedingly luminous classification, because in
each case you have this conception of the sheath that veils the true Self;
so that the real process of Yoga will be to get rid of sheath after sheath
until the Self stands alone once more as it did at the beginning. According
to this, you have for the body the food-sheath, Annamaya Kosha; you have
then, represented in the Theosophical category by the ethereal body and
Prana - because the ethereal body is only the vehicle of Prana - you have
the Pranamaya Kosha. Then you have the double division which recognizes the
duality of Manas, as you will find it taught in Theosophical books, and
includes with the lower Manas, Kama, joining together that which after death
perishes, and that which passes onward to Devaloka. So that you have the
Manomaya Kosha, which includes Kamic elements, includes passions and
desires, and which takes part in the formation of the body which lasts
through the Kamalokic existence. Next as sheath for the discriminative
powers of mind, comes the Vignyanamaya Kosha, thus named from Gnyanam,
knowledge, with the prefix Vi, implying discrimination and
analysis, a process of cutting and breaking up all the separable portions of
knowledge, so that it is essentially discriminative knowledge; thus it is
occasionally used to cover over the sixty-four sciences, which are classed
together [92] under that name. This Kosha then includes what the
Theosophist calls Manas, this discriminative faculty in man, without the
argumentative side which belongs to Lower Manas. Then you get the last of
the sheaths, the Bliss-sheath - Anandamaya Kosha - which is Buddhi - for
Buddhi is essentially bliss.
Suppose instead of this classification, which deals with
man as a sixfold entity, you want to know how man is going to deal with
himself when he wants to investigate the different regions of the universe,
you find you cannot divide him in this sevenfold or sixfold fashion. The
sheaths are not all divisible the one from another. You have to take the
division which is only triple. Man can only be divided into three for all
practical purposes of Yoga. There are but three Upadhis in which these
different principles or sheaths can work; there is the lowest which is
spoken of as Sthulopadhi; that includes the physical body, but is itself
essentially ethereal, because the physical body can be left out of account
in this matter; it has neither part nor lot save that of an obstruction that
bas to be gotten rid of. The real sense-organs lie in the ethereal body, and
the outer casings only appear in the physical body, which to us seems so
real. Then you have the Sukshmopadhi, or the subtle Upadhi that is sometimes
described as Linga Sharira, or Linga Deha. It was for this reason that I
said it was unfortunate that in the Theosophical [93] nomenclature
this name is applied to a lower Upadhi, the astral or ethereal body.
This Sukshmopadhi is the vehicle for the Kamic and the Manasic principles,
and it is in this Upadhi that the consciousness can make itself practically
acquainted with the whole of the psychic plane. Then there is the
Karanopadhi, which is the sheath really of Atma in Buddhi-Manas, and
answers to the Anandamaya Kosha, the permanent body in which what we
call the immortal Triad lives throughout the Manvantara. These are the
three practical divisions for Yoga, and they are correlated to the three
planes of the manifested universe; the Astral plane, of which the physical
is only, so to speak, the outer manifestation, so that for practical
purposes the physical and astral may be regarded as one. To that the
Sthulopadhi belongs. Then there is the psychic plane of the universe; that
includes the range of passions and desires and also of intellect. To that
Sukshmopadhi belongs. Then there is the region above it - the spiritual
plane; to that Karanopadhi belongs. So that these three Upadhis are
correlated to the three regions of the universe - Astral plus physical - the
two as one; Psychic - higher and lower; Spiritual - the highest. And the
practical division is chosen for Yoga, because the consciousness may dwell
in any one of these three planes, and in any one it must have a body, so to
speak - a vehicle perhaps is a better word - in which it may dwell. Yoga is
not possible save by the existence of these [94]
Upadhis in which the consciousness may work in
the three great planes of the manifested Kosmos. Yoga brings about the
development of these Upadhis and their reduction under the control of the
Self, so that it may dwell in one or in the other, may experience the
different planes, may unify the whole. For the process of manifestation of
the universe is but for the development of this unifying consciousness; the
universe exists, it is said in the Scriptures, for the sake of the Soul. All
is good Karma that pleases Ishvara, all is bad Karma that is displeasing to
Him. For Ishvara is but the term for the Supreme Spirit, which is one with
the Spirit in man. Therefore these Upadhis are developed, in order that in
their development perfect union may be secured, and the Spirit may traverse
at will every plane of the universe, and have in every plane of
consciousness the knowledge which belongs separately to each. That
understanding then is necessary for our work.
Now comes the question: how are these planes and these
Upadhis correlated with what are called states of consciousness or
conditions of Atma? You will find in your Shastras different terms applied
according as the subject is taken up from the standpoint of the Atma and the
conditions that it assumes, or according as it is studied from without as
states of consciousness. Studying states of consciousness you have the three
stages, waking, dreaming, deep sleeping; or, to use the technical [95]
terms, Jagrat, which is the normal consciousness of normal waking
life; Svapna, which is the state of consciousness in what we call dream; and
Sushupti, the sleep beyond dream - the dreamless sleep we call it. There is
indeed a fourth, the Turiya state, but that is not a state of consciousness
in manifestation. That is the widening out of the limited
consciousness into the all. And therefore it lies beyond this
question of vehicles, for in that Atma exists as Atma. It has thrown off
every sheath until it has found itself. As long as we are dealing with
the Upadhis, with sheaths, we have the three without the Turiya state; no
condition remains in the Turiya state. Man may reach it, but he carries
thither no vehicle. It is the state of liberation. It is the state which is
entered by the Jivanmukta; but the Jiva either passes finally onwards out of
all vehicles, or passing into it as Jiva, pure and simple, returns to the
vehicle on leaving it; the vehicle cannot be carried into it; for it
is beyond limitation; it is the One and the All. Now turn to the
Mandukyopanishad, that one which is so short, but is so
priceless, if you will take it and meditate upon it and so find its inner
meaning. There you read not of states of consciousness but of conditions of
Atma. First comes Vaishvanara, correlated to the waking state, for in that
Atma cognizes the external world. You are told it is in contact
with external bodies, that is the nature of this condition. It is then of
course in [96] the Sthulopadhi, the lowest of the three vehicles. It
passes out of that into the state of splendour, that is the Taijasa
condition. In that it studies the internal objects, you are told. The Upadhi
for this is the Sukshmopadhi; it dwells in the inner world. It passes once
more out of that into the state of knowledge, Pragnya; then it is said that
knowledge is uniform; then it is said that its nature is Bliss, its mouth is
Knowledge.
A most significant and luminous statement, worthy of your
careful consideration. Its nature Bliss; that implies the presence of the
Anandamaya Kosha. Its mouth Knowledge; that implies, if you will think of
it, the suggestion of the presence of that which may become, but is not,
the spoken word; the potentiality of the speech without the speaking, for
speech belongs to the lower plane. Its mouth is knowledge: the mouth is
there, but the nature is bliss; when the Atma comes outwards from that
state, then it passes downward into the realm of speech, and the mouth may
utter the spoken word, but there is no word on that plane. There is the
potentiality of sound, but not the sound itself. And then there is the
fourth. Of that fourth there is nothing said save negatives, for it is
indescribable. It is Atma in itself, Brahman in itself. It is the sacred
Word as one; no longer as the separated letters. You are given the three
letters, A, U, M; each of these being correlated to a condition of the Atma;
finally the one-sounded [97] word is spoken; because the Atma
has re-become the one and no separation of letters can then exist. So, see
even by that outward explanation how much there is of teaching in the
printed book. And that is only the outer explanation. You have to find out
for yourselves what underlies suggestion after suggestion; but taking it in
that form it puts you on the way towards Yoga, for it gives you the three
stages, the three steps, the three conditions of the Atma.
And the practical way of realizing those? Of that
also we may learn something; although not much when we are dealing
with it in a fashion so imperfect as the present. Now let us seek the
preparatory stages to make all this theoretical knowledge practical to
some extent: at least so far as to make it possible, as I said in the
beginning, for the man living in the world with household duties, social
duties, and national duties, to prepare himself for the real life. This at
least we may take into consideration, with a few hints of what lies beyond.
Clearly it will be impossible for a man to spring from the average
life of men into the practice of real Yoga. To do that would only mean
inevitable failure; for although intense desire might carry a man into the
beginning of it, there would never be the tenacity which would hold through
the shocks which follow the first enthusiastic springing forward into the
inner life. You cannot make a sudden step without an equally sudden
[98] reaction. You cannot spring high without the shock of
re-descending to the earth. Therefore the wisdom of the ancient Sages did
not permit a man to enter straightway into the ascetic life. It was
forbidden save in the exceptional case where an advanced Soul came into
reincarnation, and from birth or earliest childhood special capacities were
seen. The ordinary life was a carefully graduated life, in which a man
might take up just as much of religion as he felt the inner impulse to take
up. The life was a religious life, and religious ceremonies accompanied it
throughout, but a man might throw as much spiritual energy as he chose into
the ceremonies. He might repeat them as a matter of form, and even then they
would remind him of the life beyond the physical; or he might throw into
them a little devotion, and then they would lead him a step further; or he
might throw his whole heart into them, and then they would be a real
preparation for the later life. If that were done, if the life of the
Grihastha - the householder - were over, and every duty had been
accomplished, then he might pass onwards, if he would, into the life of the
hermit, into the life of the ascetic; because by these graduated practices
he had prepared himself for the finding of the Guru and for the leading of
a truly spiritual life.
The first step that is always laid down as a preparation
for Yoga is the ceasing from wicked ways. A very commonplace step; a mere
truism in every [99] religion; but the fact that it is a truism does
not make it less true. And since no Yoga is possible without it, save
the Yoga that leads to destruction, the first step is purification of the
life and the ceasing from wicked ways. Whosoever has not
ceased from wicked ways, thus beginning the Yoga which goes on to the
subduing of the senses and of the mind, whosoever has not ceased from wicked
ways cannot find Atma. That, then, is the first and most commonplace step,
and every one - if you tell them it is a necessary preliminary - almost
every one shrugs his shoulders and says “of course”; but he does not
practise it. Until he does, no practice in Yoga is possible. Nothing but
talk is possible until a man has begun to purify his life; until he is
truthful in thought as well as in speech; until he cannot be persuaded to
swerve from the path of rectitude by any outside temptations; until the
whole of his thought and desire at least is towards the right; until,
however often he falls he recognizes a fall as a fall, and tries to rise
again; until he has made at least the attempt to form a righteous ideal and
to carry out that ideal practically in life. I say this is the most
commonplace of all religious teachings, and the one which is the hardest at
first to carry into practice. Now for the enormous majority of men who do
not take up this as a rule of life, for the enormous majority Yoga is and
can be nothing more than a word; any attempt to practise it is like an
attempt to run [100] before learning to walk; and the only possible
result is the result which the child has when it is in too much hurry to
walk - it falls down and falls down until it learns caution and gains
equilibrium.
I say this because there are very many practices which
may be learned without purity of life, but these will lead to mischief and
not to good. It is far easier to take up a book on Yoga and put into
practice for a few minutes, or for an hour or two, or for a day, some
particular thing that you may read there, than it is to keep a constant
watch over the daily life and purify it at every moment of the day. Far
easier, but also far less useful; and the discipline of the body and the
mind is the first stage in practical Yoga. In daily life all sorts of
methods of discipline may be found, and when a man has really determined to
discipline mind and body, he will, through his daily life as opportunities
occur, make for himself some definite rules - it does not matter what the
rules are, provided they are harmless - and he will rigidly keep these
rules after he has made them. That is to say, he will systematize his life;
he will determine certain points of time, and at those points he will force
himself to do the things that he has previously decided shall be the
occupation of that particular moment or hour. Let me take a very common
illustration. He fixes an hour for rising, but when the hour comes somehow
he fails to rise. He is lazy, or sleepy, or what not. Now it does not matter
in itself whether he [101] rises a quarter of an hour earlier or
later than the hour fixed, but it does matter that he shall do what he has
determined to do. For the carrying out of a resolution in the face of
disinclination strengthens the will - and no progress in Yoga is possible
unless the will is strong and the body and mind obedient; this power may be
best accumulated in the practice of daily life. And when the mind and body
are controlled, brought to obedience, no matter what may be the temptations
of sloth or anything else, he has taken the first step on this path of Yoga;
for they have been made obedient to something that is higher than
themselves. By strengthening the will, the man is making one of the
instruments that he is going to use in his further progress. Then take the
question of food, not a vital question, but one of considerable importance;
you will find certain kinds of foods forbidden to those who lead a spiritual
life. Food should be correlated to the purpose for which you are living.
There is no one rule which you can lay down for all. There are rules which
are different according to the purposes that you are using your life to
accomplish. According to that which it is the desire of your life to
accomplish, so should be the food that you take to nourish, to keep, the
life of the body. Therefore it was that when to be a Brahman meant to be a
man who had made progress in the spiritual life and who desired to advance
rapidly and further along the road, the rules as to what he might and
[102] might not do were exceedingly stringent; and then it was that he
was told to eat those things that have the Sattvic quality, because he did
not want to bring into the body which he was endeavouring to purify any
foods having the Rajasic or the Tamasic qualities, which would draw him
downward instead of lifting him upwards. It is true that the body is the
lowest part of us, but it is not for that fact to be neglected. It is
important to lighten your weight if you have to climb. Though the weight
does not help you upwards, the lessening of the weight will make the upward
climbing less difficult than otherwise it would be. And that is all that you
have to do in dealing with the body. It does not help you to spiritual life;
but it holds you back. And you want to lessen the hold of the body as much
as possible. That is really the use of an external observance. If there is
nothing but the external, if there is no upward rising, it is almost a
matter of indifference whether the weight is heavy or light, for it is
always going to remain on the ground, and it is the ground that bears it,
and it does not hold anything down. Tie a rock to a post. It does not matter
whether the rock be heavy or light, for the post has nothing in it that will
rise. But tie a rock to a balloon which is striving to rise upwards, and as
you lessen the weight of the rock, the possibility of rising will come to
the balloon, until ultimately the power that draws it upward is greater than
the dead [103] weight of the rock that holds it down, and it will go
upwards carrying the rock with it, because it has overcome its
resistance. That is the way in which the body and all outward
observances should be regarded. That is why when the Spirit is free all
outward forms become matters of indifference. The very rites and
ceremonies of religion that are binding on the Soul that is still
unliberated, become useless when the Soul has gained liberation, for then
the Soul no longer can be held by anything. And as the rites of religion are
meant to be the wings which will lift the Soul upwards against
weight, when the weight has vanished and the Soul is free, it no
longer needs these wings. It is in its own atmosphere, where
equilibrium has been gained, and neither upward nor downward has any
meaning for it; for it is at the centre which is the All.
I say this because it is a thing that ought to guide your
judgment, if you will judge your neighbours. It would be far
better if you never judged them at all. What right of judgment has
any one of you as concerns one of your brothers? What know you of his
past? What know you of his Karma? What know you of the conditions that
surround his life? What know you of his inner struggles, his aspirations and
his faults? What right have you to judge him? Judge yourself, but do not
judge another; for when you condemn any, judging him only from
without and by one or another external observance that he may or may not
use, you [104] injure yourselves far more than you injure him; you
are judging in the lowest sphere, and you are injuring all your own inner
sphere and clouding it over by the tendency of unkindness and of lack of
compassion.
Now it is in connection with this dealing with the body
that a large number of external observances have been advocated and
practised - many of them exceedingly useful and some of them exceedingly
dangerous. Take a practice which is a very useful one, and which is not
dangerous but helpful when practised in moderation in a country like this,
with a very long physical heredity behind it and the practice of thousands
of generations; that which is known as Pranayama - the checking of the
breath - a practice known to almost every Brahman at least. This is done
with a very definite purpose, with the object of shutting out all external
objects and withdrawing the soul from the senses to the mind - the first
stage in practical Yoga. The shutting of the various senses physically, the
checking of the breath physically, these are really the lightening, so to
speak, of the weight, and making it easier for the mind to retire from the
external world. But where these directions, which have been published to
some extent, are suddenly taken up by people not fitted to practise them by
physical heredity, and when they are carried out with much persistence and
with Western energy, without someone who knows how to guide the student,
[105] the practice may become exceedingly dangerous. If it is carried
beyond a certain point it may seriously affect the organs of the body and
may cause disease and death. Therefore, even for you who are Asiatics it is
never wise to pursue this practice very far unless you are under the
training of some one who understands it thoroughly, and who is able to check
you the moment you touch danger. Whereas for the European it is unwise to
practise it at all, because he has not any suitable physical heredity, nor
are the physical and psychical surroundings amongst which he lives fitted
for a practice which may be said to work on the physico-psychical life;
thus the practice may be exceedingly dangerous, and for a European who is
going to begin, the physical training will begin in a different
fashion. There again is a point where judgment would be exceedingly unjust;
because unless you take these circumstances into consideration, you may be
blaming the man for what? Because he does not do a thing which in him would
produce dangerous bleeding of the lungs; and so would entirely take away
from him the physical garment in which, if more carefully trained, possibly
progress might be obtained.
Of course this may be carried very much further in what
is called Hatha Yoga. You may see it carried to the furthest extreme
in those cases of the ascetics where some particular practice is
adopted - whether that of raising the arm and holding it [106] up
till it withers; or clenching the hand till the nails grow into the flesh;
or gazing at the sun; or doubling the body, and so on - an enormous number
of different practices that some of you must have yourselves seen from time
to time. Is there or is there not any value in these practices? How is it
that we see them adopted? What is their object and what their real worth?
Now it would not be true to say that they are without value. First of all
they have this value, that in an age like our own they are constant and
standing witnesses to the strength of the inner aspiration which overcomes
all bodily passion and all physical temptation in order to seek after
something which is recognized as greater than the physical life. It is not
fair to omit from sight in judging these cases that service which they do to
humanity. For in the world, where almost everyone is seeking after things of
the world, where ambition is for money, for place, for power, for fame, for
the praise of men, it is not without value that a few should even act in
this fashion, and throwing everything that men love aside, proclaim by the
very fact of their tortured existence the reality of the Soul in man, and
the worth of something which is above the anguish of the body. So that I do
not think that anyone should speak lightly of the folly of these men, even
though he disagree with them, even though he disapprove of them, even if he
say that their method is not right. In any case you should [107]
recognize the strength of the devotion which can trample on the body
in seeking after the Soul. Even if the method be mistaken, as I myself
believe it to be mistaken, still it is a nobler life even in its
blunders than the commonplace seeking after transient objects; for it is
nobler to seek the higher and climb after it and fall, than it is to seek
things only of the earth, to waste everything in gaining those
transient objects.
And there is the side, another side, which will
bring to them their reward in a future incarnation. It is true they will by
these methods never reach the spiritual plane. It is true that by
these methods they will never reach the higher spheres of existence.
Yet it is also true that they are by these methods developing the
strength of will that in their next birth may carry them far along the road.
Has it ever struck you what their strength of will must be; not
in the stages when the posture has become automatic, but in the early
stages, when every moment is a moment of torture? That is
the time when the Soul is developed, and when if you pay the price of
pain you may purchase that which you pay for. They pay it for strength of
will, and that strength of will must come back to them in their
future life. And it may be that the strength of will shall then be
enlightened by the devotion which made them follow such a life, and
that the two together may open up the path towards real
knowledge. Although for this incarnation [108] they may fail in
reaching the spirit, yet in another devotion and will combined may carry
them far, far beyond those who think themselves wiser, because they are not
fanatical - as I frankly think these men are. You may say to me, “Are we to
follow the practice?” No; for I have already said I regard it as a mistake.
I only mentioned this view because I hear so much of idle scoff, so much of
idle jeer, from men who are not fit to come within a mile of those who have
at least recognized and tried to follow the possibility of spiritual life.
And then there is one word to be said of another life, a
life which is not of absolute self-torture, but which is that of complete
withdrawal from the world to the forest. That has been said to be a selfish
life; in very many cases it is connected with selfishness, but not always.
Those lives that are spiritual keep up the spiritual atmosphere which
prevents the country as a whole from falling as low as it otherwise would.
They keep up the recognition of the reality of a spiritual life which may
be stimulated into activity, and the fact that India has a possibility of
revival in herself is largely due to those recluses of the forests and of
the jungles, who have kept possible a spiritual atmosphere into which
vibrations may be thrown which then may strike on the outer lives of men.
For what is the underlying truth of Hatha Yoga? It is
this; that when growth is complete, body will be the obedient servant of the
Spirit, and will be [109] developed along the particular lines which
will give to Spirit the organs in the body whereby it may work on the
outside universe of Matter. That is the real truth of all Hatha Yoga
practices. They train the body. They throw into activity certain centres -
certain chakrams as they are called - they throw them into activity, and
these centres are to act as the organs for the interior life. They are the
organs whereby the inner life may work on the material universe, and whereby
what are called phenomena may be brought about. Phenomena cannot be brought
about by the Spirit at its highest working directly on what we call Matter
at its lowest, that is by Atma working directly on the material universe;
the gulf is too great, it has to be spanned. And if you are to control the
physical universe and physical laws, it is necessary to develop certain
material organs and astral organs in connection with the body which, brought
into immediate contact below with the physical universe, and in contact
above with the mind and Spirit, will enable the Spirit working downward, so
to say, to bring about the physical results that it desires. Now Hatha Yoga
is the recognition of this truth and the bringing it into practice on the
lower plane. It works first on the body and develops a great many of those
organs into control over these inner forces. It makes the body easy to be
thrown into a condition which does respond to subtler vibrations, and it
subjugates the body. [110]
So one who practises Hatha Yoga can, with comparative
ease, obtain control over certain forces of the material universe. It wakes
up the astral body, it throws the astral centres into vibration; so that
there again, powers are gained of a most extraordinary character, so far as
the outer world is concerned. But the powers are bad in this sense - that by
beginning from below and stimulating these organs, the physical and astral
bodies, without the corresponding action in the mind and the Spirit, the
limit of action is soon reached. It is artificial stimulation instead of a
natural and evolutionary one. Those organs should be stimulated from above
and not from below, if they are to persist life after life; and by the Hatha
Yoga practices they are stimulated into action from below, just as in
hypnotism you begin by paralyzing the outer senses; thus you gradually lead
to atrophy and to permanent paralysis. Hatha Yoga practices, long continued,
make Raja Yoga impossible for that incarnation. That is why objection is
raised to them in many of the wisest of our books. That is why it is said
that Raja Yoga is the thing to be sought after and why Hatha Yoga is
discountenanced. It is not that no physical practices are ever needed. It is
not that these psychic powers are not ultimately to be evolved; but it is
that they are to be evolved as the natural result of the developing Spirit,
and not as the artificially stimulated results of the body first and
[111] then of the astral form. To begin at that end means limitation to
the psychic plane. To begin on the spiritual means the unifying of all
planes into one. That is the essential difference between the two forms of
Yoga. Raja Yoga is more difficult and it is the slower, but it is certain.
Its powers are carried over from birth to birth, whereas beyond the psychic
plane it is not possible to progress by using the purely Hatha Yoga
methods.
And now I want to put to you one or two general
statements as regards these practices, as I will now call them, that may
wisely be used in daily life. You may remember in the Aitareyopanishad
that after man is formed he is vitalized - if I may use a
somewhat commonplace expression - by the Devas, and that then the Supreme
Soul asks the question: “How shall I enter in?” and he enters in at the
place where the hairs of the head divide, that is, the Brahmarandra, the
centre of the skull. He takes up three places; in the right eye, in the
“inner organ”, and in the heart: three places in which he abides. These
places are significant. The right eye stands for the senses; the inner organ
for the brain and its mind; the heart for the inner self. And he enters into
these one by one, first into the eye, that is, to the senses; then into the
inner organ, that is, to the mind; then into the heart, that is, to the
final dwelling place in which he resides. That is the keynote to all these
triple divisions that I gave you at the beginning. Each [112] of
these belongs to one or other of these stages and conditions of which I
spoke; and when we begin to practise, it is these that we take up as the
stages that may be practised in the world before the Guru is found; which
any one of you may begin to practise, and so make possible for yourselves
the later stages when you have succeeded in mastering these. First then in
seeking the Soul you will deal with the senses. You may choose some image in
the mind, and concentrate upon that, until no stimulus can reach you from
without. This is the concentration of the mind within itself and withdrawal
from the senses. Why should not a man practise that daily? Why should he not
get into the habit of being able to withdraw the mind from working in the
senses; so that it may be thrown back into itself and work only within the
limits of the mind? All great men of thought do it as a matter of natural
instinct. All great thinkers do it. Take the thinkers who have given to the
world great literary works and read their lives, and you will find that it
was a constant fact that when they were occupied with great mental problems
they became oblivious of the body; that they would sit thinking, missing
their meals, sitting through the whole day, sometimes the whole of the
night; oblivious of every want of the body, even the want of sleep, because
they had withdrawn the mind from the senses and had concentrated it within
itself. [113]
This is the condition of all fruitful thought, it is the
condition of all fruitful meditation. Meditation is more than this indeed.
But this is its first beginning, for you want to draw the Soul away from the
senses; otherwise it keeps going outward and you want it to come inwards
towards its own seat. Therefore stop the senses. Without that no further
progress is possible. And then from the worldly standpoint it will be useful
even; for this concentration of mind that you find advocated in old books as
a preliminary stage of Yoga, is a condition of the most effective mental
work. The man who can concentrate is the man who can conquer the
intellectual world; he who can bring all his faculties to a single point
becomes one-pointed, as Patanjali has it. That is the one who is really
capable of making progress intellectually. You cannot push a wide object
through obstacles; you must bring it to a point and it will easily pierce
through all. So it is with the mind. If the mind is scattered through the
senses it is diffused. There is no propelling force that can send it
through obstacles. Bring it to a point, and then the force behind it will
push it through. Thus even in common intellectual matters concentration is
the condition of success. But this carried out thoroughly brings you to the
second stage, the Svapna stage, then the condition is that of the mind being
fixed on the internal objects; that is, you fix the attention on concepts
and ideas and [114] not on the objects which gave rise to them. No
longer on the outer body but on that which you have drawn from it into the
mind; and you study the internal objects, which are the concepts, the ideas,
the deductions and abstract thoughts which from the outer world you have
collected. The more perfectly you can do it, the nearer you are coming to
the completed Svapna stage, and when you can do it well you have really
made one stage onward in the Yogic method, for you have gained the power of
bringing the soul into the internal organ, and once there further progress
may be gained. The next stage, still within the limit of Svapna, is not only
to withdraw the mind into itself, but to hold it there against the intrusion
of thoughts which you do not desire. Suppose you have already secured it
against the intrusion of outside stimuli, and the senses can no longer bring
you out of this state of concentration; but perhaps thought can do it. The
mind itself may not be thoroughly guarded against such intrusion. It is
withdrawn from all possibility of stimulation from without. It may be so
strong that a man coming up and touching you would not bring you out of the
state of perfect abstraction; but still within itself it may not be equally
steady, and an idea may reach it while a sensation cannot. On its own plane
a thought may intrude. That is the next stage of concentration. You must be
able to kill thoughts, The moment a thought comes, if it [115] is not
wanted it must fall away. First you kill it by deliberate action; that is,
you reject it when it comes. But the realizing of its presence is lack of
concentration. The very fact that you see it there shows that it is able to
make an impression upon you. Therefore you must deliberately kill it.
Therefore when the thought comes to you, you must throw it back. This will
be a long process; but if you keep doing it month after month, nay, year
after year, at last it will become automatic, and you will have made in the
mind such a repellent power that you may set that power going by drawing
yourself into the centre, and the thought coming from the outside and
striking against it will get self-thrown back. It is like a wheel revolving
very rapidly. If it is slowly moving, any moving body that may come against
it may check its revolution. If it is moving very rapidly, any moving body
that comes against it will get itself flung off. And in proportion to the
rapidity of the revolution will be the force of repulsion with which that
body is thrown back. That becomes automatic, and just as you get beyond the
stimulus of the senses, you get beyond the reach of the mind: that is, the
mind becomes self-centred and the circumference throws off automatically
everything which desires to enter. That is the position which you have now
secured. There again there is the worldly advantage, for the highly
concentrated mind does not wear itself out; it does not allow to enter all
[116] the thoughts which it does not require. It does not consider
them. It does not allow energy to be wasted on them, and so fritter away its
powers. It is kept empty as to thought when work is not required, instead of
being a sort of ever busy machine, always going, and so wearing itself out.
Instead of this, it is a machine under absolute control, which works or does
not work exactly as the Self desires that it shall or shall not.
Beyond this stage no conscious progress is possible
without the help of a Teacher. Conscious progress, I say, but unconscious
there may be, for the Teacher may be there though you know him not. But
there is one way still in which progress may be made, although unrealized in
a sense, without your knowing that any one is helping you, but that is not
by knowledge. If you still desire to tread the path of knowledge you must
find your Teacher. But there is something in the world which is stronger
than knowledge, and that is devotion. For that is the Spirit itself; and
while I have been dealing with all that which consciously you can do, there
is one other thing that you can also do which will help you. And that is to
open wide all the gates of the Soul, so that you no longer shut out the sun,
so that the sun of Spirit may stream in and purify and enlighten, without
any action of your lower self. Now devotion is the opening of the windows of
the Soul. It does nothing. It is an attitude. Devotion means that [117]
you realize something which is greater than yourselves, something which is
higher than yourselves, something which is sublimer than yourselves, towards
which your attitude is no longer an attitude of criticism, no longer an
attitude of what you call learning, no longer any attitude save that of
prostration, throwing yourself down before it in worship, and remaining
silent to hear if any word may come. By that, progress is possible into the
innermost recesses of the Spirit, for devotion opens the way for the light
to come in; the light is always there, we do not make it. These processes
that I have been speaking about are the tearing off of sheath after sheath,
so that we may consciously recognize the light. It may seem to get brighter
as sheath after sheath is torn off It does not really get brighter; it is
there; but we fail in the outer recognition of the light within.
Devotion breaks through ail sheaths from within; and then the light streams
forth; and it has nothing to do but shine. It is the quality of light to
shine. It is we who obstruct it, and make its shining out impossible. And
therefore it is that in the ignorant man you will sometimes find a
spiritual knowledge that transcends the intellectual knowledge that some
great genius may have obtained. He sees the heart of things. Why? Because
the inner light is streaming forward and the devotion has opened the eye
into which light comes, and it sees along the beam right into the recesses
of the [118] sanctuary. Not by knowledge only may be opened sheath
after sheath; love too is needed, that the man may find himself, and
breaking through them all, one by one, may at last open out the way to the
Feet of the God. And that is possible everywhere, not only in forest and
jungle, if man can separate himself from the things of earth. For this no
outer renunciation is necessary; it is the deeper renunciation by the Soul
of all the objects of sense and of the world. It is that which Shri Krishna
means when he speaks of devotion. Meditation means this opening out of the
Soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from
the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away
everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in. It
means non-attachment to the fruit of action. Everything you do, you do
because you are in the world, and your duty is to perform actions. Shri
Krishna said, “I am ever acting!” Why? Because if He did not the revolving
wheel would stop. So with the devotee; he should do his outer actions,
because they are examples to other men; because his Karma has placed him in
the world where these duties claim discharge. But it is not he who
does them. Once devotion is attained, the senses move towards their
appropriate objects; mind also moves towards its appropriate objects; but
the devotee - he is neither the senses nor the mind. He is the Self that is
[119] recognized as Lord. And so he is always worshipping, while the
senses and the mind are busy with the external and the internal objects.
That is the meaning of non-attachment. He is not attached to any of the
works which his senses bring about; let them go and do their work, and do it
with the utmost perfection. Let his mind also go into the outer world and do
its share in the world’s work. It is not himself; he is ever worshipping at
the Feet of his Lord. While he is there, external things may do their work;
what power of attachment have they to bind him to any of their actions? But
to reach that state non-attachment must be deliberately practised; you must
learn to be indifferent to results, provided you do your duty, leaving the
outcome in the hands of the mighty forces that work in the universe, and
that only ask of you to give them the outer material in which they may
clothe themselves while you remain one with them. To do this you must be
pure; to do this you must always have the heart fixed on the one reality.
The devotee is ever within, in the heart. He is always within the shrine,
and the mind and body are busy in the outer world. That is true Yoga; that
is the real secret of Yoga.
For all that it is perfectly true that there is a stage
in which knowledge once more comes in, and the devotee may learn from his
Guru how to become a conscious co-worker with the spiritual forces. He may
be a worker before he is conscious [120] of it, only by means of
devotion. Conscious co-working implies knowledge. It means that the Guru
takes the shishya in hand and teaches him how he may more perfectly purify
himself and remain utterly unsoiled by the touch of actions in which he
works. While conscious co-working is joy unutterable, co-working at all
makes life worth living.
I should not deem it worth while to keep you this morning
studying a subject such as this, were it not that it seems to me that one of
you here or there may possibly catch some thought of devotion which shall
make the way into the inner sanctuary easier and clearer for you than it was
before. I have been dealing intellectually with these sheaths of the Soul,
intellectually with these regions of the universe, intellectually with these
states of consciousness, intellectually with the methods by which progress
may be made. I should do less than my duty here to you if I left you on the
intellectual plane. Therefore I venture these words as to the essence of
Yoga, no matter what the outer form may be; I venture to say to you - to
some of you it will seem folly and fanaticism, but what matters that to me?
– I venture to say to you that devotion is the one thing that gives
security; devotion is the one thing that gives strength; devotion is the one
way that opens up the road to the innermost where the Divine is manifest.
Better worship ignorantly in devotion than refuse to worship at all.
[121] Better bring a flower or leaf to some village God, as the poorest
of those that come ignorantly and desire to give out of their poverty, than
be some great intellectual genius that the world honours, too proud to bow
before that which is higher than itself, too intellectually strong to bend
its knee before the spiritual life; for Spirit is higher than intellect, as
intellect is higher than the senses. Spiritual life is the highest life, and
it is open to everyone, for the Spirit is the innermost core in each, and
none may deny its presence in any man. Cultivate then reverence, reverence
for everything which is noble; cultivate worship, worship of that which is
divine; and then when the body and the senses fail you, then when the mind
breaks down and has nothing more to give you, then that eternal Spirit,
which is the life of your life, the Soul of your Soul, then That shall rise
stronger, because the body and the mind have perished, and going upward it
shall find itself - nay, it need not go; it is there already, always - it
shall find itself lying at the Lotus Feet of its God: there where there is
no illusion, no separateness, no pain: there where all is bliss. For the
very essence of the Divine is love and is joy, and that is the heritage of
the Spirit, greater than anything that the passing world may give. [122]
SYMBOLISM.
SYMBOLISM in religions may be called a common
language. By this it is meant that certain external forms are taken, which,
presented to the view of anyone versed in the forms, convey to the mind of
that person a definite idea; just as, for instance, you may have an
ideographic language which is read by each person into his own tongue; just
as you may have numbers in arithmetic, each number carrying some idea, but
if the number be put into spoken word, the word will differ according to the
language which is employed. So, in all ages have men who have studied
religions had a common language by which they could communicate with each
other; so that no matter what might be the country of the person, no matter
what might be the particular religion that exoterically surrounded him, when
he came across the symbol, he recognized its meaning, and so had knowledge
conveyed to him by his fellow Initiates, which to him was as definite and as
certain as though it had been conveyed in his own particular language of
words. [125] Now of the underlying unity of religions there can be no
greater proof than the identity of religious symbols. When you find within
a Hindu temple the same symbols as you find in far-off ruins in Western
lands; when you find the same symbol that is in the temple and in the
Western ruins reproduced in the modern Christian cathedral or church; when
you find in Asia, in America, in Europe and in many of the islands of the
Pacific Ocean, just the same symbol reappearing; then you may know that the
people who made the symbol held the same notion, used the same means to
convey it, knew the same truth, and worshipped the same idea. And in this
fashion, the study of symbolism may constantly enable us to gain from the
past knowledge that has slipped away in the present. Thus we may know some
great truth which conveys sustenance to our own thinking, and taking up some
ancient Scripture, we may recognize under the garb of symbol, the truth
which in some other fashion we have received. So taking the ancient books,
which were written by great Sages, by Divine Instructors, we may find that
they have hidden in these books secrets of spiritual knowledge, and that
they have done it in order that the secrets might be preserved amongst all
the changes and chances of life; and that when a man has reached a certain
stage of spiritual evolution, there might be here ready to his hand
knowledge that he might acquire. Thus what has been [126] carried
through ages of darkness may once again appear for the enlightening of the
world. Inasmuch as today we are in a cycle of darkness, as we are living in
that Kali Yuga, during which spirituality is at its lowest ebb, and inasmuch
as this period is characterized by the triumphs of the powers of darkness
and the blinding of the insight of man which in happier ages is clear and
distinct, symbolism is to us of deepest moment. For when this cycle was
approaching, it became necessary that the Sages should hide under symbol and
under garb of outer fables those truths which were to be preserved for
generations to come - not only in what we call ordinary symbolism or outer
form, but also in allegory, in fable, in that which is regarded as myth, and
in that which is used as ceremony. In all these things there is the heart of
spiritual truth, and from time to time, some one arises who is able to see
the truth underneath the outer symbol of fable or ceremony; and so bringing
out the truth from the symbol, is able to strengthen man’s belief in
spiritual realities, and reassert in the midst of darkness the light of a
happier time. For not only does symbol carry on truth from age to age, but
it also acts as a constant witness for the existence of the truth. Sometimes
it may be meant to hide it, but at other times it is meant that the hidden
truth shall be brought out, so that the bringing out may re-establish man’s
belief in truth. The special work that is being done today by the [127]
Theosophical Society is done at the will of those Divine Instructors who
devised the symbols and gave them in charge to the various religions of the
world. So that from time to time what is to be done, and is being done
today, is that when truth has been lost to the majority and when belief in
it has largely disappeared, some one taking hold of the symbol shall
explain it; then the reasonableness of the explanation recommends itself to
the minds of men, and they feel the evidence of the existence of truth,
because it is brought out, as it were, from its hidden recesses; then faith
grows up again, and belief is once more able to lift up its head, because
the unveiling justifies the reality of the symbol and they recognize the
inner truth, and so become convinced of the light which was hidden, and
which by the opening, as it were, of the lantern is once more revealed to
the world. So that symbolism has this value of not only carrying on the
truth, and of giving it to those who are wise, but also of impressing on the
outer world the persistent reality of the spiritual truth; and it is the
knowledge of this which makes some of us lay stress on the preservation of
ceremonies, even when they are not understood. I know that in the minds of
some, this seems folly and superstition; I know that in the minds of some,
this seems to be raising an obstacle in the way of progress. They only see
the ceremony from the standpoint of the obstacle; they do not realize the
value that within that [128] seeming obstacle may be enshrined.
Sometimes there may be an ancient monument which tells of the past history
of the people. You want to carry a railway through it, and you will say that
it is very important that the railway should be a straight line between two
points, and that it is far better to sweep away the ancient monument which
has become an obstruction, and to allow the people to have the practical
advantage of saving ten minutes of time, which will be lost if the railway
goes round the monument. Instead of pulling it down and destroying it, it
may sometimes be wiser to waste ten minutes’ time - when so much time is
wasted - than to destroy the records of an event that otherwise might pass
without record out of the minds of men. So if the ceremonies, whose meaning
even has been lost - lost for the present from the eyes of ordinary men, but
not lost from the knowledge of spiritual Sages, and not lost in their future
power, when once more the truth that they hide is revealed - if the
ceremonies of Hinduism had been entirely swept out of India, where should
we find the arguments for the reaffirmation of spiritual truth to the Indian
people? But inasmuch as the ceremonies have remained and inasmuch as the
symbols still exist, then, coming with knowledge, we can justify the ancient
teaching even by these preserved symbols, and so can reach the hearts and
minds of the people in a way that would be utterly impossible if the symbols
had disappeared. [129]
Now as an illustration, let me begin with one symbol
which is universal and found in every religion, although in different
religions differing very slightly in the shape in which it appears - I mean
the famous symbol of the Cross, largely identified today in the modern world
with a very modern religion, largely identified probably in the minds of
many of you with that religion. It is none the less the most ancient of all
the symbols, and has come down to us from a time lost to Western thought in
obscurity. No matter how deeply you dig into the crust of the earth; no
matter how ancient the ruins of the city that, by such digging, you may
unbury; no matter whether you dig into that crust in America, in Europe, in
Asia, and in Africa; everywhere you will find the Cross. There are places
in Europe that have been unburied by modern investigation, places that are
covered over with the ruins of civilizations which had absolutely
disappeared from the surface of the earth long before the civilization of
the Roman Empire was dreamed of - a civilization that endured for centuries
and then fell into ruin.
Passing back over the millenniums and digging down
through those ruins that tell of its decay, down through them all into still
older ruins of a civilization that has left no trace, save in these deep
buried records; even there you shall find a Cross marked on pottery that has
long outlasted the very bones of thy people that made it; for the pottery,
found [130] beside little heaps of dust that vanish when the tomb is
opened, has graven on it the symbol of the Cross, and buried by the side of
the dead conveys its own sacred signification. Go back as far as you will
into the antiquities of this - the most ancient of all lands so far as the
Fifth Race of man is concerned - there is no place where you will not find
this symbol; in the most ancient of the Scriptures you will find the Cross,
representing, in later times, the circle of the horizon, representing
farther back the form of Vishnu, which is Time. The circle symbolizes Time
unending, and within it a Cross on which lie all Gods, all Rishis, all Suns
and all Stars, everything which is in the manifested universe. Go farther
back, before the Fifth Race is born - back into those times of which no
record remains, save in the hands of the Initiates themselves - here and
there is a rock of which they only can explain the meaning, and on these
rocks, deep graven, there still is found the figure of the Cross. Go back to
the Fourth Race of men, swallowed up by a mighty catastrophe, from which
only the seed came over from which the Fifth Race was to spring; even there
you will find the same symbol, sacred to the Fourth Race as it has been
ever sacred to the Fifth. So that we may take it as a universal symbol, one
that we cannot permit one of the latest and most modern of religions to
usurp as though it belonged only to it. For it is a symbol often stamped on
the breast of the Initiates, sacred to [131] religion in its deepest
recesses, and not the private property of one of the most modern and
exoteric of faiths. Take then the Cross - what is it fundamentally? It was
in the circle always in the oldest records; in later times the circle has
fallen away from it, and the Cross, losing the circle, became degraded from
its loftiest significance. Always the symbol has its highest meaning in the
Spirit; and from the spiritual sphere it comes downward into outer
manifestation and finds a second explanation in the stars which are the
outer forms of the great Intelligences, by which the Kosmos moves; and then
lower still it falls, until it comes down to man, and then it becomes more
degraded in its latest phallic signification, polluted by the impure
thoughts that flow to it from the mind in man. Take then the circle, and in
its earliest significance it stands for that Boundless Existence which,
coming into manifestation, circumscribes Itself. First, we have been taught
of a circle of light bounded by darkness which has no limit; and the circle
of light is the beginning of the manifested Kosmos. Thus we found in
studying light that first we had light without form, and then later form
came as the visible side of the manifestation; and the circle in its
earliest significance means manifestation, therefore limitation, the
beginning of things. The Cross which, as the next stage, divides it is that
fire which, flashing from the centre outwards, makes two diameters, gives
active [132] life within this circle of the universe, and makes
possible the evolution which from the centre is gradually to proceed. At
first, one line of the Cross is the line drawn in both directions by the
light of the Logos from the centre outwards to the circumference - that
light of the Logos that I spoke of in the second lecture, as shining out
from the dual Logos, from that which we saw as Fire and Water, that which is
Spirit-Matter, shining out from the centre which is the unmanifested Logos;
this, passing outwards to the circumference, divides the circle first into
two and then into four. It is this line of light starting from the point,
passing outwards in the four directions, that traces the first Cross in
manifestation, the symbol of the division into Spirit and Matter.
Then coming down a little further and recognizing this division of Spirit
and Matter, there is the generation of the Kosmos, which is symbolized by
the revolution of the Cross, so that the Cross is no longer two straight
lines, but to each arm of the Cross there is attached a part of the circle
of manifestation, and you get the ancient Svastika, which gives not only the
idea of division, but also the idea of revolution. In the Svastika, with the
limbs turned, there is a suggestion of the circle as well as of the Cross,
but no longer of the circle set and steady, but of the circle revolving,
having therefore become a generating [133] force of life. Closely
united with this is the symbolism of the fire-sticks; here you have a socket
which stands for the circle, and the upright stick which is made to revolve
by a cord (thus forming a Cross) which, turning it round and round in the
socket, generates fire, which is sacred, so giving birth to Agni the
Fire-God, as the sign of that Life by which only the universe can appear.
Thus you have not only the circle, not only the upright stick which
represents half the Cross, but also the string which completes the Cross and
causes revolution. There is the completed image of the second Logos by whose
division further manifestation becomes possible. Then with the revolution,
then with the heat which is generated - to which you may remember I
drew your attention, as the result of this action of fire - when the mere
radiance of light passes into fire, it is then you get the birth of the
Fire-God, without whose generating influence no further manifestation may
come. Then you can trace it downwards and downwards, through slight changes
in the outer form, until you find it as everywhere symbolical of the God, of
the God in manifestation, an essentially creative and productive power in
the universe in its highest sense; in its highest sense the God that
generates the Kosmos. In its lowest sense it is the representative of the
reproductive organ, that too often gives rise to forms of esoteric worship
which have become a degradation. The blinded eye of the Materialist
[134] reads but the phallic meaning, and reads into it his own impure
signification; whereas that is the lowest point of materiality, while the
highest is that which begins in the Logos itself, manifesting itself in the
world of form. Thus tracing the Cross we find it in ancient sculptures in
the hands of the Gods, constantly present, shaped slightly differently
according to the type adopted by the people in their religion. There again
there is another use of this symbolical language, for, according to the
particular shape the symbol has assumed, we are able to judge of the stage
to which the religion of that people has evolved. Take, for instance, the
Egyptian religion; there you will find the Cross and the circle changed in
appearance. The Cross is no longer the Cross which is traced on the circle
of Time, with its two arms of equal length. It has become the letter T
with one arm below the other, and instead of being within the circle of
Time, the circle has gone outside it and rests on the top of the Tau. The
circle is no longer Time, it stands for the female principle. In the hands
of the Gods you may see it traced in the frescoes on the pyramids; you will
find it there held as a symbol of human life; and when the mummy is lying
prone and the time comes for the Soul to revivify it, then the God comes
forward with this Tau and circle in his hand, the Cross of Life, and he
touches with the lips of the mummy and thus restores the Soul and brings the
body to resurrection, to the [135] possibility of renewed life.
Instead of taking it in the later Egyptian religion, where it has fallen
from its highest significance, let us take it in the hand of one of the
Hindu Gods, and you will find that a subtler and a more beautiful
significance may be drawn from it. Take the image of Shiva, Mahadeva, as
you will find Him sometimes represented in the temples - represented as the
Maha-Yogi, the great Ascetic, who by Tapas burned up everything that was of
the lower nature and remained as Fire only; everything else having
disappeared. The Maha-Yogi holds in His uplifted hand a cord - a cord that
assumes an oval shape and not a circle - and He holds that in His uplifted
hand, between the thumb and the fingers; and you will see that the oval
rises above the hand, and that the hand makes the figure of the Cross on
which this oval is supported. What can be the meaning in the hand of the
great Yogi, the patron of all ascetics, what can be the meaning of this
symbol, which in more modern literature has been taken as the productive
symbol, the symbol of life? Has not the Yogi turned aside from this creative
activity, for he is often symbolized by the virgin Kumara, who has refused
to create and who has nought to do with physical manifestation? The symbol
has a loftier meaning. No longer does that oval in the hand of the great
Ascetic convey to the mind of one versed in symbolism the later
signification which was attached to it; it, stands for the third eye of the
[136] Spirit, for that which is opened by Tapas, that which is opened
within the brain of the ascetic when a certain stage has been reached, at
which the lower forces are conquered for evermore. For the hand that forms
the Cross stands as a symbol for that crucifixion of the passions of the
lower nature by which only the Yogi may attain spiritual life; and the God
who is the great Yogi has His uplifted hand in this position to show that
every passion has been crucified, and so, by the crucifixion of the lower,
the opening of the higher has become possible. Thus the Cross becomes the
means of opening the door by which the light of the Spirit may stream out,
and then comes the opening of the third eye, which is the Eye of Shiva,
familiar to every Hindu in name if not in understanding. And that third eye
- how did it show itself? Remember once more the ancient story that, as He
sat engaged in Tapas, the Hindu God of Love strove to shoot his shafts at
Him, but the forehead of Shiva opened, and from the third eye shot forth a
ray of light which burned the tempting God to ashes. For when that eye is
opened, none of the lower passions may venture to approach the ascetic who
has achieved. And whenever, passing into the temple of the great God, you
see him represented as the Maha-Yogi, then look you for the cord and realize
its inner significance.
You may go a step further, and take to yourself the
lesson that there is conveyed, that in man there [137] is a power
which may be used for the lower or for the higher life, either for the
creation of new forms or for the evolution of spiritual life in man, but not
for both; and therefore celibacy has been the note of the ascetic, a
necessary preliminary before the third eye can be opened. Therefore always
the idea of the ascetic includes this idea of absolute physical purity.
Either you may drive the life current upwards towards Spirit, or you may
drive it downwards towards Matter. If it seeks its expression in the
material, it cannot at the same time rise up into the mightier creative
energies of the spiritual sphere. And when Shiva upraises this Cross and
cord which symbolize the opening of the third eye, it means that the life
has been centred in the head, that the third eye of the ascetic has been
opened, and by that centering at the higher pole the triumph of the Spirit
is secured. You no longer have the downward tendency to Matter, you have
achieved the triumph of the Spirit.
Let us seek the meaning of another symbol, in which
Matter and Spirit are expressed, no longer divided but united. Here you have
not the Cross and the oval but a double Triangle interlaced, showing that
they are not to be separated, and so conveying to our thought the
manifested universe and the union of Spirit and Matter in every possibility
of phenomenal life. For here we have the Triangle upward pointing, which is
fire or Spirit, and then the Triangle downward pointing, which is water or
[138] Matter, and the union of the two inseparable. This means the
union of Spirit and Matter in the manifested universe; and the fact is that
that union remains so long as manifestation endures. You will find this
double Triangle used to symbolize two of the Hindu Gods, used as a symbol of
Shiva, and used as a symbol of Vishnu; this is when these are regarded as
two aspects of the One. The upward pointing aspect is taken as that of
Mahadeva, that is fire; when He moves upon the waters, Narayana takes this
symbol of the downward pointing Triangle to show the Deity evolving Matter,
and so making phenomenal manifestation possible. So you again get the symbol
of duality, in which you have the two Gods represented as one in Their
essence, and only two in Their manifestation - fire and water, positive and
negative, male and female, once again. That, to some of you, may throw light
on an obscure suggestion that you may find in the Scriptures as to this
inner relationship between the two great Gods of the Hindu faith.
Once more, in studying this, the story may come back to
your mind that ought always to strike at the root of all bitterness between
the modern sects - I use the word modern in comparison - who make the names
of the Gods dividing walls, instead of uniting forces. For you may remember
how a Shaivite worshipping in his temple felt a bitter hatred towards a
neighbour that worshipped Vishnu, and worshipped, not in true religious
[139] spirit, but in antagonism to the other, whose chosen aspect of the
God was different from his own. But lo! one day as he bowed before Mahadeva
with the thought of anger in his heart against him who worshipped Vishnu,
the image before him changed in aspect; it no longer stood there as Shiva
only, but it divided in twain; one side remained in the form of Mahadeva,
while the other side took the form of Vishnu, and the two together, no
longer twain but one, smiled at the worshipper. If in modern times that
story were understood, we should not see strife between two sects who
worship one God under different aspects, and who should feel themselves as
brothers, with no possibility of contention between them at all. And so
studying these symbols, we come to the realization of the Divine in them,
and to a clearer understanding of what underlies the outer form.
That leads me, following the same line of thought, to a
more concrete kind of symbol. I take a concrete one on purpose, so that I
may trace it in its evolution and show to you how the abstract idea which is
most congenial to the highly educated mind, gradually emerges from a symbol
that is more concrete, a symbol necessary if religion is to be made
intelligible to the unlearned and to the ignorant. Here you will permit me
to say one word a little aside perhaps from the subject, but not aside from
the controversies which are rending India today. There is no commoner attack
made [140] upon India in the West than what is called an attack on
its idolatry, and you will constantly find bitter jeers and scoffs uttered
by people who have been over here, who have seen idols and idol-worship, and
ceremonies performed to the idol, but who have never understood them - nay,
who have never taken the trouble to try and understand them, nor even to ask
the worshipper what to him is conveyed by such doings. These visitors,
looking at the outside with the prejudice engendered by foreign feelings, go
back to their own land, and then from many a platform speak of the poor
Indians as heathen, given over to idolatry, who ought to be taught a more
spiritual religion, and rescued from this degradation that presses on their
minds and hearts. Now this matter of idolatry is a very important one,
because it turns on this most essential question - shall there or shall
there not be accommodation to Ignorance? How may religion be made at once
the teacher of the most degraded and also the object of reverence to the
most highly instructed and the most aspiring minds? It is a hard problem to
deal with, for that which is fit for the education of the ignorant is not
fit for the philosopher and for the highly evolved thinker. The symbolism
that teaches the one is repellent to the other, and if you are going to say
that religion shall be exactly the same for one and all, then there are only
two possibilities before you. If religion is to be one and the same [141]
for all, you must bring it to the limit of the very lowest intellect and of
the least developed understanding; otherwise they will be shut out. If it
is to be the same for all, the philosopher must come down to the level of
the labourer or the child, and his noblest aspirations must find no grander
vehicle than that which is capable of being grasped by the most
thoughtless and the most uninstructed of the people. On the other hand, if
religion is to be useful to all, then you must permit differences to come
into it - differences of presentation, according to the mind that is to be
met. You must have a religion philosophic for the philosopher and childish
for the child - not because thereby you would drag down religion, but in
order that you may lift up the childish mind, and train it for the
possibility of future evolution, which may raise it to the greatest height
of religious thought. Now in the West a different method has been adopted.
In the West it has been attempted to make religion “so simple that a
costermonger can understand it”. In England that word implies, as a rule,
the very lowest intellectual ability and training, a man in the street with
a barrow, selling vegetables, who will be the representative of the outcaste
amongst yourselves. I was once told that Theosophy can never be useful,
because it is beyond the grasp of the costermonger. What has been the effect
on religious thought in Europe of thus lowering the intellectual side of
religion? Its effect has been [142] that the intellect of the people
has gone outside religion; you have a complete divorce between intellect and
religion, and the greatest minds refuse any longer to accept a religion that
outrages their highest aspirations, and in which they can find no food for
lofty spiritual emotions. That is the price which is paid for the dragging
down of the Divine Ideal, so that it may be grasped by the most ignorant
mind.
In India you have the other plan. You have the
recognition that men’s minds are in different stages of evolution, that that
which is true for the villager in his field is not true for the Brahman in
his place of meditation. Both have rights in the religious world, and both
have the possibility of the Spirit more or less evolved, therefore each
should be fed with the food suitable for its evolution. You should no more
feed the baby in intellect with the food of the man, than you should feed
the baby in body with the food which is intended to support a man in his
maturity. But that view means what is called idolatry; that means that you
preserve the highest spirituality at the price of being misjudged by those
who will not go underneath the outer sign of the idol. For the idol has
different meanings according to the mind which the worshipper brings to it.
The idol of the villager may be nothing more than some elemental form, to
which he bows down, and to which he brings a drop of water or a flower, to
which he strikes a [143] bell. To the Brahman, worship of such a
Deity would be degrading, but it means to that villager something
that he is able to recognize and to worship; and the worshipping act on his
part, the love and the faith that stir in him will open out the way
for spiritual life. If you gave him the abstract thought of the Brahman, he
would stand with open mouth, understanding nothing of its meaning; and you
then would not stir in his heart the first faint throbbings of spiritual
life. Let him have his idol which will be able to appeal to him, although it
would be to you a degradation to worship it, and let the first quiver of
spiritual life move within him. It will justify itself, it will begin
his spiritual evolution, and, life after life, it will carry him
onward to a higher, higher, and still higher view of Deity, until the Soul
which began with the ringing of a bell before an Elemental shall find its
home at the Lotus Feet of Mahadeva, lost in the radiance that ever flows
therefrom. That is what becomes possible when you realize that the Soul is
trained through many lives. If you have only one life and then for ever
after what is called Heaven, you must hurry everything on: otherwise
it is clear that when the Soul gets to Heaven it will find itself in a
perfectly incomprehensible position.
In order to show you how this idolatry may be
used, let me take, as I have taken elsewhere, an image that will
be familiar to you: the image of Mahadeva on Nandi, His vehicle, the
Bull. Now [144] in a town when a day of festival comes, the
image of the God is placed on this His vehicle, and is drawn through
the streets of the town. It will be seen by many men whose minds are in
different stages of evolution; to them it will convey different kinds of
ideas. Let us first take the Chhandogyopanishad and the meanings
which are given in that.
Brahman is there spoken of as sitting on the Bull, but I take the more
familiar form of Mahadeva on Nandi. What does it mean, taking it from the
popular standpoint? I am now merely quoting. The sky is symbolized
by the God, and the man who is called the theological worshipper will simply
see the outer image of the over-arching sky, which to him is a most
effective symbol of greatness and grandeur; for, than the sky which has in
itself the sun, the moon and the stars - what more impressive symbol can you
possibly have, what which would convey to the limited mind the idea of
infinity, of the boundless life which fills all space? So to him, if he has
been taught something at least of the meaning of symbols, the God will
stand for the over-arching sky; and the Bull on which He rides will be the
symbol of the world; and the four feet of the Bull, each of them having a
special name, will tell him something of the way in which the world or the
universe moves. For one foot will be Agni or fire, another foot will be
Vayu or the God of wind - the Great Breath, in [145] higher
parlance, of the Supreme; another foot will be the Sun, as it shines, giving
light to the world, and the fourth foot will be the quarters or the
divisions of the sky. So to his mind these would be conveyed by this symbol,
if some one would explain to him the idea of the over-arching care of the
Divine, resting on the manifested world, and the sun, the fire, the wind and
the quarters in the sky, all symbolized in these feet of the Bull that carry
onward the God, and so support and guide the life of the manifested
universe. Then some of you will seek after a subtler explanation that will
be given you; and this is called the intellectual worship. Then the God will
be the mind in man, and the God riding on His vehicle will be the mind
dwelling in the body. Then the feet of the Bull will not have lost their
significance, for one foot will be speech, another foot will be breath,
another will be vision, and another will be the bearing. And then
Shankaracharya teaches that as the four feet of the Bull carry the animal
wherever it desires to go, so does mind attain its objects through speech,
breath, vision and hearing, which bring the body and the Soul within it into
contact with the outer and material universe. Thus by means of these feet of
the Bull, the senses of the man, there may be carried inwards to the Soul
the knowledge which the Soul has come into manifestation to seek. So you
have your philosophic meaning of the idol as it passes through the streets,
[146] and it reminds you of the embodied Soul. And there is yet a
deeper meaning that you will not find thus plainly given, but which you may
work out for yourself or at least recognize when I give the explanation. Now
let the God stand for the Divine itself, for the Spirit that we seek, for
the highest manifestation - call It Brahman, call It Shiva, call It Vishnu,
give It what name you will; but recognize the One, the All, the
Indivisible, symbolized under this name and under this idol form. What then
will mean the feet of the Bull? They will mean states of consciousness,
whereby the Soul may climb upwards towards its Lord; so that foot after foot
of the Bull shall be state after state of the Soul by which it comes nearer
and nearer to the universal Spirit, until at last it shall find itself one
with It. One foot will be the waking state in which the Soul lives and moves
in its waking hours; the next foot will mean the Svapna state that we spoke
of yesterday, which in the Soul is taken as a second step towards the
Divine; the third foot will mean the Sushupti state, where one step more is
taken towards the Divinity; and the last foot will mean the Turiya state,
from which the Soul passes onward into unity with God. So that the loftiest
conception of the spiritual Philosophy is brought to the developed mind
when that symbol is seen. Thus I myself, familiar with this loftier view,
constantly having that in mind, had it brought back to my outer
consciousness with [147] intensity and vividness, when walking
through the temple of Madura, I saw an image, a sculptured form of the
Sacred Bull, which became to my mind not a mere bull, carved in stone, but a
voice that recalled the teaching that I had received of the states of
consciousness, and reminded me of the upward path which ended in the God.
Thus you may take what is called the idol and find in it what you bring to
it; and if you have no spiritual life within you, which brings to it its
real signification, you have no right to simply scoff at idolatry, which is
empty to you only because you are empty.
So again you may take the Puranas, full of
symbolism of the most complicated and difficult kind. If you want to
understand how that symbolism may be explained, turn to a single question
that you find dealt with in Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine; and
in the method of unravelling of one myth, you may possibly gain the key
which may enable you to unlock for yourself many another mystery. I
am only taking one out of a very large number of instances which she takes
from the Pauranic stories, explaining their different meanings. The one that
I select and to which I wish to draw your attention, and which I will not
work out in detail, for you can read it for yourself, is that of the Maruts
- the Gods of the wind and the children of Rudra, the Roarer, signifying the
tones and the fore of the wind manifested in [148] phenomenal shape.
First of all that represents a fact in Nature. It represents the fact that
behind every force in Nature there is an intelligence, that every natural
phenomenon has an entity connected with it, so that in the plainest sense
and the most obvious signification, these Maruts are entities that deal with
certain forms of manifestation in the phenomenal universe; and if you
understand them, their language and their powers, then the phenomena they
control become subject to your knowledge. To no evolved spirit will the
Maruts be objects of worship; they will be powers that he controls by his
own will; no Rishi would worship the Maruts, he would command them; but that
does not alter the fact that they are real entities, that they have their
real place in the Kosmos, that they are among the Devas, who are the
spirit-side of every physical phenomenon that you see; and if you lose that
fundamental truth of Occultism, and if in studying the physical phenomena
you see the phenomena only and not the Spirit that controls, then you are
simply blinding yourselves to the real lessons of Nature, and Matter has
achieved over Spirit its last triumph, for not only does it conceal Spirit
from physical vision, but also it conceals it from the Spirit that is in
man. The Maruts then in their lowest signification are entities - entities
connected with the atmospheric world, immediately connected with the
production of winds and under subjection to the trained and purified
will in man. [149] Then there is another signification, in which you
find them no longer as those entities in the Kosmos, but in their character
as the children of Rudra - that Rudra who once more is Shiva and once more
the Maha-Yogi. What then can be the signification of the children of the
Yogi, the children of the Virgin Ascetic? They become then the passions of
his nature, they symbolize the forces which he has mastered, and they
become, from this standpoint, the enemies of man, striving at first against
him; and then going higher, still keeping this symbolism of the ascetic,
those which were his children of the lower nature, the passions that he had
to conquer: they become the children of the higher nature, when the lower
has been conquered by the purified will of the ascetic in which all power
resides, and by them he may work in the external universe. Then you come to
the story in which Indra tries to destroy them, for the child is to be born
who is to destroy Indra himself, and Indra in this sense is the lower
manifestation of Nature - the God of the sky, the bearer of the thunderbolt,
symbolizing a manifested and physical Kosmos; and as the child to be born
shall destroy him (once again, the Marut), Indra casts forth his
thunderbolt, and in the womb he shivers the embryo into seven pieces, which
again are divided seven-fold. It is the lower that has checked the
development of the higher, and has turned into lower forma the forces that
ought to [150] have grown into the developed and purified will. And
so, step by step, bringing together all the different symbols that you may
find scattered through the Puranas, you will find that this
conception of the Maruts may be translated into most instructive
suggestions which may guide you in your own transmutation of your lower
forces into higher, and the change of Kama, that physically creates, into a
desire which in the Spirit is the source of all progress and the spring of
all true life. I mention this particular case, because many of you may be
inclined to study the matter - I ought not perhaps to say many - but if you
desire to carry on the study further, you will find, if you will use this
great teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, who was sent to us, as you ought to use her,
that is, by studying the knowledge that she was given to convey to us, and
using it as a clue to further knowledge, you may do for the world a service
whose value it is impossible to estimate. You may take your own Scriptures
with an accuracy of knowledge which she did not possess; you may take them
in their original form in Sanskrit, a language that she had not mastered;
and you may get from them in that language, the language of the Gods, using
the light that she has placed in your hands, many an inner meaning and many
a secret clue; then you may give these to the world and so carry on this
work which she was sent here to begin and not to finish. For it is hoped by
those [151] who sent her that if a stimulus were given, there might
be here and there a man amongst the Indian people who would spring forward
to the light, and taking it from her hand would carry it onwards, and bring
out of these ancient Scriptures a spiritual teaching, which is needed for
the helping of the world. If there should be one man here who was inspired
by this suggestion to study for himself, I should count it that her life
had borne here its true fruit; for her reward would be really won only if an
impulse were given to the spiritual life of the world.
And so I might take you through many another symbol, so I
might point out to you many another thing. Let me take what appears so
simple a case - a Brahman’s thread. What does it symbolize? What ought it to
represent? It symbolizes the triple nature of man, the lower, the middle and
the higher; it symbolizes those three planes of consciousness of which I
spoke yesterday; it symbolizes the three conditions of Atma, of which also
I spoke; it symbolizes in addition to these the body, speech and mind. Take
those signification, and then judge what it ought to mean when a man wears
it. The world knows who wears it, and to eyes that are trained that outer
symbol is either sanctified or desecrated according as it represents a
reality or a lie. For first of all as regards body, speech and mind, it
symbolizes the control of each; and therefore when the knots are tied in it,
[152] it means that the man who wears the thread has gained control
over body, speech and mind. It conveys to the eye that sees it the idea of a
man of perfect self-control, whose body can never betray him and whose
senses can never conquer him; whose speech can never soil nor hurt one ear
on which it falls, whose speech will he self-controlled, used only when
there is something to be said which is worth saying, never used for an
unkind word, for the Brahman is the friend of all creatures and his speech
must always help and must never wound. And not only does it symbolize the
man thus controlled in body and speech, but also it implies that control of
the mind has been achieved, and that the mind is held by the grip of the
triple cord with its knots upon it, so that it may serve as a helper to the
highest that is in him, and be used for the service of men to whom the
Brahman belongs. For the Brahman has no right of existence for himself; he
lives for the people and not for himself. If he lives for himself he is not
a true Brahman; he may have the outer signs of caste, he may have the triple
cord, he may use the sacred name, and he may even obey the rules of his
order; but these are only the outer shell. Only if he lives not for himself
but for the world, is be of the Brahman caste, standing as the spiritual
servant, which in the world he was to be. He came from the mouth of Brahma
that he might be the spoken word of the divine life among men. [153]
That is the meaning of the Brahman. Whenever I see the thread, I think to
myself whether it is a reality or not - does it represent a truth, or is it
only the survival of an ancient custom which has become the worst of
blasphemies? For the degradation of the highest to the lowest is the worst
of degradations, it is the poisoning of the world, for it poisons the
spiritual life in man. These words may seem strong, but they are of that
spirit on which the ancient Scriptures are based. They are no stronger than
Manu spoke; they are no stronger than may be found in such writings as the
Mahabharata; they are no stronger than may be read in many a
Purana; and if they seem a bitter irony today, as I know they do,
it is because I am speaking the words of the old world in the modern world,
and the contrast between theory and practice is too startling. Since,
however, the theory is true, I, while still an outcaste, recognizing the
fact, make no claim amongst you. I have none in my present condition, and I
give outward recognition to that caste which ought to manifest the holiness
of the Brahman. That is why I say that if India is to be regenerated, it
must come from this caste that symbolizes her past, and therefore has in it
the promise of her future, no matter what it may be today; that is why, when
I am asked to initiate reforms, I answer: “Let me serve you with
suggestion, with help, if you will, but let the leadership in reform
belong to the spiritual caste which [154] has the right of
leadership, so that in coming it may come without destruction, without
shivering the very foundation on which the future life of the people is to
be builded.”
I who say these things may seem to press unfairly on you,
for you are not personally to blame that the whole land has fallen; you as
individuals are a part of a great nation, and you with it have gone
downwards. But what shall I say to you, my Brahman brothers, you whom I
ought to be able to address as fathers? If I cannot do so, it is because I
know in many things more than you do; I, an outcaste, who ought to sit at
your feet as your pupil, cannot do so, because you have not the knowledge
to give me which the pupil has a right to claim from the teacher if he bows
down before him. I appeal to you, you of the spiritual caste, to uphold it,
and to recognize its present degradation. And if I speak these words which
seem to make a bitter contrast, it is because in your hands lies the
spiritual future of these people, because though the whole nation has
fallen and you have fallen with it, yet in you there is still the power that
ought to be able to begin the upward path; and though success will only be
by the toil of many generations, there is no reason why you should not begin
today. I know too well that in a moment you cannot do it, and I know that
for the time your cord must remain a mockery, and the nobler you are
the bitterer the irony you will feel in wearing it, because you know
[155] what it represented and how it has fallen. I say that not in
reproach, for who am I that I should reproach you? I say it in order that
here and there amongst you a desire for higher life may be born, for I would
send, even as by a thunderbolt, into your hearts the bitterness of the
degradation, so that the possibility of rising upwards may be realized once
more amongst men. For I would that each of you, feeling the degradation and
recognizing it, should not cast off the sacred cord, but begin to purify the
life and thus justify its wearing; and if only in small things a beginning
were made, the first upward step would be taken. For there are many lives
before us, life after life that stretches in front of you, a mighty caste
not able now to live up to its glorious traditions. And therefore I say, let
us take up the cup of our Karma, let us bear it onward bravely as brave men
should bear, not quarrelling with its weight inasmuch as we have made it
ourselves in the past; recognizing it as bitter, let us drink it, and in
drinking it, let its bitterness purify the soul, that we may gain strength
to change to all that we long for, and may be resolute to alter ourselves,
and so the spiritual purification of the people also shall begin. Then when
we come back to birth, as we shall come swiftly if our desire is to help the
people to whom we belong, then we shall find things a little better, and in
that better life we shall be able to work hand in hand when the triple cord
will have lost [156] the mockery between the wearing and the
meaning, and so life after life we shall lift the whole of this people that
has fallen in our fall, and will rise in our rise.
That is my last word to you in this hall, not a word of
reproach but a word of common sorrow, and of common aspiration for this
Hindu nation. We are responsible for it. Let us then begin the work of
reformation, and from generation to generation we shall work until India
shall rise step after step, and we shall place her again where she ought to
be and where in truth she always is - at the feet of the Great Gods. Though
the people do not see her there now, they shall see her there then; and then
the light that springs from the Lotus Feet shall envelope her, so that the
world shall worship her, and know that she is indeed the Spirit in the body
of Humanity. [157]
--------------------------------
See
The Secret Doctrine, i. 138; n.e. p. 162.
Svetashvaropanishad, v. 6.
A
student given to meditation may contemplate Point and Line, Cross,
Svastika, and study the connection of these with the Three Logoi.
.