Evolution and
Occultism
Essays and Addresses Vol. III
by
Annie
Besant
Madras: The Theosophist
Office
1913
Publisher's Preface
In addition to the
large number of volumes which stand in the name of Annie Besant in
the catalogue of the British Museum, there is a great quantity of
literature for which she is responsible, that has appeared in more
fugitive form as articles, pamphlets and published lectures, issued
not only in Great Britain but in America, India and Australia. Much
of this work is of great interest, but is quite out of reach of the
general reader as it is no longer in print, and inquiries for many
such items have frequently to be answered in the negative. Under
these circumstances the T.P.S. decided to issue an edition of Mrs.
Besant's collected writings under the title "Essays and Addresses."
It was originally intended to arrange the matter in chronological
order, commencing with the writer's first introduction to Theosophy
as reviewer of Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, but several
considerations determined the abandonment of this plan in favour of
the scheme now adopted, which is the classification of subject-matter
independent of chronological order. The Publishers feel sure that
this arrangement will especially commend itself to students who
desire to know what the Author has written on various important
aspects of Theosophy in its several ramifications, and for purposes
of study and reference the plan chosen should more effectively serve.
The dates and sources of articles are given in nearly all cases, and
they are printed without any revision beyond the correction of
obvious typographical efforts.
The importance and interest of such
a collection of essays, both as supplementing treatment of many of
the topics in larger works and as affording expression of the
Author's views on many subjects not otherwise dealt with, will be
obvious, and it only remains to express the Publisher's hope that the
convenience and moderate cost of the series may insure its thorough
circulation among the wide range of Mrs. Besant's
readers.
T.P.S.
London, May, 1913 Table of
contents
Introduction to the New
Edition
Title Page and Original
Preface
-
The Birth and Evolution of
the Soul, Part I (1895)
-
The Birth and
Evolution of the Soul, Part II (1895)
-
What is Theosophy? (1891)
-
The Evolution of Man (1893)
-
Materialism Undermined by Science
(1895)
-
Ancient and Modern Science
(1900)
-
Modern Science and the Higher
Self (1904)
-
Occultism, Semi-Occultism
and Pseudo-Occultism (1898)
-
The
Light and Dark Sides of Nature (1896)
-
The Destinies of Nations (undated)
-
The Hatha-Yoga and Raja-Yoga of India
(1906)
-
Men and Animals
(1903)
The Birth and Evolution of the
Soul, Part I
Two Lectures given at 19, Avenue Road, London,
in 1895.
These two lectures might better perhaps be described
as one lecture in two parts, for I am really going to try and give
you in the two a connected tracing of the progress of the soul. There
is so much confusion in thought as to the origin of the individual,
as to what the individual really means, as to how he is developed,
and what is to be his ultimate destiny, that I thought I could take
no better subject for a Lodge, which ought to be a Lodge of students,
than to trace out somewhat in detail this most important matter in
the light of Theosophy. Important, because on it turns your whole
view of the purpose of the Universe; and if the growth of the Soul
were better understood than it is, we should not hear the continual
questions asked as to why there should be a Universe at all, and why
there should be manifestation; why, if everything comes out of One
and goes back to One again, why this intermediate condition of
multiplicity should occur. The whole of these questions really turn
on misunderstanding, or on lack of accurate knowledge, and it is to
the clearing up of that misunderstanding that I am going to address
myself to-night and this night week.
In order to make the
origin of the individual clear, I must ask you to come back with me
to the time when the human race was evolving, but when, as yet, the
individual had not come into existence. Come back to what you know,
in Theosophical literature, as the first Race of man. You may
remember that--according to the teachings which you find in The
Secret Doctrine and in the great Scriptures of the world--you may
remember that the first Race had its bodies built up, as it were,
round a form that is said to have been derived from the Moon. The
Pitris, or ancestors, who afforded the first matrix for humanity, who
gave the first ethereal form through and by the help of which the
physical in man was to evolve--those are spoken of as the Lunar
Pitris, because of their connection with the Moon. Into that
connection I have not time to go in detail, but the traces of it are
around you on every side at the present time. You must be perfectly
well aware that the effect of the Moon upon the earth is marked and
constant, and above all you may notice that it is the measure in time
of all great physiological periods. The fact that you still find that
to be the case after so many millions of years should make it at
least not surprising to you when you read in ancient books that there
is a causal relation between the Moon and the Earth, and between the
ancestors of humanity and forms of living beings who existed on the
lunar globe in ages gone by.
Now these Lunar Pitris that
came and projected their astral forms, as it is said, in order that
the first Race of man might develop, came to the Earth, this Earth on
which we are now, which is the central globe in the ring of globes,
and they came to it--so far as we need trouble about it to-night--for
the Fourth Round; of course not for the first time, but 1 am ignoring
the first three Rounds. When they arrived at this globe for the
Fourth Round, they threw out these shadows--ethereal bodies, as they
are called. The reason--and 1 may as well mention it in passing--why
an ethereal body, or body of astral matter, should in point of time
come before the physical body that we know, is that you cannot have
any vital energies at work, you cannot have any electrical or
magnetic currents, or any of those currents which have to do with the
various phenomena of life and of chemical action, without the
presence of ether. So that it is not possible to draw together
physical molecules for the making of a dense body unless you have
what we may call a matrix of ether through which these forces are
able to act, and so to draw together, and hold together after they
are drawn, the physical molecules. In fact, every physical molecule
has its envelope of ether, and is permeated therewith, and it is by
means of this ethereal envelope of the molecule that these
life-forces are able to draw and hold the physical body together.
During the first and second Races of man, this physical body
was built up by the action of what are called Nature-Spirits, who
made this outer clothing of man, the tabernacle of flesh, as it is
sometimes entitled. Out of the first Race evolved the second; and of
the second evolved the third. No break; nothing that would be called
a new creation, but definite and sequential evolution. The materials
used in these bodies had been worked up in previous ages through
mineral and vegetable and animal, and so had taken on, as far as
their atoms were concerned, an internal differentiation, which is of
enormous importance when they enter into the body of the higher
animals and of man.
Man again is nearly the first being that
appears on this globe at the stage of evolution that we are
considering. Pass, then, from the first and second Races to the
third. When the third Race was evolving, slowly and gradually through
almost incalculable periods of time, the animal development took
place; that is, the development of the physical and astral bodies
went on during the first and second Races, and in the third that of
the body of sensation, as you know it in yourselves and in the lower
animals, the body which receives and translates into feeling all
impressions from without. Your outside body receives contacts from
the external universe, and certain parts of it are modified to answer
to those contacts; these modified parts we call the sense-organs, but
you are aware that the sense-organ in the body, while it answers by
way of vibration to any vibration of its own particular class that
comes to it from without, is not that which feels or perceives. This
vibration has to be transmitted inwards in a very real sense, and not
only inwards to the sense-centres, as they are called, in the brain;
but inwards from this again, by way of the astral body--and this
action shows itself always by the passing of electrical and magnetic
currents--into this third body that I am now speaking of, the body of
sensation. You may have a break between the outer impact and what we
call feeling, between the outer vibrations of the ether on the retina
of the eye and what we called sight. The power of sight, the power to
tasting, of smelling, of hearing, of feeling, all these powers reside
in this body of sensation, and that is, of course, why it has that
particular name. Now, the lower animals have this body as well as we.
You find it in the animals with which you are familiar around you.
They feel, and not only do they feel, but they show emotions,
passions, and appetites. You will see the passion of anger in some
animals; you will see sex passion; you will find hunger, thirst--all
these things are present in the lower animals, and we may group them
all together, in order that a single phrase may describe these
activities, as the "body of sensation," or, as it is often called,
the "body of desire."
As you are a Lodge of students, I
many venture to use a Sanskrit word, the word Kama. This body is
spoken of as the Kama body, Kama Rupa, which is only the Sanskrit for
"desire-body"; and I use the name because I want in a moment to quote
a phrase in which that word Kama occurs. In the animal it is
developed. Now, it is part of the truth of evolution that every stage
of an evolving organism contains within itself in germ the next stage
by which evolution is to proceed. Take what stage of evolution you
like in the outer world, and you will always find that at any stage
there is a germ which, if it proceeds, will develop into a new
individual. This is characteristic of all forms of living things, and
by the improvement from the germ evolution proceeds. You may take
vegetable, you may take animal, you may take man, take what you like:
always you will find that, if an individual is to be produced, a germ
will be present which is to form part-helper of his grown. Part
helper only; and this is always present in what is called the passiveside
of Nature.
You remember that if you go right back almost to the
beginning of things you find what are called the "pairs of
opposites," and the first appearance of these in the Second Logos is
often spoken of as being Spirit-Matter, in order to give the two
great poles of existence between which all organisation takes place.
Two characteristics mark those two poles. One of them is active, and
the other is passive; one of them is positive, the other is negative;
one of them is that which gives impulse, the other is that which
gives form; and these two are present everywhere, inseparable in
Nature. Right through Nature, not only in physical Nature but through
all realms of Nature, you will find this diversity; and without the
union of these two together you will find nowhere fresh growth,
progress in evolution. There must always be the stimulating force,
and there must be the form that develops. You may call them, if you
like, male and female, as in physical Nature; you may call them, if
you like, Father and Mother; but keep the idea plainly in mind,
because on this the understanding of the origin of the individual
soul depends.
Now, let me remind you of the line of
evolution, which is the line of form, which comes from the Moon
originally, and evolves downwards to Kama. This, I say, is found in
the animal just as it is in man, and you need to keep that in mind.
In that Kama, or desire--which builds a body with the power of
sensation, the power of not only answering to outside impact of
translating it into feeling--lies the root of self-consciousness.
Consciousness in germ is simply the power to respond to a vibration
that comes from outside; and when to that power of response there is
added feeling, then you get what we may call the "germ of mind"--not
mind, but its germ, the negative side of mind .in which and by means
of which mind may evolve.
If for a moment you will look at the
lower animals you will see a startling difference between the wild
and the domesticated. You will find in the domesticated animal very
much more of what you would call mind than you find in the wild
animal; and for a very simple reason, that you will see as we go on.
If you take the wild animal that has never come across man at all,
you will find in it plenty of response to the impacts of the external
world; but you will find in it comparatively little reasoning, little
judgment, little linking together of inner sensation and outer
object, unless the object be present, or unless some craving of the
organism gives an impulse to action. Food, for instance, being within
the sight of an animal, even if it is not very hungry, will cause
movement towards the food; or the craving of the organism for
sustenance will make it seek for food. .But you do not get in the
wild animal much of what may call "ideal action," action without an
impulse which comes from bodily necessities, or from the presence of
an external object: that is, you have not there present much of what
we know as mind, of which the lowest and earliest manifestations are
the connection between an outer object and an inner sensation, and
the power of recalling that connection and acting upon it without the
object being present--the qualities which technically are called
perception and recollection.
At this stage, then, of this
single line that I have brought down thus, we have got as far as the
development of Kama, in which is the germ of mind, the stage in
which, if there is to be a higher evolution, some impulse from
without must be given. The passive side of Nature, brooded over by
the Divine Spirit, could not by itself get any further than this
stage--the development of a germ; and when you have the body of
desire present, that contains in it this germ of mind; think of it
now, if you like, as the female or mother side of Nature.
Now,
for a moment leaving this altogether, take an analogy from lower
Nature. Let me ask any of you who happen to be botanists--and
probably all of you know enough of botany to follow the
illustration--to take what is called the ovule of a plant, that which
develops into a seed; left to itself that ovule which is in the
female organ will never be anything more than an ovule: it will
simply wither up and perish But it contains within it all the
nourishment by means of which a new plant will grow; it has stored
up, as it were, a stock of food, if any new life, an individual,
should there begin But an individual cannot begin there simply by the
action of the ovule itself; it needs a stimulus which comes from the
contents of the male organ of the plant, the pollen, and if that
pollen throws out a minute cell which enters the ovule and comes into
contact with the germ cell within the ovule, then there will be an
interaction between these two microscopic cells, and by the union of
the two a new impulse will be given, and an individual will result
which will develop for a time within this ovule which has now become
the seed, and after a time will show marks characteristic of its
parents; but it will separate itself from the parents and carry on
life on its own account, having its own root, its own stem, and its
own leaves. The starting-point of that is the junction of the two
microscopic cells, differing in their nature, the one positive,
impulse-giving, fertilizing, the other receptive, passive, nutrient,
showing the characteristics of the two sides of Nature. Now we have
here got the passive nutrient side developed along this line which I
characterized as lunar--coming from the moon. It is the side of form,
and it may perhaps interest you to notice that it is the side that
receives from outside, the passive side again, and that all these
emotions and everything else in it are set up in answer to this
impulse from without, thus showing its characteristic as the
receptive or female side.
Now, in past Universes a process of
development has gone on similar to that which is going on in the
present world to-day; in those past Universes minds were developed as
we develop minds now, and their process of development will be
clearer when you follow the process of development amongst ourselves.
The minds that developed in those preceding Universes, that passed
into Nirvana, that passed out of Nirvana again at the beginning of
the present age, have many names both in The Secret Doctrine
and in other books. Let us take the name of "Sons of Mind" because it
describes their most salient characteristic. They are sometimes
spoken of under the name of Kwanaras, which means "youths," sometimes
they are called Solar Pitris; but I prefer to take the name most
often used in The Secret Doctrine, where of course you get it
in the Sanskrit form, Manasa Putra; we will take it in English, as
"Sons of Mind." They have developed Intelligence. Now what is
Intelligence? Intelligence is the result of vital activity working in
a particular form of matter and developing connecting links between
the external Universe and itself. It is a thing of slow growth; it is
made by experience; it is evolved, it does not come into existence
suddenly. Intelligence is the outcome of these repeated contacts, and
of the working of life on the contacts; so that you never can get
Intelligence apart from organism. You have something which may be
called the Supreme Life; but it is a mistake to speak of It then as
Intelligence; it is higher and deeper and sublimer than anything we
know as Intelligence, and Its processes are far beyond and above
everything that we call thought. Thought always consists in this
linking together of the external and the internal, of making ideal
links between the two, and hence images--ideas, as we call them; and
Intelligence is only developed by the Supreme Life manifesting
Itself, as what we for want of a better word, are obliged to call
Spirit in the English tongue--Atma is the familiar name in our own
philosophy--by thus manifesting Itself in the subtlest form; and then
gradually working through matter and thereby evolving what we call
Intelligence. That is, all these connecting links that go to build
mental faculties.
This process then had gone on in a past age, so
far as these great Sons of Mind are concerned; these mighty Spiritual
Intelligences had accomplished what we are aiming at now. They are
the successful men of past ages, who have developed into perfect men,
perfect Intelligences, and now are, so to speak, co-operating in the
building of a new race, co-operating in the production of a new
humanity. But up to the point at which we are, they had taken no part
in this evolution that had been going on--the physical side, the
evolution of form. Now from These is to come a second line, from the
Sons of Mind, Lords of Light, They are called sometimes Pillars of
Light, and so on; These coming down to the Earth, when the
Tabernacles were ready to receive Them came to give the necessary
impulse in order that at this point of junction a new individual
might arise, and afforded the active, impelling positive energy.
You remember at the beginning of the second volume of The
Secret Doctrine, those Stanzas called the Stanzas of Dzyan, which
deal with the Evolution of Man. They have been said lately by Mr.
Coleman to be purely modern productions; but they were never found
out in modern writings until Madame Blavatsky found them. But leave
that to return to this. You will find it said that when these Sons of
Mind came down, "from their own Rupa they filled the Kama." That is
why I was obliged to trouble you with this word, because I wanted to
quote that particular Stanza: "From their own Rupa they filled the
Kama." Coming down to animal-man they threw part of Their own nature
into him, filling the Kama wherein the germ of sensation and feeling
had been evolved, and They contributed to that the spark of
intelligence. And so again in one of those same Stanzas it is said:
"Some projected a spark."' The more careful readers amongst you may
remember it is said: "Some entered. . . . Those who entered became
Arhats." Those are the great Teachers of Humanity in the earlier days
of our Race--the fourth and the fifth Races, and the third and a
half. The Great Teachers---Those who took this infant Humanity under
Their care, and trained it, Those who absolutely entered into these
bodies that were prepared, with Their highly developed
Intelligences--were the mighty Adepts of the past; They formed what
were called the nurseries of Adepts for the present age; the Great
Teachers who came in order that this infant Humanity might be guarded
and protected and helped in its earlier stages. With Them, so far as
ordinary Humanity is concerned, we need not deal; They entered in and
took these bodies as Their vehicles. But They also, some of Them,
projected the spark which fell into the kamic receptacle: Their
essence filled it. Now the individual begins where that union takes
place. Before that there is no Ego in man; before that there is no
Soul in man in the full sense of the term, although the word Animal
Soul is occasionally used for the feelings, emotions, and so on. The
lower Soul this is often called, or the Animal Soul; but the true
Ego, that which is capable of achieving immortality, is not there.
Remember how that phrase is used sometimes; it has not necessarily
immortality in itself, although it has in it the power of achieving
immortality, by virtue of its connection with these immoral Sons of
Mind, Who have already achieved. Man may become immortal "if he
will." That was a phrase used, you may remember, in one of the
letters from Master K. H. to Mr. Sinnett, published in The Occult
World; part of the : work of the Society was there said to be to
teach man that he may become immortal if he will, not that he
necessarily is immortal, but that he may achieve immortality.
Immortal in the essence of the Soul? Yes; but not in its developed
self-conscious intelligence. For intelligence has to be worked out
and built up by slow degrees; intelligence has to be evolved by this
spark, working through the matter into which it has come, and unless
it works successfully, acquires experience slowly, and gradually
builds it up into faculty in the course of that pilgrimage of the
Soul that lies in front of our thought, immortality will not be
achieved. For it is necessary, in order that immortality may be
achieved, that this which is to acquire experience and build up
accumulated experiences shall regain unity. That which is compounded
does not last; that which is compounded will be at some time
disintegrated; only the unit persists. The individual begins at this
point, and he is a compound. He will weave into his own existence all
these endless experiences, and will become so to speak, more and more
compound--a more and more complex combination. But this has in itself
the seed of destruction; everything that thus goes on combining has
in it the conditions of disintegration, and the compound
disintegrates. How, then, can this compound achieve immortality? By a
process of unification that will form the last stages of its
pilgrimage; by that Yoga, or union, which will make it again the One.
Having achieved individuality by many, many incarnations, through
which this individuality will be built up, it then unifies all these
experiences, and by a subtle alchemy extracts as it were a unit
experience out of the multiplicity, and in a way beyond words--beyond
words because it is beyond brain experience and thought, but which is
not beyond the "sensing " of some who have at least begun the
process--this individual evolves into a unity higher than its own
combined nature; and while it may be said to lose individuality as we
know it, it gains something which is far greater. Without losing the
essence of individuality it re-becomes a unit consciousness, and by
that becomes incapable of disintegration and achieves its final
immortality. But here is the beginning point--and on that I want to
lay a good deal of stress--that it begins then, that before that the
Ego which is now in each of you was not in existence as Ego, any more
than the plant which will develop from a germ, if the germ be
fertilised, is in existence before that fertilisation takes place.
True, that which will form it exists, because there is no increase
either of energy or of matter; but the combination which makes the
new individual does not exist until the junction has taken place, and
the Ego does not exist before this union has taken place. It is there
that originates the individual. You will forgive me for repeating
that so often. But this is the point where the mistake comes in, and
where there is so much confusion in thought; and it is because of
that that I am laying stress upon it, in order that you may have
clearly in your minds this fact: that individuals begin in each
Manvantara or Age, that the purpose of each Universe is the evolution
of individuals, that the Universe comes into existence in order that
individuals may be born, that it is maintained in existence in order
that individuals may be evolved, that when it passes out of
manifestation its harvest is the perfected individuals who regain
unity and outlast the Universe, passing into what is called Nirvana,
to re-emerge for a new Universe as Sons of Mind, if in the former
Universe they have been completely successful. There are other
intermediate stages, points where failure may come in--and where
evolution may have to be taken up again as it were midway, points of
failure in one Universe that do not throw back the fallen, as Master
K. H. pointed out, to the beginning of things again, but are such as
to allow them to take up their evolution at the point where it
ceased. The failures of one age become, so to speak; the pioneers of
another. But leaving those complications out of consideration, the
harvest of every Universe is these triumphant individuals, who have
evolved unity out of diversity, and thus have achieved their
immortality.
Realising that, then, let us take our
individual and see what kind of an entity this is at its origin. And
I think I will throw in here a very, very brief digression, which
will make it a more living thing to you. Take one of the lower
animals. Now we will come to the domesticated. I mentioned that with
regard to the wild animal there is the germof mind, but very little
that you can really call mind. Suppose you take an animal and
domesticate it, and suppose you domesticate it for generations, you
will have handed on in the three bodies of that animal--the physical,
the astral, and the kamic--you will have handed on a very definite
heredity; and if these individuals are domesticated time after time
you will find greater and greater intelligence, as it may be called,
evolving.
Now, supposing that you take a puppy, and supposing
that from that puppy's birth you keep it continually with yourselves,
and you do not permit it to associate with the lower creatures, but
you keep it with yourselves. Some lonely person, for instance, takes
a puppy, and it is always with him or her; what is the result? The
result is that in that puppy, as it grows up, there is developed a
startling amount of some quality that you are forced to call
Intelligence. You will develop in it a limited reason; you will
develop in it a limited memory; you will develop in it a limited
judgment. Now, these are qualities of the mind, not qualities of
Kama. How is it that in this lower animal these qualities are
developed? They are developed artificially by the playing upon it of
the human intelligence. To that animal the mind in you to some extent
plays the part which the Son of Mind plays to Humanity; and thrown
out from the comparatively developed Intelligence in man, these rays,
these energetic rays of mental influence, vitalize the germ in the
Kama of the animal and so produce artificially, as it were, an infant
mind.
Now I say that, in order that you may realise more
clearly perhaps than otherwise you would, the first slow stages of
the growth of mind. Let me say that this process is not good of the
animal, and it is not good for the human being who does it. Neither
the one nor the other is the better for the process, in fact very
often both are exceedingly the worse, and it is not a wholesome
practice--this over stimulation of the domesticated animal and this
artificial forcing of a mental life for which the animal body is not
yet fitted, for which the animal nervous system has not yet developed
he proper natural basis, and in which it is really forced, in a kind
of artificial hot-house, to the detriment of the creature, and
probably to its retardation in a later stage of its existence.
But it is well to remember that there is no such thing as a
break in nature; every evolution is sequential, and it is therefor
possible to force evolution in this way, although it be unwise. *1
Coming back from that
little digression, let me take up again my infant Soul, to whom I
will give the name of the baby Ego, and he is very much, as regards
his metal capacities, what the new-born baby is as regards his power
of manifesting these faculties. Of course, the new-form baby has
mental faculties which very soon force the brain to prepare itself
for their manifestation, so that there is not a real analogy between
the two. The want of knowledge, so to speak, in the new-born baby is
simply due to the clumsiness of the instrument; the brain is new, and
it takes some little time for the links to be set up between the
instrument and the player. But the player is there, when you are
dealing with our race at the present time, and therefore we have not
really the condition in which the Ego itself is in the state of
baby-hood.
Now this entity which has thus been formed at this
junction of the two lines, and which I call the baby Ego, is
absolutely ignorant. It has no mind, it has no thought, it has
nothing more than the sensation it gets from Kama at present, except
the power of evolving which it has received from the stimulating
spark of the Son of Mind. Sensations are there; it has to make the
link which we call perception. How will that link be made? The
sensation will be
caused by way of the body through which it has
come into contact with some external object. Let us say that the
body, by the mouth, comes upon an external object which gives rise to
a pleasantsensation of taste--something which is sweet. The animal of
course has developed this already, and in the body it will be a habit
that when it sees this thing, or feels hunger, it will go towards it.
The baby Ego will experience the sensation which is pleasurable, but
it will only be a momentary sensation, and at first apparently
nothing more--a little impact on this germ of mind; over and over
again such an impact will take place. At last there is set up in this
baby Ego by this repetition a connecting link between the external
object that gives rise to a pleasant sensation and the pleasant
sensation, and it will thus make its first thought. This
connecting link between the external and the internal, between the
contact which comes from an outside object and the pleasure which
that contact gives, will be what is called a "percept," and you have
in perception the first activity of the mind; when this perception
has been repeated over and over and over and over again, it will be
remembered, and conscious memory begins.
Built up in this baby
by these repeated contacts, and repeated pleasurable sensations, and
repeated connections between the object and the sensation, at last
memory will develop which is the ideal contact; the idea is built out
of a number of these sensations. And that faculty of memory will be a
faculty of the baby Ego which will be evolved by these constant
experiences; and it will take a long time evolving--perhaps a whole
life, or part of a life. I cannot measure it off; but I want you to
realise that it is a thing which will take a considerable time, that
the memory will be a thing which will need much experience at this
early stage, before it will really become recognisable and
workable.
There are human beings even at the present time in
which this faculty of the Soul is so little developed, that it will
not last over even twelve hours, and in which heir view of the world
is quite different in the morning and in the evening. Some of the
lowest aborigines in Australia in whom the spark has burned very low,
in whom it has not developed and grown, are on record as having so
little memory that they cannot remember through the course of a whole
day, and blankets given away in the evening will be clung to because
the night has begun and the night is cold. But when the next morning
comes round and the immediate use for the blanket is over, and while
they do not want the blanket they do want food--the food is an
immediate want, but the blanket won't be wanted till evening--some of
them have not sufficiently developed what we should call the idea of
invariable sequence in their minds to remember that night will come
back again after the day is over, and that the blanket which they do
not want while the sun is out they will want when the sun has set.
The sunset of yesterday is, so to speak, a past incarnation to them,
and they do not carry on the memory through the night; therefore,
they will part with their blanket for a mere trifle in the morning,
although they will not part with it in the evening--a most striking
illustration of the baby sense, if I may so call it, of the Ego which
is incarnated in these aborigines. They are dying off very fast, and
no English government will be able to keep them alive, because their
work is done. A race dies when it is of no more use to the Soul; it
becomes sterile when its purpose in the evolution of the Soul is
over. For as the Universe only exists for the sake of the Soul, so
all these stages in the Universe exist for the Soul, and when there
are no more Souls so little developed that such a race is of any use
to them, it becomes sterile and gradually disappears. I do not mean
when it is helped to disappear by the superior races, though that is
often the case; but even if they do not help it to disappear rapidly,
it will inevitably disappear slowly on its own account, by the
barrenness which falls upon it. It is of no more use, therefore it
does not continue
That illustration may give you some idea of
what the spark is like in its early stages, as youfind it in these
sparks that have burned low and not developed. Memory will be very,
very slowly developed, but when it is developed, even in a limited
way, you will at once see that an element is present conducing to
more rapid growth, because the moment that this baby remembers past
experiences it is then beginning to accumulate a little store which
will impel it to action without impulse from without. It will have an
impulse beginning from within which will lead it to seek experiences.
Farther, not until it has memory can it distinguish, in their
absence, between pleasurable and painful experiences, good and evil,
as it will call them, and so begin to develop in itself a power of
comparison and selection, i.e., of judgment, which will serve as a
guide for action. Let me take the case of taste, which I chose
before. It was pleasurable. Of course, some tastes will be
unpleasant, and those will be marked off as painful, to be avoided.
So that the Ego will get, as it begins to remember, two classes of
things in the outer world; one labelled in its own mind--if I may
call it mind at this stage: "pleasure; to be sought, to be followed;"
and the other labelled: "painful; to be avoided, to be run away from,
to be escaped." And at this stage, the Universe, so to speak, will
divide itself into two for this baby Ego, things to be run after and
things to be run away from. It will not have gone any further than
that. Going out into an unknown world where it comes into contact
with objects, the first great division will be things that it wants,
and things that it does not want; and the wanting or the not wanting
will depend on whether it meets something which it desires to repeat
because it gives it pleasure, or something which it desires to avoid
repeating because it gives it pain. This is the beginning of
experience. In this way it will begin, as it accumulates these
experiences of pleasure and of pain, to learn something more; it will
begin to learn that this world that it has come into is a very
definite kind of thing, and that it has got to accommodate itself to
it; it will find some things in it that do not give way, and that if
it runs up against those things certain unpleasant results always
follow. Memory of course is wanted for this, to notice that always
the same thing comes from the same object under the same
circumstances; and when sufficient of these sensations have been
accumulated to give rise to the definite idea that doing a particular
thing will cause pain, there is the first glimpse of law, of
something external to itself which it cannot overcome, which throws
it back, as it were, and gives what it feels as pain, something
repellent when it comes against it. So the idea begins to arise that
not only are some things to followed and others to be avoided, but
that the things which are to be followed, and which are
pleasure-giving, are things which are good--which only means at first
harmonious--and that others are inharmonious and unpleasant and
therefore "evil"; that there is a law of pleasure and of pain to
which it must adapt itself if it wants to live in comfort, that
nothing that it can do will break this law, and that therefore it
will be wise to accommodate itself to the law. This observation of
sequence will be made by our baby Ego and will give rise to the idea
of Law, and of the need to adapt itself to these laws if it is to
live at all comfortably. And then a little more will come as the
experience goes on; that sometimes a thing begins by giving pleasure
and goes on by giving pain--a most confusing experience. Let us cling
to our taste. The body of our baby Ego eats and pleasure is felt;
because of this it makes the body go on eating till it eats too much.
It then finds that by repeating this gratification pain has come
where there was pleasure. It makes its body ill, and it gets a new
view of the outside Universe--that the gratification of this which
began by being pleasurable works out into pain, and that the pleasure
which began in flavour may end in most uncomfortable aches; and not
only so, but, persisted in, may cause perennial aches which later on
it will know as disease. This very much emphasises its idea of law,
and it begins to accumulate now a sequential experience of different
pleasures and pains, and to realise that it bears a certain
relationship to these outside contacts; it learns that it is not the
outside object in itself that is pleasure-giving or pain-giving, but
some relation that arises between itself and the outside object--a
great advance--and that these outside objects are neither
pleasure-giving nor pain-giving in themselves, but only in relation
to itself, the same thing sometimes giving the one and sometimes
giving the other. So that the idea of pleasure and pain, in this
further experience of our baby Ego, will go on into the relationships
that itself sets up with the outer world, and that change the
character of the outside impact from pleasurable to painful. And then
the law will begin to take on, as it were, a compelling power, and it
will realise that it can adapt itself to this strange external
apparent change, and that by adapting itself it can persist in
pleasure or persist in pain, and that the pleasure and pain will
depend on its attitude to the outer world. And so this next lesson of
experience will be learned. And there I must leave my baby Ego for
to-night, having reached as far as the recognition of an outer world,
the receiving of pleasure and of pain, the recognition of relations,
therefrom evolution of memory, evolution of judgment--which
recognises the relationship as having in itself this difference of
pleasure and pain--so that we have the beginnings of perception,
memory, judgment--three things that are wanting for what we call
reason of an elementary kind. Reason only exists certainly in the
baby Ego as a mere germ; and we will leave him as he passes through
death, carrying with him these germinal mental faculties which he has
evolved. We cannot say how much progress would be made in one of
these early lives; probably many lives would be needed to arrive at
the stage just described. In order to make our study complete in
outline, let us take him at the end of his first life, to see the
principle underlying post-mortem evolution. Let us see him
having begun his pilgrimage and passing for the first time through
the gate of death. On the other side of that we will leave him to
take him up again next week.
*1 It is with
much inner pleasure that I find that a statement current in
Theosophical circles, and repeated by me above, is incorrect in fact.
It seems, with regard to some animals at least--as the dog and the
cat--that the development caused "by the playing upon it of human
intelligence" is well caused, and lifts the animal forward, so that
the germinating individuality does not return to animal incarnation,
but awaits elsewhere the period at which its further development
shall become possible. The "forcing" is therefore helpful and
beneficial, not harmful, and we may rid ourselves of the incongruous
idea that, in a universe built on and permeated by Love, the
out-welling of compassion and love to our younger relatives is
injurious to them. There are a good many Theosophists, I think, who
will share my pleasure in getting rid of a view against which one's
instinct secretly rebelled.
The Birth and Evolution of the
Soul, Part II
You will remember that last week we left
what I called the baby Ego having passed through the gateway of
death. Now I spoke of his passing for the first time through the
gateway of death, because I wanted to take up for a few moments the
post-mortem states in order that we might have as it were
before us for the rest of the study of the pilgrimage this complete
cycle: the life upon earth, the life in the transition state beyond
death, the life in the Devachanic state--the life of the Soul
properly so-called, the intellectual and intelligent life. Those
three stages, being the three divisions of the pilgrimage completing
a single period, are repeated over and over again, succeeding each
other in this definite way, all bearing to each other a definite
relation, so that unless we understand each of the three we shall not
be able to follow with any intelligence the pilgrimage of the Soul or
the growth of the Ego.
When, however, this germinal Ego that
I spoke of last week passes for the first time through the gateway of
death, it has exceedingly little material for these stages that lie
on the other side of that gateway. The first stage is that which may
be called--translating the term--the Land of Desire. You will
remember that desire is Kama, and Loka is place; so that this land or
place of desire is called, in Theosophical books, Kama Loka; that is,
a place inhabited by Souls still clad in the desire or sensation body
that we studied last week. The Ego in this body dwells there for a
time--but not only the Ego of man. It is the place where these bodies
of sensation and desire survive the physical and the astral bodies;
so that you have there these desire or sensation bodies of the lower
animals as well as those which are inhabited by the Human Soul.
Now, when our baby Ego is at this very early stage of his
life there will be in him a great deal of the lower element of Kama
or desire, and scarcely anything at all of the higher element of
Mind. His stay then in this Kama Loka will be for a considerable
period, and all that he will do there is to experience pleasant or
painful results according as the life which has been led on the
physical plane--which has been led upon earth--has been in accordance
with law or discordant with law. The life there is exceedingly
limited, and is simply a result from the life upon earth. Nothing new
is introduced into it; it is a life in which there is a great deal of
repetition, in which an experience is repeated over and over and over
again. And this automatic action, as we may call it, is one of the
great characteristics of this Kamic body, or body of sensation. You
know how easily habits are set up--habits of the physical body,
especially habits which are connected with the passions and with the
emotions. The great root of these habits lies in the body of
sensation with its peculiarly strong automatic tendencies. Those are
impressed on the outer body, although, of course, the habit of
repetition in the physical body will also come in to some extent.
When the Soul has passed out of this transitional state it
leaves behind it this body of desire, just as in leaving the earth it
left the physical body. The bodies belong to certain definite stages
in the Universe, and the Soul cannot carry on any body with which it
has been clothed further than the stage in the Universe to which that
body belongs. It cannot carry the physical body away from the
physical plane; it cannot carry the astral body out of the lower
astral world; it cannot carry this body of sensation out of the
transitional state, known as the land of sensation or desire. And
when it has worn it out sufficiently to allow it to escape, when it
has exhausted, so to speak, this body of desire, which has been
nourished in the sensational life of earth, then it passes on into a
higher condition, into a higher sphere, where the whole of its work
is the work of the mind, all higher aspirations, all thoughts which
are devoid of passion and of appetite, everything which is
intellectual as distinguished from what is passional, all the higher
emotions which have in them this element of mind as well as the lower
element of passion--these, purified from passion, will be carried on
into this higher world. And the length of the stay of the Soul in
that world depends on the amount which during its earth-life it has
accumulated of mental experiences, and of experiences of the higher
emotions, of the artistic faculties, and so on, everything in fact
which has to do with the mind. Understanding that, you will see at
once that when the Soul first passes through the gateway of death
there will be scarcely anything for it to carry on into this higher
condition, hardly any experiences which it can use for the
development, as it were, of mental faculty. Still, the very few
experiences that it has acquired during its first life in the body,
which are not kamic, will be carried on. What will be its work then
in this higher world? It will be to extract from these separated
mental experiences their essence, and to transmute that essence by
working upon it with this energy of the Soul, transmute that essence
into mental faculty, or mental ability. The work that the Soul
accomplishes when it is out of the body, when it can no longer gather
fresh experiences, when it has lost the three bodies through which
experiences can alone be collected, the work of the Soul is then to
take up the mental images remaining from these experiences, and,
working on them, to take out of them their essence. Just in the same
way that a chemist might take a number of chemical elements, might
throw them into a crucible, and then purifying them from dross might
extract the elements themselves and combine them in the crucible; so
does this chemist, as it were--the Soul--by the alchemy of its own
mental ability, the thought power which it has developed, working on
these accumulated and separated experiences, throwing them into the
crucible of the mind, extract from them their essence, and then
taking that essence it assimilates it, makes it part of itself, works
it into its own nature, or--to use the phrase that I used two or
three times last week--weaves these separated experiences into
itself, and so begins to make a real garment of the Soul, which is
the character of the Soul, and which will reappear as character when
it comes back to earth. Everything that the Soul brings with it of
mental faculty, everything that is born, as we say, with the child,
the powers of the mind which the child shows--the whole of these are
brought back by the Soul as the result of its workings on past
experiences while it is living in the world of the Soul, the world
that we call Devachan in our Theosophical literature, which simply
means the land of bliss. As I say then, in these early experiences
there will be very little for the Soul to work upon in this blissful
land; but when it comes back even after this first period is
completed, and comes to be born for the second time upon earth, it
will have what it did not have at the beginning--a little germ of
mental faculty. That is the small result in faculty which it has
brought back by working on the few experiences that it accumulated
during its previous life. It will start then at a certain advantage
in this second period of its pilgrimage; it will start with certain
tools, as it were, ready made to its hand, which it has fashioned for
itself during this interlude in the world of the Soul; it will come
back with a nascent memory, with a nascent power of comparison, very,
very small certainly, but still, so to speak, better than none; and
it will work through that on the new experiences that come to it by
way of sensation from the outer world.
Through this life,
then, again it will pass, having this advantage now, that it has a
little mental faculty to go upon which it can increase. As it goes on
experiences increase, its power to receive the experiences being
greater, and this mental element mixing itself up with the emotional
and the passional nature. So that wenow speak of the mind, or as we
call it, Manas--the word from which our own word man is derived, and
which really means the thinker: the great characteristic of the man
being that he thinks. This Manas, then, now coming back, small as its
powers are, will modify and change the whole of the kamic nature, the
passional nature; and all that this Ego now experiences will have in
it the two elements--the element of passion which belongs to its
passional nature, and the element which comes from this mind which is
developing, which tends gradually more and more to observe, and to
compare, and to make record of its experiences, and to store them up
in order that it may direct its action by them. At first all the
actions will grow from outer attraction; presently against the outer
attraction there will be working the images of past experiences. So
that, to take up the illustration that I used last week of taste,
when there is a strong attraction from without of a taste which it
knows will be pleasurable, excess will be guarded against by the
mental image which has been preserved of the pains that in previous
experiences were the result of over-gratification of taste. So that
now you will have this double element. And remember that the element
of the mind is increasing, while the other element is more or less
stationary. As the Soul passes from life to life, and in each life
accumulates experiences, in each transitional stage after death
suffers from the animal appetites which hold it prisoner from going
on into the happier world, and then in that happier world works upon
experiences and changes them into faculties, it will always have an
accumulating stock of faculty, an accumulating store of memories,
while the outer attractions will remain comparatively the same, and
action will be more and more directed by reason and less and less
directed by appetite.
Now, understanding that you will be
fairly able, I think, to trace, so to speak, the stages of this
pilgrimage of the Soul: you see the elements that enter into the
pilgrimage; you see the tools with which the Soul will have to work
improvements, if it uses its experiences well in the successive
incarnations; and you will also understand that on the accumulation
of these experiences, and the working upon those experiences in the
blissful land, will depend the more rapid or the slower growth of the
faculties of the Soul--that is, whether it will grow rapidly, or will
grow slowly, or moderately, whether the pilgrimage shall be
comparatively swift or very much delayed. You will see also how the
Soul may often be thrown back, how a very strong attraction from
without may overbear, say, a comparatively small store of accumulated
experiences; and then the Soul will make a mistake, will go against
the law, and will suffer.
How should we regard such an
experience when we are studying this pilgrimage of the Soul? Is it a
matter for very great regret? Is it a matter for extreme grief and
sorrow?
Think it out for yourselves and you will see the way
in which this wider view of life will regard any mistake, any
blunder, any fall, any sin. Sin is disharmony with law. So long as
the law is not understood, desire will constantly be drawing the Soul
outward without regard to this law of which it knows nothing, and
striking on the law it will feel pain. Suppose then that it has not
accumulated a sufficient store of these painful experiences to make
it realize the presence of the law; or suppose that having
accumulated sufficient experience to recognize the presence of the
law, it has not accumulated sufficient to overbear the strong drawing
of attraction to the external object; then the very experience of
wrong-doing is a necessary stage in its education. For the pain that
results from the wrong-doing will add to the store of experience that
the Soul is gradually accumulating, and will make it stronger against
the temptation in the future by this new suffering which it has found
must inevitably result from coming into conflict with the law. So
that instead of being heart-broken over a failure, those who see from
life to life and look on the pilgrimage of the Soul as a great whole,
and not simply in the fragments that ordinary persons see in looking
at it, they can see with calmness these blunders that the Soul makes,
knowing that they are the result of insufficient experience, and that
the very fall will supply an added experience which will help the
Soul to stand when it comes into a similar position in the future.
And there is no more reason for extreme sorrow over these blunders of
the growing Soul than, to use a simile that I have often used before,
there is reason for the mother to break her heart because the child
may stumble when it is learning to walk. If the child is hurt she may
feel sorrow for the child's pain, but she certainly will not go into
a state of frantic despair about it. She will know that these tumbles
are a necessary part of the education of the child in gaining
equilibrium, and will know that every tumble it has will make the
tumbles of the future less likely to occur.
Now, that is not a
callous way of looking at things; it is a wise way; and as knowledge
grows wisdom gives balance to contemplate calmly many things that
otherwise would be distressing and disturbing in the very highest
degree. Calmness, which is a characteristic of wisdom, comes from
this wider vision which is able to understand causes as well as see
effects, and which understands how that which to-day seems sad will
work out for good in days to come.
One other distinction that we
want to realize as to the principles at work in this pilgrimage of
the Soul, is that the kamic element with which the Ego is encircled,
constantly giving rise to desire, is that which is always making
links which bring it back to birth. Every desire that you have for
something down here survives death, remains behind you in the
transition state until you return for reincarnation, and draws you
back to rebirth as soon as you have exhausted in the blissful land
the accumulated experiences of the mind which you work upon in that
region of the Universe. So to speak, when the body drops from it, the
Ego, having accumulated sufficient materials for its work, has the
tendency to leave the Earth and assimilate what it has gained through
these agencies which exist in the desire body. It leaves earth
behind, being drawn by the stronger mental forces onward, where it
has to work in the region of ideas. When its store is exhausted, then
the desire links re-assert their power, and the Ego having finished,
having got through all the mental experiences in the blissful land,
feels again these links of desire reasserting their power, and it is
drawn back by them to re-incarnation, and attached by those links of
desire to all the objects of desire, with which they are
connected.
Now the especial reason that I mention this is that I
hear so many people when they are dealing with reincarnation say, "I
don't want to come back." It is of no use having a theory that you do
not want to come back, if you are making these desire links to things
on the physical and on the kamic planes. So long as you want anything
which the world can give you, your Ego does want to come back, and
must come back whether you think you want it or not. The fact that it
desires something here shows this fundamental craving for return, and
the mere feeling of weariness, which is the outcome of a tired brain,
and of a consciousness working in that tired brain, has absolutely
nothing to do with the inevitable destiny of the Ego. The brain which
is tired certainly will not come back; it will go to pieces on the
earth to which it belongs, and the tiredness which makes people say,
"I don't want to come back," is the tiredness of this outside body,
the desire to escape from the painful things that have made an
impression upon it, and so on. The real desire is shown by the
attachment to the things of earth, by the wish for one thing or
another, the wish for ease, the wish for pleasure, the wish for
social consideration, the wish for the praise of men, the wish for
everything with which men's and women's lives are filled well-nigh to
the brim at the present time. For persons who are full of desire in
this way, to say: "I don't want to come back," is simply to show a
lack of understanding. They must come back until there is nothing
here which has the slightest attraction for them. When nothing here
attracts them, when praise and blame are exactly the same to them,
when they do not mind whether in the outside world they are rich or
poor, when they do not mind whether they are what people call happy
or unhappy, when the whole outside life is an absolute matter of
indifference, when nothing can shake their peace or bring the
slightest ruffle of any kind over the emotional nature, then that
Soul is ready to go on; but so long as any of these things have the
slightest influence, so long these links are being made and must draw
the Soul back to fresh experiences of earth.
Manas itself
does not make these links, it makes them through Kama, and makes them
where the desire even for intellectual things comes in, but not by
pure abstract thinking, which is its own special work. That is to
say, it is not Manas pure and simple which makes links bringing us
back to rebirth, it is Kama-Manas, which is the form of Manas working
amongst the great masses of people to-day. Manas itself, which comes
out now and again in absolutely abstract thinking, does not make
links which draw to rebirth. But inasmuch as almost all intellectual
effort here is very largely carried on with the kamic element, and
has worked through the brain, which is the vehicle of Kama-Manas,
most intellectual effort will have in it the desire element, and so
will bring the Soul back for fresh experiences upon the earth.
As to the way in which it works: it works by what we may call
the creative power of thought. The whole world is the outcome of the
Divine Thought. Everything which we know as phenomenal is the mere
outside appearance which has in it the inner and living reality of
thought. All outside appearance is but the form which the thought
takes for expression on these lower planes; and the whole Universe is
nothing more than a Divine Thought in manifestation. That Divine,
that God-like element is in man, and it works through Manas, and is
the creative element. The more of that there is in the activity of a
person, the more is he a creative energy in the world
Every
thought makes to itself a form. Every time that you think, a form is
made in your mental atmosphere. A passing thought will only have a
very transitory form, a thought which is constantly repeated will
have a form which by these repetitions becomes stronger and stronger,
and more and more permanent, so that according to the fixity and the
motives of your thoughts will be the life of the thought forms that
you are continually generating around you.
If you refer to a
letter in The Occult World, written by Master K. H. to Mr.
Sinnett, you will see that He points out that when a thought goes out
and takes form, it is vivified or entered into by an Elemental, and
the character of the Elemental will be according to the character of
the thought, and according to the motive that has inspired the
thought. If the thought be a good one, for instance directed to human
service with a desire to serve, then it will be helped from outside
by this Elemental which is of a good and a pure type, and the thought
will be a force for good, reacting on the person who has thought it,
and reacting on all those who come within the sphere of his
influence. So that every thought which is loving and helpful lives in
the world of thought as a useful influence. And supposing that these
good thoughts are directed towards people, then they go to the people
to whom the will directs them and, so to speak, encircle them with a
protective and aiding power. And it is a real thing that every good
and kind thought that you have of a person, every wish for their
benefit, every desire for their happiness, is an actual living thing
that goes to that person as a living entity, and lives as it were in
connection with the person towards whom you have directed it as a
protective agency, warding off danger and drawing good towards that
person to whom you have sent this angel of your thought.
So
again, with all evil thoughts, thoughts which have in them the
element of hate, of revenge, of passion--those draw to themselves
from the outer world Elementals which increase this energy. So that
an evil thought directed against a person is an absolutely
mischievous agent, which may injure him either in physical health, in
the astral body, or in any part of his body or mind. Suppose the
person has nothing in him which in any sense forms a link with this
thought of yours, then the thought will be thrown back, and will
return to yourself and strike you to your own injury. Suppose,
however, that the person has, what most people have, some little
fault in himself, which may make a link with this thought of yours,
then the evil thought attaches itself to the person and injures that
person in some part of his nature. Therefore is it that everything
which is of the nature of evil thought consciously directed towards a
person has been called, and rightly called, Black Magic. A thought of
revenge or of anger which is directed towards any person with a view
to injure him is essentially of the nature of Black Magic. And the
greater the power of the person who does it, and the greater the
knowledge of the person who does it, the greater is their crime for
which they have to answer to the Law. In this way, then, the Soul
works by these thought-forms. First these thought-forms, then their
Elementals, working back upon the Soul that generates them, as well
as working in the outer world; these go on with the Soul into
Devachan, so far as they are pure in their nature, and make the
faculty of which I spoke, being as it were moulded into faculty; and
then coming back, the physical body is moulded by way of the astral
to manifest this character, which has taken to itself, by means of
these thought-forms, certain definite shapes. So that it is perfectly
true that the outer body of a person will show something of its
character. That body is physically built on the aggregated
thought-forms which have been transformed, by the alchemy that I
spoke of, into definite faculties, and these having their
characteristic forms will mould the shaping of the outer body. And it
is perfectly true that when you are dealing with the general shape of
the brain, you will have that brain developed in certain regions,
according to the character of the Ego that inhabits it. The mistake
is to suppose that it is the tabernacle which makes the tenant; it is
the tenant who builds the tabernacle. So that while you have the two
correlated the one to the other, we must not begin at the wrong end,
and believe that the master-builder is made by his house; he builds
himself the dwelling in which, in his coming incarnation, he will
have to live.
One other point as regards our back-coming
Ego. You will notice I am not tracing him life by life. I am giving
you general principles which will work through large numbers of
lives. These stages being passed through, what circumstances will our
Ego come back into ? That will depend upon the circumstances that
during his past life he caused upon earth; according to the happiness
or misery he causes upon earth in a past incarnation, so will be the
circumstances in which he will find himself when he comes back to
earth.
Suppose, for instance, that a man whose influence
extends over large numbers of people spreads happiness around him on
every side. That is a distinct effect that he has worked and it will
govern the condition in which he will be born in his next life. This
happiness that he spreads amongst large numbers of his fellows is a
seed which will spring up as happy circumstances for his next
incarnation. Sowing happiness he will reap happiness. Sowing pain he
will reap pain. If he causes a great deal of physical suffering in
his life, he will reap much physical misery in some following
incarnation. If he spreads around himmuch mental distress and trouble
he will reap mental distress and trouble in the circumstances that
come in his way. Mind, these are things he cannot alter They are
fixed future events, so to speak; when he leaves the earth. These are
the things that can be predicted of him. with fair certainty, because
these are seeds that are left which have to grow up each after its
own kind. Over these he has no power; they are there and he has got
to live amongst them.
Now you may have a man who is not a
good man morally, but who has yet spread a very large amount of
happiness amongst people, say of a physical kind; he will reap
physical happiness in his next incarnation. You may find a good man
who by lack of knowledge has spread a great deal of misery, and he
will reap physical suffering in his next incarnation. You have to
distinguish, if you want to understand, between these different
agencies of the Soul. According to his desires and his will, so will
be his faculties--his own personal possessions, or individual
possessions rather, if I may call them so; according to what he has
sown upon earth will be his harvest upon earth when he returns. So
that all these circumstances of happiness or of misery will be the
result of the happiness or the misery that he has spread in previous
incarnations: they will come back to him as environment, as
circumstances.
Now I come to my next point. You must
remember the pilgrimage of the Soul is very long, and a lecture is
very short, so that I am obliged to run somewhat rapidly from one
subject to another. The next point at which I must make a moment's
pause is on our Ego when he has become more experienced. He is no
longer a baby, nor even a child, or even a youth; he is a mature Ego,
and he is becoming wise. With this wisdom of his he is bringing back
more and more faculty, he is bringing back more and more memory, he
will make for himself instruments which will be able to express
greater and greater capacity, and a time will come in this pilgrimage
of his in which his constant efforts to impress on these lower
tabernacles his own ever-lengthening memory of past experiences will
become more and more successful. His will having grown very strong,
will tell considerably upon his lower nature. What we call the voice
of conscience will begin to make itself heard with more imperative
force. Now conscience is this memory of the soul expressing itself in
the lower nature; it comes with authority, and the lower nature feels
the authoritative sound in it: " You ought to do this, you ought not
to do that." And sometimes the lower nature will challenge it, not
being able to understand where this authority comes from. The
authority lies in the Soul, which is trying to make the lower nature
go its way; it is using its own past experience to prevent the lower
nature being led astray by the outside objects, by its mistaken
deductions, by its very incomplete experiences. And it is speaking
constantly to this lower nature, and constantly the lower nature does
not hear. In all the clatter and jangle of the body in which it is
living, it finds it is very difficult to make its voice heard coming
from the higher planes. But the voice of the conscience is always
this voice of the Soul, speaking out of its memory. And if you think
that out at your leisure you will see how it is that conscience will
sometimes speak wrongly as to choice of action, but always with the
sense of: "You ought to do." The reason that it sometimes speaks
wrongly as to action is because the experience is still a limited
experience. The reason why it is always imperative is because that
limited experience is the only guide which Manas has, and it is the
best guide even though it be imperfect. A man therefore does wisely
always to obey his conscience. It is the best decision which
experience enables the Soul to make, and if it be guilty, it is
faulty because of the want of experience. If you obey it, when it
blunders you will gain the lacking experience; and you will suffer
more if you do not obey it. By following some other rule whichis not
the rule of your own inner Self, speaking from its own experience,
you will be obeying an external law, which, speaking from without, is
not to be relied upon to develop your Soul. The Soul is developed by
experience, not by compulsion, and an outer law, however good it may
be, does not, being a compulsory power, add to the inner forces of
the Soul; therefore is it of comparatively small value in evolution,
far less than the voice of conscience, even when the conscience is
faulty.
Now taking that, let us come back from that slight
digression to our Ego. It has become comparatively mature, it is
getting wiser. Getting wiser it wants to escape from this constant
succession of births and of deaths of which it is beginning to get a
little tired. It has gone through it so often that it has accumulated
a great deal of experience, and many things in the world no longer
attract it. Everything they can give it, it has gathered; why should
it want to repeat its experience of them? The taste has disappeared
because the experience has been obtained; and as this Soul comes back
there will be a number of things in the outer world that will no
longer attract, and that it will turn aside from with a sense of
weariness and disgust. These things will first be the things of the
senses, which are the soonest worn out, and it will go more and more
towards the things of the mind, more and more towards the things of
the intellect, accumulating a larger and larger store for its
Devachanic life, a greater and greater accumulation on which it is
going to work. So that the life in Devachan will be longer and
longer, the Soul working out these greater stores which it carries
with it from this earthly life. Coming back then again, having had
these long Devachanic interludes, it comes back with this ever
increasing distaste for the lower desires, and the links with objects
of the sense become feebler and feebler. Its knowledge enables it to
recognize the transitory and illusory character of earthly things,
and it breaks the links of desire by knowledge; knowing that they
pass, it refuses to be attached to them, and so exhausts these links
which inevitably draw it back to earth so long as they last. Instead
of setting up great numbers of these, it creates only thought-forms
of the pure intellect, and the pure reason, and the pure thought,
which do not tie it to these transitory things of the earth. And it
may break these links in two ways--by knowledge in the way that I
described; or also it may break them by catching glimpses of higher
and greater realities--the spiritual realities as we say--and that
mightier attraction, overbearing the attraction to earth, will draw
the desires upwards, purifying them as they ascend. So that at last
all the lower element of desire which is for the lower self will be
gotten rid of, and there will be present only the desire to work
because the work is useful, to work because the work is duty, to work
because others need the service, and so on.
You may thus get rid
of the personal element in desire, which is the binding element for
return, and in one of two ways; either by a distinctly intellectual
recognition of the transitory character of the objects and the
exhausting of desire by knowledge, or by the burning up of desire by
devotion, and the deliberate sacrifice of everything to the higher
ideal of life which is to become its compelling power.
The
time will come in this growth of the Ego when it will realize then
that the lower earth has nothing which is worth having. By knowledge,
by devotion, or by both, it has broken these links. What then will be
the nature of the life to be lived, when it is establishing no new
links to bring it back to birth? It may be a very active life,
employed constantly in working amongst men; for it is not action that
binds men to birth, but the desire which causes action. In desire,
and not in act, lies this link which draws the Ego back to birth.
Suppose then that during a life of very great activity there is no
desire; suppose every action that is performed, is performed because
it is right to be done; suppose that when it is performed, the Ego
concerns itself no more about it; suppose it has no wish for the
result of that action, either good, or bad, or indifferent; suppose
that when the action is performed there is no link which binds the
Soul to it in any way, that it remains absolutely indifferent to the
fruit of action, as it is technically called, and works, not because
it wants to gain anything, but because it wants to serve and because
it recognizes that it is one with the All, and therefore must
discharge perfectly everything which the law demands of it in the
particular place in the world in which it may be. Freedom of the
Soul, then, depends on whether you want to bring about a result by
your action, because the result is desirable, or merely because you
want to be in harmony with law, because you recognize yourself as
part of the All, because you recognize yourself as a channel of the
law. If you are nothing more than that, if everything that you do is
done because it is duty, if you act neither for pleasure nor pain,
neither from love nor hatred, neither from attraction nor repulsion,
neither for gain nor loss, then, there being no desire, no link is
made; in the doing of the action you are part of the One and the All,
and that cannot be bound by these links to rebirth, so that the
question of outer activity does not affect in itself the freedom of
the Soul. I grant, of course, to the full that people need the
stimulus of desire in order to make them act, until they have reached
this higher stage where action is perfectly performed for duty's
sake. It cannot be reached at a bound, it cannot be reached by its
intellectual recognition, it cannot be reached even by saying that it
is desirable; it can only be reached by the inner growth of the Ego,
which makes it really fundamentally indifferent to all the things
which attract the masses of mankind. So long as there is attraction,
that is needed for the performance of duty. It is only when the lower
nature is entirely the instrument of the higher that a man will lead
a life of great activity without the smallest wish to see anything
which may flow from his acts; and when that point is reached, he has
achieved his freedom, when that is done, Karma for him--save the
great Karma of the Universe--is at an end. Individual Karma for him
is burnt up, burnt up in these fires of knowledge and of devotion
which prevent him establishing any links with the earth, and he
therefore makes no fetters which bind him to the wheel of birth and
of death. The burning up of Karma in this fire of devotion means that
you throw into the fire every action of your life, and like a
sacrifice it is burnt up and changed.
Let me give you one
illustration only to show you how this change may occur in the higher
spiritual life.
There may be a thing which will bring
suffering. The Soul which is nearing its liberation is willing to
accept that suffering which still it feels; it throws the suffering
on to the altar of devotion; the fire of devotion burns up the
suffering, and the Soul feels joy in its gift. But that suffering is
not lost; it is changed in the fire, and it becomes spiritual energy,
which the Great Lodge can use for the helping of man--the voluntary
acceptance of pain as a sacrifice to the Masters is changed by that
fire of devotion into spiritual energy for the helping of the world.
There is the underlying truth of the doctrine of what is called
vicarious atonement: not the legal thing that the Churches have
sometimes taught, but the sacrifice of a great Soul, which bears
suffering and offers it for the spiritual life of the world, so that
it shall be changed in the fire of love and come back as spiritual
energy to be spread over the whole of the world for the raising and
the helping of man.
The Soul, then, thus achieving liberation,
comes to the period of choice of which you hear so much. Being free
it has a right to choose, and it may either pass onwards into higher
types of life, or it may elect to remain within the sphere of earth
in order that it may directly help in the freeing of other Souls.
That is, of course, the Great Renunciation of which every now and
then you catch glimpses in the Theosophical writings; that is the
choice of the liberated Soul; it is free, but it remains within the
sphere of earth in order to help. It may choose that, by renunciation
of its right to go on. It is not bound to earth, but by a voluntary
renunciation it remains there with some of the disadvantages, so to
speak, which belong to the material existence, for the sake of
helping others and carrying on this evolution of the Race.
Where
a Soul has thus accomplished its pilgrimage, where stage after stage
it has developed mind, where stage after stage it has purified
intellect, when it has gotten rid of desire, when it has become a
liberated Soul, when it has renounced the going onward for the sake
of humanity, when it has remained within this sphere of earth for
helping man until the cycle of humanity is completed, then, entering
into Nirvana, there comes the state of All-consciousness, of bliss
which no words are able to describe. And then when the time comes for
a new manifestation, when the beginning of a new Manvantara
approaches, then this Soul which had achieved its liberation comes
forth as a Son of Mind, in order in due time to generate mind in a
new humanity, to be the Teacher of that humanity in its infancy, its
guide in its maturity, rising Manvantara after Manvantara higher and
higher. For the pilgrim Soul which began in the germ-union that I
described, which went on by accumulating experiences, which then from
these experiences extracted their essence, which then got rid of the
desires which made it separate, and which unified itself once more,
becoming a unit consciousness in a mysterious way which can not even
be sensed until at least the lower grades of the higher consciousness
have been experienced during earth-life by rising out of the body and
learning what it is to be an Intelligence working without the
shackles of the brain--such a Soul thus having worked through its
pilgrimage and regained unity shakes off the compound individually,
retaining the essence of it which it extracts; being a unit it is
incapable of disintegration, it is for ever immortal--the Soul has
achieved its immortality, and through all Universes to come it is one
of the Workers, one of the Builders, one with God in work for the
worlds. What is
Theosophy?
With Special Reference to Scientific
Thought
An Address given in London on September 4th, 1891,
to the United Democratic Club
In the lecture that I propose to
deliver here to-night, I shall try to put before you as plainly and
as clearly as possible the leading ideas that go under the name of
Theosophy. I shall not, bearing in mind the audience that I am
addressing, try to win you by mere skill of tongue, because I know
there are too many here connected with the Press to make it worth
while to try to get round them by words which do not convey any
meaning. I shall make the lecture as terse as I can, for I want to
get a good deal into the space of time that I have at my disposal,
and I shall endeavour to put those ideas in at least a coherent
fashion, which will lay them open to attack and discussion on the
part of those who do not agree with them.
Theosophy is an
extremely old theory of the Universe and of Man. It starts with the
idea that the Universe and Man are primarily spiritual existences;
that what we call spirit and matter are not really two and in
antagonism, but are one substance in different stages of evolution.
If you go back to the beginning of our present Universe you will find
as you go backward that life becomes more and more spiritual in its
manifestations, that is to say, the denser forms of manifestation are
later in time than the more subtle and ethereal forms. But the
principle of the Universe is Life, and not lifeless matter or energy;
primarily life and consciousness are at the core of the Universe, but
this body issues forth in various forms of matter, the forms becoming
denser and grosser as evolution proceeds, and that finally when this
first stage, the plane so to speak of the Universe, is complete, the
whole is ready to start along the plane of further evolution. You
have a Universe manifested in seven different forms of matter, subtle
at the beginning, denser at the end, and, so to speak, arranged in
seven different stages or, as we say, seven different planes of
manifestation. To take a very rough image, to put to you by physical
analogy what I mean, you might have in a chemical experiment a
receiver that appeared to be empty, you might subject that receiver
to constantly increasing cold. As you lowered the temperature the
apparently empty receiver would soon be filled with a delicate mist;
as you continued to lower the temperature, that mist would gradually
assume the form of definite vapour, then of definite liquid, and
further on of solid. You would have but the one substance right
through, but you would have had it manifested at different degrees of
density according to the conditions under which it was manifested,
and so we say that the Universe is but of one substance essentially,
but is manifested in different forms according to the conditions in
which this substance has been bodied forth. I am simply putting to
you the statement without for a moment giving the arguments with
which it is supported. I will ask you simply to have clearly before
your mind this conception of the Universe in seven different stages
or planes of various degrees of density, so far as what we call
matter is concerned. Each of these planes has life manifestations
suitable to the plane on which they are manifested; whether or not
the organisms of one plane are conscious of the organisms of the
other will depend on the power of sensation possessed by those
organisms. If you take Man as you have him now he comes by is
physical sense into contact with the physical plane of the Universe.
He is able to see because the molecules of the eye can vibrate in
unison with those waves of ether that impinge on the mechanism of the
eye, he is able to hear because the organ of hearing is so disposed
that it vibrates in unison with the waves of air. He becomes sensible
of the material universe without him because his body is able to
vibrate in unison or in response to the various physical vibrations
of the physical universe with which it is surrounded.
Let
me now take the next stage. Man, like the Universe, consists of seven
principles in seven different stages of this manifesting
spirit-matter or substance. We say that these seven principles
existent in man are correlated to the corresponding plane of
existence in the Universe, and that just because he has in himself
these seven different stages of existence he is able to investigate
the whole Universe around him, becoming conscious of each plane in
the Universe by virtue of the corresponding principle in himself. So
that in the theosophical conception of Man and the Universe you have
two images, so to speak, that respond the one to he other, as the
image of Man's physical body might be reflected in the mirror before
which he stands. He can know the Universe because he is himself the
Universe in miniature, and as he develops in himself each different
principle of his nature he is able to investigate the plane of the
Universe to which that principle in himself responds. Now, it is by
virtue of this fact of man's nature that knowledge becomes possible
of these different planes. Take for a moment again the body: you can
investigate the physical plane of existence by your physical body,
but beyond that physical plane you cannot go with your bodily senses.
Now, for a moment, as an hypothesis, suppose that there is a subtler
form of matter than the matter that composes your bodies, it is not
at least an impossible hypothesis, science is always discovering
rarer and rarer forms of energy, and the latest discovery is not
susceptible to the ordinary senses. There are light waves which are
too rapid for the molecules of the eye to vibrate in response to when
they strike upon them. The eye is, therefore, unconscious of their
existence. It is idle to say that these light waves do not exist;
their existence has been proved by scientific men, partly by
observing them as they affect other forms of life and chemical
combinations, and partly by subjecting them to experiments which, by
changing the rate of vibration, render them susceptible to our
senses; therefore, they do exist, as a matter of fact. Now, the
Theosophist says that the next set of vibrations, too subtle and too
rapid to make any impression on the physical body of man, are on the
Astral Plane. It is possible to develop in Man a form of nervous
sensitiveness which will enable him to respond to those vibrations,
just as a physical body responds to the air. You can throw Man into a
special nervous condition which will render him far more sensitive
than he is normally; when he is thrown into that condition you will
have evolved a sensitiveness that responds to those more rapid and
ethereal vibrations, and then those vibrations become as real to him
as light is to ourselves. That condition is the condition variously
known as hypnotic trance, or mesmeric trance, or condition of
conscious clairvoyance. In America, where the climatic conditions are
different, people are evolving normally this increased sensitiveness
to peculiar external conditions. In England, what is called the
"psychic" is comparatively rare; they are not unknown, but they are
regarded as "cranks." In America, where the air is brighter and
drier, where the conditions of life are more rapid and the nervous
system has become more tense, you have the psychic development
carried on to a much greater extent and developed among a much larger
number of people than in Europe at the present time. When we want to
obtain these conditions here, we mostly do it by shutting the
ordinary senses and by making the body impervious to the impressions
of the physical universe outside. You render the person blind, deaf,
and insensible to touch from without When a person is thrown into the
mesmeric trance, you may beat a gong in his ear without his hearing
it, you may flash the electric light into his eyes without his seeing
it, you may run needles into him or subject him to shocks from an
electric battery, and the most delicate apparatus of the investigator
will not indicate any response to these conditions of stimulus from
without. I am putting a matter of knowledge; this is a fact testified
to over and over again by every scientific man who has investigated
hypnotic phenomena.
When the body is in this condition, closed to
every ordinary stimulus from without, you obtain a completely new set
of results--the patient is more keenly alive to the person who has
hypnotised him than he is normally alive to the persons who surround
him in ordinary life. That one person can communicate with him and
produce extraordinary results. He can make him describe objects that
have no existence outside the thought power of the hypnotiser. He
will place an imaginary object in his hands, so that the man cannot
put his hands together, thinking they are stopped by the object he is
holding; he will describe elaborate pictures on a blank sheet of
paper, those pictures hang no sort of existence so far as the
ordinary eyes of the unhypnotised person can discover. These facts
point us to a whole plane of existence of which we are normally
unconscious, and the theosophist will tell you you have transferred
the consciousness of this person on to the Astral Plane, where you
are dealing with matter invisible to the normal senses and with
vibrations of matter too rapid for the ordinary senses to perceive or
respond to. When you have passed into this Astral condition, you are
able to see with fresh sense of sight and to hear with fresh organs
of hearing, and these organs of sight and of hearing function under
laws which are very different from the ordinary law under which
matter works in its grosser manifestations. You can see to a distance
which otherwise would be impossible, and you can see through objects
impervious to the ordinary eye. You can take a board an inch and a
half thick, you can place this in front of the eyes of the hypnotised
person, and on the far side of the board you can place ribbons of
different colours, the hypnotised person will see the ribbons and
tell you the colour of each ribbon. Under these conditions, the sight
that you have evolved in your patient is a sight which is not
trammelled by the ordinary material conditions under which you are
accustomed to let your organ of sight function. There is nothing in
that particularly remarkable, because, if you are dealing with
vibrations so subtle that they can pass through interstices of gross
matter, then you have the conditions of eyesight present under the
responsiveness of more delicate sense, so that you are still within
at least the analogy of science when you are dealing with this second
plane. When you go a step further you come to the plane of the
emotions and the feelings, and you can transfer man's consciousness
to that plane of existence, so as to render him unconscious of an
injury received to the body. Take the case of a soldier wounded in
battle. Any soldier thus wounded will tell you that it is not until
the rush of the fight is over that he becomes conscious of bodily
pain, but, if the consciousness were then in his physical body, he
would know then the pain; but consciousness has passed from the
physical plane to the plane of emotion, and not till the passion is
stilled will he recognise the pain.
Beyond this, there is the
plane of the mind. The plane of the mind is still a plane of matter,
for I will ask you to remember that there is no essential difference
between mind and matter; they are one substance manifesting under
different conditions or planes. Mind is still far subtler, far more
ethereal, but it is as real, and we say that the mind functions on
that plane; that, when you think, your intelligence is a force or an
energy that is working on this mental plane and that its workings
there are as perceptible to the mental organism as any workings on
the physical plane are perceptible to material eyesight; that, when
you think, you create a thought image and that that image may be
rendered visible under certain conditions of enormously increased
sensitiveness and that it is possible and has been done to so develop
the mind element in Man that you can separate it fromthe brain
organism through which it normally functions, and free it from its
restraint. You can make it more active and more potent, just as your
limbs are more active if you take off them a weight of chains. People
can develop the power of transmitting thought through this
thought-medium from intelligence to intelligence without the ordinary
material mechanism that you normally employ for that purpose.
But I am still only dealing with things that Science is
beginning to dream about. Twenty years ago, to talk about conveying
ideas without the use of written messages would have been to render
yourself a candidate for the nearest lunatic asylum; but only a few
weeks ago, before that eminently respectable body the British
Association, it was confessed that here there was room for
investigation, showing that such communication was likely to be
possible, and Professor Lodge even said that it might be taken as
almost having been proved possible. It has been proved over and over
again, and, just as your scientific men scoffed at Mesmer and fifty
years later invented the new name of Hypnotism, so your science
to-day is beginning to recognise the necessity of investigation into
this new means of communication and this working of the intelligence
in subtler realms than hitherto it has admitted.
All the fuss
made during the last week about the possibility of communication in
various fashions is nothing more than a mere outcry, but people
imagine they have got hold of a miracle. If you installed an electric
wire across the Desert of Sahara, you might very much astonish some
of the natives by communicating across the desert in a way that they
would not understand, or you might even flash a message by utilising
the sunbeam as the method. It is only going a few steps farther to be
able to control other forces without your physical apparatus, and
even without the sunbeam to help you. How people would have laughed a
century ago to hear scientific men say they would be able to converse
by means of a wire! It is further, I admit, along the analogy of
scientific thought when you are able to deal with subtler currents,
but no more miraculous than any other form of dealing with natural
forces, and it is only ignorance that cries out "miracle" or
"fraud"--miracle where there is the superstitious to account for the
unknown--fraud where there is the gross ignorance that denies the
possibility of further advance, and because the nineteenth century is
so wise and thinks that none can be wiser.
Let me here allude to
one phrase which will show you at least in the thought of those who
believe in the existence and the control of those forces how
thoroughly natural they are. Some years ago in India, when H. P.
Blavatsky was there, she was utilising a number of those forces in
connection with her Teachers. On one occasion she was asked to bring
about a certain. result. I forget whether it was the conveyance of a
letter or some other object. She was asked to convey that object to a
particular spot within a particular cushion, and she said she would
try to do it. Later on in the same day, talking over this matter, she
was asked, "Will you change the place that we have already asked you
to deal with and put it in another place?" She asked, and the answer
came, "We have set the currents to the place where we were asked to
set them, and it is easier therefore to send the object to that
spot." You set those forces going and, unless you are a
miracle-worker, which the Theosophist does not believe in, you must
work under natural conditions. If you have started your forces along
a line, that is the line along which you must follow; if you want to
alter your result, you must alter the cause by which your result is
to be brought about. When you begin to learn anything about these
forces, you find you are in a world of law as strict as that of a
chemist; you can no more produce a result which is not within the law
than your electrician can produce an effective spark from the machine
if the atmosphere is charged with moisture. It is this side of Theosophy
which tends to prove most attractive to those who are simply curious
for a new sensation. .They don't care twopence about the philosophy,
they care even less about the Theosophy, they want something that
will sell their papers; something they don't understand is the one
thing that they want. In the Daily Chronicle all that I told
them about the Mahatmas was put down.*1 They carefully cut out what I said about the results
ethically of the teaching of these same Mahatmas. (Shame!) I don't
say it is a shame; I am very glad to get half of it in; the great
difficulty that every new theory has is to get a hearing at all; when
they came to the end of the column, there was a battle or a murder or
something, so my other half had to be omitted. As far as the
Chronicle is concerned, it has acted in a most fair and just
fashion and has given a fair hearing to both sides. I am not putting
that in any spirit of complaint, but as showing you one of the
disadvantages under which really serious people labour when they are
dealing with a philosophy that has a side that appeals to curiosity
and the desire for experiment and what is known as phenomenal, but
which has to us a far more serious side in its bearing on the
progress of the race.
Let me show you how this view of Man
and the view of the Universe passes onward into our philosophy. These
discoveries about mind--the power of mind to make thought images, to
transfer by the subtle forces under its control ideas from place to
place--we say that these show that every man has in him the same
power of creation as that universal mind of which we say the Universe
at large is the manifestation. I don t mean by creation making
something out of nothing--I mean by creation utilising the various
forms of matter around you to produce a new result, just as you say
the artist creates a statue, just as you say the musician creates the
harmony when he by the efforts of his genius gives some great opera
to the world, so I speak of creation when by the subtle forces of the
mind you utilise the forces and the material around you to bring
about certain results that you have made up your mind to effect.
Man is essentially a thinker, and that thinker is
imperishable and eternal. We say that the thinker is the real man,
and that the body is the instrument the thinker uses: a more or less
good instrument as may happen, so that the brain, through which the
intelligence or the thinker normal functions, may be a better or
worse instrument for the expression of that thinker's thoughts, but
always an instrument by which he must work on the material plane, and
only as he is able to transcend that plane can he work in the subtler
media of which I have been speaking.
We say that the
speaker passes from incarnation to incarnation, moulding and building
as he goes his own future and the future of the world. We say that in
every thought that you think you create a thought image on the mental
plane and that the whole of your life is a constant action of
creation of these thought images, that these images persist, and that
during life you are constantly adding to them, that they act and
re-act on each other like any other forces, and that they build up
the human character; that your character is made by your thinking,
and the modus operandi of making it is that every thought
creates a form on the plane of thought, and that the aggregate of
these forms working upon each other makes the character of the man at
the end of his life-experience. We say that that mental thought
image, that is the outcome of the life thinking, persists after the
death of the body, that it does not depend on the form of matter you
call physical , it depends on the subtler form of matter I have been
speaking of, and of which Science is beginning to get evidence in
thought transference. When the time comes for the thinking principle
or the thinker to again clothe itself in material body, this thought
image, which is the outcome of the previous experience, is the mould
or the matrix in which that physical body will be built, so that what
you call the character with which a man is born, the tendencies that
every child has when it comes into the world, the tendencies to act
one way rather than the other, to be quick or to be slow, that all
these tendencies that you speak of as inborn character are the
natural and inevitable results of the thinkings of past incarnations
which have made a mould of subtle matter into which the grosser
matter of the material body is builded.
If this is true, then
its bearing on life and conduct is enormous, because it means that
everyone of you is creating at the present time his own future and
the future of the world. If you are thinking selfish and evil
thoughts you are making a form of matter that outlives your physical
body that keeps the form that you imprint upon it and into which the
physical molecules of your future life will indisputably be moulded
so that those who think selfish thoughts habitually will in their
next incarnation be born with a selfish character, so that what a man
is now is the record of what he has been in his past, and the true
life of the man is in the thought and not in the act. Whether a man
is a thief or a murderer depends on opportunity. It is not every
thief that gets put into jail. The thief is the man whose tendencies
are thievish and who tries to get that which he has no right to;
whether that thievish tendency works out in act depends upon the
opportunity, if he has the chance he will be a thief in act; but his
moral value depends on the thought. He is judged by the thought and
not by the act. Many a thief in Holloway Jail is not as deep-dyed a
robber as the man who poses through life as a splendid character.
This bearing on our theory of right is to us the most important part;
that is what we call Theosophy: the great central truth of the
Universe and Man. And this doctrine of Reincarnation is not only the
basis of our ethics as regards the individual man, but the foundation
of our belief in Universal Brotherhood: it implies the essential
equality of Man.
The differences in material condition are
mere outward accidents and do not touch the inner self, whether a man
be prince or pauper, whether sage or sinner, the essential unity of
humanity remains, and makes them brothers in fact, whatever the
dissimilitude of the outer garb, and this is the basis of human
brotherhood. What matters it to you and to me that in this particular
life there may be an apparent difference between us? We are one in
that we are human, and the intelligent thinker is the same for all,
although in different stages of evolution, and it is quite possible
that the man whom you despise as stupid, as profligate, as vile, may
be a human being further in evolution than yourself; although for the
moment he may be under passing disadvantages. The progress may be
clogged for a moment, although he may be advanced in the whole
evolutionary cycle. The passing nature through which he has to work
may be some gross tendencies inherited from a past that he has not
conquered. It might well be that such a person is only under
temporary obscuration, and is really a far nobler type than the man
who judges and despises him, and who may not have travelled as far
along the road as the one for whom he feels contempt. Theosophy
teaches you o be careful in your judgment of your fellows: you may
say a person is repulsive, covered over with some horrid skin
disease, better so than have the disease driven in so that he becomes
a source of infection; so many a man in the outer vices may be
working off the symptoms of evil in him, and may come out the nobler.
I say that because sometimes you find acts of the utmost heroism in
those who have seemed even the most degraded. We tell you that no man
is wholly evil, that at the root of things man is good, and not evil,
that he will work through the evil to the light; though he is bad
to-day, do not make his road rougher by putting your hatred to keep
him down, give him the hand of help to lift him upward and so live
through the vice which makes him hateful to the many to-day; and that
is the ethical side of our teaching, but it depends upon the
philosophy. You cannot work it out in that fashion unless you accept
the central doctrine of reincarnation, and you have no reason to
accept that unless you can work it from plane to plane. When you can
prove intelligence working apart from your material organism you have
taken the great step which makes the whole of our theory
intelligible.
We, who are Theosophists, do not encourage
people to rush hastily into a mass of experiments in which they are
very likely to lose their heads and destroy their nerves. I am not
what is normally called a Spiritualist, because I think that
Spiritualists make a mistake in the deductions from their phenomena.
A large number of the results they get are genuine, though there is a
large amount of fraud as well. But, unless you study the subject with
knowledge, you are likely to ruin your brain and your nerves. The
attitude of reception to all outside influences which is necessary
for mediumship--because you must render yourself specially
susceptible--that study persisted in month after month brings about
an abnormal condition which is likely to ruin the health of the
person who subjects himself to it. And so with hypnotic experiments:
you may very easily destroy both nervous system and moral character
by playing with forces whose management you do not understand. Now,
what is necessary before you begin to experiment is study: study the
theory before you practise. You would not let a young lad loose in a
laboratory to put together whatever compounds he might choose; you
would say, "You must not try these compounds until your knowledge of
them and the laws under which they work is such that you can make
your experiments without laying the laboratory and the houses all
around in fragments." When a person comes and says, "I want to know
this experiment," we say, "No; if you want to know you won't mind the
trouble of studying." The curiosity which runs out to see the Queen,
or a jumping flea, or a fat woman, is not the kind we want for this
work. We quite admit that you can get knowledge of many of the occult
arts without moral character, you can become a mesmerist without the
slightest attempt to control your passions, but we say that those of
us who are studying the matter seriously won't help you to do it.
Find out what you can, but don't ask us--who have pledged ourselves
to serve the race before everything else, who have pledged ourselves
to utter subjugation of self before we place our hands on one of
these forces, who have proved the truth of the pledge by living lives
of self-denying labour for the people for years before we tried to
study these things at all--don't ask us to take you into the occult
laboratory and enable you to experiment with the most explosive
substances before we know you will use them for service and not for
self.
Take the ordinary man: he loves his wife and his
children more than the children in the gutter, but he must not be an
occultist while he has one love for a human being which will make him
unjust to anyone else. As long as he would rather serve his own child
than the child in the gutter, so long he has no right to use these
occult powers: he night use them to serve his own child to the
destruction of others. The claim on you is the claim of want, and not
the claim of personal affection; and if the gutter child is starving,
that child has first claim upon you because his need is greater. I
don't say that this is the view that the mass of the people should
take--it is not. But you cannot enter into the occult school until
your love for the race has become as pure, as passionate and as
self-denying as your present love for wife or child, and until that
be so, take the evolution of the race as it goes but do not claim to
climb the mountain up which only those can climb who have thrown
every personal desire aside. All the race will come to these powers
in due time; every son of man will be born into this heritage of
absolute royalty over Nature, but he has got to evolve into it, and
if he wants to evolve much faster than the race, he must pay the
price; and the price is, to live the impersonal life, so that he may
be a safe custodian of those tremendous powers of Nature. That is the
school through which everyone has to go, and I know no reason why a
curious person should escape it more than anyone else. It won't do
him any good to escape it, for if he happens to be a person of
psychic development, you will have given him the clue to get mastery
of that power and he can use it, not for a harmless purpose, but for
the mischievous purpose of slaying an enemy. Already you are
beginning to learn something of the doctrines of hypnotism, that is
the very lowest of those powers possessed by the occultist; yet
hypnotism has been used for criminal suggestion, and the true
criminal has escaped, because there is no law which can touch him. Is
it altogether so foolish then, this secrecy?
People say
they will not believe me. I don't mind whether you believe me or not.
A fact of Nature does not alter whether you believe it or not. My
only reason for ever mentioning the letters from Mahatmas in public
was, not to show that letters could be precipitated, but to show that
my friend was not the forger she was stated to be. I have had letters
from the same person, and it proves that she did not write them. If
the writing was the same, it was not the hand of H. P. Blavatsky,
therefore she did not forge that writing. It was a perfectly fair
point to make in defence of a woman who has made my life all that is
worth living.
I have had letter after letter from good
people, saying, "You are deserting the poor." I deserting the poor? I
am learning to serve them better than I ever served them before. I
have given up the momentary praise which comes from rescuing one
woman here and there a solitary unit out of thousands who perish, and
I am learning how to save the thousands. I am learning how to use my
brain so as to make it more serviceable to the wretched than it has
ever been before. I am giving up that political work that only deals
with facts and not with the causes by which they are produced. I am
doing so, in order that by a more complete self-devotion I may rescue
those who are perishing before my eyes at the present time. Hundreds
can do my work on the School Board much better than I can: let them
do this work that they can do as well as I; let me, who have no human
tie to keep me back, except the tie to my race--every other tie
having been broken by the force of circumstances--leave me free to go
along the road where few will care to follow me. To learn the lessons
that can only be learnt by the surrender of everything that makes
life precious to the many. Believe me that in giving my life to this
new work, I do it, not for selfishness, but for self-surrender, and
in the hope that in long years to come I may realise the idea that I
formed in childhood, and that I have nurtured and tried to work out
in woman hood--to save the race of whom I am a part, to learn lessons
which worked out in life will render the present social misery
impossible for evermore and [?] the world worth living in, to help
those people to whom my heart is given, to gain a [?] for my brothers
and not a selfish [?] mere knowledge or
self-advancement.
Publisher's Note: [?] = words obliterated or
missing from the original copy.
*1 The reference
is to a discussion on Letters of the Mahatmas in the Dally
Chronicle, in which Mrs. Besant took a leading part.
The Evolution of
Man
An Address at the Parliament of Religions, Chicago,
1893
[Publisher's Note: The first page of this lecture was
badly damaged in the original copy. We have interpolated words where
possible and enclosed them in brackets]
In finishing this
brief description of some of the leading Theosophical teachings, I
have been desired to talk about and deal with the Evolution of Man.
Man, as you take him in the past, man as we see him in the present,
man as we shall see him the future, the very first fruits of that [?]
men living on the earth to-day.
Evolution in o[ur West]ern
civilization has been a word of power [for the] minds of men. Those
glimpses that life [allows] of evolution give us but half the [?] for
us but half its circle, and with [?] give us an unintelligible,
inexplicable theory of a life that comes from no[where and] finds no
intelligible goal. For just [as we] see in our W[estern] evolution
that life [?], that certain [?] action of force and of [?] has out of
[matter] made life, that out of unintelligence springs existence,
that out of the brute springs the man, so evolution springing from
the lower stages of life is to pass onward and onward to an end as
emotionally, as intellectually unsatisfactory as its beginning is
vague. For in the latest presentments of science we are told that in
this chain of evolution the latest link shall be as low as the first;
gradual retroaction, gradual degradation, until worlds evolved only
from matter by energy shall resolve back again into uninhabited
desolation, either burned by fire or frozen into obliviousness of
life, until, disintegrated once more, they will be built up again in
the far-off future of existence.
Such an evolution, were it
true, would be the dreariest theory of life that human mind could
conceive--unintelligible to the brain, unsatisfactory to the heart.
Far other is Evolution as we have learned it from the ancient books,
as it has been traced for us by the Masters of Wisdom; for they tell
us of that spirit, to a description of which we have just been
listening, out of which springs a universe, the universe passing
back, full of life, to expand into the Divine All-Consciousness. They
tell us of an Involution which is the Source and the Fount of Life.
Spirit involving itself in matter that it may become the mainspring
of Evolution, and may gradually mould matter into a perfect
expression of itself. And then this descent of Spirit into
Matter--this expansion of Life from within, passing through stage
after stage of evolution, reaches its lowest point in the Mineral
Kingdom, thence begins the long climb upwards, thence, by expanding
energy, we can pass onward, stage by stage, to the early evolution of
Man, Man as he appeared in the present phase of the earth's
existence, first of all living things, the pattern of all forms,
containing every possibility that that stage of the evolving globe
was to produce. Passing from stage to stage, till the animal body was
builded, till the astral form into which the physical was moulded was
ready to gather the physical together and make a possibility of
material human life. Then in that focussed the life energy of the
world, gathering to itself the forces which knit the molecules
together and co-ordinated all into the astral and physical bodies.
And then as the last touch of animal man, of this lower and
transitory existence which was to be the garment of the soul, we find
appearing the passional, the emotional, the instinctual nature, that
which Man has in common with the brute, and out of which in course of
evolution that part of the brute nature also took its rise. So that
we come to a stage or human evolution where the animal side of Man is
completely builded; the tabernacle of the flesh is ready for its
tenant; the house of the soul ready for the incoming mind, and Man at
this stage of his existence nothing more than a beautiful animal
should appear in the possibilities of adaptation built into a
similitude that would be able gradually to be moulded by the
indwelling soul into a perfect instrument for expression on the lower
plane of life; and then, to that abode builded for the mind, comes
the thinking entity, that is, the real Man--Man whose very name comes
from the root that means thought, Man whose very name in our own
tongue is identical with the Sanscrit word which is the root of
thinking; so that in our very title in the world we bear the impress
of our special characteristics, that the human soul is the thinking
energy. The thinker that makes the complete Man a possibility came
not from the lower world, not given by material nature, not evolved
from the astral plane, not given birth to by the lower life, not
taking its origin in the passional, the emotional, the instinctual
nature--Man's soul comes from above, not from below, not climbing
upwards from the brute, but the focalized reflection of the
Spirit.
That is the soul that came to Man as animal and took
him into his charge, to build him up to the divine: for this thinker
is the God in every man, the God who has evolved from Matter, the God
who has descended that he may subdue to himself the lower nature and
render every plane of existence translucent to a vehicle of the
Divine. This God in Man is the teacher, the Guide, the instructor,
the Helper, and also in his lower aspect the gatherer of experience
out of which he shall build up character which he shall carry back
with him to the higher work that lies before him in periods of
existence yet unborn in the universe, that are still in the obscurity
of eternity.
This thinker, this God descended into matter,
has a dual aspect, one face turned to the Divine which is its source,
the other face turned to matter which he has come to dominate and to
subdue. These are the higher and the lower minds, the rational, and,
in its union with the lower nature, the animal soul in Man: so that
in its double nature you have the aspect that is turned to the brute
to train it; you have the aspect turned to the spirit that strives
ever upward towards union with the purely divine. And the whole life
of man is the battle-field of that dual nature--the God struggling
with the brute, in order that the brute itself may become divine.
That is the way that Man evolves, that is the building up of the
divine in the midst of the earth on which we live. Do you doubt that
God is in every Man? Do you doubt that the essence of humanity is
divinity itself? Men talk of others as sunk in evil. Men speak of
their own race as corrupt, and by the very degradation they ascribe
to it they make it more degraded than otherwise it would be; for we
tend to reproduce the opinion that surrounds us. If we are evil and
brutal, we tend then to take on, as it were, the character which is
ascribed to us too often even by the religious faiths. But if Man be
divine, if the very heart of Man be light, then you can appeal to the
divine within the lowest, and know that answer will come, however
muffled be the veil of flesh. Would you have proof that God in Man is
present in the vilest, present in the most degraded, present in every
son of man whose life seems that of the brute rather than of God?
Come with me to one of our English villages far away from the
ordinary haunts of men--a village which, once all beauty, has been
defaced by the greed of those who possess it and the carelessness of
those who live in it. We have some mining villages in our country, I
am ashamed to say, where the lives that are lived are lives of the
lowest, of the most ignorant and most degraded. Not all of our mining
population are thus. Some of them are strong and self-reliant men,
but it is not of them I am thinking now. I am thinking of some
villages I know where if you walk down the village street you would
find gathered in front of the public-house men whose language soils
those ears that hear it, who speak foul words, who are gambling,
betting, drinking, finding all pleasure in the senses, and you would
say, "No light of the divine is there." Are you so sure? Wait and
watch them as you wait, and as you are there, thinking how degraded
men can be, how they seem to be nothing but the vilest of living
creatures--listen to a sound there that makes every man spring to his
feet, in order that with every sense alert he may hear the sound
distinctly and understand what it means. There is a far-off rumbling
that seems to shake the ground on which they stand. The far-off
rumble that comes louder, louder, louder, till with a mighty clap as
of a thunderbolt there is a crash, a roar, and a pillar of smoke that
comes up from the earth, and from mouth to mouth the word flies,
"Explosion in the mine below," and men are there, living or dead, one
cannot tell. In a moment the whole village is alive, .men, women, and
children rushing to the mouth of the pit. There are cries of women
who know not if they are wives or widows, wailings of children who
know not if they be fatherless, and the strong men gather around the
pit, the pit that is black with smoke, and unheeding that fiery death
that is beneath--there is a struggling at the mouth of the pit, men
struggling with men, and struggling for what? Come near them and you
will hear the words that flow from their lips. "Go back, you've got a
wife or mother. Let me go down who have none to care if I die." And
the men who were swearing, who were gambling, who were drinking,
hearing that cry of men in agony, forget their brutehood and remember
the God that is within, and they fight to go into the cage, they
struggle for the chance to sacrifice their lives for their comrades;
and down they go, down into the hell of the burning mine, to see if
some comrade be there still with the life within him and they can
bring back to woman or to child the breadwinner of the family, the
support and guardian of the home. Do you dare to tell me those men
are not divine? Do you dare to say that where-sacrifice is pleasant,
the very source of sacrifice is absent from the heart of man ? I tell
you there is none however degraded, none however ignorant, none
however vile, in whom the divine spirit has not His Sanctuary in the
innermost heart, who shall not at length become pure as the little
child with love that raises him from the mire of sin, and that energy
of divine life which has in it the promise of triumph, however far
off that day of triumph is. And Man evolving by this inner force,
life after life, makes slow progression till a time comes in the life
of the man when more rapid growth begins to be possible; the time
when the man by gradual evolution is beginning to understand the
far-off possibility of reuniting, as it were, the higher and lower
mind. When the upward striving of the lower mind is beginning to
reach by aspiration that higher one of which it is the ray. When the
higher mind, having worked for ages in human evolution, is beginning
to be able to impress itself on the tabernacle so that that
tabernacle is conscious of the indwelling of the God, and then there
comes a time when the man thus evolving begins consciously to set
before himself a definite aim to bend all his efforts in a definite
direction, and there will be evil in the heart only or in the heart
and lips as well, yet a conscious acceptation of Man's true goal in
life, the service of his race and the giving of himself for Man. And
then the man who has reached that point in evolution vows himself to
the service of all that lives, and puts before him for all future
lives that may come to him the one object of growing so that he may
help others, of learning in order that he may enlighten their
ignorance, of strengthening himself that his strength may be of help
in raising the world of which he is a part, and then the lives
consciously directed become more rapid in their evolving energy, life
after life adds more and more rapidly to the vision of the soul, to
the power of the lower mind to respond, till, stage by stage, the
story grows deeper and higher, till step by step the life becomes
purer and purer and fuller; and the last cycle of births is entered,
which when completed will leave the man one of those who have
triumphed over sin anddeath; and when these last lives are beginning,
one lesson comes from those who have already achieved, one special
direction is given to the disciple by which his life is to be guided,
by which his safety on the path is to be secured. You may read it in
the same book that I quoted this afternoon. Those fragments of the
Book of the Golden Precepts, that are the very hymn book of every
true disciple, and there you will find that the law of life must be
compassion, that the law of life must be feeling and suffering and
enjoying with others, that no tear must be allowed to fall till the
effort has been made to wipe it from the sufferer's eye; but that
every tear not wiped from the eye of a brother must remain burning on
your own heart till that which caused it is removed. And then these
lives of continual effort for others bring at last the evolved Man to
the point where perfection is reached and triumph over death secured.
They lead him to the point at which, once more to quote the same
book, "He holdeth Life and Death in his strong hand." He is no longer
a disciple, he stands complete in knowledge; he is no longer a
combatant, the victory lies behind him and the spoils of victory are
in his grasp. What shall he do with them? How shall he spend them?
Weary with ages of struggle, what shall be his final choice? He
stands on the threshold of that world, separated from ours by
difference of condition, which no bridge is able to span. He stands
on the threshold of that state of consciousness, so misunderstood in
the West, called Nirvana, that mighty state of all consciousness and
all knowledge which no words can syllable and no heart of Man
conceive. He opens the door that leads to that sublime condition. It
is his by right of struggle; it is his by right of conquest. His very
foot is on the threshold of the doorway, and one moment he pauses ere
he crosses the threshold. And as he stands there, Lo, a Voice, the
Voice of Compassion itself, sounds in his hearing, and he pauses to
listen. "Shalt thou escape while all that lives must suffer? Shalt
thou be safe and hear the whole world cry?" And in the silence that
follows, the cry of the world is heard. Across the abyss comes the
sob of humanity, orphaned humanity, that is without guide and helper,
and that sees one of its greatest passing out of sight. All the cries
of men in agony, all the shrieks of women trampled under foot, all
the wailings of little children in our world, make one mighty chord
of anguish, and they cry to him to stop. What has his life been for
many a life past. It has been a life hearkening to every cry of pain
that comes to it. It has been a life that responds to every appeal
for help that reaches its hearing. All the life has become divine
compassion. Can it be deaf when help is needed by men? And in that
silence, broken only by the sob of anguish, in that silence is made
the great renunciation, the door of Nirvana is closed by the hand
that opened it, from the threshold that might have been crossed the
foot is withdrawn, and the Master turns back. He chooses the great
renunciation, he chooses voluntarily to live in the world for the
helping and the guidance of men. He brings back the strength he has
conquered, the wisdom he has gained, the love that is his very
nature, and he lays them all at the feet of humanity that he is
willing to serve--his knowledge for its guidance, his purity for its
cleansing, his strength for its uplifting, his infinite compassion to
have patience with its folly, forgiveness for its wickedness, endless
endurance till it learn wisdom also by experience through which it
passes. Those are the men that we call Masters. Those, the mighty
souls to whom we give our heart's homage, not because they are wise
so much as because they are loving; not so much because they are
strong as because they are Compassion absolute. Those are the guides
and the teachers, those the examples that stimulate us to work.
Behind the movement which we have been considering for the
last two days stand those servants of men, inspiring all that is best
and noblest in it. I do not mean guiding its policy, I do not mean
driving it along every step of its life, for they let their servants
learn by their own mistakes, desiring not mere puppets that they
control, but men and women evolving toward perfection. That is the
strength that lies behind our movement as behind every other great
movement for the spiritual good of men, for it matters not whether we
know the Masters--they know us. And they give their help to every one
who works for Man, no matter whether his eyes be blinded or whether
they be opened to the light they shed. That is the secret of our
strength. What is it that in this Parliament of Religions has drawn
crowd after crowd at all its sessions, to learn the truths that a few
amongst us have here been employed in imperfectly setting forth?
Youngest, you may say, of any movement as the world knows us, though
in reality the oldest of all, what is it in this Theosophical
Society, not yet in its twentieth year of life, which is making the
eyes of all men turn towards it and making the hearts of all men ask
what it has to give ? Men are hungry for spiritual truth. Men are
longing for spiritual knowledge. They ask for a knowledge of the soul
which shall not be based only on faith; for a guidance in life clear
and definite that may satisfy the heart and the reason alike. And
this movement was started by those Masters of Wisdom to feed the
hunger of the soul which the cycle of time had brought round again;
and they sent into the world their messengers that they might make
this movement possible. Who is its true founder so far as the
material world is concerned? They selected, these great souls that
stand beside this Society, a Russian woman, outcast from home and
friends, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who went out form her Russian
home, leaving wealth, rank, princely position behind her, eager only
for knowledge of the truth and union with the divine life. Through
many a land she travelled, through may a clime she wandered, one
after another she examined the teachings of the world, till the eye
of the soul was opened and the Master she served sent her out to do
his work. Penniless she came back to the world. Told to go to
America, she went to France--as far as her money took her--and there
coming into possession of a few pounds, enough to land her in New
York, but no more; yet nothing could stay her. She went with the word
behind her; that word he gave her; and she came alone and friendless
to your country to face the materialism of the West and to proclaim
as live again the true and ancient Wisdom-Religion. She was scoffed
at and derided, laughed at and defamed. Every foul word that the
malice of foul minds could image was heaped on her one head. They
never thought she was a woman and had none to help her, and they did
right, for that lion-heart asked no sort of consideration, and she
would not use sex as defence against cruelty. She lived her life, she
gathered round her men and women who got some glimpse of the strength
that was within her, and the beauty of the divine life that she
enshrined. They tried to crush her with calumny, tried to destroy her
influence. What is the Answer? The answer is that two years and a
half after she passed away there are thousands of men and women
scattered the world over to thank her for the life she lived, for the
guidance that she gave to life. They thought they had crushed her
with their Hodgson babble; they thought that they could crush her
with all their Psychical Research Society Reports, and the answer is
that we are living to-day and we stand as testimony to her work, as
witnesses to the life she has made possible for us. How has such a
movement spread? How has such a Society been possible? Because of a
spiritual life that lies behind it that no slander can wound and no
power of man can touch. And to-day, to-day, those who made the
movement possible glance over the Western world to see where some
souls may be found willing to be helpers with them in the redemption
of humanity, willing to share with them in the toil and triumph that lie
behind. Here and there there is some soul that catches glimpses of
the light that shines from behind the veil, and gives itself in its
pure measure as they had given themselves for men. Such are the
helpers of the Masters. Such the co-workers that they are seeking,
and not one of you but, if you chose to take the higher path, might
make to-day your first step along the road, a step, it may be,
feeble, uncertain, and halting, but if made out of love to Man and
devotion to the spirit has in it the certainty of final success--is
the beginning of the journey that shall lead you to be co-worker in
the spirit. That, then, is the final appeal that from this platform
comes to every man or woman ready to give himself for the helping and
the saving of man. There are so many that want help, is there none to
give it? so few to speak for the spiritual life among so many that
are sunk in the flesh. And this I say to you, that no joy of earth,
no hope that gilds an earthly future, and no delight that comes of
earthly triumph; no such joy, no such happiness, no such ecstasy,
bears any more proportion to the joy of the spiritual! life than the
fog that surrounds some mining village is radiant as the sunshine, or
the pettiest joy of the gnat in the sunshine can emulate the power
and delight of the intellect in man.
For greater than
intellect is spirit, brighter than Mind is the Supreme Life; one joy,
one peace inexhaustible. Such is the possibility that lies in front
of you; for those who have got one glimpse of that, no earthly power
has longer charm or desire. Before the radiance of that divine life,
all glory of earth is poor and dim. This is not matter of faith, it
is matter of knowledge; and every one whose vision is even partly
opened will till you that that only is the real life, and that the
knowledge of the Divine is that which alone can satisfy the heart of
Man.
Materialism Undermined by
Science
A Lecture delivered in 1895 in Calcutta
It is
now fourteen months, my Brothers, since last I stood amongst you when
I came to Calcutta last January twelve-month. I had only then made
the acquaintance of, as I may say, the India of the South, with the
various aspects that there may be found in her laws and in her
religious thoughts. Leaving your capita city I travelled northwards
and westwards and visited several parts of India, those of the North
and North-west, and afterwards the Punjab. Thence I turned towards
Bombay visiting several cities on the way, and then westwards back to
Europe, there spending some months; and then southwards again to far
Australia where a new race is growing up, where a new nation, as it
were, is being born; and from that far-off distant Isle, near to the
South Pole, come back once more to the Motherland amongst you again
to bring you once more a message of the Eternal Verities of
Spirituality, to speak amongst you once again the Eternal Truths
which from ancient times have come down. For whether it be in India
or Europe or Australia there is one mighty Spiritual Truth to be
proclaimed, the one thing needed for the soul of man, and that is the
knowledge of its wanderings after the Spirit, the knowledge of the
Will of the Supreme. And whether in the lands of the West and South
or whether under the fire of the tropical sun man is still demanding
spiritual knowledge, is still struggling after spiritual life, still
hoping for the same spiritual unity. To whatever land we may go,
through whatever country we may pass, we have still Humanity as "the
great orphan" crying for the Spirit, striving after Light, after
spiritual unity, striving to find in the many esoteric religions the
one Spiritual Truth which alone can satisfy the soul. And if I come
back to you here and take up again the message which in this land has
clothed itself in the ancient forms of Hindu religion from ancient
times, it is not because India is the only land where human souls
need it, it is not because India is the only country where the spirit
of man is crying out for the Light, but it is because in this land
there is more hope of a spiritual revival, and if a spiritual revival
here there maybe, then it will pour outwards to all the four corners
of the world. For spirituality is more easily awakened in India than
elsewhere. The spiritual heart here is only sleeping, whereas in some
other lands it has scarcely yet come to the birth; for you must
remember that in this land is the birthplace of every religion, and
that from India, outwards, religions have made their way. Therefore
it is that the soul of our mother India is so important for the
future of the world, and therefore it is that the Materialism of
India is so fatal. For it is here alone that lies the hope that man
has of looking for spiritual life: for, in truth, unless the life of
the Spirit come in this land, by reviving here, then the hope is
baseless that spirituality is to spread over the world. And I may say
to you, ere glancing for a moment over the subjects with which I am
to deal, upon this visit, that in travelling through the length and
breadth of India, from South to North, from West to East, I have
found this of the people: that in the South of India you have more
pronounced and outward orthodoxy, you have the more defined
observances of ancient ceremonies and ancient rites, that on the
surface of the people, as it were, you see more of the outer signs of
Hinduism and more exactitude in the discharge of the various
religious duties. That is a characteristic of the Southern people;
that is a marked attribute amongst their various communities. Far
away in the Punjab, there you may find certain traits of manhood, of
strength, of courage, which if they shall rise to the Spirit surely
would give us great help, would give us an enormous reinforcement;
for that race would move with force and energy, only perhaps slow to
take action. In Bengal there is, as I have noticed, much outward sign
of western influence, much of the surface of the people taking up
western thought and western customs; but in the heart of Bengal there
still remain, more than elsewhere, gleams of the ancient
spirituality, so that, just as in spiritual matters India is the
heart of the world, so is Bengal the heart of India and may save
India as a whole for all Humanity. And therefore in speaking to you
in the ten days which lie before me, I have chosen subject after
subject which should all point to the one object--and that is the
revival of spirituality and the spread of the ancient Hindu religion
in the hearts of its children, who are bound to it by ancestral ties.
If you cannot revive spiritually in India through Hinduism, if
you cannot thus reach India, then there is nothing else you can hope
to do; and I say that here alone is the one hope of reviving this
ancient potentiality. Here is the one certain hope which will bind
all the hearts of the Indians into one and therefore we must look to
the revival of the ancient faith which however it has fallen, however
much it has been corrupted in modern times, however much it may have
lost spiritual life, is still the most ancient religion the world has
ever known, sublime in its Philosophy and magnificent in its
Literature. So that if this shall again become a living thing, India
shall herself live; and with the revival all the sleeping truths of
other religions shall look again towards their Indian mother, and
make her once again the spiritual teacher of the world.
And now I
am going to speak to you upon materialism; I am not going to deal now
with a definite religious question, with definite religious
teachings, with mighty doctrines in Philosophy, in Spiritual
knowledge, which later on I shall hope to unfold before you. There is
one thing that is eating the heart out of India, and that is modern
materialism. There is one thing which is poisoning the mind of India,
and that is the kind of science which is the teacher of materialism
and works against Spirituality in the mind. How should I be able to
tell you of the moral regeneration of India unless first I can strike
at that which is piercing her heart and sucking out her very
lifeblood. So--as I have been trained in the science of the West,
trained in the knowledge of the physical Universe which is so much
used to make men believe that nothing but the physical remains--I
take for my first subject this undermining of materialism by science,
and I attack it with the weapons that were once used to build it
up.
Now it is fair to ask in the beginning why it is that religion
and science should appear to be in opposition. Why is it that science
should seem to play into the hands of materialism? Why is it that as
science has advanced, Religion has found itself pressed backward and
backward so that men begin to make excuses for spiritual truths and
talk apologetically of religion? Why is it that men advocating
spiritual truth are afraid of being called superstitious? Let us see
whether there is no explanation why science at the outset should help
materialism and the reason also why, as science has advanced, it
begins to undermine the same materialism and to destroy that which it
has helped to establish? You may remember Bacon, a great philosopher
of the 17th Century, speaking on this very point used the following
phrase:--that a little learning inclineth men to atheism, but deeper
knowledge brings them back to religion. It is a true statement. Look
for a moment at religion and science, and you will see why that
should be the fact, and why one should be against the other. A man
who is a spiritual man--a religious teacher--regards the universe
from the standpoint of the Spirit from which everything is seen as
coming from the One. When he stands, as it were, in the centre, and
he looks from the centre to the circumference, he stands at the point
whence the force proceeds, and he judges of the force from that point
of radiation and he sees it as one in its multitudinous workings, and
knows the force is One; he sees it in its many divergencies, and he
recognises it as one and the same thing throughout. Standing in the
centre, in the Spirit, and looking outwards to the universe, he
judges everything from the standpoint of the Divine Unity and sees
every separate phenomenon, not as separate from the One but as the
external expression of the one and the only Life. But science looks
at the thing from the surface. It goes to the circumference of the
universe and it sees a multiplicity of phenomena. It studies these
separated things and studies them one by one. It takes up a
manifestation and judges it; it judges it apart; it looks at the
many, not at the One; it looks at the diversity, not at the Unity,
and sees everything from outside and not from within: it sees the
external difference and the superficial portion while it sees not the
One from which every thing proceeds. You may imagine, to take a
figure, that you stand where there is a white light--say an electric
light sending out rays from a single point; imagine three tubes going
out from this centre and rays of light travelling down each and
passing through a glass of a different colour set in each tube; if
you look from the point where the electric light is you would see the
white light striking outward as a light which was one; but if you
went to the far end of the tubes you would there see that the light
was of three different colours, as red and blue and yellow, appearing
as if the light was of three kinds not one, because in their
separation unity would be entirely lost. See how that works in the
Universe. You have your three great gunas or attributes
through which, as it were, the light comes as through three different
glasses, and the one Divine Spirit comes down into manifestation; and
it is not only the three gunas that you have but these
intermingling one with another, and breaking in a thousand different
channels. Then how great must be the differences at the
circumference! But how it would lessen the difficulty if men could
only see the processes, and know how those results were brought
about; if they went further, and if travelling onward they found the
divergences greatly diminish, see then how thus going forward, they
may come, as it were, near to the one, and reconciliation between
Religion and Science may arise. Religion shows everything from the
point of the Spirit and proclaims the unity. Scientists show
everything from the point of view of diversity and proclaim that, as
if in opposition, to the world. But Plato says of the man who can
discern the one in the many, that that man he regards as a God; the
work of the true spiritual teacher is to show the one under the
multiplicity, to make man see the fact of unity underneath diversity,
and as science goes forward she also may be used once more to help
us, because in passing out of the physical into the super-physical
and mental, she is going nearer to Unity.
And now let me turn to
my science and give you the proofs of this. First let me refer you,
though I need not dwell upon the point, to the remarkable position
taken by Huxley in his latest writings, which were new when I was
with you last year, but which remain unchanged, uncontradicted, as
the latest proclamation of the great teacher of Agnosticism as the
latest proclamation of its exponent in European Science. Two great
points he made, or rather three. First--and I only mention these
briefly, because I dealt with them last year--first he pointed out
that the evolution of virtue in man was directly in conflict with the
evolution of the physical world: that when man evolved compassion,
and tenderness and gentleness and self-sacrifice, when he learnt to
use his strength for service instead of self-assertion--he was flying
right in the face of the laws by which progress had been made in the
physical Universe. He was following the law of self-sacrifice as
against the law of self-assertion. Why is it that man can thus set
himself against the cosmos? It is because he is approaching the
spiritual region; it is because he has begun to develop the essential
nature of the divinity itself: for the life of God is in giving and
not in taking: the life of God is in pouring out and not in grasping;
and as man feels the life of the Spirit in him against the life of
the animal, he grows Divinely strong. And when you find men of
science admitting that the evolution of virtue is by the law of
self-sacrifice, you may perhaps begin to admit the possibilities of
what is said in some of the sacred scriptures, that Creation always
begins with Sacrifice. You may remember that--I am quoting to you,
leaving out only the first great word--"the dawn is the head of the
sacrificial horse, of the horse which arose out of the water, the
water which the commentary says represents Paramatma." All
creation is Sacrifice. The source or dawn is the sacrifice, and
everywhere the soul that would develop must live a life of sacrifice,
because as the Upanishad says to you, a sacrifice of the
Godhead was made in order that the world might exist. Sacrifice is
the first condition in order that the Universe may be, and that man
might be evolved to be one with Himself.
The second point made by
Huxley seems taken from the sacred books of India; man can set
himself against the cosmos because in man there is an intelligence
which is the same as the Intelligence which pervades the Universe.
That is the lesson of the Shastras. The intelligence of man is one
with the Intelligence which pervades the whole. Man can set himself
against the external world, for "Thou art Brahman," and when that is
realised by man all else becomes subject to his will. And the third
belief that Huxley has thought fit to declare is that the working of
consciousness in the higher cannot be understood by the lower. There
is nothing against the analogy of nature in supposing that there are
grades of intelligence rising above men. There may be other
intelligences higher and higher and higher, reaching further and
further far above the noblest intelligence of man. And there is
nothing, he says, to make it impossible that there should be in the
universe, above these grades--a Single Intelligence. But what is
that? Nothing but what has been proclaimed in the Scriptures, Isvar,
the Lord, the Logos, the Word of which all things were made. So that
you may see how, on these lines, science in the mouth of one of its
greatest teachers is undermining materialism.
Now let me go a
little further. Let us see, not from the mouth of the teacher, but
from the facts themselves, how changes are going on. Physical facts
are being discovered which show that underneath the material mind
must be at work. Underlying the physical, intelligence must be
active; .underlying a particle of what was once called dead matter, a
metal, a crystal or a stone, there is a moving life--there is a
ruling intelligence. First let me say--and the force of the argument
may excuse repetition of it--that if you take a crystal, you find it
grow along geometrical lines, with absolute definiteness of angles,
as though a compass were used to trace it, and these lines make
geometrical figures. So that Plato's phrase "God geometrises" is seen
to be true even in the animal kingdom. Then again when from the
mineral you go to the vegetable where life is more active, where
there seems to be less regularity, where there seems at first less of
order, you will find in reality that even in its multiplicity there
is order, that in the vegetable as well there is the same immutable
law. If you take the branch of a tree, you may study the way the
leaves are set, and you will find every leaf in a definite place,
both as regards the leaves lower down and higher up. So that the
leaves of the tree are developed on a geometrical plan. More than
that. Since I last stood here to speak to you, a series of
investigations has been made into the way that metals behave under
exercise. Every engineer and other employer of machinery has noticed
that when metal is used, where there are bars and wheels and other
parts making up the machine, that with the use of the machine, what
is called "fatigue" occurs. The metal gets tired. But what does this
mean? It has been observed that, after a certain amount of exercise,
the machine will not work well. It works like a tired horse or a
tired man; it stumbles and cannot carry on the work. What shall be
done? Let it rest. It does not want improvement, as every part is
perfect; it does not want repair--there is nothing in it which is
broken; it only needs to rest; and if it is allowed to rest it
recovers from its fatigue, without a single thing being done to it,
and it goes on to work as well as ever, showing that rest has given
back its energies and that, just as a tired animal reposes, so also
the "dead" metal may repose. This shows that even in a metal there is
life--for a dead thing cannot get tired, a dead thing cannot lose its
energies, a dead thing cannot be restored by rest. These are all
signs of a living body; where there is fatigue and recovery of
energies by rest, there is life existing, however hidden it may be
under the form which conceals it from our eyes. And now for a moment
turn to Chemistry. I took first that point of the metals because it
is a point which on thinking over you will find exceedingly plain and
intelligible. But turn now to Chemistry. One great argument which
materialists used to take from Chemistry was this: that as advances
were made in what was called organic Chemistry, or the Chemistry of
living things, it was shown that the separation made between organic
and inorganic Chemistry was artificial. As a matter of fact, they
said there was no fundamental difference and both organic and
inorganic Chemistry were on the same lines; therefore they thought
that the introduction of life as a thing separate and apart from
chemical agencies must be given up. That argument was very much
strengthened by chemists in the laboratory making certain things
which before had been found only as products of vegetables and
animals and which had been regarded therefore as the outcome of
living energy. These things were said to be things which could only
be produced by living organisations. During the present century,
however, a large number of these bodies have been made by chemists,
and they have succeeded here in breaking down the barriers between
the organic and the inorganic; and the result was that at once it was
said, "you see life is only, after all, the result of chemical
energy, and not an outcome from the supreme source, but only
something in connection with the chemical energy; you were under a
mistake in supposing those things were always found as products of
living things, and therefore there is not needed to explain them a
source of life from which all living things proceeded. See how the
chemist has proved you out of court; see how he has made that which
you said could only come from life." Thus apparently was one of the
arguments knocked down which seemed to prove the life of the world as
coming from the life which was Eternal and Supreme. But Chemistry, in
the course of these very investigations, going along the lines called
organic, has given us an argument stronger than the one attacked. It
places within our reach arguments far stronger, far more potent than
the one which it destroyed; for it shows that in the organic the atom
is not only, as I told you last year, formed by the action of
electrical currents out of primary matter, but it shows further that
the atom here progresses; that the atom in the animal kingdom is not
at all the same as the atom of the vegetable in its combining power.
It shows that the change is not a change of material attributes, but
a change of inner life, of internal differentiations--the atom
changes within itself, as all living things do; for one of the great
signs of life used to be said to be this power of adaptation from
within. Take an atom in the mineral kingdom such as carbon. All its
combinations are simple, all its combinations are one by one. This
fourfold atom can join with others in definite and simple
combinations, but when it passes forward, having gone through the
mineral kingdom, then by an inner evolution, it changes its combining
power and unites with itself to form a number of compounds, forming
closed rings, so as to make complicated combinations never found in
the mineral kingdom. Taking the old story of evolution as laid down
thousands of years ago, not in the modern but in the ancient forms,
we learn that this atom is part of the Universal life, that it is not
dead matter but a living thing, that atoms are minute lives which go
to build up external forms. We are able now to bring arguments from
Chemistry to show that there is atomic evolution in the universe,
that the progress of life which we see around us is no dream of the
ancient Rishis but a reality. The scientists look only at the form
and not at the inner life; but as you study the atom, you realise
that this increased power of combination means evolving life within
it. Not only is that seen, but it is also now admitted that life
cannot be regarded as an outcome of chemical agency. It is admitted
that life shows certain specific energies which differentiate it from
electrical and chemical affinities, and you may get the ,phenomena of
living things among the energies which science is unable to trace to
their source. Once it was thought that life might be explained as the
outcome of chemical and electrical agencies, but now it is admitted
to be something more. Science now admits that although they are
correlated with the life, they are not the life itself, and although
they accompany the phenomena they cannot be regarded as their
sources. So that from the chemistry which was the greatest hope of
the materialist, we may now obtain arguments for its
undermining.
Pass from that to electricity and see how here, in
the latest discoveries, are arguments that may help our works. It is
not only that science has proved that whenever thought is present,
electricity is also present, interesting as that is, as showing the
close relationship between them; but we are also told that there may
be a development of an organ in the brain of man which will take
cognizance of electric vibration directly and not indirectly. Let me
show you what I mean. You see the light here because the light makes
vibrations, and these vibrations strike on the organ we call the eye.
The eye is so put together in its minute parts, that these vibrate in
response to the vibrations of the ether; so that whenever these
vibrations are present, certain particles in the eye vibrate in
response and give to us the sensation which we call light. Now these
vibrations are within narrow limits; there are vibrations in the
ether wider and narrower in wave-length than those which we call
light, and to these our eyes do not answer. Therefore if they alone
are present, we are in darkness; we cannot see. So again suppose we
had developed the organ which is necessary to respond to the electric
vibration, while we had not the organ of sight. Then this room would
be dark to us, though filled with the vibrations we now call light.
Then the consciousness could not perceive the light. But if we had
developed instead of the eye another class of organs which answered
to the electric vibrations, and suppose a large electric machine were
fixed at one end of the hall, and a strong electric current sent
through the hall, we should be able to perceive because the organ in
us would vibrate in answer to the electric current, and the current
would reach our consciousness through this organ. The consciousness
is helpless without an organ that receives from without, and only the
body can receive and transfer vibrations to the inner intelligence.
That has been very clearly pointed out, and to take a striking
illustration used by Professor Crookes: suppose we had no eyes to see
the light, and suppose we had an inner organ which answered to
electricity. This air would be opaque and we could not see through
it, while a silver wire going through the air would be transparent,
would be like a tube going through a solid mass. Though you would be
able to perceive along the silver wire, because silver is a good
conductor of electricity,you would perceive the air as a solid round
the silver which would look like a hole. Do you see how rational the
illusory theory can become when you learn a little more science? Do
you see how matter is no longer the thing which it was, a solid
material, but by a change in the organ of consciousness, what is
solid today may be permeable to-morrow? And thus the idea is largely
right that regards matter as an illusion; for what we call matter is
only a generalisation of the impressions received by consciousness by
way of the senses. It is the translation in consciousness of the
unknown something which works upon us. In fact, what we call matter
is but a reflection in the consciousness of an aspect of the Supreme
Unknowable Unity, just as the Spirit is the reflection of the other
aspect of the same Unknowable Unity. Thus science is bringing us back
to this part of the ancient teachings, and if a materialist comes to
you and says that matter cannot pass from matter, just throw into his
mind for him to think over, some of these later facts.
Pass I from
that to another closely allied point--that of thought-transference.
Thought-transference is now being acknowledged, though for a long
time science was very doubtful as to its acceptance, and if you spoke
to a man about it he most likely regarded you as a crank, or even
called you a fraud, for it was easier to call you a fraud than to
admit that he was ignorant. There are men for whom it is impossible
to say "I do not know," but anybody can say "you are a fraud." The
ignorant who are not able to understand, people who are most
self-opinionated nearly always call out "fraud," when confronted with
the unintelligible. Look now at thought-transference. Thought is a
form-producing force; when Brahma thought, worlds appeared. In the
ancient books it was always taken to be granted that action is an
effect of the mind. But it has been asked contemptuously of the
writers of these books, what did they know about modern science? What
did they know compared to our advancement? For we are supposed to
know everything nearly in this 19th century! Yet, after all, the old
writers have become justified by the facts. The old teachers have
been justified by the later investigations. And some of the best of
the younger scientists in England--the old ones are too
prejudiced--are ready to take up facts, and they themselves have now
performed the experiments that prove that thought-transference is
possible. You have a man like Professor Lodge saying that his own
experiments have convinced him and that he finds that thought can
pass from mind to mind without what is called any material method.
Not only he but the Psychical Research Society, which is an
exceedingly "respectable" body from the public standpoint, have
conducted a number of most careful investigations on
thought-transference. The results of these were published in a book
some three months ago by W. Podmore, a member of the Society. You
will find in this book a record of most careful experiments on the
transference of thought from one to another, and the evidence is now
so strong that it is impossible to put it out of court.
Oliver
Lodge speaking two years ago, said he was sure of
thought-transference, but it was alleged that matter might be moved
by the action of the will without material contact, and of that he
was not yet convinced. But within the last few months Mr. Lodge has
himself carried on a number of experiments which have convinced him,
he says, beyond the possibility of doubt, that an article may be
moved from one place to another without physical contact at all; that
bodies can be moved or suspended in the air without the means of
physical support, and that he himself has taken part in experiments
which have been carefully arranged by himself and other scientific
men and they have proved that it is possible and it may be done over
and over again. The experiments carried on included therein the
taking of small articles and without physical contact passing them
from one part of a room to another. The conditions under which these
things were done were very rigid. They were carried on in a small
island where there were no persons living except the
lighthouse-keeper and his family. It was a very little island, a mere
rock. Mr. Lodge and two or three others got the owner's consent to
make their experiments there. They brought with them what is called a
medium who belonged to the South of Europe, who could not talk the
language of the inhabitants of the island, so that she could not
communicate even with the family on the island, she being an absolute
stranger never having been there before. They took her into a room
with themselves only, with locked door, and there they performed the
experiments in which these phenomena were produced. They kept the
reporter outside in the balcony so, that he could not be within sight
of what was occurring. The reporter was put outside with a closed
shutter between him and the people in the room. He was to write down
what he heard, but he was not able to see what happened. Mr. Lodge
said he was himself absolutely convinced; he said he could not as yet
explain it, but he thought it possible there might be a kind of
expansion of vital energies by which a person, under certain
conditions, could affect a body outside his physical reach. Just as
one body can touch another by the exercise of physical energies, so
can it draw others towards it. But he is not yet prepared to say how
that energy is exercised. That this was, he knows; how it was, he has
not yet satisfied himself. But if he were to read some of the ancient
books, he could easily find out. He might find that a man does not
consist only of what is called the food-sheath or our physical body,
but that men have other sheaths in which consciousness may work,
without the limitations which are attached to the physical body. When
it is working within there, it can also exercise its power, just as
much as it can in the physical body, and may lift an object from one
place to another by working with a law of nature in which other
forces are concerned. The sheath used is what the Theosophists speak
of as the "astral" body which can be utilised for the production of
these phenomena, and though it was said to be a fraud when Madame
Blavatsky brought an article from one side of a room to another, yet
nearly four years after her death you have Mr. Lodge going into the
subject, and asserting after a scientifically rigid repetition of the
facts that the thing could be done, thus justifying a statement as
possible which had been hastily dismissed as a fraud.
I might
speak of many other cases of these latest investigations, and show
you how they are undermining the materialistic idea. I may turn to
Hypnotism, and remind you that last year I remarked that it was
becoming a public danger--the power of influencing another, the power
recognised by science, which one man had of imposing his thoughts on
another. I saw that before long nations would be face to face with
crimes which they would not know how to deal with. I said to you that
unless the exercise of these powers were very carefully guarded, so
that men who were unworthy should not be allowed to grasp these
hidden powers of nature, there would be great danger to society in
making safe particular classes of crime. Since last year that
prophecy of mine has proved itself true, and in certain cases both in
France and the United States of America crimes were found to have
been worked by the hypnotiser, and the courts have not been able to
deal with them, and verdicts of acquittal have been given on the
ground that the criminals were not responsible for their actions,
that being thrown into the hypnotised state, they could not justly be
called to account by the law for the crime which they had committed.
So that you have this result justifying the ancient practice of the
East in withholding dangerous knowledge of occult forces, and showing
that society in the West is face to face with the peril of men who
commit crimes but who cannot be held responsible for them, because
committing them under the influence of those who suggest
them.
What is to be the outcome of these arguments? What is to be
the outcome of these later investigations in Chemistry, electricity,
thought-transference, Hypnotism, the moving of bodies and the like?
To what are these new lines of investigation tending? They tend to
show you that the old doctrine is true, that everything is the
outcome of mind, that the Supreme Mind is, as it were, behind every
phenomenon, that matter is regulated in conformity with the dictates
of mind, that it is the truth that thought-forces take for in
particular manifestations, and so the Universe is only an expression
of the Divine Will. And inasmuch as the mind generates thoughts, and
inasmuch as the Supreme and human minds are one in their essence,
therefore the mind of man, in its higher manifestations shares in the
powers of Supreme mind, and can control matter, can move matter, can
model matter, shape matter, and make itself visible in the envelope
of thought, and so communicate with other minds without any attempt
to speak or hear at all. So that you begin to understand that the
saying of the Purana as to creation is not a dream, but that it is
from the Supreme Will that forms emanate and build the Universe. And
you may understand that this power of the Supreme is more manifest in
the power of the mind than in the powers of the body, and that true
activity is shown not in running about from place to place, held in
the bonds of physical facts, but in quiet thinking, in the use of the
imagination and the will. Therefore the Yogi sitting apart, with body
absolutely still, with eyes closed, and mouth not communicating with
other men, if he be a Yogi indeed, a Yogi in heart not only in dress,
he has an inner life, a spiritual life, he may do more than the man
of action by his thoughts, by his meditations, by the forces which
are going out from him. On these more than on the work of politicians
may turn the life of the nation.
Nor is this work only for the
Yogi. Every one of you is sending out thoughts that, passing into the
astral atmosphere, will take form, and thence affect the lives of men
and in their totality the nation's future. If only every one of you
would give one brief quarter of an hour's thought each morning to the
future of India, and send out earnest wishes for her welfare, hopes
for her revival, aspirations for her spiritual greatness, believe me
you would make a force that would raise the nation and would mould
her future. Your thoughts would gather together, modelling, as it
were, an ideal India that should take shape in the external world;
your prayers would gather together and ascend to the Feet of
Mahadeva, whence would flow forth a regenerating energy that would
manifest itself in teachers, in leaders, in guides of the people, who
could move the hearts of men and unite them into one mighty Unity.
Such is your power over the future, such the service you may render
India; for in thought is the power of the Supreme, and it is man's
because "Thou art Brahman." Ancient and Modern
Science
From the "Theosophical Review," September,
1900
In these days of exultation over the advance of Modern
Science, people are perhaps a little apt to forget that there still
exists in the world a Science of vast antiquity, of hoary anciency,
whose achievements dwarf those as yet obtained by its modern
namesake, whatever of possibly overtopping greatness may await the
latter in the future. It may not then be useless to study the two
briefly, side by side, to see where they agree and where they differ,
whether their methods coincide or whether they entirely diverge.
In speaking, of Ancient Science, I am not thinking of the
demi-antiquity of Greece or of Rome, the Science of which was merely
an offshoot from that of Egypt, Chaldaea and India. Ancient Science
strikes its roots deeply into that vast continent over the greater
part of which the waves of the Atlantic are now rolling, that
continent of Atlantis which Modern Science is beginning to recognise,
and the last fragment of which--the Island of Poseidonis, whereof
Plato tells us--disappeared some eleven thousand years ago. Traces of
that occidental Ancient Science are yet to be found in the records of
Egypt and in the antiquities of China, and it is not without
significance that the science of chemistry takes its name from Khem,
the old name of Egypt. The Ancient Science that is more familiar to
us is that which--brought eastwards by the flower of the Fourth Race
that bore in its heart the seed of the Fifth--was planted in India
and there grew into a mighty tree. While the Ancient Science of the
West was whelmed under the floods, that of the East grew up in its
stead, and in the first sub-race of the Aryan stock it was carried to
a magnificent height and took on the sublimest developments. It is
this which we will therefore take as the type of Ancient Science.
The point that at once strike. us when we first put Ancient
and Modern Science side by side is the profound difference in their
several attitudes towards Religion. In antiquity, Religion and
Science were never divorced from each other, nor did it enter into
the imagination of any to regard them as possible rivals. Every
temple was a school; every priest was a teacher; and, for a reason
that will presently be seen, a man needed to be a saint ere he could
hope to be a sage. The Brahmanas, the priestly caste, were also the
teaching caste, and had it as their duty to train the young in all
knowledge. And so highly was knowledge valued, that this teaching
caste was the highest caste, and the ruler clad in cloth of gold
would bow humbly at the feet of the half-naked but learned teacher,
for it was thought a greater thing to add one small fragment to the
area of knowledge than to bring another country within the confines
of the empire. If Religion strove to reveal God to the heart, Science
strove to reveal Him to the intelligence, and thus we find it
written:
"Shaunaka, verily, the great householder, came near
to Angiras full humbly and asked: 'What, O blessed one, is that which
known makes known all else?'
"To him he spake: 'Two
sciences should be known--thus the Brahma-knowers tell us the higher
and also the lower. Now the lower is the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the
Samaveda, the Atharvaveda, prosody, rites, grammar, etymology,
poetry, astronomy, and so on. But the higher is that by which the
Eternal is understood.' "*1
Within this Lower Science, the Aparavidya,
some four-and-sixty sciences were numbered, and for many patient
years the student would strive for their mastery; but the Higher
Science, the Para-vidya, that was but one, but a life-time
could only learn its alphabet, for it was the crown of all sciences,
the knowledge of the Heart of All, the Self. To know the Self, the
Essence of nature, the Life universal, the supreme Being, the
Eternal, that alone was knowledge--all else was ignorance. To know
God was the last triumph of intelligence, the supreme achievement of Ancient
Science, of the Science of the East.
Now the Science of
the later West, Modern Science, strikes its roots in Southern Spain,
in Andalusia, in the schools of the Moors and the Arabians. Fair
fruit of the early days of Islam, its very origin was an offence to
the Christendom on which it was grafted. It came in the wake of
invading conquering armies, and its presence was felt as a blasphemy
against the Christ, as a triumph of His Mussulman rival. The
compasses were a weapon against the Faith like the scimitar, and
while the Muslim chivalry slew the body the Muslim university
poisoned the soul. Religion seized, imprisoned, tortured, burned
Science, and Science, forced to fight for its very life, for air to
breathe, for ground to live on, struck with ever-growing force at the
Religion that strove to slay it. Hence increasing antagonism,
enlarging strife, the bitter "Conflict between Religion and Science,"
lasting down to our own days.
The difference between
Ancient and Modern Science in their attitudes towards religion is
thus due to the different environments in which they severally
evolved.
The next point of difference that strikes us is that
of the objects and line of study. Both work by observation, but the
observation is directed along different lines.
Modern
Science studies the forms that make up the kosmos; Ancient Science
the life which holds it together and maintains each form. The first
studies objects, and seeks by induction to discover the relations
between them and the laws within which they act; the second studies
the basic principles of the kosmos, and seeks by deduction to trace
the path of evolution and to outline the necessary forms in which
these principles will be expressed. It is as though in studying a
tree one man began at the leaves, observed the shape, colour and
characteristics of each, dissected them one by one, went from them to
each twig, to each branch, to the trunk, to the root and the
rootlets; the other took the seed, and, observing the life-principles
at work, deduced their manifestations in root, trunk, branch, twig,
leaf. The first studies the Many in its indefinite branches; the
other the One in its indefinite expansion.
The order in which
physiology and psychology are dealt with in relation to man will
serve as a convenient illustration. Modern Science begins with
physiology, studies the body, the nervous system, the brain, measures
responses to stimuli, calculates the speed of nerve-waves, and so on,
and on this basis proceeds to build up psychology. The individual
consciousness is regarded as the outcome of all this nervous
activity, and cannot be considered apart from it; to this conclusion
this method of study inevitably tends.
Ancient Science
begins with psychology, studies intelligence, analyses consciousness,
investigates mental states, and regards the body as an instrument, an
organ, shaped for the expression of these states. To it the body is a
result, and consciousness can do without any particular body;
let the one it is using be struck away, and it can readily fashion
another.
The question at once arises in the mind: How can such
a study be carried out? And the answer leads us to another profound
difference between Ancient and Modern Science. When the modern
scientist reaches the limits of his powers of observation, he
proceeds to enlarge those limits by devising new instruments of
increased delicacy; when the ancient scientist reached the limits of
his powers of observation, he proceeded to enlarge them by evolving
new capacities within himself. Where the one shapes matter into fresh
forms, makes a more delicate balance, a finer lens, the other forced
spirit to unfold new powers, and called on the Self to put forth
increased energies. Why and how this was done shall be presently
shown; that Self-evolution, or preferably that Self-manifestation,
was the Secret of the East. Its first stages were in exoteric
religion; its later stages in esoteric teachings. The end was the
effectual shining forth of the Self omnipotent and omniscient, and
when That was manifested all else became manifest afterwards.
Before dealing further with this let us glance at some
results of modern study, which have carried Modern Science into a
field wherein it meets its ancient predecessor. The common ground on
which this meeting takes place is the ether. The two start from
opposite poles, and meet at last here. Modern Science has climbed
slowly upwards, making sure each step of the ascent; solids, liquids,
gases, have been observed, weighed, tested, analysed, and at last
Science finds itself in a region where matter fails to respond,
becomes intangible, imponderable, and yet it must be present to
render intelligible the working of mighty energies. So Science
formulates the existence of intangible, imponderable
matter--intangible, imponderable for its present resources--and
proceeds to study it as best it may. Ancient Science has descended
step by step from life and intelligence to the kinds of matter in
which they clothe themselves, becoming ever denser and denser, till
it also reaches the ether and carries on therein its later
observations. Here, then, we can compare their results, and see how
far they agree.
Among the more significant of late
discoveries has been that of the Roentgen or X-rays, vibrations in
the ether which pass through matter hitherto regarded as opaque, and,
for instance, enable a photograph to be taken of the skeleton within
a living body, or of a bullet imbedded in an internal organ. These
vibrations are alleged to be seventy-five times smaller than the
smallest light vibrations, and thus can pass through matter
impermeable to light and heat. Now eight years before the X-rays were
discovered The Secret Doctrine was published, and in that Mme.
Blavatsky remarked: "Matter has extension, colour, motion (molecular
motion), taste and smell, corresponding to the existing senses of
man, and the next characteristic it develops--let us call it for the
moment 'Permeability'--will correspond to the next sense of man,
which we may call 'normal clairvoyance.'. . . A partial familiarity
with the characteristic of matter--permeability--which should be
developed concurrently with the sixth sense, may be expected to
develop at the proper period in this Round. But with the next Element
added to our resources in the next Round, Permeability will become so
manifest a characteristic of matter that the densest forms of this
Round will seem to man's perceptions as obstructive to him as a thick
fog, and no more."*2 The
fulfilment of the latter part of this quotation lies in the
future, but the earlier part is now verified, for the discovery of
the X-rays has completed a singular chain. Not long ago, a little boy
in America saw the bones of his father's hand through the covering
flesh, and medical observations established the fact that he "saw by
the X-rays," or, to use our own phrase, was " physically
clairvoyant." Other people here and there show this faculty, born
with them, "variations" pointing to a line of evolution. Under
hypnotic conditions many persons show this same power, and "hypnotic
lucidity" is a well-established fact. Others become clairvoyant by
practice. Surely when these facts are set side by side: etheric
vibrations by which certain objects may be seen through opaque
matter; occasional instances of people born with a power to receive
and respond to those vibrations; many people able to receive and
respond to them when shut off from the vibrations they normally
respond to; artificial development of the power to receive and
respond to them; we have definite signs of the evolution of a new
sense and sense-organ. The sense-organ is rudimentary in the normal
person, is at least partially developed in the born clairvoyant, is
susceptible of stimulation in most people when the developed senses
are temporarily silenced, and may have its development forced by
special means. Here the positive declaration of Ancient Science,
based on innumerable experiences, is in way of verification by the
discoveries of Modern Science.
The existence of what
occultists from immemorial antiquity have called "dark light," or
"invisible light," is being proved by the experiments of Dr. Le Bon,
related by himself in a monograph, of which the salient points are
quoted in the Parisian La Nature for June, I900. Conscious or
unconscious of its significance, he has named his discovery la
lumiere invisible.
Ancient Science asserts that etheric
vibrations can be utilised for purposes of communication without the
employment of apparatus connecting the points of generation and
reception. Jagadish Chandra Bose and Marconi have severally proved
this to be true as regards some such vibrations marked off as
electrical. "Wireless telegraphy" is now an established fact, and
shows that the ether itself suffices as a medium of communication
between widely separated points. The transmission of thought-waves
through the ether is thus proved to be theoretically possible, and
its actuality is asserted by such eminent scientists as Sir William
Crookes and Professor Oliver Lodge, to say nothing of less important
investigators.
Another interesting statement, made by
Marconi, may be mentioned: that he believed that the electrical
vibrations were of different forms. Herein he is quite at one with
Ancient Science. Some observers, who study according to the old
rules, have stated that the form of the X-ray vibrations is a double
spiral or helix. It will be interesting to see if any later
scientific discovery verifies this observation.
As Modern
Science continues its discoveries in the etheric region, it will more
and more substantiate the assertions of Ancient Science, reached by
methods so different from its own.
As the limits of our space
forbid us to further multiply instances of concord between Ancient
and Modern Science in the etheric region, we must turn to the
question already formulated: Why did Ancient Science begin with
consciousness, and how can study be carried on along its lines? Thus
is it answered:
The universe consists of the vibrations of a
universal life, and of the forms into which they throw the matter in
which they play. Life is motion. Consciousness is motion. Forms
vibrate under its impulse according to the rarity or density of the
matter of which they are composed. The life vibrating within a form
enters into relations with, affects, any other portions of life
within forms which are capable of responding to it, i.e., of
reproducing its vibrations in whole or in part. At a certain stage of
this exchange the separated lives become conscious of each other.
The Self in man is part of the kosmic Self, and is capable of
vibrating in every way in which the kosmic Self vibrates. This Self
in man is the "I" which is conscious of its own existence, which
feels and thinks. As it exchanges vibrations with other Selves around
it, it distinguishes all in which it is not conscious of its own
existence, in which it does not feel and think, as the Not-Self. (The
separation of forms leads it to the false conclusion that the Selves
are also separate.) This Self can only know the other Selves as it is
able to respond to them, and its "evolution" is merely the bringing
out of the capabilities it contains. Hence it can know everything by
turning outwards the powers within it, and all true knowledge is
attainable by Self-unfoldment only. We know a thing when we become
it, i.e., when we vibrate as it vibrates. The bodies with which the
Self is clothed enable it to come into touch with all bodies composed
of similar materials, which vibrate at the same rates.
In
the present solar system there are seven fundamental types of matter,
elements or atoms, primitive bases of all combinations. Each of these
types gives rise to innumerable combinations, which in their totality
form a "world," or "plane," or "region of existence." The Self
clothes itself in a body or sheath of each kind of matter, and thus
comes into touch with all these worlds, each body receiving and
responding to the vibrations of its world. Consciousness is the
relation between the Self and the Not-Self, and the expansion of this
relation is evolution. As the physical world is known by means of the
physical body, through which the Self receives it, so each world of
lessening density is perceived by the Self through a body of similar
matter. Further, these bodies are separable from each other, and the
Self can temporarily discard the grosser to facilitate its
observations of the subtler.
The fundamental principles of
Ancient Science were established by the experiences of
highly-developed men, and are always verifiable anew by those who
develop the capacities inherent alike in all. But this development
is, it is fair to say, not practicable for everyone within the limits
of the present life, any more than great scientific attainments can
be said to be within reach of the majority. If a man is to become a
great mathematician, a great astronomer, a great physicist, he must
begin life with a marked aptitude for the branch of science in which
he is to excel. To this marked aptitude he must add careful and
prolonged study, aided in the earlier stages by competent
instructors; he must give his life to his work, if he is to achieve
eminence, and must make other pursuits subordinate to the one aim of
his life. All this is equally necessary for the man who would win
success in the pursuit of the highest Science, and first-hand
knowledge cannot be enjoyed by any who do not fulfil these conditions
of all successful pursuit of truth in any kingdom of nature.
It will now be clear why religion could not be divorced from
Science among those who thus regarded life. The first thing
necessarily demanded from the student was that he should cease from
evil ways and dominate his passions, so that the Self might utilise
its lower vehicles for the gaining of knowledge, undisturbed by
riotous vibrations which blurred all vision. Then the student was
taught to refine the physical body and render it ever increasingly
sensitive to vibrations, while preserving it in health. He was
trained to control his senses and to concentrate his mind, until,
having purified and thoroughly mastered his vehicles, he could use
them only for the purposes of the Self. Then he could come into touch
with every part of nature, and for such a one "Nature has no secrets
in all her kingdoms."
Along such road travelled Ancient
Science, and for those who would still follow that Science there is
no other road.
Those who are not yet prepared to tread this
ancient path, may yet do much to profit by the suggestions and hints
gathered from Ancient Science, if they will avoid falling into
extremes in Religion on the one side and in Modern Science on the
other.
There are two great enemies that ever stand opposed
to human progress, one wearing the mask of Science, the other the
mask of Religion. One is the Incredulity which denies facts because
they are new; the other is the Credulity which accepts superstitions
because they are old. Each grasps a poniard with which it strikes at
Truth, the Angel which guides Humanity along the upward path. Which
is the more dangerous foe it is hard to decide, for the rigid refusal
to even consider the evidences on which a new and startling truth
reposes, shuts a man out from progress as much as does the folly
which swallows open-mouthed the emptiest tale. Superstition often
renders a man more ridiculous than does scepticism, but their effects
on progress are much the same. Hard iron cannot be shaped any more
than fluid mud. We need willingness to study, impartiality, clear
vision and right judgment, and then we shall find that now, as of
old, right knowledge is attainable, for we have within us That whose
nature is knowledge, and who can never rest until can say "I
know."
*1 Mundakopanishad. i. 3-5.
*2 Op.
cit., i. 272, 278, last edition. Modern Science and the Higher
Self
A Lecture delivered in 1904 in India
The putting
together of the two phrases--" Modern Science" on the one side, and "
Higher Self " on the other, may strike some of you as strange and
even as incongruous; for the ideas of Modern Science and of the
Higher Self are so far removed from each other in the general mind
that to bring them together as though they were closely related must
seem to be unusual and grotesque. Ann yet I think I shall be able to
show you as we go on, that these two things, the most modern and the
most ancient, the thought of the West working by way of continuous
experiment, and the thought of the East working by seeking the Higher
Consciousness and recording its testimony, that these two are in our
own days brought closely into touch with each other, so that they may
aid and strengthen each other, may be found as servants in a common
cause, and not as opposing and incongruous ideas. I want to show you,
in the course of this evening's lecture, that there is in Modern
Science a distinct recognition of the Higher Self, that there is an
agreement between eastern and western science, conflicting with each
other in their methods, that there is a mass of evidence compiled by
western scientific men, which can be cited as showing the recognition
by Science of the Higher Self, of the existence of a Jivatma, a
living Spirit, a living intelligence in man, and that the Spirit
finds an ever imperfect instrument for expressing itself in the body
of man. I want to show you how the face of Modern Science to-day is
turned in a different direction from that in which it was turned some
20 or 30 years ago, I want to show you that there is a growing idea
in the West, that man in the waking consciousness is but a small
fragment of the real man, that man transcends his body, that man is
greater than his waking mind and consciousness, that there is
evidence in plenty, daily forthcoming from most unexpected quarters,
to show that human consciousness is far larger and fuller than the
consciousness expressed through the physical brain. This idea of a
larger consciousness, larger than the normal waking consciousness in
man, the consciousness hitherto recognised in modern psychology, is
one that has not only been suggested but is now beginning to be
recognised by Modern Science in the West. Such is then the reason for
putting these two phrases together "Modern Science" and the "Higher
Self."
Now, I ought to define what I mean by the "Higher
Self." I am not using the phrase in the strictly technical sense
which you find in the Theosophical literature, that is to say, the
Jivatma in man. I am using it for the whole expression of that
Jivatma above the physical. 1 am using it for everything which
transcends the brain consciousness, which finds the brain too coarse
and dense an instrument for its expression. I am using it, in short,
to imply what generally goes under the term "larger consciousness."
If we can show definitely that experimental science has recognised
human consciousness to be stronger, more energetic, more lively than
the consciousness working in the physical brain, if we can prove the
existence of yet higher realms, we shall enter on a path which leads
to the highest invisible worlds. We climb step by step and see the
larger consciousness unfolding itself more and more, stretching over
an immense expanse, till at last we reach that, to which men in every
clime have always aspired, till the spiritual aspirations of man are
vindicated. Such is the promise of infinite expansion which lies in
the domain of an enquiry into the consciousness of man. The
particular branch of Modern Science which thus comes into touch with
the Ancient Science is that of psychology. Psychology in its modern
form climbing from below by way of experiment comes into touch with
the ancient psychology of the East; and this is a science of
immemorial antiquity, whereas modern psychology is an infant science
in the West. Not that the West had no psychology; inthe Middle Ages
and in the centuries that went before them there was a psychology,
but that psychology was repudiated in modern days. So that if you go
back some thirty or some five and thirty years, you will find it
distinctly stated by the representative European thinkers that no
psychology could be regarded as sane which was not based on the
science of physiology.
The method of introspection, of the
observation of one's own mental processes, was entirely discarded in
modern thought. The method of studying the mental processes of others
by inference was equally challenged and doubted. It was said, and
there was some truth in the saying, that the moment you began to
study your own mental process, that moment it changed by the very
fact of your observation; and it was argued also that if you tried to
study the mental process of others, you could only do it by inference
and not by direct observations. It is necessary, it was said by
modern thinkers, to first study the brain, the nervous system and
mechanism in man, whereby thought is expressed. Thus arose the
science which is called psychophysiology, a science in which the
nervous system and the brain, regarded physiologically, were studied,
were analysed, were measured, and it was considered impossible to
understand thought without the knowledge of thought's mechanism, and
without a knowledge of the process of the changes in that mechanism.
It was considered that along this road of experiment better results
would be obtained than would be obtained by other methods, and as
science became more and more materialistic, as it reached the point
at which Professor Tyndall made his famous statement that we were to
look in matter for the promise and potency of every form of life, it
was natural, if not inevitable, that men should begin to study
thought by the study of its mechanism, of its apparatus, rather than
by the way of the direct observation of its processes. As the method
of experiment justified itself more and more by most interesting
results, it became regarded as the only method which was worth the
consideration of the thoughtful, of those untainted by superstition,
hence the birth of what may be called a new science, the science of
psychology based on physiological experiments, a science which it was
thought would confirm the statement that thought was the product of
the brain, was really the outcome of the nervous mechanism in
man.
So far were men inclined to go in making rash
statements, that it was deliberately laid down that thought was
produced by the brain. You had such a well-known, such a famous
physiologist as the German Carl Vogt, declaring that the brain
produced thought as the liver produced bile. That, perhaps, was the
most extreme statement of the school of thought represented by many
of the German thinkers The very fact that such a statement could be
made showed the line of thinking which Modern Science was
following.
Now directly in opposition to that stood the
immemorial psychology of the East. That was founded on the idea that
man in his essence was not a body but a living Spirit, was not a mere
form but an eternal Intelligence. Eastern psychology was founded on
the notion that this living Intelligence, this entity, Jiva or
Jivatma, was the primary thing to be understood, that instead of
considering thought to be the product of a certain arrangement of
matter, the certain arrangement of matter was to be regarded as the
result of thought. Instead of considering that life, consciousness,
intelligence were the results of a mechanism, of an apparatus
gradually built up by nature under the working of blind and
unconscious laws, eastern psychology declared that the primary fact
was the fact of consciousness and that matter was but its garment,
its instrument, the means of its expression, arranged and guided by
intelligence, and only useful and interesting as expressing that
intelligence in the various worlds of the universe. That is put
strongly and clearly in the Chhandogyopanishat, and I quote
this because we shall find in the latest science a strange and
startling endorsement of the ancient thought. It is declared in that
Upanishat that Atma exists, and that the bodies and the senses are
all the results of the will of Atma. You may remember how the passage
runs: "The eyes are for the perceiving of that being who dwelleth
within the eyes." It was Atma who desired to hear and to smell and to
think; hence arose the organs of the senses and the mind. Everywhere
Atma is the primary fact; the organs, the bodies, come into form in
order that the will of the consciousness may be expressed. Thus
great, then, is the opposition between this western thought of some
thirty years ago and the ancient thought of the East, the one
beginning with the body out of which the consciousness grows, the
other beginning with the consciousness by the activity of which
gradually the bodies were formed. Keep this antithesis in mind as we
follow out the lines of our study.
Come then to Modern Science,
starting with the idea that thought must be understood by the clear
understanding of its mechanism which many considered its producer.
Great scientists began to study carefully the nervous system, and
they studied it with a marvellous patience, they studied it with
marvellous success; they measured the rate at which the impressions
made on the surface of the body travelled to the nerve centres and
there appeared as mental perceptions. They measured the rate at which
the thought could travel along the nervous fibres. They measured the
delicacy of perception related to the various parts of the mechanism.
They reduced more and more all thought-processes to processes of
chemistry, of electricity, to be measured by the balances, to be
weighed, to be analysed. They met with great success; they threw
wonderful light on the mechanism of nervous apparatus. They went, in
their researches, in their efforts to map out the nervous system,
even into crime, the crime of vivisection. Thousands of miserable
animals had their skulls taken off, their brains laid bare, and
electrical shocks applied to the various parts of the brain, in order
that by these diabolical methods some of the secrets of consciousness
might be wrenched from Nature.
But as they carried on their
experiments, certain results appeared which seemed to challenge the
starting point from which they had come. They were dealing with
thought as the product of the nervous system, and necessarily,
therefore, they thought as the nervous system increased in
perfection, the thought increased in complexity, in accuracy, in
dependability. The constitution of the brain, the relation of the
parts of the brain to one another, the functions that belonged to
different portions of the brain, all these were mapped out, analysed,
explained. But as they began to study, or rather as they carried on
the study, they found that there were certain results of
consciousness that did not fit into the theory with which they had
started. They found that there were certain results of consciousness
which took place when the brain was not in its normal state, in its
full activity, and that these could not be ignored, that no theory of
consciousness could be true that did not explain these as well.
First the attention was turned to what were called the
results of dream consciousness. The waking consciousness had been
carefully examined. But what of the consciousness that went on when
the man was asleep? The phenomena of sleep must also be explained.
Interesting experiments began on the dreaming consciousness, on the
functioning of consciousness when the body was asleep. Experiments
were made with the usual care, with the usual ingenuity, with the
usual patience. We have no time to deal in detail with them. Many of
you can find for yourself a large amount of details in the famous
book of Du Prel, The Philosophy of Mysticism. It seems
sufficient for the moment to give you one example which covers a
large class of experiments. They began by taking a sleeping man,
touching his body at some point, and then waking him at the moment,
and asking him: "What have you dreamed?" Very often there was no
dream, no result, but in a large number of cases the man reported a
dream. I will take one illustration. The back of the neck was
touched. The man was asked: "What have you dreamed?" He said: "I
dreamed that I committed a murder; I was brought to trial for the
murder; l dreamed the whole of the trial. The speeches of the
barristers, the summing-up of the judge; I waited for the verdict of
the jury; I was pronounced guilty; I was doomed to death; I was taken
away to the condemned cell; I remained there for so many days; I was
led to the place of execution and, as the knife of the guillotine
descended on me, I felt it touch my neck, and I awoke." Many such
experiments were tried and put on record. What was the result that
came out of them? The stimulus to the dream came from the touch, as
the touch on the back of the neck had suggested the idea of death by
guillotine. How can we explain all that went on in the dream
consciousness after the touch and before the awakening? How did the
dream consciousness pass through a long series of events in order to
explain the touch, and how was it that the events which followed the
touch seemed to precede and to explain it? That was the problem.
After long discussion and cogitation the suggestion was made
that consciousness in the dream state was working in some medium
other than the dense matter of the cells of the brain. The speed by
which the nervous impulse travelled from any part of the body to the
brain had been measured and was known. But here was a long series of
phenomena in consciousness which came between the touch on the body
and the knowledge of that touch in the brain. There must therefore be
some finer medium, in which consciousness was working, through which
the knowledge had gone more rapidly than through the nervous matter,
so that there was time to build up the story to account for the touch
before the consciousness of the brain knew it had been made on the
body.
The mind then, in sleep, was not thinking by the
dense brain, but by some subtler medium which answers more rapidly to
the vibrations of consciousness, just as two men might start from the
same point and one running quickly might run to the goal fast, turn
back, and might meet the other long before he had covered a quarter
of the distance, so consciousness in the subtler medium could travel
faster, make up the story to explain, return and meet the
consciousness in the physical brain, and give the story as the
explanation of the touch that had been felt outside. Such was a
suggestion made to explain the rapidity of action in the dream
consciousness. But much more than that was wanted to make a
satisfactory theory. And science said: it is not enough to have
dreams examined in this way. Let us try to throw a man into the
dream-state and examine him while he is in it instead of waking him
out of it. Let us try to come into touch with him while the dream is
going on. Then began the long series of experiments spoken of as
hypnotic, where a man was thrown into a trance and thus a prolonged
dream-state was attained, a state produced by and under the control
of the operator. In the hypnotic trance, as you must know, the body
is reduced to the lowest point of vitality. The eye cannot see, the
ear cannot hear; lift up the eye-lids and flash an electric light
into the eye, there is no contraction of the pupil; the heart
well-nigh ceases to beat, the lungs have no perceptible action; only
by the most delicate apparatus can it be shown that the heart is not
entirely still, that the lungs have not entirely ceased to contract
and to expand. Now what would be the state of the brain under these
conditions according to the theory that thought is produced by the
brain? The brain is reduced to the condition of coma, lethargy. It
cannot work; it is badly supplied with blood, the blood it obtains is
surcharged with carbonic acid and waste products, for it has not been
supplied with sufficient oxygen. From such a brain, according to the
modern theory, no thought ought to be able to proceed But what were
the startling facts that answered the enquirers, when they questioned
the consciousness under these abnormal conditions? Where there should
have been lethargy there was increased rapidity, where there should
have been stupor there was very much increased intelligence, where
there should have been apparent death, there was life in overflowing
measure, and the whole of the mental faculties were stronger and more
vivid
Take the memory of man in the waking state. Question
him about his childhood, he will have forgotten many events, they
have vanished into the past. Throw the man into a trance, question
him then about his childhood, and memory gives up the stores that
apparently had been lost, and the most trivial incidents are
recalled. Take a man, read to him in his waking moments a page of a
book that he has not before heard, and ask him to repeat it; he will
stumble over a sentence or two, he is unable to recite it. Throw the
same man into the trance, read the page to him then, and he will
repeat it word for word even when the language is to him unknown.
Memory then in the dream or trance state is immensely increased in
its range and power. Take the perceptive faculties. As I said, the
eye would not answer to the flash of the electric light, but the
faculty for perceiving the material world of which the eye is the
organ finds expression in the trance state such as in its waking
state it cannot exert. The man in the trance will be able to see
through a barrier that blocks the waking vision, and tell you what is
happening on the other side of a closed door, or what is within the
body, tell you not only what is happening on the other side of an
obstacle but what is happening hundreds of miles away. These are not
the dreams of the orientals, of the theosophists, I am confining
myself to cases where experiments have been put on record, where men
who do not believe in the superphysical, were confronted by facts
they found it impossible to explain. I have myself seen experiments
of this kind in the days before I was a theosophist. These proved to
demonstration that opaque bodies were not obstacles to the vision of
the man plunged into the hypnotic trance, and this is now admitted by
all students of hypnotism. Memory and perception then are increased
in power when the brain is stupefied. So I might take you through one
faculty of the mind after another and show you that in every case
consciousness is stronger, more vivid, more active, when its physical
mechanism is paralysed.
Out of all these experiments there
arose again the question: What then is the relation between
consciousness and the brain? It was established that with paralysis
of the brain consciousness becomes more active than it was
before.
The result of these experiments on the condition of
mental faculties, was a proof that whatever the dream consciousness
of man might be, it was far wider in extent, far more powerful, than
the same consciousness working through the physical brain. Thus
gradually way was made for the recognition of the fact, well-known to
the eastern psychologists, that the waking consciousness is only a
part, an imperfect and fragmentary expression, of the total
consciousness of man.
The modern psychologists meanwhile
were proceeding on a new line of investigation, and they began to
study what are called the abnormal phenomena of consciousness, not
only the normal and the common-place but the abnormal and the
exceptional, and at first the study along these lines seemed to carry
most of the thinkers directly against the psychology of the East.
Study in one school of psychology came to what seemed a terrible
conclusion. It was the school of Lombroso in Italy. He declared, and
many others followed him, that the visions of the prophets, of the
saints, of the seers, all their testimony to the existence of
superphysical worlds, were the products of disordered brains, of
diseased or over-strained nervous apparatus. He went further, and he
declared that the manifestation known as genius was closely allied to
insanity,that the brain of the genius and the brain of the madman
were akin, until the phrase "genius is allied to madness," became the
stock axiom of that school. This appeared to be the final death-blow
dealt by materialism to the hope of humanity nourished by the
grandest inspirations that had come to men through the geniuses, the
saints, the prophets, the seers, the religious teachers of the world.
Was all this truly but the result of disordered intelligence? Was all
religion but the grand dream of diseased brains and nerves? Was
religion really a nervous disease, are all people who see and hear,
where other people are blind and deaf, neuropaths? That became the
terrible question set rolling by this psychological school. At first
there was silence, caused by the very shock of the question. Men were
so taken aback that they knew not how to answer them, knew not how to
argue. Gradually, however, there came from the ranks of thoughtful
men a challenge. Granted that this is true that you have discovered,
granted that these brains through which the visions of religion, the
revelations of religion, have come, are abnormal, is it after all so
important, so vital a matter? May it not be that as the higher worlds
come into touch with man, they may well be able to affect only the
most delicate brains, and in that very touch they may throw the
delicate mechanism slightly out of gear? Is it not possible that the
subtle vibrations of the higher worlds to which the human brain is
unaccustomed yet to respond, may in some individual differing from
the standard of ordinary evolution, find an answer, and the higher
world may speak through these abnormal brains to men? The question of
importance to humanity is not whether the physical brain of the
genius is allied in its mechanism to the physical brain of the
madman, but whether what comes through the brain of a madman and the
brain of a genius are equally important to humanity. If we receive
through the disordered brain of a mad man, a jangle of useless
disconnected ideas and dreams, that result is worthless and we set it
aside. But if through the brain of the genius, of the religious
teacher, through the brain of a prophet, through the brain of the
saint, come forth the highest inspirations, the loftiest ideas that
have raised mankind above the brute and the savage, shall we cast
them aside as well? We judge the results not by the mechanism through
which we have received them, but by their value to humanity, and no
matter what the mechanism of the brain may have been there remains
the thought that has been given to the world.
Everything of
which humanity is most proud, all its sublimest hopes and
aspirations, the most beautiful imaginings of poetry, the
transcendental flight of metaphysics, and the sublimest conceptions
of art, are all product of neuropaths, of abnormal brains. When men
tell us that the great religious teachers are neuropaths, that
Buddha, Christ, S. Francis, are neuropaths, then we are inclined to
cast our lot with the abnormal few, rather than with the normal many.
We know what they were. They were men who saw far more and knew far
more than we; what matters it whether we call their brains normal or
abnormal? In these men's consciousness is a ray of the Divine
splendour; as Browning says:
Through such souls
alone
God, stooping, shows sufficient of Hill Light
For us in
the dark to rise by.
And if in those cases the brain
change from a normal to an abnormal state, then humanity must ever
remain thankful to abnormality.
That was the first answer
which may be made to this statement of Lombroso, and you find a man
like Dr. Maudsley, the famous doctor, asking whether there is any law
that nature shall use only for her purposes what we call the perfect
brains? May it not be that for her higher performances she needs
brains which are different from the ordinary, the normal brains of
man? For take the normal brain that is the product of evolution, the
result of the past; that brain is fitted for the ordinary affairs of
life, it is fitted forthe calculations of the market-place, for the
observation of material things, for the work of the world, for the
carrying on the ordinary affairs of life; brought to its present
state by the practice of such thinking it is the best machinery for
such work. But when you come to deal with higher thought, with
abstract speculation, when you come to deal with religious ideas and
with the possibilities of higher worlds, that brain is the most unfit
of instruments; it is not delicately organised enough for the subtler
vibrations of the higher worlds. For just as you may take a watch
delicately wrought and by that watch you may measure small intervals
of time which you could not measure by a clumsier mechanism, so it is
with the different brains of men. The normal brain is the
common-place brain; the normal brain is the average brain. It has no
promise for the future; it is but the product of the past. But the
abnormal brain, that which can answer the higher vibrations, the
brain which, if you will, you may call by the insulting name of
"morbid," that is the brain which stands in the front of evolution,
which is the promise of the future, and shows us what man shall be in
the generations yet to come.
As the struggle went on
another answer came. When in times of unusual strain and unusual
excitement, the brain answers to the higher vibrations, then it is
very likely that nervous disease will accompany the answer. It is not
always the brain of the genius to which strange experiences occur.
They occur to people of all types; the average man and woman have
their experiences. When a person has been rapt in ecstasy of prayer,
or is fasting, and the body is weakened or is under great stress of
excitement, the brain will certainly be affected far more easily than
under normal conditions, and it will be able to register finer
vibrations more easily than the so-called healthy brain. Take a very
common illustration. You have a violin or a vina. You find that you
can get from the string of your instrument a certain note, but you
want a higher note; what do you do? You tighten the string. Just so
with the human brain. It does not answer to the higher notes of life
in its ordinary state; you must tighten the string by intense
concentration or devotion, and then the brain will answer. But in the
tightening there is danger; in the tightening there is possibility of
breakage; and so in the normal brain tightened to respond to the
stress of the subtler vibrations, there is the danger of nervous
disturbance, there is the danger of unbalancing the mechanism.
How can that be met? We look to the science of the East, to
its old psychology, and it gives us the answer--it is the only
science that knows the answer, and this answer is strengthened by a
modern discovery touching the mechanism of the brain. What is the
process of Yoga? It is a process by which gradually, by physical, by
mental training, the man develops a higher consciousness, and enables
that higher consciousness to express itself in the physical body. Now
every one of you who knows anything of Yoga, knows perfectly that in
Yoga there is a physical training, purification of the body,
purification of the brain, which precedes the practice of any of the
higher forms. You know that it has always been told that if a man
would practise Yoga he must become an ascetic in his life. That he
must give up liquor and the grosser articles of diet, that he must
purify the body, and then purify the mind. You know that only as that
is being done, can the mental Yoga be effectually performed, and then
as the body is becoming purer day by day, consciousness develops, its
higher powers show themselves through the purified brain without
disease, without over-strain, without any injurious nervous or morbid
results. Eastern psychology recognises the danger of nervous
disturbance, and enables the necessary sensitiveness to be obtained
without the overstraining of the physical instrument.
But I
said that a late discovery in Modern Science with regard to the brain
had justified the process. What is the discovery? That the brain
cells in which thought is carried on develop, and increase in size
and in complexity by the process of thought; that as a man thinks,
his brain cells grow; they send out processes which anastomose, join
one to another, and thus make a very complicated mechanism by which
higher thought can be expressed, that the whole process of the
expression of thought depends on this growth in the cells of the
brain, and that as you think you are really making your brain, you
are creating the mechanism by which hereafter a higher thought may be
expressed. The latest anatomy of the West has laid down this, that
these cells grow under the direct impulses of thought, and that as
you think you prepare the brain for better and higher thought; as the
thought acts on the nervous cells, the nervous cells become more
complicated, intercommunicate more fully, are more apt for the
processes of thought
The Yoga practice of concentration,
of steadying the mind by fixing the thought, makes the brain cells
grow, and thus creates an instrument adaptable for higher thinking in
the future. As you carry on your meditation you are building fresh
mechanism in the brain; as you carry on concentration, you are
creating the apparatus for higher performances. Thus as purification
of the body, of the brain, of the mind, goes on in Yoga, you are
building up the brain, making it able to come into touch with a
higher world, without losing its balance, without losing its sanity
and its strength. There lies the scientific justification of Yoga
from the latest investigations of the West. What then does the East
tell us as the result of Yoga? It tells us that man is a
consciousness expressing his powers through the body which he moulds
to his own purpose, that man's consciousness in the brain is far less
than his consciousness out of the brain. That man uses the brain as
an instrument on the physical plane, but is not limited by it, is not
confined by it. That old theory of the ancient Sages is now being
promulgated in the West by such men as Sir Oliver Lodge, who declares
that the investigation of hypnotism, the study of consciousness, the
study of abnormal states of consciousness, prove that human
consciousness is larger than the consciousness in the brain, and that
there is much more of us outside the body than is shown by the
working of the brain. That is the last word on consciousness from the
West, and it is identical with the testimony of the East.
Do
you see now why I put together Modern Science and the Higher Self?
The Higher Self is the consciousness beyond the physical, the larger,
wider, greater consciousness which is our real Self, the Self of
which the consciousness in the brain is only the faintest of
reflections. This body of ours is only a house in which we dwell for
our physical work; we hold the key of the body; we should put it in
the lock by Yoga, and try and release the imprisoned consciousness.
We are greater than we appear to be; we are formed in the divine
image; we live not in this world only but also in other worlds; our
consciousness outstretches the physical. In this planet of mud our
foot is planted, but our heads touch the heavens; they are bathed in
the light of the spiritual world far above, in the world unseen,
bathed in the light of our God. We may trust the consciousness and
the testimony of the Saints, the Prophets, the Seers, and the
Teachers of humanity. They told us what they knew, that which we may
also know for ourselves. They were divine, showing Their divinity to
the worlds. We are none the less divine, although our divinity is
veiled. Let us claim our birthright, to know as They knew. These
great ones of the past, these Saints and Teachers of humanity, They
are the promise of what we shall be in the future, and the heights
They have touched in ages past, we also will attain in days to come.
Every one of us is a "divine fragment," every one of us an eternal
Spirit, every one of us a deific life, striving to attain through
matter to consciousness of our own divinity. That is the teaching of
all faiths, that is the fundamental principle of life, of religion,
of nature; and Modern Science is finding that even physical nature is
not intelligible without the understanding of the higher world,
without the recognition of larger possibilities. Occultism, Semi-Occultism and
Pseudo-Occultism
Lecture delivered on Thursday, June 30th,
1898, at the Blavatsky Lodge, London
Speaking to the Lodge for
the first time after returning from India, it will not seem to you, I
think, either strange or inappropriate that I should take for my
subject one which is largely drawn from Indian history; not the
history of the outside nation, but the history of that inner line of
thought which is of the deepest interest to us as students and as
Theosophists. And inasmuch as history continually repeats itself,
such a study may offer points of instruction to us in our own time.
For I am going to ask you to consider with me what I may perhaps
define--although definition is a little difficult--as, first,
occultism, then what may be called semi-occultism, and, thirdly, the
out-growths which follow and surround these and which are specially
marked and active at any time when true occultism is working in the
world.
It is a very common blunder made by many people to
suppose that spiritual forces have in them something which they are
pleased to call unpractical, and we continually notice an assumption,
which is taken for granted without argument, that if a nation, for
instance, should turn itself towards a spiritual ideal, or if
individuals should devote themselves to the spiritual life, that then
such a nation is likely to be undistinguished along other more
evident and visible walks in life, and such an individual is likely
to lose much of what is called his practical value in the world. Such
a view of life is a blunder, and a blunder of the most complete kind.
The liberation of spiritual forces, the setting free of energies on
the spiritual plane, has a far greater effect both on the individual
and on the nation in the other regions of its activity than can be
produced by any of the forces that are started on the lower planes of
life. When a spiritual energy is set free it works down through the
other planes of being, giving rise on each plane to a liberation of
energy, and bringing about results great in proportion to the nature
of the spiritual force. So that it is true in history, as you may
find by study, that when spiritual forces are liberated the
intellectual life of the nation will also leap forward with
tremendous energy, the emotional life of the nation will show fresh
development, and even on the lowest plane of all, the physical,
results will be brought about entirely beyond anything that could
have been achieved by the energies of the physical plane which are
set to work and which apparently cause these results. That is a
principle, a law, which I will ask you to bear in mind through all
that I have to say to you--that every force initiated on the higher
planes, as it passes down to the lower, brings about results
proportionate to itself; so that it is the shortest-sighted view of
human life and of human activity which imagines that devotion to the
spiritual life, the evolution of the individual in the spiritual
world, is anything but an immense addition to all the forces of
progress that work on the earth, anything but a lifting up of the
world on the great ladder up which it is climbing.
But there is
another principle that we must also bear in mind in our study, and it
is this: that as forces are liberated on any plane, the results
brought about by those forces will vary in their character according
to those who utilize the energies after their liberation. As we have
often pointed out to you here, energies on the different planes of
nature are not what we call good or bad in themselves. Force is a
force; energy is an energy. When we bring in the idea of good and
evil, of right and wrong, of morality and immorality, these ideas are
connected with the results brought about by individuals in the
utilization of the forces. A time, then, of great spiritual energy,
of great liberation of forces from the spiritual plane, will be
marked to a great extent by activities of opposed characters on the
lower planes of being, and those energies which are liberated on each
plane may be taken up and used by individuals for what we should call
either good or evil. The great mark of good or evil, looking at it
from this standpoint, is the use that the individual is making of
these forces, or such part of them as he is able to control; whether
he is using them for the uplifting of humanity, whether he is
regarding them as the divine energy which he may use to forward the
divine purposes, or whether he is simply trying to grasp them for his
own separate ends, striving to apply them to that which he desires to
grasp and to hold, serving his own purposes without regard to the
divine economy. This, then, as I said, we will bear in mind in
following out, first, as a lesson, something of the past in India,
and then in applying the lesson that thus we learn to the movement
which we know amongst ourselves at the present day, that great
spiritual movement which is manifesting itself in the world and of
which the Theosophical Society is one of the potent expressions.
To begin with, what is occultism? The word is used and
misused in the most extraordinary ways. H.P. Blavatsky once defined
it as the study of mind in nature, meaning by the word mind, in that
connection, the study of the Universal Mind, the Divine Mind, the
study of the workings of God in the Universe, the study therefore of
all the energies which, coming forth from the spiritual centre, work
themselves out in the worlds around us. It is the study of the life
side of the Universe, the side from which everything proceeds and
from which everything is moulded, the looking through the illusory
form to the reality which animates it: it is the study which
underlies all phenomena: it is the ceasing to be wholly blinded by
these appearances in which we so continually move and by which we are
so continually deluded; it is the piercing through the veil of Maya
and perceiving the reality, the one Self, the one Life, the one
Force, that which is in everything and all things in it. So that
really occultism, in the true sense of the word, may be said to be
identical with that vision which, as you know, is spoken of in the
Bhagavad Gita, where Shri Krishna declares that he who sees
Me," that is, who sees the One Self, "in everything and everything in
me, verily he seeth." Such a study, if you understand at all what is
implied in it, must necessarily mean the development in the one who
sees of the highest spiritual faculties, for only by the Spirit can
the Spirit be known. We speak continually of proving this, that, or
the other spiritual thing. There is no real proof possible of Spirit,
save through Spirit; there is no proof of the intellect, no proof of
the emotion, no proof of the senses which is proof when you come to
deal with the reality of the Spirit. Nothing of the nature of proof
along those lines, whether sensuous, emotional, or intellectual, can
be anything more than a suggestion, a reflection of the truth, an
analogy which may lead us on the right path, but proof in the true
sense of the word it never can be. And it has been written truly in
one of the great Indian scriptures and repeated over and over again
in the other scriptures of the world, that there is in the full sense
of the word no proof of God save the belief in the Spirit, for only
the Spirit that is akin to Him, and that is Himself, is able to know,
is able to touch.
Now looking at real occultism as thus
defined, realizing that no one can be in the full sense of the word
an occultist save one in whom the spiritual nature is developed and
active, we should, in our next step, be able to separate off from
this true occultism very much that goes by its name both in the past
and the present, amongst those who went before us and amongst
ourselves to-day. But we should need, in separating off all these
forms of so-called occultism, to distinguish between those which may
be said, in a sense, to be stepping-stones to the real, which were
intended as stepping-stones by those who gave them to the world and
which may be used as stepping-stones and utilized for progress, and
other forms which are not really included under the name of occultism
in any true sense of the term, those things which H.P. Blavatsky once
spoke of as occult arts, and which for many people seem to include
everything they regard as occultism--arts in which certain forces of
nature are utilized and in which faculties are developed on various
planes in nature below the spiritual; for there are worlds above what
we call the physical, but still below the spiritual regions, with
which the development of certain faculties brings man into touch,
enabling him to control and utilize their forces. There are almost
myriad arts and lines of study of this kind which ought never by any
real student, by any one who is seeking the higher truth, to be
included in his thought when that thought is turned towards
occultism. And some of you might clear up much confused thinking on
this subject if you would refer to the writing of H.P. Blavatsky on
"Occultism versus the Occult Arts," where she draws the
dividing line extremely clearly and shows the position that these
occult arts hold, and should be recognized as holding, when we are
dealing with human evolution.
True occultism, then, is that
to which at first I would ask you to turn your thoughts, and its
pursuit implies, as I have said, the development of the spiritual
nature. Now the moment we speak of the development of the spiritual
nature we must at once recognize that for the larger number of us
that development must necessarily lie in the future, but that we may
begin to work towards it to-day; that it is of enormous import to our
true progress that we should recognize it and work towards it, and
not, by misunderstanding the nature of that development, waste our
time, waste possibly many lives, by following blind alleys and
mistaken roads. The development of the spiritual nature must
succeed--and this is one of the most important points that we can
realize--must succeed the purification of the lower parts of our
nature. We must be pure emotionally and intellectually, we must have
reached a certain stage, at least, of the elimination of the
personality before anything that can rightly be called spiritual
progress is within our reach. No amount of mere intellectual
development--and I will come back to that point, for I do not wish in
any way to depreciate that most necessary line of human growth--but
no amount of mere intellectual development will of itself bring about
the growth of the spiritual nature. With the fundamental reason for
that I shall deal more fully in a future lecture, but I must say in
passing that the development of the spiritual nature and of the
intellectual nature are on one vital point in direct opposition. The
principle that we call the intellect is the analyzing, the dividing,
the separative principle. The very purpose of its evolution is the
building up of the individual, its root lies in the Ahamkara, or the
"I"-making faculty, it is that which limits, which defines, which
separates, which marks off the man from every other man, which makes
what we may call that coating of selfishness which is absolutely
necessary as one stage in evolution, which is one part of our growth
in this world. It is a stage through which all humanity must pass,
but which, regarded by itself, makes all those illusions which the
Spirit transcends, and gives the touch of apparent reality to the
separated self, the antagonistic self, the self that covets and
grasps and holds and sets itself against all others. So that what we
might call the very principle of illusion is represented by this
intellectual faculty.
Necessary as its evolution is, none
the less it is on this point in antagonism to spiritual evolution;
for spiritual evolution means the recognition and the growth of the
One Self into manifested activity, first within that sheath which has
been formed by the intellect, and then by transcending it and
bringing about that realized unity which is the object of our human
evolution. It is for this that we place the unity of mankind in the
spiritual regions, it is for this that we proclaim the brotherhood of
man as a spiritual reality; for the Spirit is one, and it is only as
that unity is recognized, consciously known--not simply
intellectually seen, but consciously realized--it is only as that is
done that the spiritual nature is in course of evolution. Inasmuch as
the intellect is separative and the Spirit unifying, inasmuch as the
one gives rise to illusion while the other transcends it, as the one
is the source both of individuality and of personality, whereas the
other is the source of that oneship which we seek and shall
realize--you will readily see how in the course of evolution these
two parts of the nature cannot be regarded as causally related in the
strict sense of the term, and we cannot say that by the evolution of
the intellectual nature the spiritual nature will inevitably develop.
On the contrary, we have to learn that we are not the intellect, but
are to use the intellect as an instrument; that we are not the
separated self, but the One Self living in all. That is the object of
our evolution, that the goal of our pilgrimage; and therefore
occultism, which means the study and the development of the spiritual
nature, must transcend completely the intellectual evolution. It may
even in many of its earlier stages find, and does find, its bitterest
antagonist, its most dangerous enemy in that very maker of illusions
that you may remember we are warned against in The Voice of the
Silence, that most spiritual book which so many of us have found
as opening up the path for us to the spiritual life. Recognizing
this, we shall naturally look forward to the spiritual evolution as a
thing to be worked for rather than to be accomplished from the stage
at which we are at present. We should also be prepared to realize the
immense difficulty of such an achievement, to understand how much
will have to be done with the character and with the nature, how
tremendous are the demands that we shall have to meet, before
anything which in the strict sense of the term can be called
occultism will be at all within our reach.
In the history of the
past, where true occultism was the life of the world, where that
great fount of spiritual life flowed from the Beings in whom the
spiritual nature was wholly developed, when the world was drawing its
light and its life from such Beings, it was obviously not possible
that their knowledge, their powers, their work could be largely
shared in by undeveloped humanity or even by the comparatively
advanced humanity that surrounded them. Still less was it possible
that any great part of their teaching or any true comprehension of
their work and their methods could be known to the people at large;
and yet it was necessary that links should be made, that steps, as it
were, should be created. The result of this necessity was that men
who were advanced--although in them the spiritual nature was not yet
wholly evolved--men of great powers, who stand out in history as
giants in humanity, strove to make possible for the advancing ranks
of mankind some understanding of the upward path that should be
trodden, some realization of the methods that might be adopted
whereby approach might be made to the spiritual regions.
These
men, great as they were, were not, as I have said, men in whom the
spiritual nature was wholly developed, supreme, complete. Their
evolution in many cases--and I speak with all reverence of those so
much greater than ourselves--may even be said to have gone along one
line in excess of other lines of their growth; so that one man might
have enormously developed intellectual power but less perfection
perhaps of moral character; another might have made great advance in
devotion and might not have developed so much of intellectual force;
another might be keenly alive to the religious necessities of man and
not so much interested in his philosophical evolution; another,
again, might have turned his attention towards the development of
certain sides of man's nature which would touch the physical regions
of existence, and even to the forcing of faculties in man, which,
when built up from below, would bring him into touch with parts of
the astral or the lower metal world, and might force those faculties
and the part of his nature to which they belong in advance alike of
mental and moral evolution. Along these various lines you will
readily see that individuals might have progressed, and that each man
would be characterized in his thinking and in his endeavour to serve
mankind, by his own qualities, the attributes which he had specially
evolved. So that looking back into the ancient history of India we
find great teachers, Rishis as they were called, of many different
types, each giving to the nation some great gift from his thought or
from his knowledge, intended to help the more advanced souls of that
nation towards progress which should end in spiritual evolution.
Hence, to take one line of growth, the great philosophical systems
which we find in Indian thought, such a system for instance as the
Vedanta. Regarded as an intellectual system of pure philosophy, it
puts in a magnificent intellectual form a view of the Universe, of
the One Self, of the One Life, and of its manifestations as illusory
in the deepest philosophical sense, that serves as an intellectual
training, as a step which men must take in learning something of the
mysteries of the universe. This system, when studied apart from the
Yoga that alone can make it practical, may be classed under the head
of semi-occultism. It is a system true within its own realm, a system
intended to help forward the progress of mankind, only capable of
being grasped, of being followed, of being studied by souls already
advanced in mentality; but none the less it is not the spiritual
truth; it is only an intellectual presentment of one aspect of it, an
intellectual showing forth of one side of it.
It is a thing
that must always be remembered that the Spirit can never be expressed
in terms of the intellect, that the One can never be grasped in the
terms of the many, and that any intellectual presentment of spiritual
truth must necessarily be partial, must necessarily be imperfect.
must be, as has often been said, a coloured glass through which the
white light is seen; a ray is passed through the prism of the
intellect which breaks up the white light of the Spirit, showing it
in varied colours as these scattered beams, each one of which is
imperfect in itself. One, then, of the great gifts to ancient India
coming in this way as the result of true occultism, as the result of
the mighty spiritual life, was the philosophy of the Vedanta and all
those intellectual systems intended for the training of man, and
giving, so far as the intellect could give it, a view of the
spiritual realty. But remember the saving clause, "as far as the
intellect could give it." The intellectual view is only a partial
view; and such a view, however much it may help man to see
intellectually something of the possibilities of the higher life, can
never make him realize it in consciousness, or give the true
knowledge which comes alone through the evolution of the spiritual
nature itself.
Along another live of activity would come the
many schools of Yoga. These schools, as you well know, were
exceedingly various in their nature. Some of them were designed to
develop the higher intellectual consciousness in man by means of
concentration, by means of meditation, and thus to bring him into
touch with the higher regions of his being; they were intended to
lead him, stage by stage, to get free from the body, to pass
consciously into higher worlds, so that his consciousness might
function in those more extended realms of being. And we find many of
the teachings of Yoga--you may read many of these systems at your
leisure, those which come under the great classification Raja
Yoga--carefully adapted to aid the growth of the mind, the evolution
of the loftier mental faculties, the rising on to the higher
intellectual planes, the passing into states of consciousness far
beyond the reach of ordinary humanity. They are, again, a
stepping-stone offered, but still coming under this heading that I
have called semi-occultism. Other schools were founded which dealt
with man in different fashion, which strove to force his faculties
from below, to force the evolution and the training of the astral
faculties, to bring him first into touch with the astral world, to
make him familiar with a part of the phenomenal universe closely
allied to the material. These have generally been classed as the
schools of Hatha Yoga, and in them various methods were employed
dealing with the lower vehicles of man. By these methods the body was
trained, was to a great extent purified and rendered an obedient
instrument. The power of the will was also enormously developed, the
man was taught to be master of his lower nature and so to take what
in very many cases was a real step upwards, although we cannot
include it in any sense of the term under the heading of true
occultism.
It must be remembered when dealing with all these
schools, when looking at them and striving to learn alike their use
and their abuse, that it is a great thing for a man to become master
of his passions, it is a great thing to subject the animal nature, to
be able to stand unshaken, no matter what temptations may assail the
lower man. And very, very many of these schools, which it is often
the fashion in the West to scoff at and despise, have yet in them
this element, that they at least recognize that man's intellectual
nature should be master of his sensuous nature and that he should
learn complete control over the body, complete control over the
passions. And even along many of the darker lines of evolution, even
in the schools that tread the path which all those who would reach
the highest should most carefully avoid, it is none the less true
that the subjugation of the lower nature is most rigorously insisted
upon. It is only the ignorant who suppose that those darker schools
are all given over to sensuous practices. Many of the followers of
those schools lead lives which, so far as that side of the nature is
concerned, might be taken as examples by an enormous majority of the
men of the western world.
Now the whole of these different
schools rose and flourished in ancient India as the result of the
great downpouring from the spiritual regions on to the lower planes,
and naturally they were used both for selfish and for unselfish
purposes. But in dealing with all those schools of Yoga which train
the intellect and develop the higher forms of intellectual
consciousness, it is well to remember that they are real
stepping-stones to the higher, and that it is a necessary stage of
our progress that we should practise concentration, that we should
use meditation, that we should be accustomed to contemplate
intellectually and emotionally the ideals which appeal to us by their
grandeur and their nobility. Those are stages in our upward path, and
stages that very many of us might well be utilizing now, with a view
to the higher growth, the deeper wisdom of the future. Men took up
these varying lines of evolution, stirred fundamentally by the
prompting of the Divine Life within them, ever seeking to raise them
and to help their upward growth; stirred, so far as they themselves
were conscious, by the natural and rightful desire for higher
evolution, for further progress, for growth in life. For, as we have
often seen when we have been studying progress, we cannot leap at a
bound to the heights of the spiritual life; we have to climb step by
step, we have to utilize the higher thoughts in us for the
subjugation of the lower, and then in turn to outgrow that higher
when a greater height comes within our sight and within our reach. We
have learnt, as we well know, in our studies, that we may constantly
eliminate lower ambitions by nourishing a higher ambition, and that
though that higher ambition be still attached to the personality, or
even transcending the personality, be attached still to the
individual, it is none the less a stepping-stone, it is one of the
ways by which we climb. It is well continually to kill out our lower
by our higher desires, though even those higher in their turn seem
lower as we are rising above them and greater perfection comes slowly
within our gaze. So that this longing for a higher life, this desire
to develop, this yearning for progress, had, and have, their rightful
place in evolution; and it is out of the ranks of those who feel
these, out of the ranks of those who use the methods which make
progress possible, that are taken those who are capable of further
evolution. They learn gradually to transcend the hope for individual
progress, and learn that that also, in the fullest sense of the term,
is illusory, inasmuch as the separated life is an illusion and cannot
exist as separate in the higher regions. The true life is the life
which is spent as part of the Divine Life, pouring itself out for
others; and no life is true, no life real, no life spiritual, save
when the very idea of the separated life is entirely transcended. and
all the thought of the being, all the energies of the life, are
poured forth as part of the One Self and no distinction is
recognized. Service is then the natural expression of the life,
helping is that in which the true existence is felt. But ere it is
possible that this ideal can be even intellectually realized, some
progress, at least, must have been made in transcending what we
recognize as the personality; and it was in order to make that
possible to every man immersed in illusion, as all men have been and
are, that the various methods were suggested by those who would fain
help their fellows forward, as steps on the upward path.
Others, seeing in the religious instinct in man--in that side
of his nature allied to the emotions, in which devotion finds its
root and the possibilities of its growth--seeing in that his easiest
upward path, gave to the world the various forms of religion in all
their variety of adaptation to human needs, thus making the path
upwards suitable for those whose constitution attracted them chiefly
in the direction of love and of service. Seeing, then, that all these
methods of growth were most active at the time when the real life was
working at the heart of things, it will not be difficult to
understand how, as that life found fewer channels for its expression
in the world, fewer who we ready to transcend their own limitations
and to give themselves wholly as channels of the Divine Life, all
these methods lost their vitality and a great part of their
usefulness. And so we find, in looking around the India of to-day,
that many of those things that were living are now dead, that many of
the systems that were vital are now mere shells, forming subjects for
intellectual controversy or for individual pride, but no longer
stepping-stones to the higher life. Here and there, still, some gleam
of the true life survives, some real use is being made of these
stepping-stones upward; but so far as the great masses of the people
are concerned, mere shells and forms remain--evidences of what
existed in the past, evidences, may we dare to hope, of what may be
in the future.
It is hardly worth while to remind you that
while semi-occultism may serve as a steppingstone to real occultism,
pseudo-occultism is generally a distinct obstacle and hindrance.
Under this heading may be classed all the "occult arts," in the study
of which many promising beginners have lost their way and wasted
their lives. Geomancy, palmistry, the use of the tarot, etc., all
these things are well enough for those who want to tread the byways
of nature and to gather knowledge of her obscurer workings. They may
be harmless, interesting, even useful in a small way, but they are
not occultism and their professors are not occultists. A little
success in their pursuit and success does not demand high qualities
of either head or heart--is apt to breed the most absurd vanity and
pretentiousness, as though this dalliance with the Apsaras of the
kingdom of occultism converted a commonplace man into one of its
rulers, a mage. A man may be past master of all these arts, and yet
be further away from occultism than is a pure and selfless woman
seeking only to love and to serve, or a generous, clean-souled man,
devoted to the helping of his fellows. And if these arts be turned to
selfish purposes, or if they nourish vanity, their professor may find
himself approaching perilously near to the gateway of the left-hand
path.
Looking for the application of this to our present
movement, the lesson springs easily enough to our gaze. Again, in our
own days, a great outpouring of real life has occurred. Again an
effort has been made by those who are the guardians, the reservoirs,
of that life for our humanity, to pour out the true spiritual
energies for the helping and the uplifting of man in every region of
his being, the manifesting again of the possibility of the real life.
This has been. marked by certain definite statements made from time
to time, by hints thrown out here and there by her who was the
special messenger in our own day of this possibility opening up for
our own race. And there is one passage in that paper to which I
referred at the beginning, which gives us in a phrase the reality of
life: we are told that when a man becomes a real occultist he becomes
only a force for good in the world. Here is a sentence that people
read without realizing at all its meaning, a sentence that comes in
the middle of many other statements, and does not strike with its
full force on the unprepared mind and heart. For many things may be
said which are missed for want of receptivity, and many truths are
proclaimed which remain dark and silent, save to those whose eyes are
beginning to be opened to see, and whose ears are beginning to be
opened to hear. And that statement, which really puts the occult life
in a few words, is one that most readers pass by without realizing
its significance. There is no true spiritual life, there is no real
occultism, until the man at least recognizes that the goal of his
living is to become a force for good, and that only, in the world. He
is no longer to seek his own progress, no longer to seek his own
life, no longer to seek his own development--no longer to ask aught
that heaven or earth or any of the other worlds can give him for
himself. There is only one thing left within him, the longing to be
of service; only one thing the motive of his being, to be a channel
for the great life of God, to enable that life to be scattered more
effectively over the world of man, and over all worlds where that
life exists.
When that is recognized, even afar off, when
that ideal first dimly dawns upon the human heart--come it by way of
intellectual apprehension of its sublimity, or by way of devotional
recognition of its truth--then for the first time the spiritual life
stirs within the man, the first germ of the spiritual nature begins
to quicken into life. And so we begin to realize that if true
occultism could be reached and understood by any of us, we should
have to begin the preparation for it by working at character in the
way that every religion has taught. How often do we hear it said
amongst ourselves, "we know all these moral truths, there is nothing
new in Theosophy when it simply reiterates the old morality. When we
are told to be unselfish, to seek to help others forward, to
eliminate the personality, to kill out our faults, it is all an old
story that we have heard to weariness. We want something new, we want
some fresh knowledge, some facts of the astral world, some strange
things of the mental region--that is what we demand from Theosophy,
that is what we are seeking, and we do not desire to have pressed
upon us these ethical maxims, these continual repetitions, these old
world stories which every religion has made familiar, and which we
can hear from any pulpit." And yet the truth of the matter is that
along that path only the spiritual life has been and is possible for
man; that the Divine Teachers who gave the religions to the world
with their perpetual insistence on morality, gave them knowing the
spiritual life, and knowing that only along that line the real
progress of man into unity with God was possible. And when it was
again declared by the lips of the Christ that only he might gain his
life who lost it, that those who would be perfect must sacrifice all
that they had, when he again reiterated the ancient teaching that
narrow was the path and straight was the gate-way, he was only
repeating what all true occultists have taught as to the necessity of
the training for the spiritual life.
As progress is made,
all those methods of Yoga which tend to help forward the individual,
which are followed in order to gain progress, practised in order to
evolve faculties, and used in order that the individual may go faster
forward himself--all these are dropped, and Yoga is regarded, not as
the means of self-evolution, as we are accustomed to regard it here,
but as the using of great forces for the lifting and the helping of
humanity, with utter disregard for the going forward of him who is
using them, with no thought of progress on the part of him who is
wielding them for the helping of man. For in truth all control of
higher forces, all utilization of these vast energies, ought to come
only within the grasp of man when he has transcended the personality
and has learnt to use them only for the helping of all. We readily
admit this in the common things of life, and recognize the difference
between learning the use of an instrument and the mere holding an
instrument without knowing how to use it. A pen, for example, is one
of the most useful of instruments, but its utility depends upon the
brain and the heart behind it, upon the knowledge and the skill that
wield it, and a pen in the hands of a child is of no more use than
any fragment of wood that the same child might pick up to use as a
toy in its play. Very much the same is the grasping of the forces of
the super-physical world by those who have not yet conquered the
lower nature, eliminated personal desires and consecrated themselves
wholly to the divine service. They are, truly, picking up an
instrument which may be used for the highest and noblest ends; they
are, truly, placing their hands upon a tool which in hands that know
how to use it may serve for the salvation of the race; but unless the
spiritual nature be developed, that tool fails in its highest
purposes, that instrument fails in all its noblest possibilities. And
it has this peculiarity, that whereas the pen that I used as symbol
might be comparatively harmless in the hands of the child, the
grasping of those forces by one in whom the personality is not
eliminated may become a source of danger alike to himself and others,
and may tend to retard the progress of the race instead of lifting it
upwards. That is why some of us who have learnt but the mere alphabet
of these great truths lay so much stress--stress to weariness, as I
know some of you think when I am speaking to you--on the moral
training which must precede all attempt at occult study. H.P.
Blavatsky gave us the same lesson when she herself said that she had
blundered, in teaching part of the alphabet of occult knowledge,
without insisting upon that old precept that the moral growth must
come before the occult training, and that the character must be
purified, raised and spiritalized before any one should dare to lay
his hand upon the latch of the occult gate-way. Hence it is that
those qualifications that we have so often studied are made
qualifications for imitation; hence it is that there has ever been
the demand that only the pure should enter, that only the selfless
should come in.
If I have spoken of the past to you to-night,
if I have reminded you that amongst us to-day the very outburst of
the new spiritual life will cause activity on all the lower planes,
it is because I would bring the experience of the past to reinforce a
lesson so often given from this platform, it is because I would warn
you of the dangers that surround us on every side--dangers that some
of us are beginning keenly to recognize, and to recognize just
because they have to some extent struck us, and have therefore made
progress the more difficult. So that it is our duty as Theosophists,
as would-be students of the science of the soul, to be careful that
in all things character precede any attempt at the gaining of power,
that purity, selflessness, devotion, utter self-surrender, be found
in us ere we touch the Ark of occultism--for without these any
success is a defeat, without these any attempt is doomed to failure.
And sure it is better for us to learn from the experience of the past
than by the bitter suffering that grows out of the personal
experience of to-day; better to learn by the authority of the great
Teachers who have proclaimed the lesson over and over again, than to
have to learn it by the suffering that follows from grasping powers
ere we are ready to use them, from plucking the fruit of knowledge
ere it is ripe for our consumption, from striving to rule ere yet we
have learnt to obey, and from endeavouring to snatch at the mighty
forces of the spiritual realm until we have learnt that great lesson
of the Spirit--that only by giving is the spirit shown, that only by
utter abnegation is the true life realized. As the very life of God
in manifestation is a life that gives everything and asks nothing
back, so those who would reach unity with Him and realize what the
spiritual life means, must learn to give and not to take, to help and
not to hold, to pour out without seeking or looking for return. Only
as we learn that do we become fit candidates for the higher
knowledge, only as the heart is thus rendered absolutely pure may we
dare to face the presence of the Master, hoping that when "He looks
at the heart He may find no stain therein." The Light and Dark Sides of
Nature
From "Lucifer," October and November,
1896
Everything in this universe of differentiated matter
has its two aspects, the light and the dark side, and these two
attributes applied practically, lead the one to use, the other to
abuse. Every man may become a botanist without apparent danger to his
fellow creatures; and many a chemist who has mastered the science of
essences knows that every one of them can both heal and kill. Not an
ingredient, not a poison, but can be used for both purposes--aye,
from harmless wax to deadly prussic acid, from the saliva of an
infant to that of the cobra di capella.
--H.P.
Blavatsky
In one of the scriptures of our race it is pointed out
that at the very beginning of the universe the pairs of opposites
appeared. "The pairs of opposites" may be taken as a general name for
the light and dark sides of Nature, and a word on this general
meaning of the pairs of opposites and on what they imply in Nature
may fitly be said in opening.
First, it is impossible to
think at all without pairs of opposites; we can only think, that is,
by and through duality. If there were but a single thing
undifferentiated, always the same, always everywhere, no thinking
could arise in that thing. There must be at least two--the thinker
and the thing thought of, distinguishable from himself, before what
we call "thought" can exist at all. Not only so, but in thinking we
find ourselves continually distinguishing one thing from another, we
perceive the presence of these opposites: light and not-light, dark
and not-dark--put in the most general form, A and not-A. To recognize
identity--A = A, and to perceive difference, A is not not-A--is the
condition of thinking, the law of the mind. Without this no mind, no
thought can be. It is because this fact is recognized that in
philosophic religious books the phrase which strikes many western
thinkers as not only strange but nihilistic is used: Brahman is
"without mind." So long as only the One exists nothing that the
incarnate intellect can call "thought" or "mind" can be present.
There is something deeper than "thought," something which is the form
of "thought"; but thought as known by the brain must always imply
duality, for without this we are unable to perceive, perception
depending on distinctions.
While this formal statement may be
unfamiliar it must at once be seen to be accurate when it is
understood. For the very moment anyone thinks of anything he
distinguishes it from other things by its differences, and assigns it
relations by its identities; he distinguishes it from everything
which is not itself, and he recognizes in it identities with things
previously perceived, things to which it is akin. We only know things
as we separate them by differences from the things they are not, and
classify them with the things they resemble.
The pair of
opposites that we are now taking for our consideration is the
fundamental pair of opposites, one therefore of vast importance. This
pair has long been called "the light and dark sides of Nature." It is
the primary pair of opposites arising from the One, the fundamental
duality, known to all students as being the nature of the second or
manifested Logos. The second Logos in Christian phrase is the "Word
made flesh," and in philosophic phrase apart from any special
religion, is spirit-matter, male-female, life-form,
positive-negative, the two aspects of the One between which the whole
universe revolves. "Father-mother spin a web," the web of the
universe. In this Logos, the manifested Word, the manifested God, the
two poles of existence appear, and between these poles the universe
is builded. They exist always together; they are co-eternal, one
cannot be without the other. They are never known separated in
nature. Without the one the other could not be, could not even be
thought. Fundamentally the same in their essence, they differ only in
their manifestation. The whole of evolution is the progress of these
two side by side, and evolution consists in the differences of
proportion between the two. One is more manifest and the other less
manifest; one is predominant and the other subservient; always,
however, together in whatever part of the universe we may be. In the
highest spiritual region life is not alone, but there form is so
subtle that it lends itself to the slightest change of the informing
life. In the densest region of the universe life is present; but
there form is predominant, is rigid, unplastic, and the life is
concealed beneath the rigidity of the form. Life implies
consciousness, and form is that in which consciousness becomes
manifest, and necessarily implies limitation. The two best words for
this fundamental duality are really life and form, sometimes called
in eastern books name and form. For name has in it the moulding
potency and shapes the form it inhabits, therefore has name always
been secret and sacred, and all potency lies in the "word." If
"name-form" has become restricted to the lower plane it is because
occult knowledge has been lost. Truly is it written that "Life is
concealed beneath name-form," and these are the manifested
universe.
Now the light side, the side of spirit, life or the
positive, is the constructive and motive side; the dark side is the
side of matter, form, or the negative, and is always subject to
destructive transmutation, for only by destruction of forms can a
fuller manifestation of life be made. Light and dark in nature then
are the constructive and the destructive forces, both of which are
necessary for the evolution of the universe, equally necessary,
strange perhaps as that at first may sound. The light and the dark
are equally manifestations of the One. The light and the dark are
equally necessary for the manifestation of the One. For without
the light there would be no construction, and therefore no
universe, no manifestation; without the dark there would be no
destruction and therefore no evolution. For as each form is
constructed it becomes a mould in which the life is held; and there
could be no evolution, no progress in the universe unless that form
can be destroyed and give place to a form which is higher and nobler.
Within that form the life has been accumulating experience which has
caused internal growth and differentiation. The form which expressed
the life ere that experience was gathered now cramps its further
growth and hinders its further expansion. If the life is to evolve,
the form that imprisons it must be broken, and a new form must be
constructed which will express the new powers of the life. Life is
continuous, while forms are transitory and are shaped to successive
stages of the life. The form that prisons is broken to set the life
free to enter the form that expresses it. That also will become a
prison in its turn to be broken, and so on stage after stage. Thus
all evolution depends on the presence of this destructive side of the
One Divine Existence, breaking down every form, not for the mere
purpose of destruction, but because death is only the dark side of
birth, and there is no death in one region of the universe which
looked at from another region is not birth. Death and birth in fact
are only two correlative names, and they are used in relation to the
standpoint of the speaker. The passing of a life out of the region in
which it is, is death to its form in that region; but as it passes
out of that region by death it appears in the next region by birth.
Therefore birth and death are rightly called the wheel of
existence--both equally necessary, both equally fundamental;
construction and destruction continually succeeding each other, both
stages in evolution, and stages which are equally necessary. The
manifested Logos, call Him by what name men will, is spoken of in all
religions as creator, the unmanifested as destroyer; sometimes He is
styled the regenerator, a name which includes both--creation and
destruction being thus seen as the two poles of the one life, and in
all manifestation these two are present.
The next stage in our
study is an understanding of the three great regions to which the
general evolution of ordinary humanity is at present confined, and it
is necessary that it should be clearly understood that the question
of good and evil does not come into play with regard to these regions
in themselves. I want to get rid of the idea which is lurking
in many minds that "spiritual" means "good" and "material" means
evil. Spirit and matter, life and form, are never separated, and in
themselves are neither good nor evil.
But spiritual is a
name often used to define a particular region in Nature where form is
dominated by life, just as much as material is used to indicate
another region in Nature where life is dominated by form. Neither
life nor form, spirit nor matter is good or bad in itself; both these
poles are present in every plane, in every entity, and the entity is
good or bad according to the end to which its activity is directed.
There is good and evil spirituality just as there is good and evil
materiality. The words good and evil have nothing to do with the
fundamental constituents and forces of Nature, and people are
constantly getting into a confused condition of mind because they
take "spiritual" as meaning good; and then try to deal with the "dark
spiritual side" of Nature, finding themselves face to face with what
they recognize as evil, and yet find existing in the "spiritual"
region. The forces of any region are non-moral, though both
constructive and destructive entities are good or evil as they use
these forces for or against the Divine Will. We shall avoid
confusion, if we consider the planes of Nature as they really exist,
and then define each clearly so far as it concerns us.
The
word spiritual being used so loosely is apt to be misleading; the
third and fourth planes (counting from above downwards) form a region
beyond the reach of moral evil, and if these alone are termed
spiritual, evil would be excluded from the conception of
spirituality. But the word is often applied to the manasic, or
intellectual plane, by Theosophical writers, and as the "Brothers of
the Shadow" function thereon, its forces can be turned to evil
purposes and are often thus turned.
The two highest planes of the
septenary do not concern us, as human evolution in this manvantara
does not touch them. We have thus left five: the atmic or nirvanic;
the buddhic or turiyic; the manasic or mental; the kamic or astral;
and the physical. The atmic and buddhic planes will only be touched
by ordinary humanity in future rounds, so that for practical purposes
we are confined to the three lower planes, the mental, astral and
physical. In these man spends each of his life-periods, repeating the
cycle over and over again.
Spiritual:
-
atmic or
nirvanic
-
buddhic or turiyic
Ordinary human
evolution in 4th round:
-
manasic or heavenly (Sometimes called
spiritual)
-
kamic or astral (Psychic)
-
physical or earthly
(Physical)
Thus for ordinary humanity we might name the
three lower planes spiritual, psychic and physical, and in this way
they are often distinguished, for they are the regions of heavenly
astral and earthly life, and heavenly or devachanic life is that
which satisfies all the part of man's nature usually regarded as
spiritual. This use of the word spiritual brings us into line with
the use of it by the different great religions, as with St. Paul's
"spiritual wickedness in high places," the Hindu Asuras, the Buddhist
Mara and his hosts, the Occultist's Black Magicians or Brothers of
the Shadow.
Further, the word spiritual is not inappropriate, as
in that region of the universe the spirit or life side is
predominant, while the matter or form side is completely subordinate.
Matter is very rare, very subtle, very ductile, very plastic, and it
changes its form with almost inconceivable rapidity. Sometimes the
higher region of this plane is even spoken of as formless. It is
formless to everything which is below it, because the senses of the
lower cannot appreciate the forms of the higher. But to those who are
upon it form exists, for without form--which is fundamentally
extension, that is, matter--manifested existence cannot be. The lower
part of this plane is the region of the lower mind, but matter still
remains quite subordinate to spirit form to life.
In the next,
or psychic plane, form is denser though still plastic, and life is
more veiled. Both are active, but they are more balanced. Above, life
is predominant; in the middle, life and form are balanced; in the
lowest plane, or the physical, form is predominant and life is
hidden. That is perhaps one of the simplest and clearest ways in
which we may recognize the characteristics of these planes. In the
first life or spirit predominates; in the second life and form are
balanced--it is the battle ground of Nature; in the third, form
triumphs.
In the lowest stages very many western people do not
recognize life at all; they regard it as one of the Theosophical
follies to say that there is life in the lowest forms of material
existence. But amongst some of our more advanced and younger chemists
the phrase "evolution of metals" is being used, and "the life-history
of metals" was lately spoken of in a lecture given at the Royal
Institution. So that it looks as though science would soon no longer
oppose the reasonable view, would begin to understand that life is
everywhere in a universe which proceeds from life.
To pass now
to good and evil. Everything which is in accord with the Divine
Will--and in a moment I will define what I mean by that phrase--and
which therefore works for progress and for happiness, is good;
everything which works against progress and happiness is evil, no
matter whether it be on the highest, on the middle, or on the lowest
plane. It is not the forces which are good or evil in themselves, but
the use that is made of them; not whether they are spiritual,
psychical or physical, but whether spiritually they are used for good
or evil, whether psychically they are used for good or evil, whether
physically they are used for good or evil. The good or the evil
depends on whether they work for progress or against it, whether they
work towards the happiness and the perfecting of the universe or
against it. On each plane there are forces which can be thus used.
The forces in themselves are not good or evil, they are merely
spiritual, psychical or physical. They become good or evil according
to the purpose for which they are used, and the end which they bring
about. Electricity, for instance, is neither moral nor immoral in
itself. It is used immorally if it be employed to kill; it is used
morally if it be turned to help and to comfort. And so in other
regions of the universe. A spiritual force is evil if it be used
against progress, for the causing of misery and of destruction; it is
good if it be used for progress, for the bringing about of the
happiness and the perfection of the universe. On each plane you may
find good and evil, the distinction being in the use of the forces
and not in the nature of the plane.
Let us now examine the
meaning of the phrase "Divine Will." The one existence emanating a
universe may be described as causing a great circle of existence, a
vast cycle. It is said that "spirit descends into matter." That is a
phrase consecrated by long usage and one to which there is no
objection if its meaning be understood. But it is apt to be
exceedingly misleading if people think of spirit as being somewhere
up aloft, and matter separated from it somewhere down below, and
spirit falling from above into matter. That is the conception which a
good many people really have, though they might not put it quite so
plainly. And as they think spirit climbs up again out of matter to
where it was before, they not unnaturally ask, what is the use of the
whole proceeding, why should it start if it is only going to return?
Sometimes the Theosophist who is not quite instructed is apt to be a
little irritated with his questioner, but the enquirer is really
quite justified in his challenge, for where we Theosophists have
expressed ourselves badly, it is quite right that a question put to
us should point out the clumsy way in which we are saying what is yet
fundamentally true.
There is a vast cycle of manifestation which
may be regarded for convenience sake as a circle; at every point of
the descent spirit and matter are side by side, but there is the
change of proportion before mentioned, the spirit becoming more
hidden and the matter more evident; the change in the ascending line
is that the matter becomes more subtle and the spirit becomes more
predominant. The Divine Will is the law of progress. This existence,
manifesting itself, wills to bring a universe into existence, and to
conduct that universe by evolution to perfection. It may of course be
asked, why should it will to emanate? That is a question which we
cannot answer fully, but we find in existence at the end of a
universe a number of self-conscious individuals who were not in
existence at its beginning, and who are capable of perfect life,
perfect knowledge, perfect bliss. Even from our limited standpoint it
must be admitted that this is a reasonable and sufficient purpose for
the existence of the universe; it brings into conscious being these
blissful all-knowing intelligences who share with the Divine Life
that gave them birth its own existence, its own knowledge, its own
joy. What a universe is to the manifesting life no words of limited
mind may tell. What it gives to those who gain self-consciousness,
bliss and knowledge by the process is sufficiently evident to any one
who thinks at all. It is the difference between knowing nothing and
knowing everything--a difference far more than between a stone and
the highest archangel; for there is evolution behind the stone as
well as in front of it, an evolution that prepares its existence as
well as an evolution that carries it on into the highest ranges of
self-conscious being.
Now this process at first and all
through must be regarded as double--the light and the dark sides. One
of the streams of divine energy is constructive, the other
destructive; one of them is life, building forms; the other is death,
breaking them up. Both are equally necessary, for destructive energy
is going to destroy every form when it has served its purpose, in
order that the materials used in the form whose purpose is over may
be taken up by the constructive energy and built into a higher form.
This process is what we call evolution. At every stage of the
downward curve in which form becomes more prominent and life more
veiled, forms will be brought into existence by this descending
energy. Against it there will be working a destructive energy, which
breaks up these forms as soon as their purpose is served, and they
become outworn. There are thus two opposing streams of energy, by one
of which forms come into existence and by the other of which they are
constantly broken up, in order that higher forms may be built from
their materials. There is no increase of matter it must be
remembered, constant change, constant transmutation, but no increase
and no diminution. Evolution consists on the form side of this
process of destroying the lower forms that the higher forms may come
into existence.
The next point is at first a little difficult
to conceive, even a little startling. Growth is at first from the one
to the many, from one existence to a universe of countless forms. "It
willed, 'I will multiply.' " Then this descending line must be a
process of separation, of making differences in order that an
ever-increasing multiplicity of forms may be brought into existence.
The key-note of evolution will be separation. As far down as the
lowest or most outward point of evolution the key-note of progress is
separation. The perfection of a universe is in the multiplicity of
its forms, in the variety of the existences that are found in it. The
universe exists in order to bring all these separated forms into
manifestation, and all through this early process evolution will work
for separation. Using the phrase the "Divine Will"--that will which
is "I will multiply"--the Divine Will will work for separation, will
work to make forms which are more and more separated and diverse from
each other, in which the fundamental unity of life is more and more
hidden. The whole of this growth will be a process of increasing
separation. It is said to be a coming down into matter, and we may
venture to use the phrase now that we have guarded ourselves against
mistake; as things become more and more material they obviously
become more and more separated. We may see that in the very density
of matter as we know it. A piece of sulphur, for instance, is more
separated from a piece of iodine than if both are sublimed to gas.
The analogy is clumsy, for the gases remain separate molecularly
though mingling in mass, so that there is no real union. But as we
pass from the subtle to the dense this separateness of form is the
thing that strikes us, whereas when we are dealing with very subtle
things their unity is more prominently characteristic. If we
understand this "descent into matter" we shall see that under the
circumstances of the descending arc the opposition to progress would
be the desire to remain one, would be the refusal to take form, would
be the unit setting itself to maintain unity instead of accepting
separateness. Hence setting itself against the Divine Will--wrong
because it is against evolution, against progress, against the
perfecting of the universe at this stage--would be, strange as it may
sound, the refusal to take form in more and more material shapes.
Theosophists who have really studied may here see a gleam of
light on what otherwise may have seemed to them strange; in the
wonderful Stanzas of Dzyan it is said that the sin of the mindless is
preceded by the refusal of the Sons of Mind to incarnate. That is,
that the refusal of spirit, as we will call it for the moment, to
take to itself separate form goes before the great sin which was
wrought by the mindless men, and has left its traces in some of the
higher animal forms. Intelligences awaiting incarnation set
themselves against the law of progress. They looked on it as
degradation to clothe themselves in the available bodies, as lowering
their position to take forms in this lower world, and they refused to
come down. Thence came the great primary transgression, known to
students as "the sin of the mindless." To remain out of gross matter
was against the law of progress, against evolution and the perfecting
of the universe.
What at first seems so strange is that
everything that now is right, the seeking of unity, the getting rid
of separateness, the dominating of the material--at that stage of
progress was wrong; the duty of these intelligences was to descend
from the psychical to the physical, in order that a universe might
come into existence in multiplicity of forms, in order that this
building process might go on in which they were necessary helpers,
co-workers with the Divine Will. Opposition to that Will, as ever,
brought evil, but the nature of the opposition in this case was the
refusal of spirit to enter physical forms, to veil its light in dense
matter.
As the evolutionary process went on the spiritual was
veiled in the psychical, and then the psychical was veiled in the
material and the most material race of men appeared. Yet it was
really a rising, descent though it seemed, for it was part of
evolution, it was the way to the swifter bringing into existence of
self-conscious individuals of our humanity. Without this the
perfected manifestation would have been long delayed, without it
self-conscious spiritual intelligences could not have developed so
rapidly as the harvest of the universe, as the justification of this
emanation of the Divine. Thus in this downward sweep of evolution
what we now rightly call evil was then really good. To become
separate, to become material was good in those far-off eons. For
separation was necessary in order that a more perfect unity might
finally be gained. Intellect could not evolve without spirit working
through the lower forms of matter. The coming thus into the closest
connection with matter of the physical plane brought into existence
the human brain, the physical basis of all the faculties of the lower
mind, and made possible the acquiring of the knowledge without which
the individual could not expand into the divine.
In the
process of evolution this lowest point was thus reached, and then
there was a change The utmost separation having been achieved; the
utmost multiplicity of forms having been achieved, the utmost
multiplicity of forms having been brought into being, then what we
call the upward curve began. Life, having made this infinite variety
of forms for its own manifestation began to work upon the forms to
render them plastic. First the process of differentiation to get the
forms, then the working in the forms to make them ductile as the
expression of the life. These are the two great stages. The form must
be brought into existence, and that means separation; then there must
be work from within to make the form the plastic expression of the
life. The whole of the upward curve is used for that second half of
the work. Life constantly toiling within these separated forms to
make them more plastic, more transparent, working towards unity.
Unity must be regained or immortality could not be achieved, for that
which is composite cannot last for ever. But it is a unity into which
has been absorbed the very essence of all the differences that have
been passed through during the circle of evolution. The subtle
life-form clothes itself in varied garments, subdividing and becoming
more and more separate as it comes downwards, then a life-form
separated from all other life-forms by this clothing of denser matter
beginning the upward path in which it will work on its material
garments, making them more transparent, more subtle, more a mere
delicate film, and yet that film containing in itself the essence of
every separated form through which it has passed. When at length it
arrives on high, having passed into the intellectual sphere, it has
in high and spiritualized forms the faculties which were latent in it
at the beginning and has become self-conscious and not only
conscious. Then it becomes one with others, but has the memory of its
separateness behind it, reaching a stage which words must fail to
describe, but which--borrowing a phrase from Madame Blavatsky--I may
perhaps call "a conscious entity becoming consciousness." It keeps
the memory which has made it an individual, and yet shakes off from
itself everything which separates it from other individuals. It
shares their experience and knows their knowledge, and yet is itself.
It reaches the state which is spoken as of Nirvana, which is the very
antithesis of annihilation, which extinguishes separateness but keeps
everything which by separateness has been gained; it is the All, and
yet in it is preserved the subtle essence of memory which was gained
when each knew itself as one of many.
In this upward sweep,
therefore, it is separateness which is to be gotten rid of, and
therefore separateness is called "the great heresy," therefore it is
called "the great sin," therefore it is the fundamental evil,
therefore it has become the mark of what is called the Black
Magician, the brother of the dark side. To keep the self separated
from other selves, to seek everything for the separated self, and not
for the common self of all, is now the worst sin. The Black Magician
seeks for strength in order that he may be strong, whereas the White
Magician seeks it in order that all may be strong. The Black seeks
knowledge that he may be learned; the White that all may be wise.
When the White Brother reaches the spiritual plane, everything that
he has gained in upward climbing becomes part of the general store,
everything that he has gathered in his passing through the world
becomes a common light which radiates in every direction. It is his
own truly, but he has shaken off everything that separated him from
others, he is able to shed all he has over the whole world of living
things; everything that he has gained as a separated self radiates
out from him as an unseparate self to the universe of unmanifested
existence. For where he stands there is no separation; there is love
and love knows no separation; there is perfect wisdom, and perfect
wisdom knows no separation. It is by ignorance that separation
exists, and perfect wisdom clears away the veils that divide, and
makes man realize that he has only become separate in order that he
may gather, and has re-become one in order that he may give. In that
region everything is common property. There is no longer "mine" and
"thine," for all selves are one.
In the upward path then, the
dark side will evolve by the desire to be separate, thus working for
disintegration, and against progress. The Black Magician evolves by
clinging to the separate form, by the desire to possess for the
separate self. If that determination to be separate continues, if the
desire to be apart from everything instead of being a part of
everything persists as man rises upwards, then this one possibility
remains: for a time by the tremendous strength that he has gathered,
by the mighty knowledge that he has won, by the almost omniscience
that he has gained in the long striving upwards, he can for a time,
even in the spiritual region, hold his own against all others, for a
time even in that world of unity can preserve a separated self. Not
for ever, only for a while. He has won such tremendous force and
energy and knowledge that he can hold his own for a time even against
the Divine Will; he can keep himself apart even against everything
which tends towards unity. Even in the arupa region of the mental
plane there may be for a while separated existences which work for
themselves, which are selfish, which refuse to hold for the common
good and for the common enrichment, who are learned as separated
selves, strong as separated selves, who use their strength to rule
and to hold instead of to serve the world and lift it higher. Those
are the great Black Magicians that are spoken of, the "Lords of the
Dark Face," mighty in their power, mighty in their knowledge, mighty
in the spiritual height that they have gained--very Gods in the
manifested universe, but selfish Gods, anti-Gods, and therefore
incapable of immortality. For only that can live which is one with
the All, and they must break in time. The separated form built apart
from its fellows and keeping itself separate whilst the universe is
gradually becoming one, being against this upward trend, against the
law of progress, against general evolution, is always striking itself
against the law. It is deliberately dooming itself to disintegration,
for the Divine Energy breaks up every form, and if it keeps separate
form it also must be broken up. Though the dark spiritual powers--the
God of the dark side of Nature, as they may have been called, the
Deus inversus -may last for many an age, for many and many a
millennium, yet as they have chosen form, and all form is perishable,
they must at length perish. The forms that they have chosen must be
disintegrated, and if they have identified themselves with the
separated forms, then as forms they cease to exist. Having chosen the
forms that perish, when those forms break, their consciousness goes
back into the vast ocean of consciousness; they have failed to
extract the essence, to transmute it into consciousness per
se; they have chosen a self-conscious individuality which is
separate, and when the separateness breaks, the consciousness goes
back into the ocean and self-consciousness is lost.
Any, if he
will, may choose that side. We all of us are choosing it from time to
time. For every force that works for disintegration works for its own
destruction; every force that at this period of the world's progress
works for its separate self is throwing itself against that mighty
stream of destructive energy which breaks and grinds everything to
powder in order that it may be rebuilt anew of higher mould. Every
agency which works against the whole, everyone who separates himself
and works for himself against his brothers, every such force is a
force that is working for self-destruction, destruction which is
self-chosen and which Nature cannot refuse to give.
Now we can
realize what evil means. Evil is everything which works against the
Divine Will in evolution. It is everything which works against truth
which is God, against unity which is God, against love which is God.
Every such force is working against the whole, and if it comes into
conflict with the general force which is working upwards, and with
those who are the embodiments of that upward tending force, it must
inevitably be broken into pieces. The Great White Lodge wars against
none, but it goes its way, and that which wars against it is broken
into pieces. It does not war with hatred, it passes upward; it does
not use the weapon of wrath and of anger, but it passes upward.
everything which flings itself against it is, by its own act, and not
by the act of the White Brotherhood, broken into shivers; it breaks
into fragments, while the great force goes on.
Some imagine
that the force of the White Lodge is used for destruction, but it is
not so. That Lodge is on the upward arc, and the White Brothers are
ever on the side of unity; where there is conflict it is the disunity
flinging itself against the unity, and as that is unchanging and ever
going towards its end, those which fall against it are broken into
pieces. Here is the occult meaning of a phrase which is familiar in
the Christian Scriptures, that those who fall upon the stone which is
the head of the corner are broken; not by the action of that mighty
corner stone, but by their own action; not by its disruptive
energy--for of disruptive energy it has none--but by virtue that it
is changeless and cannot be broken, and that everything that works
against it must shiver from the energy with which it flings itself
against the law. The whole mighty sweep is the law which passes
downwards and then upwards once again. Everything which is against it
is broken, everything which separates itself from it must fall to
pieces. Every separated existence must break; only in unity can life
proceed, therefore when we study the light and dark sides of Nature
in their bearing on our practical life we find that every force of
hatred, of disruption that makes against unity, that works for
separated fragments and not for one mighty whole--everything that
works on that side is under the Black Lodge, is an agency of the
Black Brotherhood. When we speak of the dark side of Nature and of
those who incarnate the disruptive forces, as the White Brotherhood
incarnates the law, the good law of the universe, we know that
everyone of us must be on the one side or the other--working for
brotherhood or working against it, working for construction or
destruction, for building or for breaking, for unity or
disuniting.
That is the practical outcome of this study; each of
us in striving to lead a life which we would fain should lead us on
the upward course and bring us at length into that unity wherefore
the universe exists, will do well to scrutinise our own hearts and
our own lives to see whether the forces in us are tending to Truth,
to Love, to Unity. Everything that is of these is white. Everything
that is against these is black. We must co-operate with the one side
or with the other, and according to our final co-operation will be
the final end of the individual soul. The Destinies of
Nations
From "The Theosophical Review," Volume
XXXVII
Certain great ideas, necessary for the evolution of the
race, may be said to belong especially to the civilisations of the
East, and those ideas were in danger of being trampled out by the
advancing western civilisations. That was a danger to humanity at
large, the ideals of both eastern and western civilisations being
necessary in the future of the world; and it became necessary for
some definite interference to take place to re-establish the balance
of thought. I want to draw attention to the nature of that
interference, to show what lies behind the destinies of nations, and
what forces guide the current of affairs, so that we may see through
the veil of events to the forces that guide them. The great
world-drama is not written by the pen of chance, but by the thought
of the LOGOS, guiding His world along the road of evolution. In the
course of that evolution many beings are concerned. We have to look
on this world as part of a chain of worlds all closely interlinked,
all the inhabitants of these different worlds having something to say
in those parts of the drama which are being worked out in each. We
are all living in three different worlds, and not only in one; and
whether in the physical world, or in the next world, the astral, or
in the third, the heaven world, the inhabitants are busy with the
general conduct of affairs which affect all three. Life becomes
enormously more interesting when we recognise that it is shaped not
only in the physical world but in other worlds as well, and that when
we trace the destinies of nations we find that those destinies
stretch backward, and that the working out in the present is largely
conditioned by the energies of the past.
Let us look for a
moment on the rough plan of the whole. Let me put it as though it
were a great drama written by a divine pen. The story of the world,
and the various parts of the actors on the stage, are all therein
written. What is not laid down is who the actors shall be, and with
regard to this a large amount of what is called choice comes in. This
drama is the manifestation of certain great ideas in the Divine Mind,
ideas written, as it were, in the heavens; for it is suggested in
very ancient thought that what we call the signs of the zodiac have a
definite connection with the course of human affairs. Of that, in the
broad outline, there is no doubt in the minds of any who have
penetrated somewhat behind the veil. The importance of these starry
influences cannot be over-estimated; for inasmuch as human beings are
related in the composition of their physical and other subtler bodies
to the worlds among which they move in space, there must be magnetic
relations existing between them and the system of which they form a
part, and at certain epochs in the history of evolution there will be
one or another dominating influence present in the atmosphere in
which men think and act, and they can no more escape that influence
than their bodies can escape the influence of the far-off sun. The
great drama, then, is the grand plan of human evolution. It is full
of parts which are to be played by the nations, but not necessarily
by this or that nation; for the nation qualifies itself to play a
certain part which may be offered to more than one nation, and one or
another may rise to the height of its great opportunity.
Leaving that for a moment, let us ask a question as to the
forces which help to adapt players to parts. Are there to be found,
in what seems the great chaos of human wills, any guiding forces
which bring the actor and the part together? You cannot well have a
drama vast as the world-process, as evolution, and then a great gap
between the Author of so vast a plan and the individual players who
make up the nations and choose the parts. How is the right player to
be brought into touch with his part in the history of the nation, in
the history of individual successive births and deaths? That is the
next point to grasp.
Now the vast machinery for bringing together
the parts and the players is found in the hierarchies of superhuman
Intelligences recognised in all the religions of the world, and in
the occult teaching on which they are founded. Not one great religion
of the past or of the present that does not see surrounding the world
and mingling in its affairs the vast hierarchies of spiritual
Intelligences into whose hands is put the work of bringing together
the players and the parts. You will see, if you turn to the religions
of the nations of the past, how they have recognised these workings
as playing a great part in the practical shaping of the destinies of
nations. Not one great people of antiquity that did not have its own
national "Gods."
The word "Gods," however, as used in the
English tongue, is very confusing, for it is applied not only to
those great hosts of Intelligences, but also to the Supreme, the
LOGOS, the Author of the drama. Now in the nations that have other
religions than the Christian this confusion does not arise. It is
when the Christian is contemplating those whom he calls the "heathen"
that the greatest confusion arises, for over the whole of their vast
theology he uses the one name "God." And yet he might easily escape
that by remembering that his own cosmogony is only a reproduction of
the older thoughts of these more ancient peoples. In the East there
is one name which is used for these Intelligences--the name "Devas,"
from the root "div," to "shine" or to "play"; the "shining ones," or
the "playing ones," would be the English translation. When Bunyan so
often used the term "shining ones" he was using a quite eastern
phrase, for it is by that name that the East knows this great
hierarchy of Intelligences. Among the Christians and Mussulmans,
whose religions are drawn largely from the Jewish, the name "Angel"
is used, the terms "Angel," "Archangel," "Cherubim," "Seraphim," and
so on, being represented in the older faiths either by the word
"Deva" or by a word derived therefrom. "God," in the Christian sense,
is known by other names, and no confusion arises.
In all the
old religions these Devas played an enormous part, and each nation
had its own particular set of Devas. The Egyptians regarded certain
superhuman Intelligences as their earliest law-givers, and the
connection between the human law-giver, the Divine King, and the Deva
is always clearly marked. Every civilisation takes its rise in a
little group, partly human, partly superhuman, to which it looks back
and from which it draws its laws. The Greek had his Demigods or
Heroes, and his Gods or Devas. So among the Chinese, the Japanese,
the Persians, the Indians, the same idea is found of the nation being
founded by the group which contained the human law-giver and the Deva
who worked with him in the building of the nation. Celsus hints that
the Beings "to whom was allotted the office of superintending the
country which was being legislated for, enacted the laws of each land
in co-operation with its legislators. He appears then to indicate
that both the country of the Jews, and the nation which inhabits it,
are superintended by one or more beings . . . co-operated with Moses,
and enacted the laws of the Jews" (Origen. Con. Cel. V.
xxv.).
Now the Divine Kings, the Heroes, passed, but the
Deva remains still at the head of each nation, a real existence in
the astral and heavenly worlds, with a crowd of less developed
Intelligences under his guiding hand. And when you come to the Jews
you find that idea very clearly laid down in their scriptures. I
pause for a moment upon it, because the sentence I am going to take
from the Old Testament, from Deuteronomy, gives exactly the idea
which I want us to take in considering the working out of a nation's
destinies: "When the Most High divided the nations, when He dispersed
the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the
number of the angels of God; and the Lord's portion was his people
Jacob" (Deut. xxxii. 8, 9, Septuagint). To many modern readers
the latter part of that sentence, "the Lord," may sound surprising,
for they are accustomed to connect that word with the Supreme God;
but we can see from the whole of the sentence that it is the name
"Most High" which indicates the LOGOS, the manifested God, and He
divides all the nations of the world according to the number of the
angels, and to one great angel, "the Lord," He gives Jacob, Israel,
as his peculiar portion. Origen, in dealing with this, alludes to the
"reasons relating to the arrangement of terrestrial affairs," and
points out that in Grecian history "certain of those considered to be
Gods are introduced as having contended with each other about the
possession of Attica; while in the writings of the Greek poets also
some who are called Gods are represented as acknowledging that
certain places here are preferred by them before others" (Con.
Cel. V. xxix.). And so he points out that after what he regards
as the symbolical dispersion, at the building of the tower of Babel,
the different nations were given to these groups of celestial beings
(Ibid. xxx.). These beings were worshipped in their respective
nations, who followed their own "Gods," and not those of other
peoples (Ibid. xxxiv.).
This idea of "the ministry of
angels" is very general among the early Christians; thus we have in
Hermas the vision of the building of a tower:
"And
I answering said unto her, These things are very admirable; but,
lady, who are those six young men that build?
"They are,
said she, the angels of God, which were first appointed, and to whom
the Lord has delivered all his creatures, to frame and build them up,
and to rule over them. For by these the building of the tower shall
be finished.
"And who are the rest who bring them
stones?
"They also are the holy angels of the Lord; but the
other are more excellent than these. Wherefore when the whole
building of the tower shall be finished, they shall all feast
together beside the tower, and shall glorify God, because the
structure of the tower is finished" (lst Book of Hermas,
Vision iii., 43-46).
Clement (1st Epistle, xiii. 7)
quotes the text above referred to. Also the following remark about
Jesus, made by Satan to the Prince of Hell, is noteworthy: "As for
me, I tempted him, and stirred up my old people the Jews with zeal
and anger against him" (Gospel of Nicodemus, xv. 9). The Jews
were under Saturn, or Jehovah, according to Origen. The same idea is
taught among the Mussulmans. They regard the angels as taking a very
active part in the affairs of men. And it is hardly necessary to
remind you that in the great epic poems of India, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, you find the Devas
mingling with the affairs of men, so that when great quarrels are to
be decided they manifestly take part in the strife, each struggling
for the particular tribe or nation placed in his hands for its
evolution. A correspondent, Mr. Tudor Pole, of Bristol, tells me that
there is an old Teutonic legend that on New Year's Eve all the "Inner
Rulers," the angels, of the nations assemble before the Council of
the Gods to receive their orders for the coming year; each has his
request to make as to the destiny of his nation during the coming
year; the Council arranges the part that each nation shall play
during the ensuing year, and the Great Lords are consulted. Finally,
the Rulers disperse, some with music and joy, some weeping, some in
great agony.
In Greece there is much mingling of "Gods"
and men, and the Greeks, despite their philosophy, took the matter as
real, not as fairy-tale, although the philosophers in Greece, as
among the Hindus and Buddhists, did not worship these "Gods." In the
7th book of the Odyssey we read how "Minerva meets Ulysses, in
the likeness of a young maiden bearing a pitcher," and she guides him
to the palace of Alcinous, a palace guarded, in Atlantean fashion, by
immortal gold and silver dogs, made by the mind of Vulcan. And so
again in many another tale, written when men's minds were less
blinded thanthey are to-day.
Of course, in modern times
this idea has disappeared, and it must seem like a fairy tale to
modern readers when one brings such thoughts into touch with what may
seem to them such much more real things, the strifes of Kings, and
the politics of the modern world. And yet behind all these the
co-ordinating forces are still continually at work; and when the time
comes for a nation to play a triumphant part in the current history
of the world, then, many years before the time of the triumph, there
are guided into that nation by the Devas souls which are fitted for
its building up and guidance in the coming struggle. And when the
time comes for a nation to sink low in the current history of the
world, there are guided to incarnation there souls that are weak,
undeveloped, cruel, tyrannical, having fitted themselves to fill such
actors' parts in the great national drama. Let us keep, then, that
theory in mind: the drama on the one side; this great co-ordinating
agency on the other, guiding the self-chosen actors to their
appointed parts.
Ant now let us look at some of the nations
themselves, and see how far the destinies that they are working out
fit in with this view of a guiding hand behind the veil. Let us take
for one instance the building up of a mighty western empire, so that
the great Fifth Race, with its evolution of the concrete mind, might
play its part in the drama for the benefit of humanity at large. And
let us see, if we can, whether certain definite currents may not be
traced which show a plan definitely worked out, and not the mere
mingling of the chaotic wills, ambitions, and selfishnesses of
nations.
Slowly was prepared this part of a nation to stand
high above the nations of the world. The first nation to whom that
part was offered was Spain, who had been preparing for it by a very
marked and extraordinary evolution. Into her was poured the great
flood of learning which linked itself with the dying philosophy of
Greece, and drew its rich stores from the Neo-Platonic schools; into
Southern Spain came the great incursion from Arabia, rich with all
the knowledge brought from the mighty schools of Bagdad, which spread
over Southern Spain and thence over Europe. To her was sent Columbus,
who made it possible for her to spread her conquering troops across
the Atlantic and subject the new world to her imperial sceptre. How
did Spain meet that wondrous opportunity? In the wake of Columbus
came the army, subjecting Mexico and Peru to her sway, and destroying
their ancient civillsations, outworn and ready for destruction. She
had laid upon her shoulders the task of building up in that new world
a civilisation based on the solid foundation left there by Atlantis,
capable of supporting the structure of the new thought and knowledge.
All know how she missed her opportunity, how she drove out from her
own country the Moors and the Jews, the inheritors of the knowledge,
the philosophy, and the science; and how, in the new world, with her
greed of gold, she cared nothing for the peoples placed in her hands
but trampled them into the dust. So her part in the drama was taken
away and offered to another people.
Another nation became a
candidate--a nation which, with many faults, had also many great
virtues. England, spreading abroad her race, more and more subjected
to her sway land after land. She gained the offer of a world-empire
by an act of national righteousness--the liberation of the slaves
from bondage, accompanied by that great act of national justice which
sacrificed no one class but placed the burden of the liberation on
the whole nation. For that, those who guided her destinies were
offered the possibility of world dominion. All the nations that tried
to establish themselves in that great land of the East, India, one
after another failed, until the English race placed its feet therein.
The story of the placing is not good to read, and many crimes were
wrought, yet on the whole the nation tried to do its best and to
correct the oppressions wrought in India--then so out of reach--as witness
her action towards her great pro-consul, Warren Hastings, when she
brought him to trial for his evil deeds, in the face of the world.
So, despite many faults, she was allowed to climb higher and higher
in the eastern world, partly also because she offered, with her
growing colonies and language, the most effective world-instrument
for spreading the thought of the East over the civilisations of the
West. All know how far that has gone, how all over Northern America,
in far-off Australasia, as well as in her own land, eastern thought
and philosophy have everywhere penetrated, so that the treasures of
Sanskrit learning, kept so jealously until the time was ripe for
their dispersion, are being spread over the surface of the globe.
Continually, by lessons ever repeated, those Higher Ones who
guide the nation are striving to impress upon England the lesson that
by righteousness alone can a nation be exalted in the long run And in
a critical moment, when luxury was growing too enervating, too
selfish, the terrible lesson of South Africa branded on the English
conscience the lesson that duty and right must go before luxury.
Through the fires of disaster a lesson was taught to England which,
may God grant, she has learned for her future guidance.
And
then there came the question of what nation should be chosen for the
work of lifting up those ideals of the East of which I wrote last
month. India, at this stage of the world's history, could not do the
necessary service: she was learning her lessons under a conqueror;
but there was a nation in the Far East which had within it the
possibility of learning the lesson, and the Devas of the nation began
to concern themselves with the attempt to train up in that far-off
island a people who should be fit for the mighty task of uplifting
eastern thought, of showing that conquest might go hand-in-hand with
gentleness and self-control, and that a nation might spring into a
mighty power without losing its sense of duty. The work began by a
change in the education of the people, which might make a nation
conscious of itself, and then into the soil thus prepared a group of
heroic souls was born.
The Mikado of Japan, a mighty soul,
fit to incarnate for that nation its own greatness, fit to use such
power that in brief space of years he might transform the nation, put
it into new shape, evolved it in unknown forces, and at the same time
showed out a personality so wonderful that all that nation look to
him as ruler by Divine Right, from whose sacred person flow the
powers which in the nation are shown forth, every triumph reflecting
new glory on his personality. And round him gathers one great one
after another, for the labour of raising up the nation, until at
every point of importance you see a statesman, a general, an admiral,
fit to lead a people from triumph to triumph. A group of strong souls
is guided to incarnate there, in order that the nation may fulfil its
destiny; for no nation can be great unless at the centre there be an
ideal, and a perfect loyalty and self-devotion. It is no mere lip
phrase, but voices a feeling deep in the heart of the soldier and of
the general, when they thank their Ruler for the victory in the
field, and with the eastern devotion say that he is the
representative of God amongst them.
Glance at the other nation in
the great duel which is being fought in Eastern Asia, and see how
strangely Russia, a nation with a great future before her, is being
guided through the frightful valley of humiliation. The preparation
for that calamitous part in the drama lies in that which has gone
before, even within the limits of our own lives. There was a moment,
some twenty-five or thirty years since, when a wondrous opportunity
came in Russia's way. Although ill-judged, there was a noble impulse
underneath the freeing of the serfs, and there was a possibility that
that act might be turned to good purpose for the nation, and raise it
higher, instead of leading it wellnigh to destruction as it has done.
And then there came out of many souls born just then among the nobles
of Russia, one of the most wonderful things the world has seen--a
flinging of themselves out of their own rank down amongst the poor,
the ignorant and the down-trodden, a giving of themselves by the lads
and the girls of the nobility to the lifting up of the people, not by
a far-off charity, but by a wondrous impulse of uttermost
self-sacrifice. And how was that met? The divine compassion of those
youths and girls was met by the fortress of Peter and Paul, by the
mines, and deserts, and snows of Siberia. Nothing more terrible has
been wrought by a government of any people within modern times. And
terrible the Nemesis. Driven by despair, their attempts to uplift in
all gentleness met with the knout and the underground dungeon, with
starvation for the men, with dishonour for the women, what wonder
some of them went mad! What wonder that some of them at last, after
years of patience, after cruellest sufferings, answered with the bomb
to the knout! This state of affairs was created in the first place by
the bureaucracy and not by the victims. Thousands upon thousands of
those who would have redeemed Russia died on the scaffolds, were
slaughtered in those frightful mines, until at last the patience of
the Gods grew exhausted, and the time came for the government to
learn that governments exist for the helping and not for the crushing
of their peoples.
So that Russia chose by her past that
terrible role which now she is playing on the stage of the world.
Against her are all the forces that make for progress; against her
from the astral world the myriads that she sent there before their
time--all her martyrs, all her victims, are struggling against her.
Hence the record of unexampled defeat. And at home, revolution,
anarchy, assassination and mutiny are threatening her government
fabric from every side, until for Russia at the moment there is only
that Valley of the Shadow of Death to be trodden from end to end; and
with pain at heart, but with steady hands, her angelic guardians
guide her through the defeat and the disaster, willing that their
charge should learn her lessons whatever the price she pays. For in
those clearer eyes the nation s agony for the moment matters little,
beside the lessons that through that agony are learned; and until the
tyranny itself is crushed, and the rulers of Russia learn their
duties to the people, she must still tread the winepress of the
divine wrath.
And see how Russia has been prepared for it.
Among all her rulers not one strong man; weakness and uncertainty
everywhere, changed policy at every moment. Mark the government of
him who should be the father, but is the tyrant, of his
people--perhaps not a bad man in himself, but utterly unfit for his
post. It is part of the destiny of a nation that, when the hour of
its doom strikes, nothing but weakness is born into its governing
classes, so that those who would not rule aright may lose the power
to rule. And on those terrible battlefields of which we have read
records in the daily press, is there anything more pathetic than the
dauntless courage of the soldiers, and the hopeless incompetence of
the officers? It is not that the soldiers do not fight, but that they
are led by men who know not how to lead.
It is thus that
nations are guided from above, and into the nation that has to go
downward those are guided who inevitably drag it downwards. The same
was the case in Spain--a child King, and not one able man among the
ministers who could guide it right in the struggle with Cuba and
America.
And how are these leaders chosen? The are chosen by
their own lives in the past. A man is found unselfish, brave, and
noble, and such a one, in the countless choices of his daily life, is
making the choice for the splendid part that hereafter in humanity he
shall play. And so with those who are great outside, but have to play
a sordid part. By countless selfishness and preferring of themselves,
by taking ever that lower path instead of the higher, those men
choose also their parts in history.
Thus it is that the Occultist
looks on human history, and sees preparing around him on every side
the men and women who are to be the players of the future in the more
prominent parts of the world-drama. For none forces upon us any part,
nor imposes upon us any special place in the world-drama. We choose
for ourselves. We build up ourselves for glory or for shame, and as
we build so hereafter shall we inevitably be. Hence it follows that
for a nation to be great its citizens must slowly build up greatness
in themselves. Hence it is that the greatness that you see now in
Japan is a greatness that you can recognize among her ordinary men
and women, who are willing to sacrifice all that is dearest for the
sake of their country and the glory of their chief.
And so with
England, if she would fill the mighty part which is before her in the
near future. She must build up her sons and daughters on heroic
models, by placing righteousness above luxury, thought above
enjoyment; by choosing the strenuous, the heroic, the
self-sacrificing in daily life, and not petty enjoyments,
small luxuries, and miserable sensual gratifications. Out of rotten
bricks no great building can be built, and out of poor material no
mighty nation may be shaped. The destinies of nations lie in the
homes of which the nations are composed, and noble men, women and
children have in them the promise of the future national greatness.
And as we make our conditions better, higher and more evolved souls
shall be born amongst us. While we have slums and miserable places we
are making habitations for little evolved souls, whom we draw into
the nation. Under the ground the root grows, out of which the flower
and fruit will come, and poor the gardening science which places a
rotten root in the ground and expects from it a perfect flower and a
splendid fruit. If we would have England great among the nations and
make her destiny an imperial destiny as the servant of humanity at
large, we must cultivate the soil of character, plant the sound roots
of noble, righteous, simple living, and then the destiny is
inevitable, and the nation will be cast for an imperial part in the
drama of the world. The Hatha-Yoga and Raja-Yoga of
India
From "The Annals of Psychical Science," November,
1906
In the first place, allow me to explain why I have chosen
this subject for discussion: I have lived in India for twelve years;
I have made a fairly thorough study of Indian psychology. I thought
it might be useful to speak about those matters of which I have some
knowledge, and which are but little studied by the Western world.
There exists in India a psychological science, the origin of
which dates back thousands of years.
It is known that
India possesses a very ancient literature. Now, everywhere in that
literature we find traces of psychology and also the exposition of an
ancient psychology, in its practical, and not merely in its
theoretical aspect.
Since this science has been put into practice
for so long a period, is it not reasonable to conclude that there may
be in these ideas, these theories, based on repeated experiments,
something which may prove useful to modern psychology?
This
psychological science of the East is called Yoga, a word signifying
to bind, to unite. When we speak of Yoga, we express the idea of
forming a union, of binding. Of binding what? Consciousness itself,
by realizing the union of the separate consciousnesses of men with
the universal consciousness. Yoga includes all the practical methods
by which this union may be attained.
Yoga is thus a
science which may be both studied and practised; it is practised in
order to obtain a complete union between the ordinary individual
consciousness of man and the superconsciousness, by rising from plane
to plane, until at last this union is completely attained: then one
is said to be free.
In order to understand this science, and also
the experiments which I wish to explain, allow me to give a short
account of the fundamental ideas on which these experiments are
based. It is probable that you will not accept these ideas; but you
may, nevertheless, understand them as theories: theory concerning man
and, more particularly, theory concerning the consciousness of man.
The theory, then, must be considered first of all, in order to be
able to explain the aim; otherwise the experiments of the East will
always remain unintelligible to western minds. If you will accept
these theories, for the moment, you will understand the ensemble of
these experiments, and you may perhaps deduce for yourselves
conclusions from them which will afford clues with regard to other
experiments. Herein lies the value, for western minds--so it seems to
me--of a knowledge of this science of the East.
The first
proposition is, that consciousness is one and universal. Everywhere,
beneath appearances, behind phenomena, a consciousness is revealed;
under the diversity of forms persists the unity of consciousness; a
unique energy, a unique force, is everywhere in the universe.
This theory may be regarded as closely related to the western
conception of one single energy of which all the forces are but the
manifestations, the example. But, in India, this energy is always
regarded as conscious, that is to say, no division is made between
consciousness, life and energy; these are but three words denoting
the same essence, but which establish also a distinction between the
manifestations of this essence, a distinction which it is useful to
remember when experiments are being made But it must be recognized
that this energy is one, and is conscious; is, in fact, consciousness
itself.
The second proposition is that this energy, this
consciousness--I prefer the word consciousness--manifests itself in
the universe through the different forms of matter. The
manifestations of consciousness depend on those forms by which it is
conditioned. The differences which are perceived are simply
differences of form and not differences of consciousness.
Consciousness is always present, but it cannot express itself in a
complete manner in a restricted form. The evolution of forms depends
on this manifestation of consciousness; and whenwe place side by side
consciousness and form, energy and matter, it is consciousness which
directs, which is sovereign, which disposes of matter, and each
functioning of consciousness creates a form for its revelation. When
I use the word "creates," I do not mean creation out of nothing; I
mean that consciousness disposes of matter so as to express itself,
that all the powers reside in consciousness, but that in order to
reveal, manifest its powers, it is absolutely necessary to find the
vehicle of consciousness, that is to say, to organize the material by
which it can express itself.
I may on this point quote a
very ancient line of a Upanishad, the Chhandogya: "The Self, that is
to say consciousness, desires to see: the eye appeared; it desired to
hear: the ear made its appearance; it desired to think: intelligence
was there"; that is to say the efforts of consciousness are shown in
obedient matter, directed by that energy which incarnates itself in
forms.
You will find the same idea in the physical universe,
in the transformations of electricity. You may make different
instruments to enable the energy called electricity to manifest, the
energy is ever the same, it is only the manifestation that varies.
According to the instrument you provide, you can obtain light, sound,
heat, chemical dissociations, all these being merely manifestations
of electricity, manifestations which are possible because you have
provided instruments which afford suitable conditions for each kind
of manifestation. But the instrument remains inert without
electricity; it conditions the form, it does not produce the
energy.
It is the same with consciousness and forms;
according to Indian ideas, if you can fabricate the instrument
necessary for the manifestation of an energy, that energy can show
itself, and what is called consciousness in men is only a part of the
universal consciousness which is found everywhere in the universe,
and which is translated into human forms.
But they go further:
this consciousness is divided into millions of separate parts called
Jivas (souls). I do not much care for this word souls--it is
quite a theological expression; they are fragments of life, germs,
grains of life, sown in matter. The most subtle form of matter is the
first veil of the Jiva, an intelligent, conscious being; this
intelligent, conscious being clothes itself with forms of matter of
different degrees of subtlety; these are termed Koshas, a word
signifying sheath (the scabbard of a sword, for example), a
covering.
There are six of these veils, of these vehicles of
consciousness, each coarser than the last. Hence, when consciousness
thus veils itself and enters into these vehicles which it has to
govern, organize and render fit for its functioning, each vehicle of
coarser matter detracts from some of its power. In the first and most
subtle matter, it can operate freely; in the coarser matter some of
its powers are lost. Thus consciousness, enveloped in these veils of
matter--which are not yet vehicles for consciousness because they
cannot act, which are not yet organized--loses some of its liberty,
of its powers, with each additional veil with which it surrounds
itself.
It may be asked, why does consciousness clothe itself
with these veils? It is because on the highest plane consciousness is
vague; it cannot very clearly discern things; it is in the physical
body, the vehicle of the coarsest matter, that consciousness can
first fabricate the vehicle, of a kind almost perfect, for its
manifestation on this plane. Evolution proceeds. Consciousness
strives unceasingly to manifest its powers; the Jiva works
upon the matter, and the vehicles become better and better adapted to
its desires.
The man who wishes to evolve more rapidly
than by natural processes, adopts methods which have been urged for
thousands of years, and by which he tries gradually to withdraw
consciousness from the coarser material in order that it may function
freely in a vehicle of finer material; he endeavours to connect
vehicle with vehicle, until he reaches a yet finer vehicle, without
ever losing consciousness. In this way it becomes possible to
perceive worlds composed of subtler matter, and to observe them, as
we observe here, scientifically and directly; and afterwards to
remember these observations even whilst wearing the coarsest vehicle,
that is to say, the physical body. Such are the ideas of the
:East.
When man is awake his powers are at their lowest;
when he withdraws from the physical body in the state of sleep, he
begins to act in a world composed of somewhat subtler matter. But
when he begins to function there, he is not really conscious of
himself; his consciousness is like that of an infant who cannot
distinguish between himself and others. But by continuing to function
in this way, by repeated experiments, he can attain to
self-consciousness on the second plane. If the sleep becomes yet more
profound, a yet higher consciousness is revealed, and so on from
plane to plane.
Let us note, in passing, that if this theory,
proved by many experiments, is true, you have a very lucid
interpretation of many of the phenomena of hypnotism and of trance.
If it is true that consciousness withdraws from the physical body and
functions in a more refined vehicle with enlarged powers, many of
these phenomena become intelligible. If, then, you could
provisionally accept this theory, it would be possible for you to
make some very definite experiments, in order to test the truth of
this theory.
I come to another point, and here I am much
afraid of clashing with some scientific opinions. It is believed, by
those who hold the Indian theory, that man is not the only conscious
being in the universe; they believe that there are many other beings
besides man who are intelligent, and who are manifestations of the
universal consciousness, and that these beings exist in all the
worlds; sometimes they resemble man, at other times they do not
resemble him. All around us, in space, that is to say in the other
worlds which are in relation with the physical world, are multitudes
of intelligent conscious beings, who pursue their lives as we pursue
ours; the life is independent, the world is independent, but
relations may be established between these worlds.
You doubtless
think that you are being transported to the Middle Ages, but these
are the Indian ideas of to-day.
It is possible for man when
his consciousness begins to function on a supra-conscious plane, to
get into relation with these beings and even sometimes to make them
obedient to his will, because many of these things are inferior to
man.
I have thought it necessary to tell you this because
I wish to relate to you two or three experiences which, to me, are
unintelligible without this explanation. If you think that this
explanation is not valid, find another; for my part I am incapable of
doing so.
* *
There are in India two great systems
of Yoga: the Hatha-Yoga, that is to say, union by effort; which
begins on the physical plane, and does not lead to great heights; and
the Raja-Yoga, that is to say, the royal union, an entirely mental
system, which does not begin with physical practices, but with mental
practices. These then are the two great systems; the Hatha-Yoga for
the body, the Raja-Yoga for the mind, the intelligence.
Those
who follow Yoga are called Yogis. The Hatha-Yogis have two aims; one
is to secure perfect bodily health and a long extension of life on
the earth; the other is to subjugate, for their own advantage, the
entities of the other plane, who are not of a very advanced order. It
is usually the Hatha-Yogis who display phenomena. There is much
prejudice in India against other races; they mistrust Westerns and
are often reluctant to show them phenomena. I have been able to see a
great deal because I have lived among Indians, as an Indian. Indians
are very proud; they cannot bear that their ideas, their religion, or
their theories, should be laughed at.
The Hatha-Yogi forces
himself to subjugate completely his body and all the functions of his
life. Life is called "Prana," a word usually translated as breath,
but it signifies, rather, the aggregation of all the powers of life
which are found everywhere. The Hatha-Yogi strives to bring under the
control of the human will all the vital functions and to render them
absolutely subservient to the will. This is done in two ways; the
regulation of the respiration, called "Pranayama," a word which means
much more than control of the breath, and which signifies control of
all the powers of life in the body and even outside the body. The
second is "Dharana," the perfect concentration of attention and of
will on a portion of the body. The results obtained by these means
are wonderful. The so-called involuntary muscles can be controlled.
You may convince yourself by a small experiment on yourself that this
is possible. You can easily learn how to move your ear by exercising
those muscles which are rudimentary in man. The same can be done with
all the muscles of the body. It is possible to entirely stop the
heart from beating. The movements first become slower; then the heart
ceases to beat and life is as if suspended; the man becomes
unconscious on this plane; then little by little, movement is
restored until the heart beats regularly. In the same way, the lungs
are controlled, always by keeping the attention absolutely fixed on
the part that is to be subjugated to the will. One part of the body
after another is thus dealt with. These practices last for years.
The Yogi wishes to obtain perfect health; he desires that all
the interior of the body should be absolutely clean. The Yogis make a
habit of bathing the interior of their bodies as they do the
exterior. They do it sometimes by swallowing through the mouth
quantities of water, but they frequently do it also by reversing the
peristaltic action of the intestines; they take in water by the lower
orifice and eject it by the mouth. I have seen a man who could do
that for two or three minutes; he placed himself in water and, after
a few moments of these reversed peristaltic movements, he ejected
from his mouth what seemed like a fountain of water as long as it was
desired that he should do so. This experiment is not beautiful, but
it is interesting because it shows the power of the human will when
directed upon a portion of the body. It is not then surprising that
experiments can be carried out with the human body which seem even
less credible.
The result of all these practices is a
marvellous state of health, a bodily strength that nothing can break.
I have been told--I cannot guarantee this, I am not personally
acquainted with an example--that they can sometimes prolong life for
a century and a half. Those who have told me this are persons in whom
I have the greatest confidence, but, I repeat, I can put forth no
proof on this point; what I have observed is the perfect health of
these Yogis.
They attain to complete suppression of the
feeling of physical pain. It is thus that a man, whose skin is
apparently quite sensitive, can lie on a bed of iron points, and yet
appear to feel very comfortable; he feels no pain whatever.
Similarly, what would ordinarily be regarded as dreadful suffering is
not even felt. A man may have an arm atrophied by holding it raised
for years. Imagine the firmness of a will that can do such things.
You can understand that with such a will a man can do what he likes
with his body.
These life forces in the body which are half
conscious, or what you call the Unconscious, do not constitute an
elevated order of consciousness; but they can respond to a higher
consciousness, and, in making this response, permit it to control the
whole machinery of the body.
This power over the body of
suppressing the sensation of pain is found sometimes among those who
have not practised the Hatha-Yoga. One of my friends, of the warrior
class, is very fond of tiger hunting; he is in the habit of going
alone into the forest to hunt for tigers; it is in this way that the
warrior class hunt tigers. They do not employ elephants or anything
that can protect them in their attack; they go on foot and quite
alone.
One day, however, my friend went tiger hunting with
some Englishmen, mounted on their elephants, as is their wont. At the
moment when the tiger attacked the elephant, one of the huntsmen lost
his presence of mind, his gun went off and the ball lodged in the leg
of my friend, who fell. When the surgeon arrived he insisted on
putting him under chloroform to extract the ball. My friend refused,
and said: "I have never lost consciousness and I do not wish to begin
now. Besides, I shall not feel any pain, you may use your knife." The
surgeon demurred, saying: "But if you were to make an involuntary
movement it might be very dangerous." My friend replied: "I will not
move; if I make a single movement I authorise you to use chloroform."
The operation was performed; my friend was entirely conscious; he did
not make a single movement. What to another would have been horrible
torture, was nothing to him.
Afterwards I questioned him
on the subject; I thought at first that it was pride of caste that
had prevented his showing the lest sense of pain. He said to me; "I
assure you that I did not feel the least pain. I fixed my
consciousness in my head; it was not in my leg; I felt nothing." He
was not a Yogi; but he had this power of concentrating his mentality,
which is sometimes found among educated Indians. A hereditary
physique is transmitted from generation to generation among those who
practice Yoga.
The other Hatha-Yoga which aims at
subjugating the beings of another place, begins always by painful
experiments--the tapas--such as the one I have just mentioned,
namely, holding the arm raised until it becomes absolutely atrophied.
They say that it is possible to develop the powers of the
consciousness of a plane superior to the physical plane by these
extreme austerities (and they do it), and that they can use these
powers of the consciousness of the astral plane--that is what they
call it--to make use of the inferior entities on that plane. They can
thus obtain apports of objects without contact; they can seek
what they will, within limits which I will presently indicate; they
can do extraordinary things, which here we should call jugglery, but
which are done without apparatus, by will power alone, by the aid, as
they say, of these elementals. Ten years ago, I saw one of
these Yogis who wished to display some of his powers. He was nearly
naked, a consideration of importance when it is a question of the
apports of objects. He had no sleeves in which he could
conceal things. He wore only a little piece of cloth round his loins;
his legs and the upper part of his body--from his waist upwards--were
absolutely naked.
He began by one of those feats that can be
done here with apparatus, whereas he had only a small table which we
ourselves had supplied and a small box with two drawers in it which
he allowed us to examine as long and as much as we wished; he had, in
addition, an ordinary bottle containing an absolutely clear liquid,
like water, but which seemed to me not to be pure water, at least I
think not, although I am not sure. We were all seated quite near him;
we could touch the table and assure ourselves that it was not a
platform which could conceal trickery.
He first said that he
wished to show us some apports of objects, and that he had
elementals under his domination. For a moment, he carefully
regarded each of those present. He looked at me fixedly and said:
"You must not interrupt me, nor offer any opposition during my
operation." I promised, I assured him that I would remain quite
passive. I must tell you that I practised Yoga myself before going to
India; I think this man was aware of it and clearly perceived that I
could oppose his amusements.
He asked three or four of us
to entrust him with our watches, and he wrapped them in a
handkerchief which we lent him. Then he said to us: "I am going to
give this parcel to one of you, that you may take it and throw it
into the well." This well was in a little courtyard about fifty yards
off. One of our party, a gentleman, took the parcel and went towards
the well, when another stopped him, saying: "Perhaps we are the
victims of some trickery; let me assure myself that the watches are
really in the parcel." The man who said this was a European and
thought that this was simply a juggler's trick; he supposed that the
Yogi had kept the watches. I do not know where he could have hid them
since he was naked. The Yogi got very angry, and said: "Throw the
parcel down on the table then." (This anger shows that these men are
by no means saints.) One of us opened the parcel; the watches were
there. He wrapped them up again, and said: "Give them to Mrs. Besant,
who will herself throw them into the well." I took the parcel in my
hand, and I went and threw it into the well.
The Yogi was
standing by the table. He raised his arms in the air, his hands were
empty. He pronounced some words: the watches were in his hands.
Explain that as you like; I confine myself to stating the
fact. The man said it was his elemental who had fetched the
watches out of the well. Perhaps you think these things are quite
impossible; they will seem to you incredible if you have not been
present at spiritistic seances where just the same kind of things are
done, where objects are brought as apports without contact.
The handkerchief which was wrapped round the watches was quite
wet.
The man next suggested cutting off the head of a
bird, assuring us that it would not hurt it. I did not wish to
witness such a painful experiment. I only wished to see what could be
seen without horror. He assured us that he could perform this
experiment; but I think that this must be produced by collective
hallucination, whilst I do not think that in the experiment with the
watches there was any hallucination. And assuredly, there was no
hallucination in the following experiment: -
"Ask me," he
said, "to bring something to you; my elemental will bring it in a
box." Someone enquired if he could cause objects to be brought from a
distant country. "I can if they are in India," he replied, "but it is
not possible if the sea must be crossed." Here, therefore, was a
limit to his powers. Someone then said to him: "At a distance of a
hundred miles from here there is a town where a kind of sweet is made
that is found nowhere else in India. Will you bring us some of these
sweets?" The man stood in the midst of our circle in full light, it
was morning. He opened the box and began emptying it with both hands;
he threw some sweets on the table and soon made a pile of them much
higher than the box. He said that it was his elemental who had
brought them. They were really the sweets asked for; we distributed
them among the neighbouring children, who ate them with much
pleasure.
These are but a few of those experiments which are
very difficult for Western minds to comprehend, but very easy for an
Indian to explain by his theory of consciousness and of the
elemental. You might try to make these experiments; perhaps you may
succeed, perhaps you may not succeed.
I have been told of
an experiment which I have not seen; it is very well known, it is
that of the basket and the little child; perhaps I should say that I
have seen it once, but I am convinced that it was jugglery and not
the effect of Hatha-Yoga. One of my friends, an officer in the
English army, told me that he had seen this experiment performed in
the courtyard of his own house. He stood on one side of the basket
and a brother officer stood on the other; they saw the child who was
put into the basket; they themselves tied it with cords; they did not
move away from the basket, and they did not lose sight of it for a
single moment. The man was in front of the basket; he began singing
in a low voice a strange refrain, which lasted for ten minutes. After
that he proceeded in the usual way. (That is to say, he pierced the
basket repeatedly, in every direction, with a sword.) When that was
over, and after a great quantity of blood had been seen issuing from
the basket, the child appeared amidst the crowd of onlookers safe and
sound.
I can only explain that as a collective
hallucination. There are things which can be achieved by those who
have a more extended knowledge of nature; but on the physical plane,
to stick a sword into the body of a child, to shed its blood
abundantly and to cause the child afterwards to reappear is
impossible, it is contrary to known physical laws. It was his strange
chant that induced the collective hallucination. They have very
strange chants which produce marvellous effects on the brain; it is
thus that they hypnotise a crowd, which sees only what the hypnotiser
wills shall be seen.
This experiment, therefore, is not
interesting to me; it is fairly easy; it consists in the knowledge of
a succession of sounds that hypnotise. This is the secret which is
generally in the possession of some family, and is transmitted from
generation to generation. Moreover, each family can perform only one
kind of experiment, one sort of hallucination.
These Yogis
can put themselves into auto-hypnotic trances with great facility;
but these trances, when they come out of them, do not seem to leave
them with any fresh knowledge; the trance is therefore absolutely
useless. I have seen a Yogi who was always in a state of absolute
unconsciousness on the physical plane; his disciples took care of
him, and fed him; he was like an idiot and had nothing to teach.
These men have developed the power of hypnotising themselves;
but they have not developed the capacity of possessing consciousness
on a superior plane which can be transmitted to the brain.
The
Yogis can predict the exact hour of their death, that is to say they
can choose this hour. I know one who said: "I will die to-day at five
o'clock." His disciples were with him, and at five o'clock exactly he
died They are able to quit their bodies either in a trance, from
which they can return, or in death, from which they do not return.
They generally die in this way, choosing the exact hour at which they
wish to quit their bodies.
* *
The other method, the
Raja-Yoga, is quite different. There are in Yoga eight successive
degrees: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranavama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana,
Samadhi; in Hatha-Yoga one begins with the third degree, that is to
say with .Asana, the posture. The posture in which the body is held
is of great importance in relation to the vital currents. Some of
these postures are very difficult, some are quite easy. The
Hatha-Yogi assumes very difficult and painful postures. The Raja-Yogi
does not as a rule assume difficult postures for the body, but
chooses, rather, the easy ones. Patanjali says:*1
"An easy and pleasant posture."
In the
Raja-Yoga one begins by the first two degrees, that is to say, by the
moral; purification is needful. This is not necessary for the
Hatha-Yoga. The first step, Yama, is negative purification: that is,
complete abstinence from all that is evil; not a single creature must
be injured, a man must live in perfect charity towards all. The
second step is Niyama, that is, positive purification: the practice
of the virtues helpful to humanity Without this there is no
Raja-Yoga; these two rungs of the ladder are absolutely necessary.
Then a bodily posture must be chosen (Asana) which can be maintained
for a long time without fatigue; it is only necessary to keep the
back, the throat and the head in a straight line, that is to say,
that the vertebrate column should be quite straight in order that the
currents may pass without obstacle. The head must not be turned to
the right or to the left; to keep the body quite straight is the only
position necessary for the Raja-Yoga.
After this comes
Pranayama, that is to say, the control of the powers of life in the
body. Then the Pratyahara, in which the mind is not concentrated upon
one part of the body; but all the mental faculties are gathered
together. They are diverted from external objects in order to observe
nothing of the environment in which one is placed. All the avenues of
sense are closed. At first they are usually closed in a physical
manner; there is a way of placing the fingers so as to close at one
and the same time the nostrils, the eyes and the ears. But when
concentration has been developed, it is no longer necessary to employ
these means; the senses cease to function. This is attained simply by
mental effort, a method the very opposite of that employed in
hypnotism, where the senses are fortified by turning a mirror, for
example. This is called the collection of forces, turning the
mentality within; there is then perfect concentration (Dharana), not
upon one part of the body, but upon an idea; there is a mental image,
an image which one must strive to make very clear, very precise.
These are the inferior degrees: their object is to liberate
consciousness from the body. When the senses no longer function, when
the exterior environment has disappeared, when one has become
insensible to external contact, consciousness begins to function in a
more subtle vehicle belonging to the Beyond; it truly functions; this
is what is called in the West the supraliminal or
supra-consciousness. The superior consciousness must work in the
world beyond and make observations; this is termed Dhyana,
meditation.
If a yet higher plane is reached, one which is called
Samadhi (a supra-consciousness which is conscious of itself) it is
possible on returning then to the body to use the physical brain to
remember the observations which have been made on other planes.
Such is the conception of the Raja-Yoga, a development more
and more intense of the mental powers, complete insensibility to the
senses, but perfect interior consciousness.
In this condition the
Yogi can vacate his body consciously without losing consciousness,
and having left his body can perceive it distinctly lying there as an
exterior object beside him. Then the conscious being, who is thus
able to regard his body like a cast-off garment, can rise from one
sphere to another, make his observations, fix them on the memory, and
impress them on the brain, so that they will persist when he returns
to the body.
The proof that the body has been really
vacated is that knowledge may thus be acquired which is not possessed
on the physical plane; and different persons may compare their
experiences. Their observations will not be entirely identical,
because the play of personality always enters as a factor into the
experience, but it is possible to make observations of so precise a
kind, that it may easily be perceived that the slight variations in
detail are due to differences in the observers, and not to
differences in the objects observed.
If you interrogate a
dozen persons who have passed at the same hour down the same street,
they will tell you very different things; because as the mentality of
each person differs, their observations are different. Nevertheless,
by their several accounts, even though different, you will have no
difficulty in recognising the street of which they speak.
Thus
many persons have been able to observe the same objects in another
world and to register their observations when they have returned to
the physical body.
If this is possible, it explains many
phenomena noted in psychical research. We can understand why
consciousness in a state of trance is something much keener, and has
a much more extended knowledge than in the waking state. If, however,
we can have this personal experience of the supra-consciousness, and
return to the physical body, we possess satisfying proof and
invincible certitude of the persistence of consciousness apart from
the physical body.
May I suggest that modern psychologists
should make very careful study of the class of experiences called
religious;*2 the religious
consciousness of monks and nuns and saints is still consciousness. It
may be said that it is a deformed consciousness; but sometimes a
deformed consciousness exhibits facts of great value.
In
India they tell us that the brain is destroyed if it is not trained
in a certain way before it is allowed to receive the impressions of
the supra-consciousness. The brain, indeed, cannot bear, without
risk, these intense, rapid vibrations of the supra-consciousness;
and, before trying these experiments, it is necessary to exercise the
brain by thinking the highest and sublimest thoughts. If by intense
emotion a man throws himself into the other world, when he returns to
his body, hysteria is sure to follow those vibrations; the brain
cannot endure these vibrations without preparation, but they can be
endured by means of Yoga practices. It has often been stated that
those who have given themselves up to these experiments in
monasteries or elsewhere, have suffered from lack of sleep or from
nervous troubles suggestive of hysteria. That is quite true and I do
not wish to deny it; but I say that this is not inevitable. If we
proceed step by step, if a strong will creates a suitable condition
of the nervous system, the brain may become keener, and at the same
time remain absolutely healthy; then you have the Yogi instead of the
hysteric.
In conclusion: I have sketched a theory which you can
study; you can make experiments in order to discover whether this
theory does, or does not, explain the problems that modern psychology
cannot solve. The latter collects numbers of facts, but it cannot
always explain them. It appeals to the Unconsciousness: but there is
not only one Unconsciousness: there is the unconsciousness which is
derived from the past, that is, the sub-consciousness; the Hatha-Yogi
makes this, too become conscious and governs all the movements of the
body. Then there is the supra-consciousness, which is the
Consciousness of the future, for which the physical body is not yet
sufficiently evolved. Therefore experiments with this
supra-consciousness present many dangers. It will however be the
normal consciousness of the future. Human evolution is not finished;
man is still very imperfect; it is possible to put pressure on the
body, to make it work in such a way as to hasten the normal advances
of evolution. If this is done with precaution, with knowledge, with
the help of those who know the way, it is possible to walk along this
path without danger, without injuring the body, without becoming a
hysteric, without nervous degeneration, and it is just this idea that
I have desired to lay before you in this paper.
*1 The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translated by
Manilal Dvivedi, Bombay. Tookaram Tatya.
*2 See Varieties of Religious
Experience, by Prof. William James.
Men and Animals
From
"Bibby's Quarterly," Autumn, 1903
The relation of man to the
lower animals is but very partially understood, chiefly because
animals are generally regarded as "having no souls," and hence as
being divided from man by an insuperable gulf. In Italy this idea has
been carried so far that even cruelty is excused, under the plea
"Non e Christiano," " It is not a Christian," as though the
absence of a future life justified the making of the present life
miserable! But even among kindly-hearted people there is a very
general idea that animals are merely an appendage of man, and that,
as it is often phrased, "God made animals for man's use." Hence the
animal is regarded only in the light of its usefulness to man, and to
consider the welfare and evolution of the animal as a separate being
would, to most people, savour of the absurd.
Yet it is not
absurd if the animal, like man, should be an evolving creature, if
the animal should in some sense have a "soul." Now, in the animal we
find maternal affection, capacity of love, fear of pain, and dawning
intelligence, and in some we see great courage, endurance, fidelity
and devotion to a master. Great as are the differences between these
and the corresponding qualities in a civilised man, they are
differences in degree rather than in kind, and a better moral
character may be found in a domesticated dog than in a low type of
savage.
A brave, loving dog, faithful to death, would seem to
be more worthy of immortality than a blood-thirsty, cruel,
treacherous savage. Yet ordinary orthodoxy dooms the one to
extinction and awards immortality to the other.
Now, it is
true that there is one important difference between an animal and a
man; both are vivified by an immortal Spirit, whose powers are more
or less unfolded and active; but the bridge between the immortal
spirit and the perishing body, that which is sometimes called "the
soul," the intelligent, self-conscious "I," is present in the man,
even in the most brutal savage, and is normally absent in the
animal.
Take a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, any group of
similar animals, wild or domesticated, and a marked similarity of
thought, feeling and action may be observed among them. They are
largely guided by instincts, which they share in common, and
comparatively little by individual reasoning; it is as though there
were "a common soul" guiding them all.
But when one of the
higher animals comes into close relations with men--such an animal as
a dog or a cat--a gradual change is visible to the close observer. If
the animal be a favourable specimen of its class, and be strongly
devoted to its owner, it will gradually separate itself off from its
kind, and begin to show marks of individuality; it will evolve strong
likes and dislikes, will follow ways of its own, will manifest
ever-increasing powers of reasoning, and anyone who can use
clairvoyant vision will see that a change has taken place in the
superphysical bodies of such an animal.
Now, a man, however
undeveloped, however savage, shews an astral body, a mental body, and
a causal body, with the spirit brooding over and vivifying all. But
an animal shows an astral body, a vague cloud representing an
embryonic mental body and the over-brooding spirit; the causal body,
that which makes possible the self-conscious "I," is absent. Herein
lies the difference between the animal and man, between the noblest
ordinary animal and the most brutal savage.
But when a
highly-developed animal becomes intensely devoted to some human
being, and clings to him with passionate and unwavering fidelity, the
play of the human self-conscious intelligence stimulates the dawning
intelligence and quickens the unfolding of the spirit in the animal,
and at last, as it were, a flash, like an electric spark, springs
across the gulf between the over-brooding spirit and the embryonic
mental body, a bridge of light spans the gulf, the causal body is
formed, the "soul " is born. Henceforth the animal is separated off
from its kind, and has completed the term of animal evolution. Its
death will be followed by an immense period of rest and inner growth,
and it will, long ages hence, be borne into some future humanity, to
begin the long course of human evolution.
These individualised
animals are, indeed, rare exceptions, but all animals are treading
the path which leads to individualisation, and their progress is
hastened or retarded by the human beings with whom they come into
contact. The dog, the cat, and the horse are the three animals
capable of profiting most by association with man, and their progress
in the animal kingdom may be much quickened by the wise, firm, and
sympathetic training given to them by their elder brothers, men. Even
when they may not reach the point of individualisation, they may be
led up near to it, and a link is made between them and their masters
which, in the future, will be a source of benefit and happiness to
both.
The practical difference which the adoption of this
view of animals would cause in the relationship between them and men
would not be the relinquishment of their services, nor the loss of
their utility. They would be used as much as they are now, but the
treatment of them would be always kind, considerate, firm and
judicious. The training of the animal would be regarded as useful to
the animal as well as to the man; hasty and unnecessary blows and
savage language would be avoided, and harsh punishment of horse or
dog would be regarded as showing the owner's incapacity to train and
educate aright. All cruel methods of breaking would be abandoned,
trust and confidence on the part of the animal would be encouraged,
and we should hear much less of "incurably vicious horses "--vice
which is mostly the result of human stupidity and cruelty.
Man
must gradually learn to regard himself as the divinely appointed
ruler of the animal world, using his great powers to raise and train
his subjects, not to crush and terrify them. He must cease to look on
them as existing only for his use and comfort, and regard them as his
infant brethren in the divine family, knowing that he is the
representative to them of the Divine Being, to whom he must answer
for the exercise of the kingship placed in his hands.
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