THEOSOPHICAL
ARTICLES AND NOTES
Reprinted from
Original Sources
THE THEOSOPHY Co.
FOREWORD
The articles in this volume come from a variety of sources. They are presented here for their intrinsic worth to students of Theosophy. They are grouped according to the place of first appearance—in the Theosophist, Lucifer, the Path, and other sources. Within these groupings they are arranged chronologically. Internal evidence strongly suggests that some of them have an “adept” origin, and they are so presented. One or two articles unintentionally omitted from Theosophical Articles by H.P.B. and W.Q.J. are included. Other contributions, not identified as to author, are of a quality which makes it appropriate to reprint them here. Thus there are articles, replies and notes which appeared in the Theosophist and Lucifer, also material by Damodar K. Mavalankar, and two articles signed “Murdhna Joti” from the Path. Cicero’s “Vision of Scipio” is included by reason of H.P.B.’s briefly in formative footnotes. Judge’s “Notes on the Bhagavad Gita” is a Path article which was not a part of the book of that name. Finally, there is material taken from A. P. Sinnett’s The Occult World, from the notes of Robert Bowen, a pupil of H.P.B., and also from notes found in the effects of Countess Wachtmeister, apparently taken down from dictation by H.P.B.
The value of the writings here presented will be self-evident to Theosophical students and readers.
The Editors
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ARTICLES FROM “THE THEOSOPHIST” |
CONTENTS
Castes in India 1
A Reply to our Critics 6
Mediums and Yogees 11
Whence the Name “Lunatics?” 15
Devachan: Reply I—The Real and Unreal 17
Reply II—Dream Life 23
Reply III—Various States of Devachan 29
Projection of the Double 35
Contemplation 39
Correspondence on Contemplation 44
The Metaphysical Basis of “Esoteric Buddhism” 49
Astrology 57
Initiation 60
Le Phare de L’Inconnu (VII) 62
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NOTES FROM “THE THEOSOPHIST” |
As you can see below a list of titles
for untitled replies and provided links to the sections. The words in the new
titles are from the text
at the beginning of what particular reply is being referenced.
Notes from The Theosophist 73
The Theosophical Society requires no oaths 76
“Conjuror, mesmerist, medium or spiritualist!” 80
Questions by two correspondents 83
FUNERAL RITES AMONG SAVAGE RACES 93
The pale reflections of men and women 98
Conditions of spiritual existence 99
THE FIVE-POINTED STAR 101
To THE EDITOR OF THE THE0S0PHIST: 105
The physical phenomena of “stone showers,” 106
The mysteries of bird-flying 114
The phenomena of Hypnotism 115
The power of the Yogi 116
Human hibernation 119
Do female adepts exist at all? 122
Neither Tibetan nor Hindu Mahatmas meddle with politics 125
The belief in a personal god 127
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FROM “LUCIFER” |
Thoughts on Theosophy 131
Some Words on Daily Life 133
The Three Desires 137
What Good Has Theosophy Done in India 143
A Master’s Letter 148
Consciousness 150
The Function of Attention in Personal Development 153
The Genesis of Evil in Human Life 159
Thoughts on Karma and Reincarnation 167
The Vision of Scipio 175
India 184
The Great Master’s Letter 189
Notes from Lucifer 194
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FROM “THE PATH” |
Living the Higher Life 225
The Worship of the Dead 237
Kama Loka—Suicides—Accidental Deaths 240
Notes on Devachan 243
Devachan 248
Notes on The Bhagavad Gita 251
Some Views of an Asiatic 257
A Friend of Old Time and of the Future 261
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OTHER SOURCES |
The Dwellers on High Mountains 265
The Secret Doctrine and Its Study 270
From The Occult World 276
Notes “From Madame” 298
NO man of sincerity and moral courage can read Mr. G. C. Whitworth’s Profession of Faith, as reviewed in the April Theosophist, without feeling himself challenged to be worthy of the respect of one who professes such honourable sentiments. I, too, am called upon to make my statement of personal belief. It is due to my family and caste-fellows that they should know why I have deliberately abandoned my caste and other worldly considerations. If, henceforth, there is to be a chasm between them and myself, I owe it to myself to declare that this alienation is of my own choosing, and I am not cut off for bad conduct. I would be glad to take with me, if possible, into my new career, the affectionate good wishes of my kinsmen. But, if this cannot be done, I must bear their displeasure, as I may, for I am obeying a paramount conviction of duty.
I was born in the family of the Karháda Maháráshtra caste of Brahmins, as my surname will indicate. My father carefully educated me in the tenets of our religion, and, in addition, gave me every facility for acquiring an English education. From the age of ten until I was about fourteen, I was very much exercised in mind upon the subject of religion and devoted myself with great ardour to our orthodox religious practices. Then my ritualistic observances were crowded aside by my scholastic studies, but, until about nine months ago, my religious thoughts and aspirations were entirely unchanged. At this time, I had the inestimable good fortune to read “Isis Unveiled; a Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Religion and Science,” and to join the Theosophical Society. It is no exaggeration to say that I have been a really living man only these few months; for between life as it appears to me now and life as I comprehended it before, there is an unfathomable abyss. I feel that now for the first time I have a glimpse of what man and life are the nature and powers of the one, the possibilities, duties, and joys of the other. Before, though ardently ritualistic, I was not really enjoying happiness and peace of mind. I simply practised my religion without understanding it. The world bore just as hard upon me as upon others, and I could get no clear
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view of the future. The only real thing to me seemed the day’s routine; at best the horizon before me extended only to the rounding of a busy life with the burning of my body and the obsequial ceremonies rendered to me by friends. My aspirations were only for more Zamindáries, social position and the gratification of whims and appetites. But my later reading and thinking have shown me that all these are but the vapours of a dream and that he only is worthy of being called man, who has made caprice his slave and the perfection of his spiritual self a grand object of his efforts. As I could not enjoy these convictions and my freedom of action within my caste, I am stepping outside it.
In making this profession, let it be understood that I have taken this step, not because I am a Theosophist, but because in studying Theosophy I have learnt and heard of the ancient splendour and glory of my country—the highly esteemed land of Aryávarta. Joining the Theosophical Society does not interfere with the social, political, or religious relations of any person. All have an equal right in the Society to hold their opinions. So far from persuading me to do what I have, Mme. Blavatsky and Col. Olcott have strongly urged me to wait until some future time, when I might have had ampler time to reflect. But the glimpse I have got into the former greatness of my country makes me feel sadly for her degeneration. I feel it, therefore, my bounden duty to devote all my humble powers to her restoration. Besides, his stories of various nations furnish to us many examples of young persons having given up everything for the sake of their country and having ultimately succeeded in gaining their aims. Without patriots, no country can rise. This feeling of patriotism by degrees grew so strong in me that it has now prepared my mind to stamp every personal consideration under my feet for the sake of my motherland. In this, I am neither a revolutionist nor a politician, but simply an advocate of good morals and principles as practised in ancient times. The study of Theosophy has thrown a light over me in regard to my country, my religion, my duty. I have be come a better Aryan than I ever was. I have similarly heard my Parsi brothers say that they have been better Zoroastrians since they joined the Theosophical Society. I have also seen the Buddhists write often to the Society that the study of Theosophy has enabled them to appreciate their religion the more. And thus this study makes every man respect his religion the more. It fur-
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nishes to him a sight that can pierce through the dead letter and see clearly the spirit. He can read all his religious books between the lines. If we view all the religions in their popular sense, they appear strongly antagonistic to each other in various details. None agrees with the other. And yet representatives of those faiths say that the study of Theosophy explains to them all that has been said in their religion and makes them feel a greater respect for it. There must, therefore, be one common ground on which all the religious systems are built. And this ground, which lies at the bottom of all, is truth. There can be but one absolute truth, but different persons have different perceptions of that truth. And this truth is morality. If we separate the dogmas that cling to the principles set forth in any religion, we shall find that morality is preached in every one of them. By religion I do not mean all the minor sects that prevail to an innumerable extent all over the world, but the principal ones from which have sprung up these different sects. It is, therefore, proper for every person to abide by the principles of morality. And, according to them, I consider it every man’s duty to do what he can to make the world better and happier. This can proceed from a love for humanity. But how can a man love the whole of humanity if he has no love for his country men? Can he love the whole, who does not love a part? If I, there fore, wish to place my humble services at the disposal of the world, I must first begin by working for my country. And this I could not do by remaining in my caste. I found that, instead of a love for his countrymen, the observance of caste distinction leads one to hate even his neighbour, because he happens to be of another caste. I could not bear this injustice. What fault is it of any one that he is born in a particular caste? I respect a man for his qualities and not for his birth. That is to say, that man is superior in my eyes, whose inner man has been developed or is in the state of development. This body, wealth, friends, relations and all other worldly enjoyments, that men hold near and dear to their hearts. are to pass away sooner or later. But the record of our actions is ever to remain to be handed down from generation to generation. Our actions must, therefore, be such as will make us worthy of our existence in this world, as long as we are here as well as after death. I could not do this by observing the customs of caste. It made me selfish and unmindful of the requirements of my fellow brothers. I weighed all these circumstances in my mind, and
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found that I believed in caste as a religious necessity no more than in the palm-tree yielding mangoes. I saw that, if it were not for this distinction, India would not have been so degraded, for this distinction engendered hatred among her sons. It made them hate and quarrel with one another. The peace of the land was disturbed. People could not unite with one another for good purposes. They waged war with one another, instead of devoting all their combined energies to the cause of ameliorating the condition of the country. The foundation of immorality was thus laid, until it has reached now so low a point that, unless this mischief is stopped, the tottering pillars of India will soon give way. I do not by this mean to blame my ancestors who originally instituted this system. To me their object seems to be quite a different one. It was based in my opinion on the qualities of every person. The caste was not then hereditary as it is now. This will be seen from the various ancient sacred books which are full of instances in which Kshatriyas and even Máhárs and Chámbhárs, who are considered the lowest of all, were not only made and regarded as Brahmins, but almost worshipped as demi-gods simply for their qualities. If such is the case, why should we still stick to that custom which we now find not only impracticable but injurious? I again saw that, if I were to observe outwardly what I did not really believe inwardly, I was practising hypocrisy. I found that I was thus making myself a slave, by not enjoying the freedom of conscience. I was thus acting immorally. But Theosophy had taught me that to enjoy peace of mind and self-respect, I must be honest, candid, peaceful and regard all men as equally my brothers, irrespective of caste, colour, race or creed. This, I see, is an essential part of religion. I must try to put these theoretical problems into practice. These are the convictions that finally hurried me out of my caste.
I would at the same time ask my fellow countrymen, who are of my opinion, to come out boldly for their country. I understand the apparent sacrifices one is required to make in adopting such a course, for I myself had to make them, but these are sacrifices only in the eyes of one who has regard for this world of matter. When a man has once extricated himself from this regard and when the sense of the duty he owes to his country and to himself reigns paramount in his heart, these are no sacrifices at all for him. Let us, therefore, leave off this distinction which separates us from one
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another, join in one common accord, and combine all our energies for the good of our country. Let us feel that we are Aryans, and prove ourselves worthy of our ancestors. I may be told that I am making a foolish and useless sacrifice; that I cut myself off from all social intercourse and even risk losing the decent disposal of my body by those upon whom our customs impose that duty; and that none but a visionary would imagine that he, even though chiefest among Brahmins, could restore his country’s greatness and the enlightenment of a whole nation, so great as ours. But these are the arguments of selfishness and moral cowardice. Single men have saved nations before, and though my vanity does not make me even dream that so glorious a result is within my humble grasp, yet a good example is never valueless, and it can be set even by the most insignificant. Certain it is that, without examples and self-sacrifices, there can be no reform. The world, as I see it, imposes on me a duty, and I think the most powerful and the only permanent cause of happiness is the consciousness that I am trying to do that duty.
I wish it understood—in case what has preceded has not made this perfectly clear—that I have neither become a Materialist nor a Christian. I am an Aryan in religion as all else, follow the Ved, and believe it to be the parent of all religions among men. As Theosophy explains the secondary human religions, so does it make plain the meaning of the Ved. The teachings of the Rishis acquire a new splendour and majesty, and I revere them a hundred times more than ever before.
DAMODAR K. MAVALANKAR
Theosophist, May, 1880
(Our final answer to several objections.)
IN the ordinary run of daily life speech may be silver, while “silence is gold.” With the editors of periodicals devoted to some special object “silence” in certain cases amounts to cowardice and false pretences. Such shall not be our case.
We are perfectly aware of the fact that the simple presence of the word “Spiritualism” on the title-page of our journal, “causes it to lose in the eyes of materialist and sceptic 50 per cent of its value”—for we are repeatedly told so by many of our best friends, some of whom promise us more popularity, hence—an increase of subscribers, would we but take out the “contemptible” term and replace it by some other synonymous in meaning, but less obnoxious phonetically to the general public. That would be acting under false pretences. The undisturbed presence of the unpopular word will indicate our reply.
That we did not include “Spiritualism” among the other subjects to which our journal is devoted “in the hopes that it should do us good service among the Spiritualists” is proved by the following fact:—From the first issue of our Prospectus to the present day, subscribers from “Spiritual” quarters have not amounted to four per cent on our subscription list. Yet, to our merriment, we are repeatedly spoken of as “Spiritualists” by the press and—our opponents. Whether really ignorant of, or purposely ignoring our views, they tax us with belief in Spirits. Not that we would at all object to the appellation—too many far worthier and wiser persons than we, firmly believing in “Spirits”—but that would be acting under “false pretences” again. And so, we are called a “Spiritualist” by persons who foolishly regard the term as a “brand,” while the orthodox Spiritualists, who are well aware that we attribute their phenomena to quite another agency than Spirits, resent our peculiar opinions as an insult to their belief, and in their turn ridicule and oppose us.
This fact alone ought to prove, if anything ever will, that our journal pursues an honest policy. That established for the one and
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sole object, namely
for the illumination of truth, however un popular—it
has remained throughout, true to its first principle—that
of absolute impartiality. And that as fully answers another charge, viz., that
of publishing views of our correspondents with which we often do not concur
ourselves. “Your journal teems with articles upholding ridiculous superstitions
and absurd ghost-stories,”
is the complaint in one letter. “You neglect laying a sufficient stress in your
editorials upon the necessity of discrimination between facts and error, and in
the selection of the matter furnished by your contributors,” says another. A
third one accuses us of not sufficiently rising “from supposed facts, to
principles, which would prove to our readers in every case the former no better
than fictions.” In other words—as
we understand it—we
are accused of neglecting scientific induction? Our critics may be right, but
neither are we altogether wrong. In the face of the many crucial and strictly
scientific experiments made by our most eminent savants it would take a wiser
sage than King Solomon himself, to decide now between fact and fiction. The
query: “What is Truth?” is more difficult to answer in the nineteenth than in
the first century of our era. The appearance of his “evil genius” to Brutus in
the shape of a monstrous human form, which, entering his tent in the darkness
and silence of night promised to meet him in the plains of Philippi—was
a fact to the Roman tyrannicide; it was but a dream—to
his slaves who neither saw nor heard any thing on that night. The existence of
an antipodal continent and the heliocentric system were facts to Columbus and
Galileo years before they could actually demonstrate them; yet the existence of
America as that of our present solar system was as fiercely denied several
centuries back as the phenomena of spiritualism are now. Facts existed in the
“pre-scientific past,” and errors are as thick as berries in our scientific
present. With whom then, is the criterion of truth to be left? Are we to abandon
it to the mercy and judgment of a prejudiced society constantly caught trying to
subvert that which it does not understand; ever seeking to transform sham and
hypocrisy into synonyms of “propriety” and “respectability?” Or shall we blindly
leave it to modern exact Science so called? But Science has neither said her
last word, nor can her various branches of knowledge rejoice in their
qualification of exact, but so long as the hypotheses of yesterday are not upset
by the discoveries of to-day. “Science is atheistic, phantasmagorical, and
always in labor with conjecture.
It can never become knowledge per se. Not to
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know is its climax,” says Professor A. Wilder, our New York Vice-President, certainly more of a man of Science himself than many a scientist better known than he is to the world. Moreover, the learned representatives of the Royal Society have as many cherished hobbies, and are as little free of prejudice and preconception as any other mortals. It is perhaps, to religion and her handmaid theology, with her “seventy times seven” sects, each claiming and none proving its right to the claim of truth, that, in our search for it, we ought to humbly turn? One of our severe Christian Areopagites actually expresses the fear that “even some of the absurd stories of the Puranas have found favour with the Theosophist.” But let him tell us; has the Bible any less of “absurd ghost-stories” and “ridiculous miracles” in it than the Hindu Puranas, the Buddhist Maha Jataka, or even one of the most “shamefully superstitious publications” of the Spiritualists? (We quote from his letter). We are afraid in all and one it is but:
“Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last . .
and—we decline accepting anything on faith. In common with most of the periodicals we remind our readers in every number of the THEOSOPHIST that its “Editors disclaim responsibility for opinions expressed by contributors” with some of which they (we) do not agree. And that is all we can do. We never started out in our paper as Teachers but rather as humble and faithful recorders of the innumerable beliefs, creeds, scientific hypotheses, and— even “superstitions” current in the past ages and now more than lingering yet in our own. Never having been a sectarian—i.e. an interested party—we maintain that in the face of the present situation, during that incessant warfare, in which old creeds and new doctrines, conflicting schools and authorities, revivals of blind faith and incessant scientific discoveries running a race as though for the survival of the fittest, swallow up and mutually destroy and annihilate each other—daring, indeed, were that man who would assume the task of deciding between them! Who, we ask, in the presence of those most wonderful and most unexpected achievements of our great physicists and chemists would risk to draw the line of demarcation between the possible and the impossible? Where is the honest man who conversant at all with the latest conclusions of arch philology, paleography, and especially Assyriology, would undertake to prove the superiority
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of the religious “superstitions” of the civilized Europeans over those of the “heathen,” and even of the fetish-worshipping savages?
Having said so much, we have made clear, we hope, the reason why, believing no mortal man infallible, nor claiming that privilege for ourselves, we open our columns to the discussion of every view and opinion, provided it is not proved absolutely supernatural. Besides, whenever we make room to “unscientific” contributions it is when these treat upon subjects which lie entirely out of the province of physical science. Generally upon questions that the average and dogmatic scientist rejects a priori and without examination; but which, the real man of science finds not only possible but after investigation very often fearlessly proclaims the disputed question as an undeniable fact. In respect to most transcendental subjects the sceptic can no more disprove than the believer prove his point. FACT is the only tribunal we submit to and recognise it without appeal. And before that tribunal a Tyndall and an ignoramus stand on a perfect par. Alive to the truism that every path may eventually lead to the highway as every river to the ocean, we never reject a contribution simply because we do not believe in the subject it treats upon, or disagree with its conclusions. Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision. Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria—is our motto; and we seek to prudently walk between the many ditches without rushing into either. For one man to demand from another that he shall believe like himself, whether in a question of religion or science is supremely unjust and despotic. Besides, it is absurd. For it amounts to exacting that the brains of the convert, his organs of perception, his whole organization, in short, be reconstructed precisely on the model of that of his teacher, and, that he shall have the same temperament and mental faculties as the other has. And why not his nose and eyes, in such a case? Mental slavery is the worst of all slaveries. It is a state over which brutal force having no real power, it always denotes either an abject cowardice or a great intellectual weakness. . .
Among many other charges, we are accused of not sufficiently exercising our editorial right of selection. We beg to differ and contradict the imputation. As every other person blessed with brains instead of calf’s feet-jelly in his head, we certainly have
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our opinions upon things in general, and things occult especially, to some of which we hold very firmly. But these being our personal views, and though we have as good a right to them as any, we have none whatever to force them for recognition upon others. We do not believe in the activity of “departed spirits”—others and among these, many of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society do—and we are bound to respect their opinions, so long as they respect ours. To follow every article from a contributor with an Editor’s Note correcting “his erroneous ideas” would amount to turning our strictly impartial journal into a sectarian organ. We decline such an office of “Sir Oracle.”
The THEOSOPIHST is a journal of our Society. Each of its Fellows being left absolutely untrammeled in his opinions, and the body representing collectively nearly every creed, nationality and school of philosophy, every member has a right to claim room in the organ of his Society for the defence of his own particular creed and views. Our Society being an absolute and an uncompromising Republic of Conscience, preconception and narrow—mindedness in science and philosophy have no room in it. They are as hateful and as much denounced by us as dogmatism and bigotry in theology; and this we have repeated ad nauseam usque.
Having explained our position, we will close with the following parting words to our sectarian friends and critics. The materialists and sceptics who upbraid us in the name of modern Science—the Dame who always shakes her head and finger in scorn at everything she has not yet fathomed—we would remind of the suggestive but too mild words of the great Arago: “He is a rash man, who outside of pure mathematics pronounces the word ‘impossible’.” And to theology, which under her many orthodox masks throws mud at us from behind every secure corner we retort by Victor Hugo’s celebrated paradox: “In the name of RELIGION, we protest against all and every religion!”
Theosophist, July, 1881
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO?
BY * * *
YOGEE is a man who has prepared himself by a long discipline of body and spirit, and is thereby rendered capable of dealing with phenomena, and receiving occult communications at will, the theory being that he, so to say, paralyzes his phys- ical brain and reduces his mind to complete passivity by one of the numerous modes at his command, one of which is the magnetization of the second set of faculties pertaining to and exercised by the spiritual or inner man. The soul is inducted by the body, and, in its turn, is used to liberate the spirit, which is thus placed into direct rapport with the object desired. For example:—A telegraph line at stations A, B, C, D, E, in ordinary cases, sends messages from A to B, B to C and so on; but, when the several stations are connected, the message may be received direct at E from A without the intermediate stations being made aware of it. In the same manner, the nerves becoming passive, the “Yog” power controls the other faculties, and finally enables the spirit to receive a communication, which, in the other case, it cannot, because it must act through several mediums.
As the magnetic
power is directed to any particular faculty, so that faculty at once forms a
direct line of communication with the spirit,1
which, receiving the impressions, conveys them back to the physical body.2
——————
1 Sixth principle—spiritual soul.
2 In the normal or natural state, the sensations are transmitted from the lowest physical to the highest spiritual body, i.e., from the first to the 6th principle (the 7th being no organized or conditioned body, but an infinite hence unconditioned principle or state), the faculties of each body having to awaken the faculties of the next higher one to transmit the message in succession, until they reach the last, when, having received the impression, the latter (the spiritual soul) sends it back in an inverse order to the body. Hence, the faculties of some of the “bodies” (we use this word for want of a better term) being less developed, they fail to transmit the message correctly to the highest principle, and thus also fail to produce the right impression upon the physical senses, as a telegram may have started, from the place of its destination, faultless and have been bungled up and misinterpreted by the telegraph operator at some intermediate station. This is why some people, otherwise endowed with great intellectual powers and perceptive faculties, are often utterly unable to appreciate—say, the beauties of nature, or some particular moral quality; as however perfect their physical intellect—unless the original, material or rough physical impression conveyed has passed in a circuit through the sieve of every “principle”—(from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, up to 7, and down again from 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, to No. 1)—and that every sieve” is in good order,—the spiritual perception will always he imperfect. The Yogi, who, by a constant training and incessant watchfulness, keeps his septenary instrument in good tune and whose spirit has obtained a perfect control over all, can, at will, and by paralyzing the functions of the 4 intermediate principles, communicate from body to spirit and vice versa—direct—Ed. Theosophist.
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The spirit cannot grasp at the communications it desires to receive, unassisted by the physical organization, just as, in the case of a lunatic, the spirit is present, but the faculty of reason is lost, and, therefore, the spirit cannot make the man sane; or, as in the case of a blind man, the spirit and reasoning powers are sound, but the faculty of sight is destroyed; hence the soul of the blind man cannot realize the impressions which would be conveyed to it by the optic nerves and retina.
The spirit is an immortal ether (principle?) which cannot be impaired in any way, and, although it is, to a certain extent, subservient to the body and its faculties during the life-time of the body it is attached to, it can, through their agency, be so liberated in a higher or lesser degree as to be made to act independently of the other principles. This can be achieved by magnetic power or nerve power, if preferred, and thus the spiritual man be enabled to receive communications from other spirits, to traverse space and produce various phenomena, to assume any shape and appear in any form it desires.
The secret of the theory is this, that the Yogee, possessing the power of self-mesmerisation and having a perfect control over all his inner principles, sees whatever he desires to see, rejecting all elementary influences which tend to contaminate his purity.
The medium receives his communications differently. He wishes for “spirits”; they are attracted towards him, their magnetic influences controlling his faculties in proportion to the strength of their respective magnetic powers and the passivity of the subject; the nervous fluid conveys their impressions to the soul or spirit in the same manner, and often the same results are produced as in the case of the Yogee, with this important difference that they are not what the medium or spiritist wishes, but what the spirits (elementary influences) will produce; hence it is that sometimes (in spiritism) a question on one subject is asked, and a reply of a different nature received, irrelevant to the point and more or less after the “Elementary’s” disposition. The spiritist cannot at desire pro duce a fixed result,—the Yogee can. The spiritist runs the risk of evil influences, which impair the faculties the soul has to command, and these faculties—being more prone to evil than good (as every thing having a great percentage of impure matter in it)—are rapidly influenced. The Yogee overcomes this, and his faculties are entirely within his control, the soul acquiring a greater scope for
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working them and keeping them in check; for, although the soul is their ruler, yet it is subservient to them. I will give a familiar illustration :—A battery generates electricity, the wires convey the cur rent, and the mechanism is put in motion. Just so, the soul is the generator or battery, the nerves the wires, and the faculties the mechanism made to work. The Yogee forms a direct connection between his spiritual soul and any faculty, and, by the power of his trained will, that is by magnetic influence, concentrates all his powers in the soul, which enables him to grasp the subject of his enquiry and convey it back to the physical organs, through the various channels of communication.
If the Yogee desires to see a vision, his optic nerves receive the magnetic fluid; if an answer to a question is wanted, the faculties of thought and perception are charged by him; and so on. If he desires to traverse space in spirit, this is easily done by him by transferring the faculty of will, and, as he may have acquired more or less power, so will he be able to produce greater or minor results.
The soul of the
medium does not become the generator. It is not the battery. It is a Leyden jar,
charged from the magnetic influence of the “spirits.” The faculties are put in
action just as the spirits so—called,
make them work from the jar they have charged with their own currents. These
currents, being magnetic, take after the invisibles’ own good or evil
disposition. The influence of a really good spirit is not left upon the earth
after death, so that, in reality, there are no good spirits, although some may
not be mischievous, while others may be full of real devilry. The question
arises, how the influences of the bad ones are left behind, when the soul exists
no more on earth after death? Well, just as light from the sun illumines an
object, which reflects certain invisible active rays, and these, concentrated in
a camera, produce a latent image on a photographic plate; in like manner the
evil propensities of man are developed and form an atmosphere around him, which
is so impregnated with his magnetic influence that this outer shell (as it were)
retains the latent impressions of good or evil deeds. These, after death, are
attached to certain localities, and travel as quick as thought wherever an
attractive influence is exercised the stronger, they being less dangerous as
less attracted to men in gen-
————————————
1 Or—direct, which is oftener the case, we believe—Ed. Theosophist.
2 From the physical to the Spiritual body and concentrating it there, as we understand it—Ed. Theosophist.
14
eral, but more to spiritists who attract them by the erratic power of their will, i.e., their own ill-governed magnetic power. Have not many experienced coming across a man unknown to them, whose very appearance has been repulsive, and, at the sight of whom, feelings of distrust and dislike spring up in them spontaneously, although they knew nothing of or against him? On the other hand, how often do we meet a man who, at first sight seems to attract us to him, and we feel as if we could make a friend of him, and if, by chance, we become acquainted with that person, how much we appreciate his company. We seem lost in hearing him speak, and a certain sympathy is established between us for which we cannot account. What is this, but our own outer shell coming in contact with his and partaking of the magnetic influences of that shell or establishing a communication between each other.
The medium is also influenced by his own spirit sometimes, the reaction of his nerves magnetizing some faculties accidentally, while the elementary spirits are magnetizing the other senses; or a stray current reaches some faculty which their magnetism has not reached, and this leads to some of those incompre-hensible messages, which are quite irrelevant to what is expected, and a frequent occurrence which has always been the great stumbling block at all séances.
Theosophist, May, 1882
IT is well known that the moon-beams have a very pernicious influence; and recently this question became the subject of a very animated discussion among some men of science in Germany.
Physicians and physiologists begin to perceive at last, that the poets had led them into a trap. They will soon find out, it is to be hoped, that eastern Occultists had more real information about the genuine character of our treacherous satellite than the Western astronomers with all their big telescopes. Indeed—”fair Diana,” the “Queen of Night,” she, who in “clouded majesty”—
“. . . unveils her
peerless light,
and o’er the dark her silver mantle throws .
—is the worst—because secret—enemy of her Suzerain, and that Suzerain’s children, vegetable and animal as well as human. With out touching upon her occult and yet generally unknown attributes and functions, we have but to enumerate those that are known to science and even the profane.
The moon acts perniciously upon the mental and bodily constitution of men in more than one way. No experienced captain will allow his men to sleep on deck during the full moon. Lately it was proved beyond any doubt, by a long and careful series of experiments, that no person—even one with remarkably strong nerves—could sit, lie or sleep for any length of time, in a room lit by moon- light without injury to his health. Every observing housekeeper or butler knows that provisions of any nature will decay and spoil far more rapidly in moon-light than they would in entire darkness. The theory that the cause of this does not lie in the specific perniciousness of the moon-beams but in the well-known fact that all the refrangible and reflected rays will act injuriously—is an exploded one. This hypothesis cannot cover the ground in our case. Thus, in the year 1693, on January 21, during the eclipse of the moon, thrice as many sick people died on that day than on the pre ceding and following days. Lord Bacon used to fall down sense less at the beginning of every lunar eclipse and returned to consciousness but when it was over. Charles the VI, in 1399, became a
16
lunatic at every new moon and at the beginning of the full moon. The origin of a number of nervous diseases was found to coincide with certain phases of the moon, especially epilepsy and neuralgia—the only cure for which is, as we know, the sun. After a discussion of many days, the wise men of Germany came to no better conclusion than the implicit confession that: “Though it is a pretty well established fact that there exists some mysterious and nefast connection between the night luminary and most of the human and even animal and vegetable diseases, yet wherein lies the cause of such connection—we are unable, at present, to determine.”
Of course not. Who of these great physicians and physiologists but knows since his boyhood that there was in old Greece a widely—spread belief that the magicians, and especially the enchanters and sorcerers of Thessaly, had an uncontrollable power over the moon, drawing her down from heaven at will by the mere force of their incantations and producing thereby her eclipses? But that is all they know unless they add to it their conviction that the stupid superstition had nothing at all in it at the bottom. Perhaps, they are right, and ignorance, in their case, may be bliss. But the occultists ought not to forget, at any rate, that Isis of the Egyptians and the Grecian Diana or Luna were identical. That both wear the crescent on their heads or the cow’s horns, the latter the symbol of the new moon. More than one profound mystery of nature is securely shrouded by the “veils” of Isis and Diana, who were both the anthropomorphized symbols—or Goddesses of nature, whose priests were the greatest and most powerful adepts of the lands that worshipped the two. The fact alone, that the temple of Diana in Aricia was served by a priest who had always to murder his predecessor, is more than suggestive to a student of Occultism; for it shows him that in the temples of Diana, the greatest as the most reverenced of all the goddesses of Rome and Greece—from that of Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world, down to the said temple of Aricia, the same mysterious initiations took place as in the sacred temples of the Egyptian Isis:—i.e., the initiator having unveiled the Goddess, or shown the neophyte naked truth—had to die.
Theosophist, April, 1883
WESTERN STRICTURE AND EASTERN VERSION
[The sixth installment of the series, “Fragments of Occult Truth,” which appeared in the Theosophist for March, 1883, drew criticism from a British Theosophist who maintained that the account given of the Devachanic condition was either inadequate or described a “cheat” by nature, in that there seemed to be no true intercourse between souls in this after-death state, but only an imagined or “dreamed” relationship. The reader’s comment and objections were provided at some length in a memorandum which H.P.B. printed in the Theosophist for August, 1883, followed by three Replies which, she said, came “from three different sources. “—Eds.]
THE REAL AND THE UNREAL
The perfect consciousness that “I am Brahma”
Removes the false appearances projected
By Ignorance. .
.Know that indeed as Brahma—
Nothing
exists but Brahma, when aught else
Appears to be ‘tis like the mirage false.
—Atma-bodha (Knowledge of Soul)
SANKARACHARYA
THE
“misunderstanding” arises from a natural misconception of the sense in which
certain terms are made use of rather than from any “inconsistent language” used.
The alternative of moving for ever in a vicious circle faces the European
student of Occult philosophy, who begins his study before having made himself
familiar with the technical mode of thought and peculiarity of expression of its
teachers. His first necessity is, to know the esoteric views of the ultimate
nature of Spirit, of Matter, Force and Space; the fundamental and axiomatic
theories as to the Reality and Unreality, Form and the Formless (rupa and
arupa), dream and waking.1
Especially should he master—at
least approximately—the
distinction between the “objective” and the “sub-
———————
1 The Vedanta philosophy teaches as much as Occult philosophy that our monad during its life on earth as a triad (7th, 6th, and 5th principles), has, besides the condition of pure intelligence, three conditions; namely, waking, dreaming, and sushupti—a state of dreamless sleep—from the stand-point of terrestrial conceptions; of real, actual soul-life—from the occult stand-point. While man is either dreamlessly, profoundly asleep or in a trance state, the triad (Spirit, Soul and Mind) enters into perfect union with the Paramatma, the Supreme Universal Soul—Ed.
18
jective” in the living man’s sensuous perceptions and the same as they appear to the psychic perceptions of a disembodied entity (Devachanee). It will not strengthen his case to put forth the objection that “the mode of the intercourse is not such as we can at present recognize from experience”; in other words, that until one becomes a “Devachanee” one cannot enter into sympathy with his feelings or perceptions. For, the disembodied individuality being identical in nature with the higher triad of the living man, when liberated as the result of self evolution effected by the full development of conscious and trained will, the adept can through this triad learn all that concerns the Devachanee; live for the time being his mental life, feel as he feels, and sharing thoroughly in his super- sensuous perceptions, bring back with him on earth the memory of the same, unwarped by mayavic deceptions, hence—not to be gain-said. This, of course, assuming the existence of such lusus naturæ as an “adept,” which may, perhaps, be conceded by the objectors for the sake of argument. And the further concession must be asked that no comparison shall be made to the adept’s detriment between the perceptive powers of his triad, when so freed from the body, and those of the half liberated monad of the entranced somnambule or medium which is having its dazed glimpses into the “celestial arcana.” Still less, is it allowable to gauge them by the reveries of an embodied mind, however cultured and meta physical, which has no data to build upon, save the deductions and inductions which spring from its own normal activity.
However much European students may seem to have outgrown the crude beliefs of their earlier years, yet a special study of Asiatic mental tendencies is indispensable to qualify them to grasp the meaning of Asiatic expressions. In a word, they may have out grown their hereditary ideas only far enough to qualify them as critics of the same; and not sufficiently to determine what is “inconsistent language” or consistent, of Eastern thinkers. Difference in the resources of language is also a most important factor to keep in mind. This is well illustrated in the alleged reply of an Oriental visiting Europe, when asked to contrast Christianity with Buddhism: “It requires an Index or glossary; for it (Christianity) has not the ideas for our words, nor the words for our ideas.” Every attempt to explain the doctrines of Occultism in the meagre terminology of European science and metaphysics to students ignorant of our terms, is likely to result in disastrous misunderstandings
19
despite good intentions on both sides. Unquestionably, such expressions as “life real in a dream” must appear inconsistent to a dualist who affirms the eternity of the individual soul, its independent existence, as distinct from the Supreme Soul or Paramatma, and maintains the actuality of (the personal) God’s nature. What more natural than that the Western thinker, whose inferences are drawn from quite a different line of thought, should feel bewilderment when told that the Devachanic life is “reality”—though a dream, while earthly life is but “a flitting dream”—though imagined an actuality. It is certain that Prof. Balfour Stewart—great physicist though he be—would not comprehend the meaning of our Oriental philosophers, since his hypothesis of an unseen universe, with his premises and conclusions, is built upon the emphatic assumption of the actual existence of a personal God, the personal Creator, and personal moral Governor of the Universe. Nor would the Mussulman philosopher with his two eternities—azl, that eternity which has no beginning, and abd, that other eternity having a beginning but no end; nor the Christian who makes every man’s eternity begin (!) at the moment when the personal God breathes a personal soul into the personal body—comprehend us. Neither of these three representatives of belief could, without the greatest difficulty, concur in the perfect reasonableness of the doctrine of Devachanic life.
When the word “subjective” is used in connection with the state of isolation of the Devachanee, it does not stand for the ultimate possible concept of subjectivity, but only for that degree of the same thinkable by the Western non-Oriental mind. To the latter everything is subjective without distinction which evades all sensuous perceptions. But the Occultist postulates an ascending scale of subjectivity which grows continually more real as it gets farther and farther from illusionary earthly objectivity: its ultimate, Reality—Parabrahm.
But Devachan being
“but a dream,” we should agree upon a definition of the phenomena of dreams. Has
memory anything to do with them? We are told by some physiologists it has. That
the dream-fancies being based upon dormant memory,2
are determined and developed in most cases by the functional activity of some
———————
2 One of the paradoxes of modern physiology seems to be that the more sure and perfect memory becomes, the more unconscious it becomes.” (See Body and Mind, by H. Maudsley, M.D.)
20
internal organ, “the irritation of which awakens into activity that part of the brain with which the organ is in specific sympathy.”
To this, bowing reverentially to modern science, the Occultist replies that there are dreams and dreams. That there is a difference between a dream produced by outward physiological causes, and the one which reacts and becomes in its turn the producer of super-sensuous perceptions and feelings. That he divides dream into the phenomenal and the noumenal, and distinguishes between the two; and that, moreover, the physiologist is entirely unfit to comprehend the ultimate constitution of a disembodied Ego—hence the nature of its “dreams.” This, he does for several reasons, of which one may be particularly noticed: the physiologist rejects a priori WILL, the chief and indispensable factor of the inner man. He refuses to recognize it apart from particular acts of volition, and declares that he knows only the latter, viewed by him simply as a reaction or desire of determination of energy outward, after the complex interworking and combination of ideas in the hemispheral ganglia.” Hence the physiologist would have to reject at once the possibility of consciousness—minus memory; and the Devachanee having no organs, no sensory ganglia, no “educated” nor even “idiotic centres,”3 nor nerve-cells, cannot naturally have that, what the physiologists would regard and de fine as memory. Unfettered from the personal sensations of the manas, the devachanic consciousness would certainly have to be come universal or absolute consciousness, with no past as with no future, the two merging into one eternal PRESENT—but for the trammels of the personal Ego. But even the latter, once severed from its bodily organs, can have no such memory as defined by Professor Huxley, who fathers it upon the “sensigenous molecules” of the brain—those molecules, which, begotten by sensation, re main behind when it has passed away, and that constitute, we are told, the physical foundation of memory; hence also the foundation of all dreams. What can these molecules have to do with the ethereal atoms that act in the spiritual consciousness of the monad, during its bliss wholly based and depending upon the degree of its connection with only the essence of the personal Ego!
What may then be the
nature of the Devachanic dream? we are asked—and how does the occultist define
the dream of the still embodied man? To Western science a dream is a series of
——————
3 Professor Maudstey’s expressions.
21
thoughts, of connected acts or rather “states,” which are only imagined to be real. The uninitiated metaphysician, on the other hand, describes it in his exoteric way, as the passage of sense from darkness into light—the awakening of spiritual consciousness. But the occultist, who knows that the spiritual sense pertaining to the immutable can never sleep or even be dormant per Se, and is always in the “Light” of reality, says that during the state of sleep, Manas (the seat of the physical and personal intelligence) becomes able—its containing vehicle Kama, the WILL, being allowed the full freedom of its conscious action owing to volition being rendered passive, and unconscious by the temporary inactivity of the sensory centres—to perceive that reality in the subjective world which was hidden from it in waking hours. That reality does not become less real, because upon awakening the “sensigenous molecules,” and “uneducated centres” throw and toss in the mayavic light of actual life the recollection and even the remembrance of it into confusion. But the participation of the manas in the Devachanic bliss, does not add to, but on the contrary takes away from, the reality that would fall to the lot of the monad were it altogether free from its presence. Its bliss is an outcome of Sakkayaditthi, the delusion or “heresy of individuality,” which heresy, together with the attavadic chain of causes, is necessary for the monad’s future birth. It is all this that leads the occultist to regard the association or “intercourse” between two disembodied entities in the Devachan—however more real than life it may be—as an illusion, and from his stand point still “a dream,” so to speak of it; while that which his critics would fain call—however regretfully—dreams—”the interludes which fancy makes”—is in the knowledge of the former simply glimpses of the Reality.
Let us take an instance: a son loses a much beloved father. In his dreams he may see and converse with him, and for the time it lasts feel as happy and unconscious of his death as though the father had never left this earth. This upon awakening, he will regard with sorrow as a mere dream that could not last. Is he right to so regard it? The occultist says that he is wrong. He is simply ignorant of the fact that his spirit being of the same essence and nature as that of his father,—as all spirits are—and the inherent property of mutual attraction and assimilation being in their special case strengthened by the paternal and filial love
22
of their personal Egos—that they have, in fact, never separated from each other, death itself being powerless to sever psychic association there, where pure spiritual love links the two. The “dream” was in this instance the reality; the latter a maya, a false appearance due to avidya (false notions). Thus it becomes more correct and proper to call the son’s ignorance during his waking hours a “dream” and “a delusion,” than to so characterize the real intercourse. For what has happened? A Spiritualist would say: “the spirit of the father descended upon earth to hold communion with his son’s spirit, during the quiet hours of sleep.” The Occultist replies; “Not so; neither the father’s spirit descended, nor has the son’s triad ascended (strictly and correctly speaking).” The centre of Devachanic activity cannot be localized: it is again avidya. Monads during that time even when connected with their five finite Kosas (sheaths or principles) know neither space nor time, but are diffused throughout the former, are omnipresent and ubiquitous. Manas in its higher aspect is dravya—an eternal “substance” as well as the Buddhi, the spiritual soul—when this aspect is developed; and united with the Soul Manas becomes spiritual self-consciousness, which is a Vikara (a production) of its original “producer” Buddhi.4 Unless made utterly unfit, by its having become hopelessly mixed with, and linked to, its lower Tanmatras, to become one with Buddhi, it is inseparable from it. Thus the higher human triad, drawn by its affinity to those triads it loved most, with Manas in its highest aspect of self consciousness—(which is entirely disconnected with, and has no need as a channel of the internal organ of physical sense called antah-karana)5 it is ever associated with, and enjoys the presence of all those it loves—in death, as much as it did in life. The intercourse is real and genuine.
The critic doubts
whether such an intercourse can be called a “veritable one.” He wants to know
“whether the two disembodied entities are really and truly affected the one by
the other,” or, “is it merely that one imagines the presence of the
other,” such intercourse corresponding with no fact “of which the other person-
———————
4It is only when Ego becomes Ego-ism deluded into a notion of independent existence as the producer in its turn of the five Tanmatras that Manas is considered Maha-bhutic and finite in the sense of being connected with Ahancara, the personal “I-creating” faculty. Hence Manas is both eternal and non-eternal: eternal in its atomic nature (paramanu rupa), finite (Or karya-rupa) when linked as a duad—with Kama (Volition), a lower production.—Ed.
5 Anta-karana is the path of communication between soul and body, entirely disconnected with the former: existing with, belonging to, and dying with the body—Ed.
23
ality (either
embodied or disembodied) could take cognizance”; and while doubting, he denies
that he is “postulating an incongruity” in objecting that such an intercourse is
not real, is a “mere dream,” for he says, “he can conceive a real intercourse—conscious
on both sides and truly acting and reacting which does not apply only to the
mutual relationship of physical existence.” If he really can, then where is the
difficulty complained of? The real meaning attached by the occultist to such
words as dream, reality, and unreality, having been explained, what further
trouble is there to comprehend this specific tenet? The critic may also be
asked, how he can conceive of a real conscious intercourse on both sides, unless
he understands the peculiar, and—to him as yet unknown—intellectual
reaction and inter-relation between the two.
[sympathetic reaction is no fanciful hypothesis but a scientific fact known and
taught at initiations, though unknown to modern science and but hazily perceived
by some metaphysicians—spiritualists.]6
Or is it that, alternatively, he anthropomorphises Spirit—in
the spiritualistic mistaken sense? Our critic has just told us that “the mode of
the intercourse is not such as we (he) can at present recognize from
experience.” What kind of intercourse is it then that he can conceive of?
——————
6 It is demonstrated to Occultists by the fact that two adepts separated by hundreds of miles, leaving their bodies at their respective habitations and their astral bodies (the lower manas and volition kama) to watch over them, can still meet at some distant place and hold converse and even perceive and sense each other for hours as though they were both personally and bodily together, whereas, even their lower mayavi-rupas are absent.
REPLY II
The Appendix referred to in the Fragments No. VI, in the Theosophist for March, is in no way inconsistent. When properly understood in the light of our doctrines, App. C. (p. 136) gives what it professes to explain and leaves nothing doubtful, while the Fragments itself has perhaps a few expressions that may be misleading: though exclusively so to those who have not paid sufficient attention to that which preceded. For instance: “Love, the creative force, has placed their (the associates’) living image before the personal soul which craves for their presence, and that image will never fly away.” It is incorrect to use the term “personal soul” in connection with the monad. “The personal or animal soul” is, as already said, the 5th principle, and cannot be in Deva-
24
chan, the highest state permitted to it on earth being samadhi. It is only its essence that has followed the monad into Devachan, to serve it there as its ground-tone, or as the background against which its future dream—life and developments will move; its entity, or the reliquiæ? is the “shell,” the dross that remains behind as an elementary to fade away and in time disappear. That which is in Devachan is no more the personæ—the mask, than the smell of a rose is the flower itself. The rose decays and becomes a pinch of dust: its aroma will never die, and may be recalled and resurrected ages thence. Correctly expressed, the sentence would have to read:
. . the living image
before the Spiritual Soul, which being now saturated with the essence of
the personality, has thus ceased to be Arupa (formless or rather devoid of all
substance) for its Devachanic duration, and craves for their presence, etc.” The
gestation period is over, it has won the day, been reborn as a new out of the
old ego, and before it is ushered again into a new personality’, it will reap
the effects of the causes sown in its precedent birth in one of the Devachanic
or Avitchian states, as the case may be, though the latter are found wide apart.
Avas’yam eva bhoktavyam kritam karma Shubhashubam.1
The Devachanic condition in all its aspects is no doubt similar to a dreamy
state when considered from the standpoint of our present objective
consciousness when we are in our waking condition. Nevertheless, it is real
to the Devachanee himself as our waking state is to us. Therefore, when it is
asked “Whether Devachan is a state corresponding to our waking life here or to
our sleep with dreams,”—the
answer given is that it is not similar to either of these conditions; but it is
similar to the dreamy condition of a man who has no waking state at all, if such
a being can be supposed to exist. A monad in Devachan has but one state of
consciousness, and the contrast between a waking state and a dreamy state is
never presented to it so long as it is in that condition. Another objection
urged is, that if a Devachanee were to think of an object or person as if the
object or person were present before him when they are not so (when judged from
the common ideas of objective perception) then the Devachanee is “cheated by
nature.” If such is really the case, he is indeed always “cheated by nature,”
and the suggestion contained in the foregoing letter as to the possible mode of
communication between a Devachanee and one living on earth will not save him
from delusion. Leaving aside
——————
I The fruit of the tree of action, whether good or bad, must unavoidably be eaten.
25
for a moment the nature of a Devachanee’s communication with another monad either in or out of Devachan, let the nature of his ideas be examined so far as they are connected with objects; and then the truth of the above mentioned statement will be easily perceived. Suppose, for instance, Galileo in Devachan, subjectively engaged his favourite intellectual pursuit. It is natural to suppose that his telescope often comes within the range of his Devachanic consciousness, and that the Devachanee subjectively directs it towards some planet. It is quite clear that according to the general ideas of objectivity, Galileo has no telescope before him, and it cannot be contended that his train of ideas in any way actually affects the telescope which he left behind him in this world. If the objector’s reasoning is correct, Galileo is “being cheated by nature,” and the suggestion above referred to will in no way help him in this case.
Thus, the inference that it is neither correct nor philosophical to speak of a Devachanee as being “cheated by nature” becomes once more unavoidable. Such words as cheating, delusion, reality are always relative. It is only by contrast that a particular state of consciousness can be called real or illusionary; and these words cease to have any significance whatever, when the said state of consciousness cannot be compared with any other state. Supposing one is justified in looking upon Devachanic experience as delusion from his present stand-point as a human being living on this earth, what then? We fail to see how any one means to make use of this inference. Of course from the foregoing remarks the reader is not to suppose that a Devachanee’s consciousness can never affect or influence the state of consciousness of another monad either in or out of Devachan. Whether such is the case or not, the reality or the unreality of devachanic experience, so far as a Devachanee is concerned, does not depend upon any such communicative influence.
In some cases it is evident that the state of consciousness of one monad whether in Devachan or yet on earth, may blend with, as it were, and influence the ideation of another monad also in Devachan. Such will be the case where there is strong, affectionate sympathy between the two egos arising from participation in the same higher feelings or emotions, or from similar intellectual pursuits of spiritual aspirations. Just as the thoughts of a mesmerizer standing at a distance are communicated to his subject by the
26
emanation of a current of magnetic energy attracted readily to wards the subject, the train of ideas of a Devachanee are communicated by a current of magnetic or electric force attracted towards another Devachanee by reason of the strong sympathy existing between the two monads, especially when the said ideas relate to things which are subjectively associated with the Devachanee in question. It is not to be inferred, however, that in other cases when there is no such action or reaction, a Devachanee becomes conscious of the fact that his subjective experience is a mere delusion, for it is not so. It was already shown that the question of reality or unreality does not depend upon any such communication or transmission of intellectual energy.
We are asked, “if some of those (the Devachanee loved) are not themselves fit for Devachan, how then?” We answer: “Even in the case of a man still living on earth, or even of one suffering in Avitchi, the ideation of a monad in Devachan may still affect his monad if there is strong sympathy between the two as indicated above,2 Yet the Devachanee will remain ignorant of the mental suffering of the other.”
If this generous
provision of nature that never punishes the innocent outside this our world of
delusion, be still called “a cheating of nature,” and objected to, on the ground
that it is not an “honest symbol” of the other personality’s presence, then the
most reasonable course would be to leave the occult doctrines and Devachan
alone. The noble truths, the grandest goal in soul—life,
will remain for ever a closed book to such minds. Devachan instead of appearing
what it is—a
blissful rest, a heavenly oasis during the laborious journey of the Monad toward
a higher evolution, will indeed present itself as the culmination, the very
essence of death itself. One has to sense intuitionally its logical necessity;
to perceive in it, untaught and unguided, the outcome and perpetuation of that
strictest justice absolutely consonant with the harmony of the universal law, if
one would not lose time over its deep significance. We do not mean it in any
unkind spirit, yet with such an opposition to the very exposition (since no one
is pressed for its acceptance) of our doctrine by some western minds, we feel
bound to remind our opponents that they have the freedom of choice. Among the
later great world philosophies there
——————
2 The reader is reminded in this connection that neither Devachan nor Avitchi is a locality, but a slate which affects directly the being in it and all others only by reaction—Ed.
27
are two,—the more modern the outgrowth of the older,—whose “after states” are clearly and plainly defined, and the acceptance of either of which, moreover, would be welcomed: one—by millions of spiritualists, the other—by the most respectable portion of humanity, viz., civilized Western society. Nothing equivocal, or like cheating of nature in the latter: her Devachanees, the faithful and the true, are plainly and charitably promised the in effable rapture of seeing during an eternity those whom they may have loved best on earth suffering the tortures of the damned in the depths of Gehenna. We are, and do feel willing to give out some of our facts. Only occult philosophy and Buddhism having both failed as yet to produce a Tertullian to strike for us the key-note of an orthodox hell,3 we cannot undertake to furnish fictions to suit every taste and fancy.
There is no such
place of torture for the innocent, no such state in which under the plea of
reward and a necessity for “honest symbols,” the guileless should be made
witness to, or even aware of, the sufferings of those they loved. Were it
otherwise, the active bliss of the Dhyan Chohans themselves would turn into a
shoreless ocean of gall at such a sight. And He who
willed—“Let
all the sins and evils flowing from the corruption of Kaliyug, this
degenerate age of ours fall upon me, but let the world be redeemed”—would
have so willed in vain, and might have given preference to the awes of the
visible to those of the invisible world. To suppose that a “Soul” escaping from
this evil-girdled planet where the innocent weep while the wicked rejoice,
should have a like fate in store for it even within the peaceful haven of
Devachan, would be the most maddening, the dreadful thought of all! But we say,
it is not so. The bliss of a Devachanee is complete, and nature secures
it even at the risk of being accused of cheating by the pessimists of this world
unable to distinguish between Vastu—the
one reality and Vishaya—the
“mayas” of our senses. It is fetching rather too far the presumption that our
objective and subjective shall be the true standards for the
realities and unrealities of the rest of the universe; that our criterion of
truth and honesty is to stand as the only universal land-mark of the same. Had
——————
3 Reference is probably made here to the soul-inspiring monologue that is found in Tertullian’s Despectæ, Chapter XXX, Falling into a wild ecstasy of joy over the bare prospect of seeing some day all the philosophers “who have persecuted the name of Christ burn in a most cruel fire in hell this saintly Patristic character, a Father of the Christian Church, exclaims: “Oh what shall be the magnitude of that scene. How I shall laugh! How I shall rejoice! How I shall triumph” etc—Ed.
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we to proceed upon such principles, we would have to accuse nature of cheating incessantly not only her human but also her animal offspring. Who, of our objectors, when treating of facts of natural history and the phenomena of vision and colour, would ever hazard the remark that because ants are utterly unable to see and distinguish colours as human beings do, (the red, for instance, having no existence for them) therefore, are they also “cheated by nature.” Neither personality nor objectivity as known to us, have any being in the conceptions of a monad; and could, by any miracle, any living human creature come within the range of the Devachanic vision, it would be as little perceived by the Devachanee as the elementals that throng the air around us are perceived with our natural eyes.
One more error of the critic. He seems to be labouring under the impression that if one has some conception of Devachanic state of subjective consciousness while in this life, he will know that such experience is illusionary when he is actually there; and then Devachanic beatitudes will have lost all their reality so far as he is concerned. There is no reason to apprehend any such catastrophe. It is not very difficult to perceive the fallacy that underlies this argument. Suppose, for instance, A, now living at Lahore, knows that his friend B is at Calcutta. He dreams that they are both at Bombay engaged in various transactions. Does he know at the time he is dreaming that the whole dream is illusionary? How can the consciousness that his friend is really at Calcutta, which is only realized when he is in his waking condition, help him in ascertaining the delusive nature of his dream when he is actually dreaming? Even after experiencing dreams several times during his life and knowing that dreams are generally illusionary, A will not know that he is dreaming when he is actually in that condition.
Similarly, a man may experience the devachanic condition while yet alive, and call it delusion, if he pleases, when he comes back to his ordinary state of objective consciousness and compares it to the said condition. Nevertheless, he will not know that it is a dream either when he experiences it a second time (for the time being) while still living, or when he dies and goes to Devachan.
The above is sufficient to cover the case were even the state under discussion indeed “a dream” in the sense our opponents
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hold it in. But it
is neither a “dream” nor in any way “cheating.” It may be
so from the stand-point of Johnson’s dictionary; from that of fact independent
of all human definition, and the stand point of him who knows something of the
laws that govern the worlds invisible, the intercourse between the monads is
real, mutual, and as actual in the world of subjectivity, as it is in this our
world of deceptive reality. It is the old story of Zöllner’s man from the
two-dimensional region disputing the reality of the phenomena taking place in
the three-dimensional world.
THE VARIOUS STATES OF DEVACHAN
REPLY III
The foremost question that presents itself to the mind of the occultist of Asiatic birth, upon seeing the multifarious difficulties which beset the European students of Esotericism, as regards Devachan: how to account for their weird fancies with regard to the after states! It is natural for one to measure other persons’ intellectual operations by his own; not without an effort can he put himself in his neighbour’s place and try to see things from his stand-point. As regards Devachan, for example, nothing would apparently be clearer than the esoteric doctrine, incompletely as it may have been expressed by “Lay Chela”; yet it is evidently not comprehended, and the fact must be ascribed, I think, rather to the habitual differences in our respective ways of looking at things than to the mechanical defects in the vehicle of expression. It would be very hard for an Asiatic Occultist to even conjure up such a fancy as that of Swedenborg, who makes the angels our post-mortem “inquisitors,” obliged to estimate a soul’s accumulated merits and demerits by physical inspection of its body, beginning at the tips of the fingers and toes and tracing thence to centres! Equally baffling would be the attempt to bring ourselves to the point of seriously tracing a denizen of the American Summer-Land of Spirits through the nurseries, debating clubs, and legislative assemblies of that optimistic Arcadian Eden. A warp of anthropomorphism seems to run through the entire woof of European metaphysics. The heavy hand of a personal deity and his personal ministers seems to compress the brain of almost every Western thinker. If the influence does not show itself in one form, it does in an other. Is it a question about God? A metaphysical slide is inserted, and the stereopticon flashes before us a picture of a gold-paved,
30
pearly-doored New Jerusalem, with its Durbar Hall, peacock throne, Maharajah, Dewans, courtiers, trumpeters, scribes, and general train. Is the intercourse between disembodied spirits under discussion? The Western constitutional bias of mind can conceive of no such intercourse without some degree of mutual conscious ness of an objective presence of the corporeal kind: a sort of psychic chit-chat. I hope I do not wrong our Western correspondents, but it is impossible, for myself at least, to draw any other conclusions from the whole tenor of the British Theosophist’s memorandum. Vapoury and etherealized as his concept may be it is yet materialistic at the core. As we would say, the germ-point of metaphysical evolution is of Biblical derivation: and through its opalescent vapour sparkle the turrets of the “New Jerusalem.”
There is much fanciful exotericism to be sure, in Asiatic systems. Quite as much and more perhaps than in the Western; and our philosophies have many a harlequin cloak. But we are not concerned now with externals: our critic comes upon metaphysical ground and deals with esotericism. His difficulty is to reconcile “isolation,” as he understands it, with “intercourse” as we understand it. Though the monad is not like a seed dropped from a tree, but in its nature is ubiquitous, all-pervading, omnipresent; though in the subjective state time, space and locality are not factors in its experiences; though, in short, all mundane conditions are reversed; and the now thinkable becomes the then unthinkable and vice-versâ—yet the London friend goes on to reason as though all this were not so.
Now, Buddhistically speaking, there are states and states and degrees upon degrees in Devachan, in all of which, notwithstanding the (to us) objective isolation of the principal hero, he is surrounded by a host of actors in conjunction with whom he had during his last earth-life created and worked out the causes of those effects that are produced first on the field of Devachanic or Avitchean subjectivity, then used to strengthen the Karma to follow on the objective (?) plane of the subsequent rebirth. Earth life is, so to say, the Prologue of the drama, (or we should, perhaps, call it mystery) that is enacted in the rupa and arupa lokas. Now were we to say that nature, with every due regard to personality and the laws of objectivity as understood in exotericism, “constitutes a veritable intercourse” between the devachanic heroes and actors; and instead of dissociating the monads not only
31
as regards “personal corporeal” but even astral “association”—establishes “actual companionship” between them, as on the earth-plane, we might, perhaps, avoid the strange accusation of “nature cheating” in Devachan. On the other hand, after thus pandering to emotional objections, we could hardly help placing our European Chelas in a far more inextricable dilemma. They would be made to face a problem of personal post-mortem ubiquity, throwing that of the Western deity far in to the background of illogical absurdity. Suppose for one moment a Devachanic father, twice wedded, and loving both his wives as he does his children, while the step-mother loves neither his progeny nor their mother, the coolest indifference if not actual aversion reigning between the two. “Actual companionship,” and “real personal intercourse” (the latter applied even to their astral bodies) implies here bliss for the father and irritation for the two wives and children, all equally worthy of Devachanic bliss. Now imagine again the real mother attracting by her intense love the children within her devachanic state, and thus depriving the father of his legitimate share of bliss. It has been said before, that the devachanic mind is capable only of the highest spiritual ideation; that neither objects of the grosser senses nor any thing provocative of displeasure could ever be apprehended by it—for otherwise, Devachan would be merging into Avitchi, and the feeling of un alloyed bliss destroyed for ever. How can nature reconcile in the above case the problem without either sacrificing her duty to our terrestrial sense of objectivity and reality, or without compromising her status before our criterion of truth and honest dealing? On one hand, the children would have to double and triple themselves ad infinitum—as they too may have disembodied, devachanic objects of spiritual attachment clamouring elsewhere for their presence—which process of ubiquity would hardly be consistent with our notions of personal, actual presence, at one and the same time and at several different places; or, there would always be some body, somewhere “cheated by nature.” To place the monads promiscuously together, like one happy family—would be fatal to truth and fact: each man, however insignificant he may have been on earth, is yet mentally and morally sui generis in his own distinct conceptions of bliss and desires, and has, therefore, a right to, and an absolute necessity for, a specific, personal, “isolated” devachan.
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The speculations of the Western mind have hitherto scarcely ever depicted any higher future life than that of the Kama and Rupa lokas, or the lower, intra-terrestrial “spirit-worlds.” In Appendix D. many states and spheres are hinted at. According even to exoteric Buddhistic philosophy disincarnate beings are divided into three classes of—(1) Kamawâchera, or those who are still under the dominion of the passions in Kamaloka; (2) Rupawâchera, or those who have progressed to a higher stage, but still retain vestiges of their old form in Rupa loka; and (3) Arupawâchera, or those who are become formless entities in the Arupa lokas of the highest Devachan. All depends on the degree of the monad’s spirituality and aspirations. The astral body of the 4th principle—called Kama, because inseparable from Kama loka,—is always within the attraction of terrestrial magnetism; and the monad has to work itself free of the still finer yet equally potent attractions of its Manas before it ever reaches in its series of Devachanic states, the upper-A rupa regions. Therefore, there are various degrees of Devachanees. In those of the Arupa lokas the entities are as subjective and truly “not even as material as that ethereal body-shadow—the Mayavirupa.” And yet even there, we affirm there is still “actual companionship.” But only very few reach there skipping the lower degrees. There are those Devachanees, men of the highest moral calibre and goodness when on earth, who, owing to their sympathy for old intellectual re searches and especially for unfinished mental work, are for centuries in the Rupa-lokas in a strict Devachanic isolation—literally so, since men and loved relatives have all vanished out of sight before this intense and purely spiritual passion for intellectual pursuit. For an example of the study-bound (pardon the new word for the sake of its expressiveness) condition, take the mental state of the dying Berzelius, whose last thought was one of despair that his work should be interrupted by death This is Tanha (Hindu Trishna) or an unsatisfied yearning which must exhaust itself before the entity can move on to the purely arupa condition. A provision is made for every case, and in each case it is created by the dying man’s last, uppermost desire. The scholar who had mainly lived under the influence of manas, and for the pleasure of developing his highest physical intelligence, kept absorbed in the mysteries of the material universe, will still be magnetically held by his mental attractions to scholars and their work,
33
influencing and being influenced by them subjectively—(though in a manner quite different from that known in seance-rooms and by mediums,) until the energy exhausts itself and Buddhi becomes the only regnant influence. The same rule applies to all the activities, whether of passion or sentiment, which entangle the travelling monad (the Individuality) in the relationships of any given birth. The disincarnate must consecutively mount each ring of the ladder of being upward from the earthly subjective to the absolutely subjective. And when this limited Nirvanic state of Devachan is attained, the entity enjoys it and its vivid though spiritual realities until that phase of Karma is satisfied and the physical attraction to the next earth-life asserts itself. In Devachan, therefore, the entity is affected by and reciprocally affects the psychic state of any other entity whose relationship is so close with it as to survive, as was above remarked, the purgatorial evolution of the lower post-mortem spheres. Their intercourse will be sensed spiritually, and still, so far as any relationship until now postulated by Western thinkers goes, each will be “dissociated from the other.” If the questioner can formulate to himself the condition of the monad as pure spirit, the most subjective entity conceivable, without form, color, or weight, even so great as an atom; an entity whose recollections of the last personality (or earth-birth) are derived from the late union of the Manas with the lower five principles-may then find himself able to answer his own interrogatory. According to Esoteric Doctrine this evolution is not viewed as the extinguishment of individual consciousness but its infinite expansion. The entity is not obliterated, but united with the universal entity, and its consciousness becomes able not merely to recall the scenes of one of its earth-evolved Personalities, but of each of the entire series around the Kalpa, and then those of every other Personality. In short from being finite it becomes infinite consciousness. But this comes only at the end of all the births at the great day of the absolute Resurrection. Yet, as the monad moves on from birth to birth and passes its lower and devachanic spheres after each fresh earthly existence, the mutual ties created in each birth must weaken and at last grow inert, before it can be reborn. The record of those relationships imperishably endures in the Akasa, and they can always be reviewed when, in any birth, the being evolves his latent spiritual powers to the “fourth stage of Dhyana”; but
34
their hold upon the being gradually relaxes. This is accomplished in each inter-natal Devachan; and when the personal links—magnetic or psychic, as one may prefer to call them—binding the Devachanee to other entities of that next previous life, whether relatives, friends, or family, are worn out, he is free to move on in his cyclic path. Were this obliteration of personalties not a fact, each being would be travelling around the Kalpa entangled in the meshes of his past relationships with his myriad fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives &c., &c., of his numberless births: a jumble, indeed! It was the ignorant delusion of the geocentric hypothesis which begot all the exoteric theologies, with their absurd dogmas. So, likewise, it is the ignorant theory of mono- genesis, or but one earth life for each being, which makes it so hard for European metaphysicians to read the riddle of our existence and comprehend the difference between the monad’s individuality, and its physical appearance in a series of earth-lives as so many different, totally distinct personalities. Europe knows much about atomic weights and chemical symbols, but has little idea of Devachan.
Theosophist, August, 1883
IN one of the daily issues of the N. Y. World—an influential journal of the great American metropolis—for the year 1878, appeared a description of the events of an evening at the then Head-quarters of our Society, in the city of New York. The writer was one of the Editorial Staff, and among other wonders related was the following: Some lady or gentleman among the visitors had doubted the possibility of an Adept to leave his physical body in a torpid state in the Himalayas, and come in his astral body (Mayavi-rupa) across land and seas to the other side of the world. Three or four of the company sat so as to face the two large windows of the room which gave upon the Avenue—then brilliantly lighted with the gas of the shops and street-lamps. The doubting surmise was barely uttered when these persons simultaneously started in surprise and pointed towards the left-hand window. All looking there, saw deliberately and slowly passing on the outside, from left to right, first one, then another figure of Asiatic men, with fehtas on their heads and clad in one of the long white garments of the East. Passing by the window and out of sight, they presently returned, and repassing the window, were seen no more. Two of the witnesses (Col. Olcott and the Editor of this journal) recognized them, from personal acquaintance, as a certain Mahatma and one of his pupils. The window was nearly twenty feet from the ground and, there being no verandah or other roof for a crow to walk upon—the figures had been moving through the air. Thus, upon the instant and most unexpectedly, the doubter had been silenced and the truth of the Aryan Esoteric Science vindicated. Since we came to India a number of perfectly credible witnesses, Native and European, have been favoured with a sight of similar apparitions of the Blessed Ones, and usually under the most convincing circumstances. Only a few weeks ago at our Madras Head-quarters, one appeared suddenly in full light, in an upstairs room and approached within two feet of certain Hindu members of our society, retained the perfectly visible and solid form for about one minute, and then receding half a dozen
36
paces—disappeared upon the spot. At Bombay, the astral sarira of Mahatma K. H. was seen repeatedly two years ago—by over twenty members in all—some of whom had been very sceptical as to such a possibility before, proclaiming it after the occurrence as “the most glorious, solemn of sights.” Three times, during one evening the “form,” perfectly recognizable, and seemingly solid to a hair of the moustache and beard—glided through the air from a cluster of bushes to the verandah, in brilliant moon-light....and then faded out. Again, the case of Mr. Ramaswamier, B. A., affords proof of the most cumulative kind ever recorded in the history of this branch of Esoteric Science: he first saw a Mahatma’s portrait; then saw him in the “double”; and finally met him in the flesh in a lonely pass in Sikkim, conversed with him for above two hours in his (Mr. R.’s) own vernacular—a foreign tongue to the Mahatma—had explained to him many facts relating to the Theosophical Society, and was charged with messages to Colonel Olcott about certain confidential matters which none but himself and this particular Mahatma knew about. The existence of the Mahatmas, their power to travel in the inner, or astral body at will, to preserve full command of all their intelligence, and to condense their “phantom” form into visibility or dissolve it into invisibility at their own pleasure, are now facts too well established to permit us to regard it as an open question.
Objectors to the above propositions are found only among the inexperienced, as objectors to every other new thing have been. There must be a particular moment in every case when doubt and disbelief vanish, to give place to knowledge and certainty. Few, comparatively, of any generation have ever or in the nature of things could ever see the splendid phenomenon of a Mahatma’s astral apparition; for merely the magneto-psychic law of attraction and repulsion keeps Adepts and the reeking stew of social corruption far apart. Sometimes, under very favourable conditions they may approach an individual devoted to occult research, but this happens rarely; for even he, pure though he be, is wallowing in the world’s corrupt akasa or magnetic aura and contaminated by it. To his inner self it is as stifling and deadly as the heavy vapour of carbonic oxide to his physical lungs. And, remember, it is by the inner, not the outer, self that we come into relations with Adepts and their advanced Chelas. One would not expect to hold improving conversation with a besotted inebriate, lying in a state
37
of swine-like stupefaction after a debauch; yet it is quite as impracticable for the spiritualised Mahatma to exchange thoughts with a man of society, living daily in a state of psychic intoxication among the magnetic fumes of its carnality, materialism, and spiritual atrophy.
But other living persons than the Eastern Adepts can project their doubles so as to appear at a distance from their bodies. The literature of Western mysticism—not to mention the voluminous records of the Orient—contain many instances of the kind; notably the works of Glanvil, Ennernoser, Crowe, Owen, Howitt, Des Mousseaux and many other Roman Catholic writers, and a host beside. Sometimes the figures talk, but usually not; sometimes they wander while the subject’s outer body sleeps, sometimes while awake; often the apparition is the forerunner of death, but occasionally it seems to have come from its distant body for the mere pleasure of seeing a friend, or because the desire to reach a familiar place outran the physical power of the body to hurry there soon enough. Miss C. Crowe tells (Night Side of Nature) of a German Professor whose case was of the latter kind. Returning to his house one day, he saw the double of himself pass there be fore him, knock at the door, and enter when the servant maid opened it. He hastened his pace, knocked in his turn, and when the maid came and saw him, she started back in terror saying, “Why, Sir, I have just let you in!” (or words to that effect.) Mounting the stairs to his library, he saw himself seated in his own arm-chair as was his custom. As he approached, the phantom melted away into air. Another example of a similar nature is the following, of which the circumstances are as satisfactorily established, as could be desired.
The story is told of one—Emilie Sagèe, governess in a ladies’ school at Riga, in Livonia. Here the body and its double were observed simultaneously, in broad day, and by many persons. “One day all the school, forty-two in number, were in a room on the ground-floor, glass doors leading into the garden. They saw Emilie gathering flowers in the garden, when suddenly her figure appeared on a vacant sofa. Looking instantly into the garden, they still saw Emilie there; but they observed that she moved languidly and as if exhausted or drowsy. Two of the bolder approached the double, and offered to touch it; they felt a slight resistance which they compared to that of muslin or crepe. One of them
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passed through part of the figure; the apparation remained some moments longer, then disappeared, but gradually. This phenomenon occurred, in different ways, as long as Emilie remained at the school, for about a year and a half in 1845 and 1846, with intermittent periods from one to several weeks. It was remarked that the more distinct and material the double appeared, the more uneasy, languid, and suffering was the real person; when, on the contrary, the double became feeble, the patient recovered strength. Emilie had no consciousness of her double, nor did she ever see it.”
Theosophist, October, 1883
A GENERAL misunderstanding of this term seems to prevail. The popular idea appears to be to confine oneself for half an hour—or at the utmost two hours—in a private room, and passively gaze at one’s nose, a spot on the wall, or, perhaps, a crystal. This is supposed to be the true form of contemplation en- joined by Raj Yoga. It fails to realize that true occultism requires “physical, mental, moral and spiritual” development to run on parallel lines. Were the narrow conception extended to all these lines, the necessity for the present article would not have been so urgently felt. This paper is specially meant for the benefit of those who seem to have failed to grasp the real meaning of Dhyan, and by their erroneous practices to have brought, and to be bringing, pain and misery upon themselves. A few instances may be mentioned here with advantage, as a warning to our too zealous students.
At Bareilly the writer met a certain Theosophist from Farrukhabad, who narrated his experiences and shed bitter tears of repentance for his past follies—as he termed them. It would appear from his account that the gentleman, having read Bhagavat-Gita about fifteen or twenty years ago and not comprehending the esoteric meaning of the contemplation therein enjoined, undertook nevertheless the practice and carried it on for several years. At first he experienced a sense of pleasure, but simultaneously he found he was gradually losing self-control; until after a few years he discovered, to his great bewilderment and sorrow, that he was no longer his own master. He felt his heart actually growing heavy, as though a load had been placed on it. He had no control over his sensations; in fact the communication between the brain and the heart had become as though interrupted. As matters grew worse, in disgust he discontinued his “contemplation.” This happened as long as seven years ago; and, although since then he has not felt worse, yet he could never regain his original normal and healthy state of mind and body.
NOTE—This article by Damodar, published in the Theosophist drew correspondence and two further replies by him.—Eds.
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Another case came under the writer’s observation at Jubbulpore. The gentleman concerned, after reading Patanjali and such other works, began to sit for “contemplation.” After a short time he commenced seeing abnormal sights and hearing musical bells, but neither over these phenomena nor over his own sensations could he exercise any control. He could not produce these results at will, nor could he stop them when they were occurring. Numerous such examples may be multiplied. While penning these lines, the writer has on his table two letters upon this subject, one from Moradabad and the other from Trichinopoly. In short, all this mischief is due to a misunderstanding of the significance of contemplation as enjoined upon students by all the schools of Occult Philosophy. With a view to afford a glimpse of the Reality through the dense veil that enshrouds the mysteries of this Science of Sciences, an article, the “Elixir of Life,” was written. Unfortunately, in too many instances, the seed seems to have fallen upon barren ground. Some of its readers only catch hold of the following clause in the said paper:
Reasoning from the known to the unknown, meditation, must be practised and encouraged.
But, alas! their preconceptions have prevented them from comprehending what is meant by meditation. They forget that it “is the inexpressible yearning of the inner Man to ‘go out towards the infinite,’ which in the olden time was the real meaning of adoration”—as the next sentence shows. A good deal of light will be thrown upon this subject if the reader were to turn to the preceding portion of the same paper, and peruse attentively the following paragraphs on page 141 of the Theosophist for March, 1883 (Vol. III, No. 6) :1
So, then, we have arrived at the point where we have determined—literally, not metaphorically—to crack the outer shell known as the mortal coil, or body, and hatch out of it, clothed in our next. This “next” is not a spiritual, but only a more ethereal form. Having by a long training and preparation adapted it for a life in this atmosphere, during which time we have gradually made the outward shell to die off through a certain process . . . we have to prepare for this physiological transformation.
How are we to do
it? In the first place we have the actual, visible, material body—man,
so called, though, in fact, but his
——————
1 From “The ‘Elixir of Life’,” reprinted in Five Years of Theosophy.—Eds.
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outer shell—to deal with. Let us bear in mind that science teaches us that in about every seven years we change skin as effectually as any serpent; and this so gradually and imperceptibly that, had not science after years of unremitting study and observation assured us of it, no one would have had the slightest suspicion of the fact. . . . Hence, if a man partially flayed alive, may sometimes survive and be covered with a new skin,—so our astral, vital body . . . . may he made to harden its particles to the atmospheric changes. The whole secret is to succeed in evolving it out, and separating it from the visible; and while its generally invisible atoms proceed to concrete themselves into a compact mass, to gradually get rid of the old particles of our visible frame so as to make them die and disappear before the new set has had time to evolve and replace them. . . . We can say no more.
A correct comprehension of the above scientific process will give a clue to the esoteric meaning of meditation or contemplation. Science teaches us that man changes his physical body continually, and this change is so gradual that it is almost imperceptible. Why then should the case be otherwise with the inner man? The latter too is constantly developing and changing atoms at every moment. And the attraction of these new sets of atoms depends upon the Law of Affinity—the desires of the man drawing to their bodily tenement only such particles as are en rapport with them or rather giving them their own tendency and coloring.
For Science shows that thought is dynamic, and the thought-force evolved by nervous action expanding itself outwardly, must affect the molecular relations of the physical man. The inner men, however sublimated their organism may be, are still composed of actual, not hypothetical particles, and are still subject to the law that an “action” has a tendency to repeat itself; a tendency to set up analogous action in the grosser “shell” they are in contact with and concealed within. (“The Elixir of Life.”)
What is it the aspirant of Yog Vidya strives after if not to gain Mukti by transferring himself gradually from the grosser to the next more ethereal body, until all the veils of Maya being successively removed his Atma becomes one with Paramatma? Does he suppose that this grand result can be achieved by a two or four hours’ contemplation? For the remaining twenty or twenty-two hours that the devotee does not shut himself up in his room for meditation—is the process of the emission of atoms and their replacement by others stopped? If not, then how does he mean to
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attract all this time,—only those suited to his end? From the above remarks it is evident that just as the physical body requires incessant attention to prevent the entrance of a disease, so also the inner man requires an unremitting watch, so that no conscious or unconscious thought may attract atoms unsuited to its progress. This is the real meaning of contemplation. The prime factor in the guidance of the thought is WILL.
Without that, all else is useless. And, to be efficient for the purpose, it must be, not only a passing resolution of the moment, a single fierce desire of short duration, but a settled and continued strain, as nearly as can be continued and concentrated without one single moment’s remission.
The student would do well to take note of the italicized clause in the above quotation. He should also have it indelibly impressed upon his mind that
It is no use to fast as long as one requires food. . . . To get rid of the inward desire is the essential thing, and to mimic the real thing without it is barefaced hypocrisy and useless slavery.
Without realizing the significance of this most important fact, any one who for a moment finds cause of disagreement with any one of his family, or has his vanity wounded, or for a sentimental flash of the moment, or for a selfish desire to utilize the divine power for gross purposes—at once rushes in for contemplation and dashes himself to pieces on the rock dividing the known from the unknown. Wallowing in the mire of exotericism, he knows not what it is to live in the world and yet be not of the world; in other words to guard self against self is an incomprehensible axiom for nearly every profane. The Hindu ought at least to realize it by remembering the life of Janaka, who, although a reigning monarch, was yet styled Rajarshi and is said to have attained Nirvana. Hearing of his widespread fame, a few sectarian bigots went to his Court to test his Yoga-power. As soon as they entered the courtroom, the king having read their thought—a power which every chela attains at a certain stage—gave secret instructions to his officials to have a particular street in the city lined on both sides by dancing girls who were ordered to sing the most voluptuous songs. He then had some gharas (pots) filled with water up to the brim so that the least shake would be likely to spill their contents. The wiseacres, each with a full ghara (pot) on his head, were ordered to pass along the street, surrounded by soldiers with drawn swords to be
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used against them if even so much as a drop of water were allowed to run over.
The poor fellows having returned to the palace after successfully passing the test, were asked by the King-Adept what they had met with in the street they were made to go through. With great indignation they replied that the threat of being cut to pieces had so much worked upon their minds that they thought of nothing but the water on their heads, and the intensity of their attention did not permit them to take cognizance of what was going on around them. Then Janaka told them that on the same principle they could easily understand that, although being outwardly engaged in managing the affairs of his state, he could at the same time be an Occultist. He, too, while in the world, was not of the world. In other words, his inward aspirations had been leading him on continually to the goal in which his whole inner self was concentrated.
Raj Yoga encourages no sham, requires no physical postures. It has to deal with the inner man whose sphere lies in the world of thought. To have the highest ideal placed before oneself and strive incessantly to rise up to it, is the only true concentration recognized by Esoteric Philosophy which deals with the inner world of noumena, not the outer shell of phenomena.
The first requisite for it is thorough purity of heart. Well might the student of Occultism say, with Zoroaster, that purity of thought, purity of word, and purity of deed,—these are the essentials of one who would rise above the ordinary level and join the “gods.” A cultivation of the feeling of unselfish philanthropy is the path which has to be traversed for that purpose. For it is that alone which will lead to Universal Love, the realization of which constitutes the progress towards deliverance from the chains forged by Maya around the Ego. No student will attain this at once, but as our VENERATED MAHATMA says in the Occult World:
The greater the progress towards deliverance, the less this will be the case, until, to crown all, human and purely individual personal feelings, blood-ties and friendship, patriotism and race predilection, will all give way to become blended into one universal feeling, the only true and holy, the only unselfish and eternal one, Love, an Immense Love for Humanity as a whole.
In short, the individual is blended with the ALL.
Of course, contemplation, as usually understood, is not without its minor advantages. It develops one set of physical faculties as
44
gymnastics does the muscles. For the purposes of physical mesmerism, it is good enough; but it can in no way help the development of the psychological faculties, as the thoughtful reader will perceive. At the same time, even for ordinary purposes, the practice can never be too well guarded. If, as some suppose, they have to be entirely passive and lose themselves in the object before them, they should remember that by thus encouraging passivity, they, in fact, allow the development of mediumistic faculties in themselves. As was repeatedly stated—the Adept and the Medium are the two Poles; while the former is intensely active and thus able to control the elemental forces, the latter is intensely passive, and thus incurs the risk of falling a prey to the caprice and malice of mischievous embryos of human beings, and—the Elementaries.
DAMODAR K. MAVALANKAR
CORRESPONDENCE ON “CONTEMPLATION”
I
I regret the whole article is totally misunderstood. All I meant to say was that temporary estrangement, from family or friends, does not constitute an essential qualification for advancement in occultism. This ought to be plain to one who weighs carefully my illustration of Janaka. Although in the world, to be not of it. Failing to realize the meaning of this important teaching, many people rush in from a sentimental disgust of worldliness, arising probably out of some worldly disappointment—and begin practising what they consider to be a true form of contemplation. The very fact that the motive which leads them to go in for this practice, is as described . . . this fact is a sufficient indication that the candidate does not know the “contemplation” of a Raja Yogi. It is thus impossible in the nature of things that he can follow the right method; and the physical practice, which he necessarily undertakes, leads him to the disastrous results adverted to in the article.
Any reader, who has intuition enough to be a practical student of occultism, will at once see that to work up to perfection is the highest ideal that a man can have before him. That is not the work of a day nor of a few years. “The Adept becomes; he is NOT MADE”—is a teaching which the student must first realize. The aspirant
45
works up to his goal through a series of lives. Col. Olcott says in his Buddhist Catechism:—”. . . Countless generations are required to develop man into a Buddha, and the iron will to become one runs throughout all the successive births.”
That “iron will” to become perfect must be incessantly operating, without a single moment’s relaxation, as will be apparent to one who reads carefully the article as a whole. When it is distinctly said that during the time that this contemplation is not practiced, i.e., the iron will is not exerting, the process of the emission and attraction of atoms is not stopped, and that the desires, instinctive or otherwise, must be so regulated as to attract only such atoms as may be suited to his progress—I cannot understand my correspondent when he asks me what he should do at a particular hour in the morning. He should cultivate only such thoughts as would not be incompatible with the highest ideal he has to work up to.
By perfection, which should be his highest ideal, (I must add) I mean that divine manhood which the Occult Philosophy contemplates the seventh race of the seventh Round will attain to. This, as every tyro knows, depends largely upon a cultivation of the feeling of Universal Love, and hence an earnest desire to do some practical philanthropic work is the first requisite. Even this state, I admit, is not absolute perfection: but that maximum limit of ultimate Spiritual perfection is beyond our comprehension at present. That condition can only be intellectually realized as a practical ideal by those divine men—Dhyan-Chohans. To be identified with THE ALL, we must live in and feel through it. How can this be done without the realization of the feeling of Universal Love? Of course Adeptship is not within the easy reach of all. On the other hand, occultism does not fix any unpleasant place or locality for those who do not accept its dogmas. It only recognizes higher and higher evolution according to the chain of causation working under the impulse of Nature’s immutable law. The article on “Occult Study” in the last number2 gives the necessary explanation on this point.
It is painful for
me to find that the very thing I attempted to point out in that article to be
mischievous in its results, is again put forward as a desirable attribute or
adjunct of true contemplation. I would ask my correspondent to read again the
same article, with these additional remarks, before thinking of the necessity of
——————
2 The Theosophist, March, 1884, pp. 131-3.—Eds.
46
any peculiar or particular posture for the purpose of contemplation. I, at any rate, am unable to prescribe any specific posture for the kind of incessant contemplation that I recommend.
II
Notwithstanding the article on the above subject in the February Theosophist, many of its readers still seem to imagine that “contemplation” is a particular form of gazing or staring at something, which process, when undergone a set number of hours every day, will give psychological powers. This misunderstanding is apparently due to the fact that the main point discussed has been lost sight of. Instead of realizing that there is but one chief idea meant to be conveyed by that article by arguing it through many of its phases, it seems to be imagined that almost every sentence expresses quite a distinct idea. It may not therefore be uninteresting or unprofitable to revert to the subject and put forward the same idea from another stand-point and, if possible, in a clearer light. It must first be borne in mind that the writer of the article did not at all mean to imply the act of gazing by the word “contemplation.” The former word would have been made use of, were that the idea. The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language (1883)—defines the word contemplation thus:—
(1) The act of the mind in considering with attention; meditation; study; continued attention of the mind to a particular subject. Specifically—(2) Holy meditation; attention to sacred things.
Webster’s dictionary thoroughly revised—also gives the same meaning.
Thus we find that contemplation is the “continued attention of the mind to a particular subject,” and, religiously, it is the “attention to sacred things.” It is therefore difficult to imagine how the idea of gazing or staring came to be associated with the word contemplation, unless it be due to the fact that generally it so happens that when any one is deeply absorbed in thought, he apparently seems to be gazing or staring at something in blank space. But this gazing is the effect of the act of contemplation. And, as usually happens, here too the effect seems to be confounded with the cause. Because the gazing attitude follows the act of contemplation, it is at once assumed the gazing is the cause which produces contemplation! Bearing this well in mind, let us now see what kind of contemplation (or meditation) the Elixir of
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Life recommends for the aspirants after occult knowledge. It says:—“Reasoning from the known to the unknown, meditation must be practised and encouraged.”
That is to say, a chela’s meditation should constitute the “reasoning from the known to the unknown.” The “known” is the phenomenal world, cognizable by our five senses. And all that we see in this manifested world are the effects, the causes of which are to be sought after in the noumenal, the unmanifested, the “unknown world:” this is to be accomplished by meditation, i.e., continued attention to the subject. Occultism does not depend upon one method, but employs both the deductive and inductive. The student must first learn the general axioms. For the time being, he will of course have to take them as assumptions, if he prefers to call them so. Or as the Elixir of Life puts it:— “All we have to say is that if you are anxious to drink of the Elixir of Life and live a thousand years or so, you must take our word for the matter, at present, and proceed on the assumption. For esoteric science does not give the faintest possible hope that the desired end will ever be attained by any other way; while modern, or the so-called exact science laughs at it.”
These axioms have sufficiently been laid out in the articles on the Elixir of Life and various others treating on occultism, in the different numbers of the Theosophist. What the student has first to do is to comprehend these axioms and, by employing the deductive method, to proceed from universals to particulars. He has then to reason from the “known to the unknown,” and see if the inductive method of proceeding from particulars to universals supports those axioms. This process forms the primary stage of true contemplation. The student must first grasp the subject intellectually before he can hope to realize his aspirations. When this is accomplished, then comes the next stage of meditation which is “the inexpressible yearning of the inner man to ‘go out towards the infinite’.” Before any such yearning can be properly directed, the goal, to which it is to be its aim to run, must be determined by the preliminary stages. The higher stage, in fact, consists in realizing practically what the first steps have placed within one’s comprehension. In short, contemplation, in its true sense, is to recognize the truth of Eliphas Levi’s saying:—”To believe without knowing is weakness; to believe because one knows, is power.”
Or, in other words, to see that “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.” The
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Elixir of Life not only gives the preliminary steps in the ladder of contemplation but also tells the reader how to realize the higher conceptions. It traces, by the process of contemplation as it were, the relation of man, “the known,” the manifested, the phenomenon, to “the unknown,” the unmanifested, the noumenon. It shows to the student what ideal he should contemplate and how to rise up to it. It places before him the nature of the inner capacities of man and how to develop them. To a superficial reader, this may, perhaps, appear as the acme of selfishness. Reflection or contemplation will, however, show the contrary to be the case. For it teaches the student that to comprehend the noumenal, he must identify himself with Nature. Instead of looking upon himself as an isolated being, he must learn to look upon himself as a part of the INTEGRAL WHOLE. For, in the unmanifested world, it can be clearly perceived that all is controlled by the “Law of Affinity,” the attraction of one to the other. There, all is Infinite Love, understood in its true sense.
It may now be not out of place to recapitulate what has already been said. The first thing to be done is to study the axioms of Occultism and work upon them by the deductive and the inductive methods, which is real contemplation. To turn this to a useful purpose, what is theoretically comprehended must be practically realized. It is to be hoped that this explanation may make the meaning of the former article on this subject clearer.
—D.K.M.
Theosophist, February, April, and August, 1884
“ESOTERIC BUDDHISM”
[In THE pamphlet of Mr. C. C. Massey, an F. T. S., of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, is a valuable contribution of the discussion now being raised by the publication of Mr. Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism. It is a trite axiom that truth exists independent of human error, and he who would know the truth, must rise up to its level and not try the ridiculous task of dragging it down to his own standard. Every metaphysician knows that Absolute Truth is the eternal Reality which survives all the transient phenomena. The preface to Isis Unveiled expresses the idea very clearly when it says:—”Men and parties, sects and creeds, are the mere ephemera of the world’s day, while Truth, high seated on its rock of Adamant, is alone eternal and supreme.” Language belongs to the world of relativity, while Truth is the Absolute Reality. It is therefore vain to suppose that any language, however ancient or sublime, can express Abstract Truth. The latter exists in the world of ideas, and the ideal can be perceived by the sense belonging to that world. Words can merely clothe the ideas. But no number of words can convey an idea to one who is incapable of perceiving it. Every one of us has within him the latent capacity or a sense dormant in us which can take cognisance of Abstract Truth, although the development of that sense or, more correctly speaking, the assimilation of our intellect with that higher sense, may vary in different persons, according to circumstances, education and discipline. That higher sense which is the potential capacity of every human being is in eternal contact with Reality, and every one of us has experienced moments when, being for the time enrapport with that higher sense, we realise the eternal verities. The sole question is how to focalise ourselves entirely in that higher sense. Directly we realise this truth, we are brought face to face with occultism. Occultism teaches its votaries what sort of training will bring on such a development. It never dogmatises, but only recommends certain methods which the experience of ages has proved to be the best suited to the purpose. But just as the harmony of nature consists in symphonious discord, so also the
50
harmony of occult training (in other words, individual human progress) consists in discord of details. The scope of Occultism being a study of Nature, both in its phenomenal and noumenal aspects, its organisation is in exact harmony with the plan of Nature. Different constitutions require different details in training, and different men can better grasp the idea clothed in different expressions. This necessity has given rise to different schools of Occultism, whose scope and ideal is the same, but whose modes of expression and methods of procedure differ. Nay, even the students of the same school have not necessarily a uniformity of training. This will show why it is that until a certain stage is reached, the Chela is generally left to himself, and why he is never given verbal or written instructions regarding the truths of Nature. It will also suggest the meaning of the Neophyte being made to undergo a particular kind of sleep for a certain period before each initiation. And his success or failure depends upon his capacity for the assimilation of the Abstract Truth his higher sense perceives. However, just as unity is the ultimate possibility of Nature, so there is a certain school of Occultism which deals only with the synthetic process, and to which all the other schools, dealing with analytical methods wherein alone can diversity exist, owe their allegiance. A careful reader will thus perceive the absurdity of a dogmatism which claims for its methods a universal application. What is therefore meant by the Adwaitee Philosophy being identical with the Arhat Doctrine, is that the final goal or the ultimate possibility of both is the same. The synthetical process is one, for it deals only with eternal verities, the Abstract Truth, the noumenal. And these two philosophies are put forth together, for in their analytical methods they proceed on parallel lines, one proceeding from the subjective and the other from the objective stand-point. to meet ultimately or rather converge together in one point or centre. As such, each is the complement of the other and neither can be said to be complete in itself. It should be distinctly remembered here that the Adwaitee Doctrine does not date from Sankaracharya, nor does the Arhat Philosophy owe its origin to Gautama Buddha. They were but the latest expounders of these two systems which have existed from time immemorial as they must. Some natures can better comprehend the truth from a subjective stand-point, while others must proceed from the objective. These two systems are therefore as old as Occultism itself, while the later
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phases of the Esoteric Doctrine are but another aspect of either of these two, the details being modified according to the comprehensive faculties of the people addressed, as also the other surrounding circumstances. Attempts at a revival of the knowledge of this Truth have been numberless, and therefore to suggest that the present is the first attempt in the world’s history, is an error which those whose sense has just been awakened to the glorious Reality are apt to commit. It has already been stated that the diffusion of knowledge is not limited to one process. The possessors of it have never jealously guarded it from any personal or selfish motives. In fact such a frame of mind precludes the possibility of the attainment of knowledge. They have at every opportunity tried all available means to give its benefit to humanity. Times there were undoubtedly when they had to rest content with giving it only to a few chosen pupils, who, it should be remembered, differ from ordinary humanity only in one essential particular, and that is, that by abnormal training they bring on a process of self-evolution in a comparatively very short period, which ordinary humanity may require numberless ages to reach during the ordinary course of evolution. Those who are acquainted with the history of Count St. Germain and the works of the late Lord Lytton, need not be told that even during the past hundred years constant efforts have been made to awaken the present races to a sense of the knowledge which will assist their progress and ensure future happiness. It should not be, moreover, forgotten that to spread a knowledge of philosophical truths forms but a small fraction of the important work the occultists are engaged in. Whenever circumstances compel them to be shut out from the world’s view, they are most actively engaged in so arranging and guiding the current of events, sometimes by influencing people’s minds, at others by bringing about, as far as practicable, such combinations of forces as would give rise to a higher form of evolution and such other important work on a spiritual plane. They have to do and are doing that work now. Little therefore do the public know what in reality it is that they ask for when they apply for Chelaship. They have to thus pledged themselves to assist the MAHATMAS in that spiritual work by the process of self evolution, for, the energy expended by them in the act of self purification, has a dynamic effect and produces grand results on a spiritual plane. Moreover, they gradually fit themselves to take an active share in the grand work. It may perhaps be now apparent
52
why “THE ADEPT BECOMES, HE IS NOT MADE,” and why he is the “rare efflorescence of the age.” The foregoing considerations should never be lost sight of by the reader of Esoteric Buddhism.
The great
difficulty which an ordinarily philosophic mind has to contend against, is the
idea that consciousness and intelligence proceed out of non-consciousness and
non-intelligence. Although an abstruse metaphysical intellect can comprehend or
rather perceive the point subjectively, the present undeveloped state of
humanity, at any rate, can conceive the higher truths only from an objective
stand-point. Just as, therefore, we are obliged to talk of the setting of the
sun, in common parlance, although we know that it is not the movement of the sun
that we really refer to, and just as in the geocentric system we have to speak
as though the earth were a fixed point in the centre of the universe so that the
unripe mind of the student may understand our teachings, so in the same manner
the Abstract Truth has to be presented from an objective point of view, so that
it may be more easily comprehended by minds with not a very keen metaphysical
intellect. Thus one may say that Buddhism is rational Vedantism, while Vedantism
is transcendental Buddhism. Keeping this difference in view, an explanation of
the difficulty above put forth may be given from the Buddhist stand-point. If
the reader will here recall the answer of the MAHATMAS to Question V of “An
English F. T. S.,” published in the Theosophist for September 1883,*
he will remember the explanation concerning “the mineral monad.” The one Life
permeates ALL. Here it may be added that consciousness and intelligence also
permeate ALL. These three are inherent potentially everywhere. But we do not
talk of the life of a mineral, nor of its consciousness or intelligence. These
exist in it only potentially. The differentiation which results in
individualisation is not yet complete. A piece of gold, silver, copper or any
other metal, or a piece of rock, &ct., has no sense of separate existence,
because the mineral monad is not individualised. It is only in the animal
kingdom that a sense of personality begins to be formed. But for all that, an
occultist will not say that life, consciousness or intelligence, do not
potentially exist in the minerals. Thus it will be seen that although
consciousness and intelligence exist everywhere, all objects are not conscious
or intelligent. The latent potentiality when developed to the stage of
individualisation by the Law of
——————
* See Five Years of Theosophy—Eds.
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Cosmic Evolution, separates the subject from the object, or rather the subject falls into Upadhi, and a state of personal consciousness or intelligence is realized. But the absolute conscious ness and intelligence which has no Upadhi cannot be conscious or intelligent, for there is no duality, nothing to wake intelligence or to be conscious of. Hence the Upanishads say that Parabrahm has no consciousness, no intelligence, for these states can be cognised by us only on account of our individualisation, while we can have, from our differentiated and personal state, no conception of the undifferentiated, non-dualistic consciousness or intelligence. If there were no consciousness or intelligence in Nature, it were absurd to talk of the Law of Karma or every cause producing its corresponding effect. The MAHATMA, in one of the letters published in the Occult World, says that matter is indestructible, but enquires whether the modern Scientist can tell why it is that Nature consciously prefers that matter should remain indestructible under organic rather than inorganic form. This is a very suggestive idea in regard to the subject under notice. At the beginning of our studies we are apt to be misled by the supposition that our earth, or the planetary chain, or the solar system, constitutes infinity and that eternity can be measured by numbers. Often and often have the MAHATMAS warned us against this error, and yet we do, now and then, try to limit the infinity to our standard instead of endeavouring to expand ourselves to its conception. This has led some naturally to a sense of isolation, and to forget that the same Law of Cosmic Evolution which has brought us to our present stage of individual differentia-tion, is tending to lead us gradually to the original undifferentiated condition. Such allow themselves to be imbued so much with a sense of personality that they try to rebel against the idea of Absolute Unity. Forcing themselves thus in a state of isolation, they endeavour to ride the Cosmic Law which must have its course: and the natural result is annihilation through the throes of disintegration. This it is which constitutes the bridge, the dangerous point in evolution referred to by Mr. Sinnett in his Esoteric Buddhism. And this is why selfishness, which is the result of a strong sense of personality, is detrimental to spiritual progress. This it is that constitutes the difference between white and black magic. And it is this tendency to which reference is made when talking of the end of a Race. At this period, the whole humanity splits up into two classes, the Adepts of the good Law and
54
the Sorcerers (or Dugpas). To that period we are fast rushing; and to save humanity from a cataclysm which must overtake those who go against the purposes of Nature, the MAHATMAS, who are working with her, are endeavouring to spread knowledge in a manner to prevent its abuse as far as possible. We should therefore constantly remember that the present is not the apex of evolution, and that if we would not be annihilated, we must not allow our selves to be influenced by a sense of personal isolation and consequent worldly vanities and shows. This world does not constitute infinity, nor does our solar system, nor does the immeasurable expanse our physical senses can take cognisance of. All these and more are but an infinitesimal atom of the Absolute Infinity. The idea of personality is limited to our physical senses which, belonging as they do to the Rupa Loka (world of forms), must perish, since we see no permanent form anywhere. All is liable to change, and the more we live in transient personality, the more we incur the danger of final death, or total annihilation. It is only the seventh principle, the Adi Buddha, that is the Absolute Reality. The objective stand-point, however, adds further that Dharma, the vehicle of the seventh principle or its Upadhi, is co-existent with its Lord and Master, the Adi Buddha; because it says nothing can come out of nothing. A more correct form of expressing the idea would be that in the state of Pralaya the sixth principle exists in the seventh as an eternal potentiality to be manifested during the period of cosmic activity. Viewed in this light both the seventh and the sixth principles are Eternal Realities, although it would be more correct to say that the seventh principle is the only Reality, since it re mains immutable both during cosmic activity as also during cosmic rest, while the sixth principle, the Upadhi, although absorbed into the seventh during Pralaya, is changing during Manvantara, first differentiating to return to its undifferentiated condition as the time for Pralaya approaches. It was from this standpoint that Mr. Subba Row was arguing in his article on “A Personal and an Impersonal God,”* which was meant as a reply to Mr. Hume, who was then talking of the Arhat Philosophy.
Now the Vedantin
doctrine says that Parabrahm is the Absolute Reality which never changes and is
thus identical with the Adi Buddha of the Arhats. While Mulaprakriti is that
aspect of Para-
——————
* This article appeared in The Theosophist, Feb. and March, 1883, as a Reply to an article by H. X. (A. 0. Hume), The Theosophist, Dec., 1882.—Eds.
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brahm, which at the time of Manvantara emanates from itself Purusha and Prakriti, and which thus undergoes change during the period of cosmic activity. As Purusha is force, which remains immutable throughout, it is that aspect of Mulaprakriti which is identical with Parabrahm. Hence it is that Purusha is said to be the same as Parabrahm, or the Absolute Reality. While Prakriti, the dif-ferentiated cosmic matter, constantly undergoes change, and is thus impermanent, forming the basis of phenomenal evolution. This is a purely subjective stand-point from which Mr. Subba Row was arguing with the late Swami of Almora who professed to be an Adwaitee. A careful reader will thus perceive that there is no contradiction involved in Mr. Subba Row’s statements, when he says from the objective standpoint that Mulaprakriti and Purusha are eternal, and when again from a subjective standpoint he says that Purusha is the only eternal Reality. His critic has unconsciously mixed up the two stand-points by culling extracts from two different articles written from two different points of view and imagines that Mr. Subba Row has made an error.
Attention must now be turned to the idea of the Dhyan Chohans. It has been already stated above that the sixth and the seventh principles are the same in all, and this idea will be clear to every one who reads carefully the foregoing remarks. It has also been added that the sixth principle, being a differentiation of Mulaprakriti, is personal, however exalted and ubiquitous that personality may be. In the Adwaitee Philosophy the Dhyan Chohans correspond to Iswara, the Demiurgus. There is no conscious Iswara outside of the 7th principle of Manu as vulgarly understood. This was the idea Mr. Subba Row meant to convey when he said:—“expressions implying the existence of a conscious Iswara which are to be found here and there in the Upanishads, are not to be literally construed.” Mr. Subba Row’s statement is therefore neither “perfectly inexplicable,” nor “audacious,” as it is consistent with the teaching of Sankara-charya. The Dhyan Chohans, who represent the aggregate cosmic intelligence, are the immediate artificers of the worlds, and are thus identical with Iswara or the Demiurgic Mind. But their consciousness and intelligence, pertaining as they do to the sixth and the seventh states of matter, are as such as we cannot cognise, so long as we prefer to remain in our isolation and do not transfer our individuality to the sixth and the seventh principles. As artificers of the worlds, they are the primary principle
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of the Universe, although they are at the same time the result of Cosmic Evolution. It is an incorrect understanding of the consciousness of Dhyan Chohans that has given rise to the current vulgar notion of God. Little do the dogmatic theists realise that it is within their power to become Dhyan Chohans or Iswara, or at least they have the latent potentiality in them to rise to that spiritual eminence if they will but work with Nature. They know not themselves, and thus allow themselves to be carried away and buried under a sense of personal isolation, looking upon Nature as something apart from themselves. They thus isolate themselves from the spirit of Nature, which is the only eternal Absolute Reality and hurry towards their own disintegration.
The reader will now perceive that Esoteric Buddhism is not a system of material-ism. It is, as Mr. Sinnett calls it, “transcendental Materialism” which is non-materialism just as the absolute consciousness is non-consciousness and the absolute personality, of which Mr. Massey talks, is non-personality.
Mr. Massey’s description of evolution from the idealist stand point, with which his pamphlet closes, no occultist will disagree with. The book shows such various phases of thought that different portions must evidently have been written at different times. It is undoubtedly a valuable addition to the existing literature on the subject and will be read with extreme interest by the students of “The metaphysical basis of Esoteric Buddhism.”
DAMODAR K. MAVALANKAR
Theosophist, May, 1884
THE popular idea seems to be that the planets and the stars exercise a certain influence upon the destiny of man, which the science of Astrology can determine; and that there are means within the reach of that science which can be used to propitiate “the evil stars.” This crude notion, not philosophically understood, leads to two unscientific fallacies. On the one hand it gives rise to a belief in the doctrine of fatality, which says that man has no free-will inasmuch as everything is predetermined, and on the other it leads one to suppose that the laws of Nature are not immutable, since certain propitiatory rites may change the ordinary course of events. These two extreme views induce the “rationalist” to reject “Astrology” as a remnant of the uncivilized condition of our ancestors, since as a matter-of-fact student he refuses to recognize the importance of the saying, “Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.” It is an axiom of the philosophic student that truth generally lies between the extremes. If one therefore proceeds in this spirit, he will find that there is yet not an unreasonable or unscientific hypothesis which can reconcile all these different views, and which, not unlikely, was what the ancients meant by Astrology.
Although a study
of this science may enable one to determine what the course of events will be,
it cannot necessarily be inferred therefrom that the planets exercise any
influence over that course. The clock indicates, it does not influence, the
time. And a distant traveller has often to put right his clock so that it may
indicate correctly the time of the place he visits. Thus, though the planets may
have no hand in changing the destiny of the man, still their position may
indicate what that destiny is likely to be. This hypothesis leads us to the
question, “What is destiny?” As understood by the Occultist, it is merely the
chain of causation producing its correspondential series of effects. One who has
carefully followed the teachings of Occultism, as recently given out, concerning
Devachan and future re-births, knows that every individual is his own creator or
his own father, i.e., our future personality will be the result of our pres-
——————
Note—This article appeared in the Theosophist as a commentary on another writer’s review of an “elementary work on Astrology.”—Eds.
58
ent mode of living. In the same manner our present birth, with all its conditions, is the tree grown out of the germ sown in our past incarnations. Our physical and spiritual conditions are the effects of our actions produced on those two planes in previous existences. Now it is a well-known principle of Occultism that the ONE LIFE which pervades ALL connects all the bodies in space. All heavenly bodies have this mutual relation, which is blended with man’s existence, since he is but a microcosm in the macrocosm. Every thought, as much as action, is dynamic and is impressed in the imperishable Book of Nature—the Akasa, the objective aspect of the UNMANIFESTED LIFE. All our thoughts and actions thus produce the vibrations in space, which mould our future career. And astrology is a science which, having determined the nature of the laws that govern these vibrations, is able to state precisely a particular or a series of results, the causes of which have already been produced by the individual in his previous life.
Since the present incarnation is the child of the previous one, and since there is but that ONE SELF which holds together all the planets of the Solar system, the position of those planets at the time of the birth of an individual—which event is the aggregate result of the causes already produced—gives to the true Astrologer the data upon which to base his predictions. It should be well remembered at the same time that just as the “astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe,” so also can no astrologer, no more than the planet, influence the human destiny. Perhaps the following beautiful passage from the exquisite work of Bulwer Lytton’s Zanoni, may help to make the meaning clearer:
For the accomplishment of whatever is great and lofty, the clear perception of truths is the first requisite—truths adapted to the object desired. The warrior thus reduces the chances of battle to combinations almost of mathematics. He can predict a result, if he can but depend upon the materials he is forced to employ.
This necessitates a consideration of the element of clairvoyance necessary to constitute a true astrologer.
The ancient Rishis, to condemn whose books without a hearing was till recently a general practice, had by observation, experiment and deep occult knowledge, taken account of all conceivable combinations of various causes and determined with mathematical precision, almost to an infinitesimal point their effects. But yet,
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since the cosmos is infinite, no finite being can ever take cognisance of all the possibilities of Nature; at any rate they cannot be committed to writing, since as Isis Unveiled says: “to express divine ideas, divine language is necessary.” Recognizing the truth of this most important but unfortunately often neglected axiom, they laid down as the first condition to success in astrology a pure life, physically, morally and spiritually. This was intended to develop the psychic capacities of the astrologer who could thus see in Akasa the combinations, not alluded to in the written works, and predict their results in the manner beautifully illustrated in the above extract from Zanoni.
In short, true Astrology is a mathematical science, which teaches us what particular causes will produce what particular combinations, and thus, understood in its real significance, gives us the means of obtaining the knowledge how to guide our future births. True, [of] such astrologers there are but few: but are we justified in condemning the science of electricity because there may be very few real electricians? We must not at the same time lose sight of the fact that although there are numberless combinations which must be determined by the psychic vision of the astrologer, there are yet a very large number of them which have been determined and put on record by the ancient sages. It is these cases which baffle us when we find that some astrological calculations prove correct while others are quite beside the mark.
Theosophist, June, 1884
As every one knows, in all the great religions of old time, there were certain grades among the devotees, and the successive steps by which these grades were attained were marked off by initiation into the mysteries.
Such initiations still exist among the votaries of the Wisdom-Religion and, being by their very nature involved in the most profound mystery, much curiosity has been awakened as to their precise character. There are many who seem to look upon initiation as a purely mechanical process which depends solely upon the will of the initiator, and some seem inclined to blame the stewards of the mysteries for not publishing whatever knowledge they may possess as widely as possible, so that it may be within the reach of any individual of an enquiring turn of mind.
The really important part of initiation is however the fitness of the candidate himself. Just as it is said in the Bible that new wine put into old bottles is liable to burst those bottles, so, in like manner, if esoteric knowledge is imparted too far in advance of the progress already made, the mental balance of the candidate will be upset and madness is liable to supervene.
Hence the attitude we should adopt is not so much one of an intense desire for initiation—often but a form of ambition, the wish to be wiser than our fellows—as an intense determination to do everything in our power to fit ourselves for reception as initiates.
If it is true that “the whole universe is an aggregate of states of conscious-ness,” it would seem to follow that the real difference between one who is an initiate and one who is not lies in the fact that the former looks at all things from a totally different stand point to the majority of men. It is not that he has acquired certain items of knowledge that others do not possess, such as the way to manipulate the hidden forces of nature, but that he is on a higher plane of consciousness altogether. If such a higher plane has been attained, it will follow that his whole range of ideas will differ
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from that of others and he will be sensible of the operation of causes of a more far-reaching character than those cognized by others. He will be as it were in the possession of higher and superior information and so will be able to form juster conclusions and this fact alone will give him enormous power.
The action of the entire universe is but a detailed manifestation and example of the action of mind on matter, governed at the highest point by the action of the universal mind. Between the finite human mind of the ordinary uninitiated individual and this universal mind lie an infinite number of gradually ascending degrees, and the higher the plane of consciousness the nearer is the approach to the universal mind which is, as it were, the main spring of the whole. Although there are no hard and fast lines in nature yet these various grades may be marked off into great main divisions; and it is the successive attainment of these, one after the other that is represented by the degrees of initiation. When one plane of experience has been exhausted, there is needed, as it were, a fresh impulse to enable us to go on higher and this it is that is supplied at the time of initiation.
ALPHA
Theosophist, June, 1886
VII
[Unfortunately, this concluding installment of H.P.B.’s article, “Le Phare de l’Inconnu,” which first appeared in La Revue Theosophique, was omitted from the first volume of H.P.B.’s periodical writings. Since it will doubtless be years before another edition of her Theosophical Articles will be required, we reprint here Part VII of “Le Phare,” in partial correction of the mistake.—Eds]
WE hope that we have by this time sufficiently refuted in these pages several grave misconceptions of our doctrine and beliefs; that amongst others which insists in regarding Theosophists,—those, at least, who have founded the Society,— as polytheists or atheists. We are neither one or other, any more than certain Gnostics were, who, while believing in the existence of planetary, solar and lunar gods, offered no prayers to them nor dedicated any altars. Not believing in a personal god, outside of man who is the temple thereof according to Paul and other Initiates, we believe in an impersonal and absolute Principle,* so far beyond human conception, that we see nothing less than a blasphemer and presumptuous madman in anyone who tries to define that great universal Mystery. All that has been taught us about this eternal and unique spirit, is that, it is not spirit, nor matter, nor substance, nor thought, but is the container of all those things, the absolute container. In a word, it is the “God nothing” of Basilides, so little understood even by the learned and ingenious annalists of the Musée Guimet (Vol. XIV), who define the term somewhat satirically when they speak of this “god nothing, who has ordained and foreseen everything, although he has neither reason nor will.”
Yes, truly, and
this “god nothing,” being identical with the Parabrahm of the Vedantins—the
grandest as well as the most philosophical of conceptions—is
identical also with the AIN-S0PH of the
——————
* This belief only concerns those who think as I do. Every Fellow has the right to believe what he likes, and how he likes. As we have said elsewhere, the Theosophical Society is “the Republic of Conscience.”
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Jewish Kabalists. The latter is also “the god who is not,” “Ain” signifying non-being or the Absolute, the nothing or Tò ouvév én of Basilides: that is to say, the human intelligence being limited on this material plane, cannot conceive anything that is, which does not exist under any form. The idea of a being being limited to something which exists, either in substance,—actual or potential,—or in the nature of things, or only in our ideas; that which cannot be perceived by the senses, or conceived by our intellect that conditions everything, does not exist for us.
“Where, then, do you locate Nirvana, Oh great Arhat?” asked a king of a venerable Buddhist ascetic whom he was questioning about the Good Law.
“Nowhere, Oh great king,” was the reply.
“Nirvana, then, does not exist?” said the king.
“Nirvana is, but it does not exist,” answered the ascetic.
The same is true of the God “who is not,” a faulty literal translation, for one ought to read esoterically “the god who does not exist but who is.” For the root of oúdév is oúd-eis and means “and not somebody,” which signifies that which is spoken of is not a person or any thing, but the negative of both (oúdév, neuter, is employed as an adverb; “in nothing”). Therefore the to ouden en of Basilides is absolutely identical with the En or “Ain-Soph” of the Kabalists. In the religious metaphysics of the Hebrews, the Absolute is an abstraction, “without form or existence,” “with out any likeness to anything else.” (Franck, Le Kabbale, p. 153, 596.) “God therefore is NOTHING, nameless, and without qualities; that is why it is called AIN-SOPH, for the word AIN signifies nothing.” (Franck, Le Kabbale, p. 153, 196.)
It is not from
this immutable and absolute principle, which is only in posse,*
that the gods, or active principles of the manifested universe, emanate. The
Absolute neither having, nor being able to have, any relation with the
conditioned or the limited, that from which the emanations proceed is the “God
that speaks” of Basilides: that is to say, the Logos, which Philo calls “the
second God,” and the creator of forms. “The second God is the Wisdom of God
ONE.” (Qurœst.
et salut.) “But is this Logos, the ‘Wisdom,’ always an emanation?” it will be
asked, “for to make something emanate from NOTHING is an absurdity.” Not in the
least. In the first
——————
* “Qui n’est qu’en puissance d’être.”
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place, this “nothing,” is a nothing, because it is the Absolute, and consequently the WHOLE. In the next place, this “second God” is no more an emanation than the shadow that our body casts upon a white wall is an emanation of that body. At all events this God is not the effect of a cause or an act that is reasoned, or of conscious and deliberate will. It is the periodical effect╫ of an eternal and immutable law, independent of time and space, and of which the Logos or creative intelligence is the shadow or the reflection.
“But that idea is ridiculous!” We fancy we hear the believers in a personal and anthropomorphic God declare, “Of the two—man and his shadow—it is the latter which is nothing, an optical illusion; and the man who projects it is the intelligence, although passive in this case!”
Quite so; but that is true only
upon our plane, where all is but illusion; where everything is reversed, like
things seen in a mirror. For, since the domain of the real is for us, whose
perceptions are falsified by matter, the unreal; and, since, from the point of
view of the Absolute Reality, the universe with all its conscious and
intelligent inhabitants is but a poor phantasmagoria, it follows that it is the
shadow of the Real, upon the plane of this latter, that is endowed with
intelligence and attributes; while the Absolute, from our point of view, is
deprived of all conditioned qualities, by the very fact that it is the
absolute. One need not be versed in Oriental metaphysics to understand all
that; and it is not necessary to be a distinguished palæographer or palæologist
to see that the system of Basilides is that of the Vedantins, however twisted
and disfigured it may be by the author of Philosophumena. That it is so is
conclusively proved even by the fragmentary resumé of the Gnostic systems which
that work gives us. It is only the esoteric doctrine that can explain what is
incomprehensible and chaotic in the little understood system of Basilides, such
as it has been transmitted to us by the Fathers of the Church, those
executioners of Heresies. The Pater innatus or God not begotten, the
great Archon (‘Apxwv),
and the two Demiurgoi, even the three hundred and sixty-five heavens, the number
contained in the name of Abraxas their ruler,—all
that was derived from the Indian systems. But this is denied by our pessimistic
century, in which everything goes by
——————
╫ For him at least who believes in an uninterrupted succession of “creations,” which we call “the days and nights of Brahmâ,” or the Manvantaras, and Pralayas (dissolutions).
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steam, even human life; in which nothing that is abstract,—which only is eternal,—interests anyone except a handful of eccentrics, and in which man dies, without having lived for one moment in the presence of his own soul,—swept away as he is by the whirl wind of egoistic and mundane affairs.
Apart from metaphysics, however, each person who enters the Theosophical Society can find therein a science and an occupation to his taste. An astronomer could make more scientific discoveries by studying the allegories and symbols relating to each star,* in the old Sanscrit books, than he could ever make by the aid only of Academies. A doctor who had intuition would learn more from the works of Charaka,╫ translated into Arabic in the 8th century, or in the dusty manuscripts to be found in the Adyar Library,—not understood like all the rest,—than in modern works on physiology. Theosophists interested in medicine, or the art of healing, might do worse than consult the legends and symbols revealed and explained through Asclepios or Æsculapius. For, just as Hypocrates consulted the votive tablets at the temple of Epidaurus, (surnamed the Tholos) at Cos,╪ so could they find therein prescriptions for compounding remedies unknown to the modern pharmaccepia.§ From thenceforth they might perhaps cure, instead of killing.
Let us repeat for the hundredth time: The Truth is one! but the moment it is presented, not under all its aspects, but according to the thousand and one opinions which its servants form about it, it is no longer the divine TRUTH, but the confused echo of human voices. Where can one look for it as a whole, even approximately? Is it among the Christian Kabalists, or the modern European Occultists? Or among the Spiritists of to-day, or the early spiritualists?
A friend said to
us one day, “In France there are as many systems as there are Kabalists. Here
they all pretend to be Christ-
——————
* Every god or goddess of the 333,000,000, that compose the Hindu Pantheon, is represented by a star. As the number of the stars and constellations known to astronomers hardly reach that figure, one might suspect that the ancient Hindus knew more stars than the moderns.
╫ Charaka was a physician of the Vedic period. A legend represents him as the incarnation of the Serpent of Vishnu, under the name of Secha, who reigned in Patala (the infernal regions).
╪ Straho, XIV, 2, 19. See also Pausan, II, 27.
§ It is known that those who were cured in the Asclepieia left pious memorials in the temples; that they had the names of their maladies and of the medicines that cured them engraved upon plates. A number of these tablets have lately been dug up in the Acropolis. See L’Asclepieion d’Athens M. P. Girard, Paris, Thorin, 1881.
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ians. There are some of them who are all for the Pope, to the point of dreaming about a universal crown for him,—that of a Pontif-Cæsar Others are against the papacy, but in favour of a Christ, not indeed the historical Christ, but one created by their imagination, an intriguing (“politiquant”) and anti-Cæsarian Christ, and so forth. Every Kabalist believes that he has rediscovered the lost Truth. It is always his own science that is the eternal Truth, and every other nothing but a mirage; and he is always ready to support or defend it with the point of his pen.”
“But the Jewish Kabalists,” I asked, “are they also in favour of Christ?”
“Well, they have their own Messiah. It is only a question of dates.”
There can, indeed, be no anachronisms in Eternity. The only thing is, that since all these variations of terms and systems, all these contradictory teachings, cannot contain the true Truth, I do not see how our friends, the French Kabalists, can pretend to a knowledge of the Occult Sciences. They have the Kabala of Moses de Leon,* compiled in the 13st. century; but his Zohar, compared with the “Book of Numbers” of the Chaldeans, represents the work of the Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochai, about as much as the Pimander of the Greek Christians represents the true Egyptian Book of Thoth. The ease with which the Kabala of Rosenroth and its mediæval Latin manuscripts, when read by the system of Notarion, transform themselves into Christian and Trinitarian texts, is like an effect in a fairy scene. Between the Marquis de Mirville and his friend the Chevalier Drach, a converted Rabbi, the “good Kabala” has become a Catechism of the Church of Rome. The Kabalists may be satisfied therewith if they like; we prefer to stick to the Kabala of the Chaldeans, the “Book of Numbers.”
Whoever is
satisfied with the dead letter, may wrap himself up in the mantle of the Tanaim
(the ancient initiates of Israel); in the eyes of the experienced occultist he
will never be anything but the wolf disguised in the nightcap of Little Red
Riding Hood’s grand mother. But the wolf will not gobble up occultism as he does
——————
* The same who compiled the Zohar of Simeon ben Iochai, the originals dating from the first centuries having been lost. He has been falsely accused of inventing what he has written. He collated all he could find, but he supplemented from his own resources where passages were wanting, with the help of the Christian Gnostics of Chaldea and Syria.
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Little Red Riding Hood, symbol of the profane outsider athirst after mysticism. It is the “wolf” more likely who will perish, by falling into his own trap.
Like the Bible, the Kabalistic books have their dead letter, the exoteric sense, and their true or esoteric meaning. The key to the true symbolism, which is that also of the Hindu systems, is hidden to-day beyond the gigantic peaks of the Himalayas. No other key can open the sepulchres where, interred thousands of years ago, lie the intellectual treasures which were deposited there by the primitive interpreters of the divine Wisdom. But the great cycle, the first of the Kali Yuga, is at its end; the day of resurrection for all these dead cannot be far away. The great Swedish seer, Emmanuel Swedenborg, said: “Look for the lost word among the hierophants of Great Tartary and Tibet.”
However much appearances may be against the Theosophical Society, however unpopular it may be among those who hold all innovation in horror, one thing is certain. That which our enemies look upon as an invention of the 19th century, is as old as the world. Our Society is the tree of Brotherhood sprung from a seed planted in the world by the angel of Charity and of Justice, on the day when the first Cain killed the first Abel. During the long centuries of the slavery of woman and the misery of the poor, this seed was watered by all the bitter tears shed by the weak and the oppressed. Blessed hands have replanted this seed in one corner of the earth and another, and in different climes, and at epochs far apart. “Do not to another the thing thou wouldst not he should do to thee,” said Confucius to his disciples. “Love one another, and love every living creature,” preached the Lord Buddha to his Arhats. “Love one another,” was repeated like a faithful echo in the streets of Jerusalem. To the Christian nation belongs the honour of having obeyed this supreme commandment of their master, in a particularly paradoxical fashion! Caligula, the pagan, wished that mankind had only one head that he might cut it off with a single blow. The Christian powers have improved upon this idea, which remained only in theory, by seeking for, and at last finding a means to put it in practice. Let them make ready to cut each other’s throats; let them continue to exterminate in one day in their wars more men than the Cæsars killed in a year; let them depopulate whole countries and provinces in the name
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of their paradoxical religions, and let those who kill with the sword perish by the sword themselves. What have we to do with all that?
Theosophists are powerless to stop them. Be it so. But it is their business to save as many of the survivors as possible. Nucleus of a true Brotherhood, it depends upon them to make their Society a bridge destined in the near future to carry the humanity of the new cycle beyond the muddy waters of the deluge of hopeless materialism. These waters rise continuously, and at this moment are inundating all civilized countries. Shall we leave the good to perish with bad, terrified by the clamours and mocking cries of the latter, whether against the Theosophical Society or ourselves? Shall we watch them perish one after the other,—this one of lassitude, that one unable to obtain a ray of the sun that shines for every one,—without stretching to them a plank of safety?—Never!
It may be that the beautiful Utopia, the dream of the philanthropist who sees as in a vision the accomplishment of the triple desire of the Theosophical Society, may be far off. Full and entire liberty of conscience allowed to all, fraternity reigning between the rich and the poor, equality recognized in theory and practice between the aristocrat and the plebeian,—are still so many castles in the air and for a good reason. All this must come about naturally and voluntarily on both sides, but the time has not yet arrived for the lion and the lamb to lie down together. The great reform must take place without any social shocks, without a drop of blood being spilled; which can happen in no other way than by the recognition and the axiomatic truth of Oriental Philosophy, which teaches us that the great diversity of fortune, of social rank and of intellect, is due but to the personal Karma of each human being. We reap only what we have sown. If the personality of each physical man differs from that of every other, the immortal individuality, or immaterial being in him, emanates from the same divine essence, as does that of his neighbours. He who is thoroughly impressed with the philosophic truth that every Ego begins and ends by being the indivisible WHOLE, cannot love his neighbor less than he does himself. But, until this becomes a religious truth, no such reform can take place. The egoistical proverb: “Charity begins at home,” or that other one: “Every one for himself and God for us all,” will always impel “superior”
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and Christian races to oppose the practical realization of this beautiful pagan saying: “The poor man is the son of the rich one,” and still more that which tells us, “Give to eat first to him that is hungry, and take that which remains for thyself.”
But the time is coming when this “barbarian” wisdom of the “inferior” races will be better appreciated. What we must try to do in the meantime is to bring a little peace into the world, in the hearts of those who suffer, by raising for them a corner of the veil which hides the divine truth. Let those who are strongest show the road to those who are weaker, and help them to climb the steep hill of life; and let them teach these to fix their eyes on the Beacon which shines on the horizon like a new star of Bethlehem beyond the mysterious and unknown sea of the Theosophical Sciences,—and let the disinherited ones of life recover hope.
H. P. BLAVATSKY
(The end.)
(Translated from “Le Revue Theosophique.”)
Theosophist, October, 1889
[During the years when H.P.B. was editor of the Theosophist, she often appended notes of comment, criticism, and elaboration to statements made by other writers. The frequency of these notes makes it possible to select and arrange many of them in sequence, as collations on various subjects, thus making their valuable content available to students.—Eds.]
The Theosophists not having as yet studied all these Bhasyas [ commentaries mentioned by a contributor] have no intention to uphold any particular sectarian school. They leave this to the pandits, for whose especial benefit, among others, this journal was founded. A great American quarterly—the North American Review—adopts the plan of submitting some famous contributor’s manuscript to one or more equally famous writers of very antagonistic views, and then printing all of the criticisms together. By this wise device, the reader of the magazine is able to see what can be said of a given subject from every point of view. We will do likewise. . . . [I, 88.]
We hold no views at all on anything “beyond mortal ken.” Claiming the possession of our full senses, we can neither prove nor disprove that which is beyond the knowledge of mortal man, leaving all speculations and theories thereon to emotional enthusiasts endowed with blind faith that creates self-delusion and hallucinations. [IV, 186 fn.]
In our humble opinion, since there cannot be but one and only Truth, the thousand and one interpretations by different sectarians of the same and one thing are simply the outward and evanescent appearances or aspects of that which is too dazzling (or perchance too dark and too profound) for mortal eye to correctly distinguish and describe. As already remarked by us in Isis Unveiled the multitudinous creeds and faiths have all been derived from one primitive source. TRUTH standing as the one white ray of light, it is decomposed by the prism into various and eye-deceiving colours of the solar spectrum. Combined, the aggregate of all those endless human interpretations—shoots and offshoots—represent one eter-
74
nal truth; separate, they are but shades of human error and the signs of human blindness and imperfection. However, all such publications are useful, since they fill the arena of discussion with new combatants and that truth can be reached at but after the explosion of innumerable errors. [IV 197.]
Few have identical beliefs, and every religionist of whatever faith is firmly impressed with the truth and superiority of his own creed, with no regard whatever for the truths possibly contained in that of his brother—the result is, that sectarianism is kept ever alive, with no chance in it for mutual toleration—least of all, feelings of Brotherhood. [IV 274 fn.] Each of them [Theosophist] believes in whatever he likes, and there is no one to interfere with his private beliefs. The Theosophical Society is no school of sectarianism and holds to no special dogmas. . . . {V, 29 fn.]
When challenged to give out our views, we do so, adding every time that they are our own personal views: and as such—since we do not believe ourselves infallible—are not to be taken as final truths. Instead of preaching our own religion, we implore every one to first study his own and remain in it, whatever it is. Besides which, theosophy is compatible with every religion, the world over. There were thaumaturgists in every creed, and mysticism has as much room in idolatrous as in monotheistic systems. Theosophy is the culmination and the practical demonstration of the truths underlying every creed. It requires but sincerity and a firm will in the application to the Essentials of any of them—whether they be Theism or Adwaitism or even Atheism. Theosophy is simply the informing life of creed and of every religion and goes to prove their raison d’etre, instead of their negation. [IV 274 fn.]
The inaugural addresses of the respective presiding officers of the Ionian and Bombay Branches of the Theosophical Society, so well illustrate its policy of mutual tolerance and confraternity. Here we see the Italian thinker moved by the same lofty aspirations for individual perfection and the happiness and enlightenment of man kind, as the Parsi thinker of Bombay. And though the one conceives of the First Cause, or Deity, quite differently from the other, whose ancestors from time immemorial have worshipped the Sun as a visible type of Hormazd, yet a common religious feeling moves the heart of each, and a common instinct makes him see the way upward towards the truth brighter and clearer by the light of The The-
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osophy. Ours is not an atheistical society, though it does contain atheists; nor is it a Christian one, even though our brother Dr. Wyld, President of the British Theosophical Society, would have us accept Jesus as the most divine personage that ever appeared among men. Our Fellows are of the most varied opinions; and each has a right to claim respect for his ideas as he is bound to respect those of his brothers. We have presidents who are severally Christian, Deist, Buddhist, Hindu and Atheist; none dogmatizers, none claiming to be wiser or more infallible than the other, yet each taking the other by the hand, calling him brother, and helping him and being helped in the divine quest after knowledge. Nor are all, or even a large minority, students of occult sciences, for rarely is the true mystic born. Few, alas! have they ever been, who so yearned after the discovery of Nature’s secrets as to be willing to pursue that hard and unselfish course of study: and our own century can show fewer than any of its predecessors. As to the secrets of the Theosophical Society, when we mention the masonic—like signs of recognition, and the privacy secured for the handful who do make their experiments in psychological science, all has been said. The Parent Society is, in one word, a Republic of Conscience, a brother-hood of men in search of the Absolute Truth. As was sufficiently explained in our opening October number, every one of us professes to be ready to help the other, whatever the branch of science or religion to which his personal predilections may lead him. [I 298.]
The Theosophical Society requires no oaths:
The Theosophical Society requires no oaths, as it deems no pledge more binding than the word of honour. [I, 35 fn.]
The comprehension of what occult science really is, has spread in Europe so very imperfectly as yet, that we must not be m patient. . . European mystics, when further advanced in the tedious study of unintelligible books, will often be hardest to persuade that they must go back some distance on the paths they have travelled, before they can strike into those which lead to the fully illuminated regions of Eastern knowledge. They are naturally loath to confess that much time has been wasted; they try to make the fragments of esoteric Eastern philosophy they may pick up here and there, fit into the vacant places in the scheme of
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things they have painfully constructed for themselves, and when the fragments will not fit, they are apt to think the corners want paring down here and there, and the hollows, filling up. The situation which the European mystic does not realise is this:—The Eastern occult philosophy is the great block of solid truth from which the quaint, exoteric mysticism of the outer world has been casually thrown off from time to time, in veiled and symbolical shapes. These hints and suggestions of mystic philosophy may be likened to the grains of gold in rivers, which early explorers used to think betokened somewhere in the mountains from which the rivers sprang, vast beds of the precious metal. The occult philosophy with which some people in India are privileged to be in contact, may be likened to the parent deposits. Students will be altogether on a wrong track as long as they check the statements of Eastern philosophy by reference to the teachings and conceptions of any other systems. In saying this we are not imitating the various religionists who claim that salvation can only be had within the pale of their own small church. We are not saying that Eastern philosophy is right and everybody else is wrong, but that Eastern philosophy is the main stream of knowledge concerning things spiritual and eternal, which has come down in an unbroken flood through all the life of the world. That is the demonstrable position which we, occultists of the Theosophical Society, have firmly taken up, and all archaeological and literary research in matters connected with the earliest religions and philosophies of historical ages helps to fortify it. The casual growths of mystic knowledge in this or that country and period, may or may not be faithful reflections of the actual, central doctrines; but, whenever they seem to bear some resemblance to these, it may be safely conjectured that at least they are reflections, which owe what merit they possess to the original light from which they derive their own. [III, 81.]
Since beginning our Indian work, we have never publicly preached our private religious views. It would be well, if this fact were never lost sight of. Colonel Olcott, in addressing audiences of various religious faiths, has always tried to put himself, for the moment in the mental attitude of believer in that faith which his audience represented, and to bring prominently before their minds the highest standard of morals and attainable wisdom which it contains. Thus, he has, to the Parsis, shown the magnificence of ancient Mazdianism; to the Hindus, the splendours of Aryan
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philosophy, &c. And this, not from a poor desire to indiscriminately please, but from the deep conviction, shared by us both, that there is truth in every religion, and that every sincere devotee of any faith should be respected in that devotion, and helped to see whatever of good his faith contains. [III, 237.] Our journal is absolutely unsectarian and equally open to every sincere and honest defender and advocate of his own faith—whatever the latter may be. We are devoted admirers of the Vedas, holding it in veneration as the oldest, and, as we believe, the wisest book of the world. although its mystical and allegorical language needs the interpretation of one who thoroughly understands its Spirit. As we do not feel competent to decide which of the various and many interpreters is the right one, we try to be impartial to all and let every sect (with the exception of the “Maharaja sect,” of course) advocate its own cause before the public....
The Rules of our Society strictly forbid its Founders and the Presidents of its many Branches to advocate either in our journal, or at mixed and general meetings, any one religion in preference to any other. We are all upon neutral ground, and even our own personal religious leanings or preferences have nothing to do and must not interfere with the general work. We preach and advocate an incessant and untiring search for TRUTH, and are ever ready to receive and accept it from whatever quarter. We are all enquirers and never offered ourselves as teachers, except in so far as to teach mutual tolerance, kindness and reciprocal enlightenment and a firm resistance to bigotry and arrogant conceit whether in RELIGION OR SCIENCE [III, Supplement, October, p. 4].
To say that offering knowledge or discoveries of any sort to the Masters of Occult philosophy is carrying coals to Newcastle, is to say nothing. There may be some small details of modern science which occult philosophy has not anticipated (centuries ago), but if so, that can only be because the genius of occult philosophy leads it to deal with the main lines of principle and to care as a rule very little for details—as little as for the material advantage or comfort they may be designed to subserve. Such broad conceptions as the theory of evolution, for example, have not only been long ago known to Eastern occultists, but as developed in Europe, are now recognized by them as the first faltering step of modern science in the direction of certain grand principles with which they have been familiar,—we will not venture to say since when. . . . If the Euro-
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pean scientists whose fancy has for the first time been caught, within these last few years, by the crude outlines of an evolutionary theory, were less blankly ignorant of all that appertains to the mysteries of life, they would not be misled by some bits of knowledge concerning the evolution of the body, into entirely absurd conclusions concerning the other principles which enter into the constitution of Man.
But we are on the threshold of a far mightier subject than any reader in Europe who has not made considerable progress in real occult study, is likely to estimate in all its appalling magnitude. Will any one who has perused with only some of the attention it really deserves the article we published but two months ago {Theosophist, October, 1881] under the title “Fragments of Occult Truth” make an effort to account, in his own mind, even in the most shadowy and indistinct way, for the history of the six higher principles in any human creature, during the time when his body was being gradually perfected, so to speak, in the matrix of evolution. Where, and what were his higher spiritual principles when the body had worked into no more dignified shape than that of a ba boon? Of course, the question is put with a full recognition of the collateral errors implied in the treatment of a single human being as the apex of a series of forms, but even supposing that physical evolution were as simple a matter as that how to account for the final presence in the perfected human body of a spiritual soul?—or to go a step back in the process, how to account for the presence of the animal soul in the first creature with independent volition that emerges from the half vegetable condition of the earlier forms? Is it not obvious, if the blind materialist is not to be accepted as a sufficient guide to the mysteries of the universe,—if there really are these higher principles in Man of which we speak, that there must be some vast process of spiritual evolution going on in the universe pari passu with the physical evolution?. . . [III, 81.]
No more than any given material form is destined to infinite perpetuation can the finer organisms which constitute the higher principles of living creatures be doomed to unchangeability. What has become of the particles of matter which composed the physical bodies of “man’s predecessors on the earth”? They have long ago been ground over in the laboratory of Nature, and have entered into the composition of other forms. And the idea or design of the earlier forms has risen into superior idea or design which has
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impressed itself on later forms. So also, though the analogy may give us no more than a cloudy conception of the course of events, it is manifest that the higher principles, once united with the earlier forms, must have developed in their turn also. Along what infinite spirals of gradual ascent the spiritual evolution has been accomplished, we will not stop now to consider. Enough to point out the direction in which thought should proceed, and some few considerations which may operate to check European thinkers from too readily regarding the realms of spirit as a mere phantasmagorical cemetery, where shades of the Earth’s buried inhabitants doze for ever in an aimless trance. [III, 82.]
For the present we merely throw out hints and endeavour to provoke thought and enquiry; to attempt in this casual manner, a complete exposition of the conclusions of Eastern philosophy. . . would be like starting on a journey to the South Pole apropos to a passing enquiry whether one thought there was land there or not.
[III, 81-2.]
“conjuror, mesmerist, medium or spiritualist!”
To the Editor of the Theosophist
Madame,
On the last page of No. 4 of “Psychic Notes,” a correspondent is made to state that he, together with a few friends “out of mere curiosity and for the fun of the thing,” arranged a series of seances. The first was unsuccessful, but the remaining ones were productive of “proofs innumerable.” And yet none of the parties present was a “conjuror, mesmerist, medium or spiritualist!”
Is this possible? I always thought that the presence of a medium at seances was a necessary condition of manifestations. Or can it be that someone at the seances in question was—if that were possible—an unconscious medium?
Your opinion will be highly valued by
Yours obediently,
H.
The possible explanation of such manifestations can be found only in one of the following three hypotheses:
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(1) The presence of a medium—either conscious or unconscious.
(2) The presence of an adept, or his influence; although no adept would trouble himself with such—(what to him are)—trifles. Or—which is the most probable—
(3) The combined result of the magnetic aura of the persons present, forming a strong battery. This would be very likely to produce such manifestations, whether there were a medium present or not. [III, 162-63.]
Many and varied are the psychic phenomena in life, which unintentionally or otherwise are either attributed to the agency of disembodied “spirits” or entirely and intentionally ignored. By saying this we do not intend at all depriving the spiritual theory of its raison d’être. But beside that theory there exist other manifestations of the same psychic force in man’s daily life, generally disregarded or erroneously looked upon as a result of simple chance or coincidence, for the only reason that we are unable to forthwith assign for it a logical and comprehensive cause though the manifestations undoubtedly bear the impress of a scientific character, evidently belonging, as they do, to that class of psycho-physiological phenomena which, even men of great scientific attainments and such specialists as Dr. Carpenter are now busying themselves with. The cause for this particular phenomenon is to be sought in the occult (yet no less undeniable for it) influence exercised by the active will of one man over the will of an other man, whenever the will of the latter is surprised in a moment of rest or a state of passiveness. We speak now of presentiments. Were every person to pay close attention—in an experimental and scientific spirit of course—to his daily action and watch his thoughts, conversation and resultant acts, and carefully analyze these, omitting no details trifling as they might appear to him, then would he find for the most of these actions and thoughts coinciding reasons based upon mutual psychic influence between the embodied intelligences.
Several instances, more or less familiar to every one through personal experience, might be here adduced. We will give but two. Two friends or even simple acquaintances are separated for years. Suddenly one of them—he who remained at home and who may have never thought of the absent person for years, thinks of that individual. He remembers him without any possible cause or
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reason, and the long-forgotten image sweeping through the silent corridors of MEMORY brings it before his eyes as vividly as if he were there. A few minutes after that, an hour perhaps, that absent person pays the other an unexpected visit. Another instance—A lends to B a book. B having read and laid it aside thinks no more of it, though A requested him to return the work immediately after perusal. Days, perhaps months after that, B’s thought occupied with important business, suddenly reverts to the book, and he remembers his neglect. Mechanically he leaves his place and stepping to his library gets it out, thinking to send it back without fail this once. At the same moment, the door opens, A enters, telling that he had come purposely to fetch his book, as he needed it. Coincidence? Not at all. In the first case it was the thought of the traveller, which, as he had decided upon visiting an old friend or acquaintance, was concentrated upon the other man, and that thought by its very activity proved energetic enough to overpower the then passive thought of the other.
The same explanation stands good in the case of A and B. But Mr. Constantine [a correspondent] may argue, “my late friend’s thought could not influence mine since he was already dead, when I was being irresistibly drawn to Agra.” Our answer is ready. Did not the warmest friendship exist between the writer and the deceased? Had not the latter promised to be with him in “thought and spirit?” And that leads to the positive inference that his thought was strongly pre-occupied before his death, with him whom he had unintentionally disappointed. Sudden as may have been that death, thought is instantaneous and more rapid still. Nay, it surely was a hundredfold intensified at the moment of death. Thought is the last thing that dies or rather fades out in the human brain of a dying person, and thought, as demonstrated by science, is material, since it is but a mode of energy, which itself changes form but is eternal. Hence, that thought whose strength and power are always proportionate to its intensity, became, so to say, concrete and palpable, and with the help of the strong affinity between the two, it enveloped and overpowered the whole sentient and thinking principle in Mr. Constantine subjecting it entirely, and forcing the will of the latter to act in accordance with his desire. The thinking agent was dead, and the instrument lay shattered for ever. But its last sound lived, and could not have completely died out, in the waves of ether.
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Science says, the vibration of one single note of music will linger on in motion through the corridors of all eternity; and theosophy, the last thought of the dying man changes into the man himself; it becomes his eidolon. Mr. Constantine would not have surprised us, nor would he have indeed deserved being accused by the skeptical of either superstition or of having labored under a hallucination had he even seen the image, or the so-called “ghost” of his deceased friend before him. For that “ghost” would have been neither the conscious spirit nor the soul of the dead man; but simply his short—for one instant—thought projected unconsciously and by the sole power of its own intensity in the direction of him who occupied that THOUGHT. [II 188.]
Questions by two correspondents
[The following are replies to questions by two correspondents. Since the questions are sometimes long, argumentative, and of small interest, H.P.B.’s answers and comments have been extracted so that they may be read as independent statements of the philosophy.—Eds.]
We fear our correspondent is labouring under various misconceptions. . . . But we will briefly answer his numbered questions at the close of the letter.
1. Spirit got itself entangled with gross matter for the same reason that life gets entangled with the foetus matter. It followed a law, and therefore could not help the entanglement to occur.
2. We know of no eastern philosophy that teaches that “matter originated out of Spirit.” Matter is as eternal and indestructible as Spirit and one cannot be made cognizant to our senses without the other—even to our, the highest, spiritual sense. Spirit per se is a non-entity and non-existence. It is the negation of every affirmation and of all that is.
3. No one ever held—as far as we know—that Spirit could be annihilated under whatever circumstances. Spirit can get divorced of its manifested matter, its personality, in which case, it is the latter that is annihilated. Nor do we believe that “Spirit breathed out Matter”; but that, on the contrary, it is Matter which manifests Spirit. Otherwise, it would be a puzzle indeed. [IV 89-90].
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To our utter amazement, we are called upon to prove that matter is indestructible; at any rate, that “matter is as eternal and indestructible as spirit!” Though the question and proofs as to the eternity and indestructibility of matter alone, might be safely left to the Royal Society to answer, yet we are fully prepared to satisfy our learned correspondent, and, with his permission, will answer all his queries.
We are asked to bear in mind that the entities in question are “matter and spirit beyond the present developed form, or in the stage of perfect Laya.”
We are unable to understand what is really meant by “spirit beyond the present developed form.” The sentence presents no sense to our mind, trained as it has been by our great masters to think of “Spirit” as of something formless and entirely beyond the ken of our sensual perceptions, and, therefore, not to be considered apart from, or independently of, corporeal existence.
UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE and the ONE LIFE as we call it, conceived of, apart from any physical organization, becomes vital essence, an energy or force; and none of these we believe can be considered as a distinct entity, a substance, or, as having a being or even a form separate from matter. Locke’s definition, that “Spirit is a substance, in which thinking, knowing, doubting and a power of moving do subsist”—would hardly be accepted by the average Vedantee, and would find itself absolutely rejected by every true Adwaitee and Eastern Occultist. The latter would answer that “matter alone is a substance, in which thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of moving, are inherent whether as a latent or active potentiality—and whether that matter is in a differentiated, or an undifferentiated state.”
Thus, in our humble opinion, the something, or rather the no thing, called Spirit, has by itself no form or forms in either progressive or stationary “states of development”; and we say again that the expression is perfectly unintelligible to every real Adwaitee. Even supposing that the qualifying clause refers only to matter, the meaning conveyed by the expression “matter and spirit beyond the present developed form” is the same as conveyed by that of—”matter and spirit in the stage of perfect Laya.” We fail to see the point made, or even any sense in such a sentence as “matter and spirit in the stage of perfect Laya,” implying as it does the possibility of spirit, a pure abstraction, being dissolved
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and annihilated—we will not say—as matter—since the latter in its primordial, cosmic state can be no more annihilated or even dissolved than spirit—but as a thing of matter having substance and form. Can a void be annihilated? And what is pure, absolute spirit but the “void” of the ancient Greek philosophers? Well says Lucretius: “there can be no third thing besides body and void; for if it be to the smallest extent tangible—it is body, if not—it is void.” And let it not be urged, on the strength of this quotation, that, because we quote the words of a great “Atheist,” a materialist, as an authority, we are therefore a materialist and an atheist (in the usual sense of both terms) ourself. We object to the very term “materialism” if it is to be made identical with, or a synonym of “corporealism,” that is to say, an antithesis of, “Spiritualism.” In the light we, Occultists, regard matter, we are all materialists. But it does not at all stand to reason that because of that, we should be, at the same time, “corporealists” denying in any sense or way the reality of the so-called spiritual existence, or of any being or beings, living on another plane of life, in higher and far more perfect worlds than ours, or having their being in states of which no untrained mind can have the smallest conception. Hence our objection to the idea and possibility of “matter and spirit, in the stage of perfect Laya” unless it can be shown that we have misunderstood the latter word. According to the doctrines of the Arhat philosophy there are seven states of matter, the 7th state being the sum total, the condition or aspect of Mulaprakriti!1
Consequently the
state of cosmic matter beyond its “present developed form” may mean any of the
other six states in which it exists: and hence it cannot necessarily mean
“matter in a stage of perfect Laya.” In what sense then, does the learned
querist want us to interpret the words “matter” and “spirit?” For, though we are
aware that there exist, even in the present age of science and enlightenment,
persons who, under the pretext of religion teach the ignorant masses that there
was a time when matter did not exist (since it was created) implying thus that
there will come a moment when it will be annihilated, we have never yet met any
one, whether atheist or deist, materialist or spiritualist, who would presume to
say that spirit—whether
we call it “void” or “divine breath”—can
ever be annihilated, and if the word Laya
——————
1 Undifferentiated cosmic matter.
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means annihilation, the very expression used by the respected Swami involves an assumption that “spirit” can be destroyed in course of time. In such a case, we are evidently called upon to demonstrate that matter and spirit are eternal on the supposition that both have a period of “Laya.” If we are to avoid this extremely—awkward conclusion, what is the purport of the Swami’s questions?...
Our “assertion” then means the following: undifferentiated cosmic matter or Mulaprakriti, as it is called in Hindu books, is uncreated and eternal. It would be impossible to prove this assertion from a priori reasons, but its truth can be tested by the ordinary inductive method. In every objective phenomenon perceived, either in the present plane of consciousness or in any other plane requiring the exercise of spiritual faculties, there is but change of cosmic matter from one form to another. There is not a single instance, or the remotest suspicion of the annihilation of an atom of matter even brought to light either by Eastern adepts or Western scientists. When the common experience of gene-rations of adepts in their own spiritual or psychic field of observation, and of the ordinary people in theirs—(i.e., in the domain of physical science) points to the conclusion that there never has been the utter annihilation of a single material particle, we are justified, we believe, in saying that matter is indestructible, though it may change its forms and properties and appear in various degrees of differentiation. Hindu and Buddhist philosophers have ages ago recognised the fact that Purusha and Prakriti are eternal, co-existent, a not only correlative and interdependent but positively one and the same thing for him who can read between the lines. Every system of evolution commences with postulating the existence of Mulaprakriti or Tamas (primeval darkness). .
All those great philosophers of India who have added the ancient wisdom-religion of Agasthya, Thoorwasa and other Rishis to the pure Adwaita philosophy of Vasishta, Vyasa and Suka, have recognized this fact. Goodapatha and Sankaracharya have given expression to their views on the subject in their works, and those views are in perfect accordance with the doctrines of the Arhat philosophy. The authority of the latter two great philosophers will, we believe, be sufficient to show to the learned Swami, since he is an Adwaitee, that our statement is correct. And Primeval cosmic matter, whether called Asath or Tamas, or Pra-
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kriti or Sakti, is ever the same, and held to be eternal by both Hindu and Arhat philosophers, while Purusha is inconceivable, hence non-existent, save when manifesting through Prakriti. In its undifferentiated condition, some Adwaitees refuse to recognise it as matter, properly so called. Nevertheless this entity is their PARABRAHMAM, with its dual aspect of Purusha and Prakriti. In their opinion it can be called neither; hence in some passages of the Upanishads we find the expression “PRAKRTI-layam” mentioned; but in all such passages the word “Prakriti” means, as we can prove—matter in a state of differentiation, while undifferentiated cosmic matter in conjunction with, or rather in its aspect of, latent spirit is always referred to as “MAH-ISWARA,” “Purusha” and “Parampada.”.
In reference to the real meaning of “Satta Samanya and Parampada 2 of the Aryan adepts, Nirvana of the Buddhas and the Philosopher’s stone,” their meanings are identical in both the Aryan and Arhat secret doctrines. Satta Samanya sometimes means latent spirit. It also means “Guna Samyapadhi,” or the undifferentiated condition of SATWAGUNA, RAJAGUNA AND TAMAGUNA.3 As to Parampada and Nirvana, both mean the same thing. From an objective point of view it is the condition of Purusha-Prakriti as above described; from the subjective—it is a state of perfect unconsciousness resulting as bare Chidakasam. [IV 128-29.]
Spirit is not “sublimated matter” in our opinion. Matter or manifested prakriti, however sublimated or refined, is but an emanation from Parabrahmam. The 7th principle of evoluted matter, as it is now technically called in theosophical phraseology, has of course its latent existence (which, when closely examined, amounts merely to a permanent possibility of its evolution) in this principle eternally. If the term matter is however used to mean what is technically called Mulaprakriti, this principle may be described as material. But in our opinion this will be misleading. This principle is no doubt in one sense the remote Upadana Karanam of the Universe. Every object in the Universe is constructed out of the elements that emanated from it. But there is no entity in the Universe of which it is immediately the Upadana Karanam. [V, 300,]
The term “Master
Atom” is not applicable to the 7th principle,
——————
2 Literally—the most sacred place; means Nirvana or the condition of Moksha.
3 Satwaguna—the quality of passivity, or absence of any cause or disturbance: Rajaguna—the quality of activity, or that which induces to action; Tamaguna—the quality of ignorance Inactivity of mental and spiritual faculties arising from that ignorance.
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though it can be very properly used in reference to the 6th, the vehicle of spirit, or spiritual soul. The views of the occultists upon spirit and soul may be said to adopt the middle ground between the theories of Boscovich and Helmholtz, on the intimate nature of matter. The 7th principle, or rather its essence, belongs to the seventh state of matter, i.e., a state which may be viewed in our mundane conceptions as pure spirit; while the nature of the sixth principle is not a center of force like its spirit, a centre in which the idea of all substance disappears altogether, but a fluidic or rather ethereal “atom.” The former is undifferentiated, the latter—differentiated matter, though in its highest and purest state. One—the life that animates the atom, the other the vehicle that contains it. [IV, 244 fn.]
The Maha-Pralaya of the Universal Dissolution occurring at the end of every “Day of Brahma” is followed by a Universal Rebirth at the end of the “Night of Brahma” which corresponds in length of period to the “Day.” It is the beginning of such a rebirth that is considered by the vulgar minds as the “creation” of the world, whereas it is but one of the number of successive existences in an infinite series of re-evolutions in the Eternity. Therefore, as Spirit and Matter are one and eternal, the one being thrown into objectivity by the other, and none capable of asserting itself per se to our sensual perceptions unless linked together, these “Entities” have “always” existed. [II 253.]
No Planetary Spirit (and each human “Soul”—rather Spirit at the beginning of every new Pralaya or the periodical resurrection to objective and subjective life of our universe,—limited, of course, to our planetary System—is a planetary pure and formless Spirit) can avoid the “Cycle of Necessity.” Descending from, and re-ascending to the first starting-point, that junction in the Infinity where Spirit or Purusha first falls into Prakriti (plastic matter) or that primordial and yet formless cosmic matter which is the first out-breathing of the Infinite and Changeless Universal Soul (the Parabrahm of the Vedantins), the Planetary Spirit has to take shape and form and live successively in each of the spheres—our own earth included—which compose the great Maha Yug, or the Circle of Existences, before he can lead a conscious EGO-life. Alone the “Elementals”—those half-blind Forces of Nature—say the Kabalists—which are the coruscations of matter and of the rudimentary minds of the descending “spirits” who have failed on their
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downward way—have not yet lived but will live some day on earth. The esoteric philosophies of both the eastern and western initiates, whether Greek or Hindu, Egyptian or Hebrew, agree on the whole.” Whenever they seem to clash, it will be always found due rather to the difference of terms and mode of expression than to any essential difference in the systems themselves. [II, 252.]
Buddhism and Adwaitism are as much religions as any theistic system. A “religion” does not necessarily imply the doctrine of a personal God or any kind of God in it. Religion, as every dictionary can show, comes from the Latin word relegere, to “bind” or collect together. Thus whether people pursue a common idea with, or without, a deity in it, if they are bound together by the same and one belief in something, that belief is a religion. Theology without the vital warmth of Theosophy is a corpse without life, a dry stick without sap. Theosophy blesses the world; Theology is its curse. Our whole endeavour is to test Theology by the theosophical experimentum crucis. The affliction of India is, that it lost theosophy when the persecuted adepts had to fly beyond the mountains. And true religious living can never be again prevalent until their help is invoked to illumine the Shastras. Our Brother has had many years’ experience of the hopelessness of converting India to even the benign form of theism which his Adi Brahmo Samaj teaches. The saintly characters of Ram Mohun Roy, Debendro Nath Tagore, and a few others of his colleagues, have not won the Hindus from their exoteric worship—we think, because neither of them has had the Yogi power to prove practically the fact of there being a spiritual side to nature. If we hold so strongly to esoteric Buddhism and Adwaitism, it is exactly because no religion can stand save on the foundation of philosophy and science. No religion can prove by practical, scientific demonstration that there is such a thing as one personal God; while the esoteric philosophy, or rather theosophy of Guatama Buddha and Sankaracharya prove and give means to every man to ascertain the undeniable presence of a living God in man himself—whether one believes in or calls his divine indweller Avalokiteswara, Buddha, Brahma, Krishna, Jehovah, Bhagwan, Ahura-mazda, Christ, or by whatever name—there is no such God outside of himself. The former—the one ideal outsider—can never be demonstrated—the latter, under whatever appellation, may always be found present if a man does not extinguish within himself the capacity
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to perceive this Divine presence, and hear the “voice” of that only manifested deity, the murmurings of the Eternal Vach, called by the Northern and Chinese Buddhist Avalokiteswara and Kwan shen-yi and by the Christians—Logos. [IV, 275.]
For us there is no over-soul or under-soul; but only ONE—substance: the last word being used in the sense Spinoza attaches to it; calling it the ONE Existence, we cannot limit its significance and dwarf it to the qualification “over”; but we apply it to the universal, ubiquitous Presence, rejecting the word “Being,” and replacing it with “All-Being.” Our Deity as the “God” of Spinoza and of the true Adwaitee—neither thinks, nor creates, for it is All-thought and All-creation. We say with Spinoza—who repeated in another key but what the Esoteric doctrine of the Upanishads teaches: ‘Extension is visible Thought; Thought is invisible Extension.’ For Theosophists of our school the Deity is a UNITY in which all other units in their infinite variety merge and from which they are indistinguishable—except in the prism of theistic Maya. The individual drops of the curling waves of the universal Ocean have no independent existence. In short, while the Theist proclaims his God a gigantic universal BEING, the Theosophist declares with Heraclitus, as quoted by a modern author, that the ONE Absolute is not Being—but becoming: the ever-developing, cyclic evolution, the Perpetual Motion of Nature visible and invisible—moving, and breathing even during its long Pralayic Sleep.
We do not maintain that Parabrahm is absolutely without any guna, for Presence itself is a guna, but that it is beyond the three gunas—Satva, Rajas and Tamas.
When the term Logos, Verbum, Vach, the mystic divine voice of every nation and philosophy comes to be better understood, then only will come the first glimmering of the Dawn of one Universal Religion. Logos was never human reason with us. [V, 75.]
For the benefit of those of our readers in India, who, although excellent Vedantic scholars, may have never heard of Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophy, it will be useful to say a few words regarding this German Metaphysician, who is ranked by many among the world’s great philosophers. . . . A student of the Gottingen and Berlin Universities, a friend of Goethe and his disciple initiated by him into the mysteries of colour (See A. Schopenhauer’s Essay Ueber Sehen and Farben, 1816), he evoluted, so to say, into a profoundly original thinker without any
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seeming transaction, and brought his philosophical views into a full system before he was thirty. Possessed of a large private fortune, which enabled him to pursue and develop his ideas uninterruptedly, he remained an independent thinker and soon won for himself, on account of his strangely pessimistic view of the world, the name of the “misanthropic sage.” The idea that the present world is radically evil, is the only important point in his system that differs from the teachings of the Vedanta. According to his philosophical doctrines, the only thing truly real, original, metaphysical and absolute, is WILL. The world of objects consists simply of appearances; of Maya or illusion—as the Vedantins have it. It lies entirely in, and depends on, our representation. Will is the “thing in itself” of the Kantian philosophy, “the substratum of all appearances and of nature herself. It is totally different from, and wholly independent of, cognition, can exist and manifest itself without it, and actually does so in all nature from animal beings downward.”
Not only the voluntary actions of animated beings, but also the organic frame of their bodies, its form and quality, the vegetation of plants, and in the inorganic kingdom of nature, crystallization and every other original power which manifests itself in physical and chemical phenomena, as well as gravity, are something outside of appearance and identical with, what we find in ourselves and call—WILL. An intuitive recognition of the identity of will in all the phenomena separated by individuation is the source of justice, benevolence, and love; while from a non-recognition of its identity spring egotism, malice, evil and ignorance. This is the doctrine of the Vedantic avida (ignorance) that makes of Self an object distinct from Parabrahm, or Universal Will. Individual soul, physical self, are only imagined by ignorance and have no more reality and existence than the objects seen in a dream. With Schopenhauer it also results from this original identity of will in all its phenomena, that the reward of the good and the punishment of the bad are not reserved to a future heaven or a future hell, but are ever present (the doctrine of Karma, when philosophically considered and from its esoteric aspect). Of course the philosophy of Schopenhauer was radically at variance with the systems of Schelling,. Hegel, Herbert and other contemporaries, and even with that of Fichte, for a time his master, and whose philosophical system while studying under him, he openly
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treated with the greatest contempt. But this detracts in nothing from his own original and profoundly philosophical though often too pessimistic views. His doctrines are mostly interesting when compared with those of the Vedanta of “Sankaracharya’s” school, inasmuch as they show the great identity of thought arriving at the same conclusions between men of two quite different epochs, and with over two milleniums between them.
When some of the mightiest and most puzzling problems of being are thus approximately solved at different ages and by men entirely independent of one another, and that the most philosophically profound propositions, premises and conclusions arrived at by our best modern thinkers are found on comparison nearly, and very often entirely, identical with those of older philosophers as enunciated by them thousands of years back, we may be justified in regarding “the heathen” systems as the primal and most pure sources of every subsequent philosophical development of thought. [IV 210.]
Let it not be understood that we here speak of the “Magi” in general, whether we view them as one of the Medean tribes(?) as some Orientalists (Darmesteter for one), relying upon a vague statement of Herodotus believe, or a sacerdotal caste like the Brahmans—as we maintain. We refer but to their initiates. The origin of the Brahmans and Magi in the night of time—is one, the secret doctrine teaches us. First, they were a hierarchy of adepts, of men profoundly versed in physical and spiritual sciences and occult knowledge, of various nationalities, all celibates, and enlarging their numbers by the transmission of their knowledge to voluntary neophytes. Then when their numbers became too large to be contained in the “Airyânâm vaejô,” the adepts scattered far and wide, and we can trace them establishing other hierarchies on the model of the first in every part of the globe, each hierarchy increasing, and finally becoming so large, as to have to restrict admission; the “half adepts” going back to the world, marrying and laying the first foundation of the “left-hand” science or sorcery, the misuse of the Holy Knowledge. In the third stage—the members of the True ones become with every age more limited and secret, the admissions being beset now with new difficulties. We begin to see the origin of the Temple Mysteries. The hierarchy divides into two parts. The chosen few, the hierophants—the imperium in imperio—remaining celibates, the exoteric priests make of marriage a law, an attempt to perpetuate adepts by
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hereditary descent, and fail sadly in it. Thus we find Brahmans and Magi, Egyptian priests and Roman hierarchs and Augurs enjoining married life and inventing religious clauses to prove its necessity. No need repeating and reminding the reader of that which is left to his own knowledge of history, and his intuitions. In our day we find the descendants, the heirs to the old wisdom scattered all over the globe in small isolated and unknown communities, whose objects are misunderstood, and whose origin has been forgotten; and only two religions, the result of the teaching of those priests and hierophants of old. The latter are found in the sorry remains called respectively—Brahmans and Dasturs or Mobeds. But there is still the nucleus left, albeit it be so strenuously denied, of the heirs of the primitive Magi, of the Vedic Magha and the Greek Magos—the priests and gods of old, the last of whom manifested openly and defiantly during the Christian era in the person of Apollonius of Tyana. [IV 225, fn.]
Although the
Himalayan Brothers admit the esoteric meaning of the Vedas and the Upanishads,
they refuse to recognize as Gods, the powers and other spiritual entities
mentioned in the Vedas. The language used in the Vedas is allegorical and this
fact has been fully recognized by some of the greatest Indian
Philosophers.
There are Mahatmas among the Himalayan Brothers who are Hindus—i.e., born of Hindu and Brahmin parents and who recognize the esoteric meaning of the Vedas and the Upanishads. They agree with Krishna, Buddha, Vyasa, Suka, Goudapatha and Sankaracharya in considering that the Karma kanda of the Vedas is of no importance whatsoever so far as man’s spiritual progress is concerned. Remember in this connection Krishna’s celebrated advice to Arjuna. “The subject matter of the Vedas is related to the three Gunas; oh Arjuna, divest thyself of these gunas.” Sankaracharya’s uncompromising attitude towards Purwamimansa is too well known to require any special mention here. [IV, 146.]
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FUNERAL RITES AMONG SAVAGE RACES
In your note to the letter on “The Efficacy of Funeral Ceremonies” (see Theosophist, June, 1883, p. 221), you remark “that very few among the so-called savage primitive races, had or have any funeral rites or ceremonies.”
Allow me to point out that the aborigines of the Chota Nagpur plateau have a very ancient custom of erecting large blocks of unhewn stone in memory of their “departed dead.”
These pillars vary in height from 5 to 15 feet. I append hereto a rough copy of some at a village called Pokuria, 4 miles south of Chaibassa, the highest of which is 8 feet 4 inches above ground. Vide Col. Dalton’s “Ethnology of Bengal,” p. 203.
W.D.
We are sorry to be unable to reproduce the sketch of the said pillars. But we would observe to our amiable correspondent, that in saying that “very few among the savage primitive races had or have any funeral ceremonies,” we were not thinking of the monoliths, and memorial stones placed on their tombs. The latter can not be classed with either “rites,” or “ceremonies,” but belong to the various modes of disposing of the dead, and preserving the memory of the seat where they were buried. They entail none of that extravagant expenditure lavished by the Hindus and Parsees as well as by the Roman Catholic and Greeks upon obsequial ceremonies in which human variety forces them to outvie each other in the eyes of their indifferent neighbours, and to satisfy the lucre of their Brahmins and priests, under the alleged penalty of offending their dead—a superstition worthy of, and pardonable in, savages, but wholly unworthy and as unpardonable in the XIXth century, and among civilized nations. [IV, 281.]
In every country, as among all the peoples of the world from the beginning of history, we see that some kind of burial is performed—but that very few among the so-called savage primitive races had or have any funeral rites or ceremonies. The well-meaning tenderness felt by us for the dead bodies of those whom we loved or respected, may have suggested, apart from the expression of
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natural grief, some additional marks of family respect for them who had left us for ever. But rites and ceremonies as prescribed by our respective Churches and their theologians, are an afterthought of the priest, an outgrowth of theological and clerical ambition, seeking to impress upon the laity a superstition, a well-paying awe and dread of a punishment of which the priest himself knows nothing beyond mere speculative and often very illogical hypotheses. The Brahmin, the Mobed, the Augur, the Rabbi, the Moollah and the Priest, impressed with the fact that their physical welfare depended far more upon his parishioners, whether dead or alive, than the spiritual welfare of the latter on his alleged mediatorship between men and God, found the device expedient and good, and ever since worked on this line. Funeral rites have originated among the theocratically governed nations, such as the ancient Egyptians. Aryans, and Jews. Interwoven with, and consecrated by the ceremonies of theology, these rites have been adopted by the respective religions of nearly all the nations, and are preserved by them to this day; for while religions differ considerably among them selves, the rites often surviving the people as the religion to which they owed their origin have passed from one people to another. Thus, for instance, the threefold sprinkling with earth with which the christian is consigned to the tomb, is handed down to the westerns from the Pagan, Greeks and Romans; and modern Parsee ism owes a considerable portion of its prescribed funeral rites, we believe, to the Hindus, much in their present mode of worship being due to grafts of Hinduism. Abraham and other Patriarchs were buried without any rites, and even in Leviticus (Chap. xix. v. 28) the Israelites are forbidden to “make any cuttings in the flesh, for the dead, nor print any marks” upon themselves. In the same manner the oldest Zoroastrian books, the old and the new Desatir, with the exception of a few acts of charity (to the poor, not to the Mobeds) and the reading of sacred books, prescribe no special ceremonies. We find in the Book of the Prophet Abad (Desatir) simply the following:
“154. A corpse you may place in a vase of aqua-fortis, or consign it to the fire, or to the earth, (when cleansed of its Nasu or dead matter).”
And again:
“At the birth of a child or the death of a relative, read the
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Nosk, and give something in the road of Mazdam (for Ormuzd’s sake, or in charity.)”
That’s all, and nowhere will one find in the oldest books the injunction of the ceremonies now in use, least of all that of spending large sums of money which often entails ruin upon the survivors. . . [IV, 221-22.]
A ceremony to furnish the shell “with an armour” against terrestrial attraction need not be repeated “a number of years” to be come efficacious, could it but be performed by a person versed in the knowledge of the Magi of old. One such ceremony on the night of death would suffice. But where is the Mobed or priest capable of performing it now? It requires a true occultist—and these are not found at every street corner. Hence—it becomes useless to add ruin to the living, since the dead cannot be helped.
Nor, from the occult stand-point, do such rites benefit in the least the departed soul. The correct comprehension of the law of Karma is entirely opposed to the idea. As no person’s karma can be either lightened or overburdened with the good or bad actions of the next of kin of the departed one, every man having his Karma independent and distinct from that of his neighbour—no more can the departed soul be made responsible for the doings of those it left behind. As some make the credulous believe that the four principles may be made to suffer from colics, if the survivors ate immoderately of some fruit. Zoroastrianism and Hinduism have wise laws—far wiser than those of the Christians—for the disposal of their dead, but their superstitions are still very great. For while the idea that the presence of the dead brings pollution to the living is no better than a superstition, unworthy of the enlightened age we live in, the real cause of the religious prohibition to handle too closely the dead and to bury them without first subjecting the bodies to the disinfectant process of either fire, vultures or aqua-fortis (the latter the prevailing method of the Parsis in days of old) was as beneficent in its results as it was wise, since it was the best and most necessary sanitary precaution against epidemics. The Christians might do worse than borrow that law from the “Pagans,” since no further than a few years back, a whole province of Russia was nearly depopulated, in consequence of the crowded condition of its burial grounds. Too numerous interments within a limited space and a comparatively short time saturate the earth with the products of decomposition to such a
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degree, as to make it incapable of further absorbing them, and the decomposition under such a condition being retarded its products escape directly into the atmosphere, bringing on epidemic diseases and plagues. “Let the dead bury their dead”—were wise words though to this day no theologian seems to have understood their real and profound meaning. There were no funeral rites or ceremonies at the death of either Zoroaster, Moses or Buddha, beyond the simple putting out of the way of the living corpses of them who had gone before.
Though neither the Dabistan or the Desatir can, strictly speaking, be included in the number of orthodox Parsi books—the contents of both of these if not the works themselves anteceding by several milleniums the ordinances in the Avesta as we have now good reasons to know—we yet find the first command repudiated but the second corroborated in the latter. In Fargard VIII (Verse “74” 233 of Vendidad) Ahura Mazda’s command: “They shall kill the man that burns the corpse,” &c., is thus commented upon—“He who burns Nasá (dead matter) must be killed. . Burning Nasá from the dead is a capital crime [Fargard I, 17 (63)] for Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who created by his witchcraft a sin for which there is no atonement, the (immediate) burning of corpses.”1 Ahriman being man’s own ignorance and selfishness.
But as regards the rites observed after the funeral of the corpse, we find no more than this—a repetition of the injunction given in the Book of Abad (Desatir). “An Athravan . . . shall say aloud these fiend-smiting words:—Yathâ ahû vairyô—the riches of Vohu-manô (paradise; vohu-mano or Good Thought being the doorkeeper of heaven—see Farg. XIX, 31)—shall be given to him who works in this world for Mazda and wields agreeably to the will of Ahura the power he gave to him to relieve the poor (Farg.VIII, V. 19-49).
Thus while
abrogating the Fersendajian usage of burning the dead among the devotees of Mah-Abad,
Zerdusht the 13th (of
——————
1 Twelve hours at least had to elapse between the death of the person and the burning or the destruction by any other means of the corpse of the dead. This old law was equally forgotten by the Brahmins as by the Zoroastrians. It was not the act of burning that was forbidden, but the burning before the corpse was empty, viz., before the inner principles had that time to get entirely liberated. As the aqua-jortis was thought possessed of an occult property to that effect, hence the preliminary burning of the flesh by this means—with the Fersendajians.
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the Persian prophets) who introduces many improvements and reforms, yet he commands no other rites than charity. [IV, 222.]
The pale reflections of men and women
The air is thronged with shells—the pale reflections of men and women who lived and whose reliquiœ are magnetically drawn to those whom they had loved on earth.
As to the efficacy of Pindam [offerings to the dead] or Shraddha we deny it most emphatically. The custom of such post-mortem offerings having been in existence for long centuries and forming part and parcel of the Hindu religion, they produce effects, only owing to the strong belief in them of the offerers, or the pujarees. It is the latter who cause unconsciously the production of such phenomena. Let there only be a strong medium in the midst of pilgrims (some thing that happens invariably in a country so full of sensitives as India is), and the intensity and sameness of their thoughts bent constantly and simultaneously upon the object of their pilgrimage, will affect the throng of the elementaries around them. They will repeat that which they find in their friends’ brains and clamour for Pindam. After which, following the same idea which develops in the pilgrim’s thought, i.e., that the offering will bring on deliverance—they, “the ghosts,” will promise a sign of it, and perform the promise mechanically and unconsciously as a parrot would repeat a word, or any trained animal perform an act, led on by the superior intelligence of the master mind, that had trained it to this.
What is it that puts an end to the unrestfulness of the “Ghost?” Nothing particular, most probably: neither the magnetism of the place devoted to the Pindam, nor the strong will of the person who offers it; but simply the absence of any idea connected with the reappearance of the “ghost,” the firm assurance, the implicit confidence of the medium that the “ghost” having been comforted by the offering of the Pindam can no longer return, or feel unrestful. That’s all. It is the medium’s brain, his own creative power of imagination that calls forth out of the normal subjectivity into abnormal objectivity the ghosts that appear, except in the cases of the apparitions of real spirits at the moments immediately following their death. No living being, no god or goddess has the power of impeding the immutable law of nature called karma, especially
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after the death of the person that evolved it.
We would be pleased to see an infuriated asura shaking in its wrath “the world to its foundation.” Many a day, during the invasions of and attacks upon cities by the armies of an enemy, have the shrines remained without any offering as they have often been destroyed, and yet the world moveth not. It is the presiding and hungry, when not simply greedy, geniuses of the shrines, the Brah- mins, who need the Pindam, we should say, more than the Godadharâs and the omnia gatherum of such. The masses claimed for the quieting of the souls of Christian ghosts paid in hard cash instead of being rewarded mostly in nature are of the same kind and efficacy. And if we are asked to give our honest opinion upon both the modes adopted by the priests of every religion to make the living spend their money in useless ceremonies upon their dead, we say, that both means are in our sight no better than a legal and authorized extortion, the tribute paid by credulity to cunning. Change the name and the story is told of civilized Christians as it is of half-civilized Hindus. But—Mundus vult decipi—and who can prevent a willing man from hanging himself! [V 24.]
Conditions of spiritual existence
To realize the conditions of spiritual existence of any sort it is necessary to get above the plane of merely physical perceptions. One cannot see the things of the spirit with the eyes of the flesh, and one cannot successfully appreciate subjective phenomena by help only of those intellectual reflections which appertain to the physical senses.
“How can a conscious existence without activity or pursuit be one of satisfaction or enjoyment?” It would only emphasize the mistaken idea which this question embodies if one were to ask instead, “how can a conscious existence without athletic sports and hunting be one of enjoyment?” The cravings of man’s animal or even bodily human nature are not permanent in their character. The demands of the mind are different from those of the body. In physical life an ever recurring desire for change impresses our imagination with the idea that there can be no continuity of contentment without variety of occupation and amusement. To realize completely the way in which a single vein of spiritual con-
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sciousness may continue for considerable periods of time to engage the attention—not only the contented, but the delighted attention—of a spiritual entity, is probably possible only for persons who already in life have developed certain inner faculties, dormant in mankind at large.
But meanwhile—as explained in recent essays on the subject—that one sort of variety is developed in Devachan in a very high degree; viz, the variety which naturally grows out of the simple themes set in vibration during life. Immense growths for example, of knowledge itself are possible in Devachan, for the spiritual entity which has begun the “pursuit” of such knowledge during life. Nothing can happen to a spirit in Devachan, the keynote of which has not been struck during life; the conditions of a subjective existence are such that the importation of quite external impulses and alien thoughts is impossible. But the seed of thought once sown—the current of thoughts once set going (the metaphor may freely be varied to suit any taste)—then its developments in Devachan may be infinite, for the sixth sense there, and the sixth principle, are our instructors, and in such society there can be no isolation, as physical humanity understands the term. The spiritual ego in fact, under the tuition of his own sixth principle, need be in no fear of being dull, and would be as likely to sigh for a doll’s house or a box of ninepins as for the harps and palm-leaves of the mediæval Heaven. [IV,202.]
The reader is reminded in this connection that neither Devachan nor Avitchi is a locality, but a state which affects directly the being in it and all others only by reaction. [IV,270]
Though we may purge our individual natures of evil, it can never be extirpated but must still linger in the whole expanse of the Kosmos, as the opposing power to active goodness, which maintains the equilibrium in Nature—in short, the equal balancing of the scales, the perfect harmony of discords. [I, 184.]
Magnetic emanations are constantly radiating from every human being. Their influence is present in the person’s shadow, in his photo or picture as well as every thing else with which his aura comes into contact. It is interesting in this connection to refer to the “Chaya grahini” (Shadow Catcher), mentioned in Ramayana which was able to arrest the aerial progress of Hanuman by seizing on his shadow on the surface of the sea. It is well-known
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that the figure of a person or his picture is a great help to a black magician who intends to affect him by his infernal art. [VI, 221.]
The “higher attributes” of the 5th principle are evolved in it during the lifetime of the Personality, by its more or less close assimilation with the sixth, by the development, or rather the spiritualization by the Buddhi of the intellectual capacities which have their seat in the Manas (the fifth). When the spiritual monad striving to enter the Devachanic state is being subjected to the process of purification, what happens is this; personal consciousness, which alone constitutes the personal Ego, has to rid itself of every earthly speck of grossly material taint before it becomes capable of living “in spirit” and as a spirit. Therefore while the upper consciousness with all its noblest higher feelings—such as undying love, goodness, and all the attributes of divinity in man, even in their latent state—are drawn by affinity towards, follow and merge into the monad, thus endowing it—which is part and parcel of universal consciousness and has therefore no consciousness of its own—with a personal self-consciousness—the dross of our earthly thoughts and cares, “the material tastes, emotions and proclivities” are left to lurk behind in the shell. It is, so to say, the pure incense, the spirit of the flame, disengaging itself from the ashes and cinders of the burnt-up fires....
The “Soul when laden with unsatisfied desires” will remain “earthbound” and suffer. If the desire is on a purely earthly plane, the separation may take place notwithstanding and the shell alone be left wandering: if it were some act of justice and beneficence, such as the redress of a wrong, it can be accomplished only through visions and dreams, the spirit of the impressed person being drawn within the spirit of the Devachanee, and by assimilation with it, first instructed and then led by Karma to redress the wrong. But in no case is it a good or meritorious action for “living friends” to encourage the simulacra, whether shells or entities, to communicate. For, instead of “smoothing the path of its spiritual progress,” they impede it. In days of old, it was the initiated hierophant under whose guidance the mediums of the adyta, the sybils, the oracles and the seers acted. In our days there are no initiated priests or adepts at hand to guide the blind instincts of the mediums; themselves the slaves of yet blinder influences. The ancients knew more about those matters than we do. There must be some good reason why every old religion prohibits intercourse with the
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dead as a crime.
Subjective, purely spiritual “Mediumship” is the only harmless kind, and is
often an elevating gift that might be cultivated by every one.
[VI, 110.]
Of late numerous letters have been received in the THEOSOPHIST office concerning the efficacy of the mysterious Pentagram. Our Eastern readers are perhaps unaware of the great importance given by the Western Kabalists to that sign, and, therefore, it may be found expedient to say a few words about it just now, when it is coming so prominently before the notice of our readers. Like the six-pointed star which is the figure of the macrocosm, the five-pointed star has its own deep symbolic significance, for it represents the microcosm. The former—the “double triangle” composed of two triangles respectively white and black—crossed and interlaced (our Society’s symbol)—known as “Solomon’s Seal” in Europe,—and as the “Sign of Vishnu” in India,—is made to represent the universal spirit and matter, one white point which symbolizes the former ascending heavenward, and the two points of its black triangle inclining earthward. * The Pentagram also represents spirit and matter but only as manifested upon earth. Emblem of the microcosm (or the “little universe” faithfully mirroring in itself the macrocosm (or the great cosmos), it is the sign of the supremacy of human intellect or spirit over brutal matter.
Most of the
mysteries of Kabalistic or ceremonial magic, the gnostical symbols and all the
Kabalistic keys of prophecy are sum med up in that flamboyant Pentagram,
considered by the practitioners of the Chaldeo Kabala as the most potent magical
instrument. In magical evocation during which the slightest hesitation, mistake
or omission, becomes fatal to the operator, the star is always on the altar
bearing the incense, and other offerings, and under the tripod of invocation.
According to the position of its points, it “calls forth good or bad spirits,
and expels, retains or captures them”—the Kabalists inform us. “Occult qualities
are due to the agency of elemental spirits,” says the New American Cyclopcedia
in article “Magic,” thus making use of the adjective
——————
*The double triangle on the right corner of the THEOSOPHIST was by a mistake of the engraver reversed, i.e., placed upside down. So is the Egyptian Tau with the snake coiled round it, in the opposite corner of the title-page cover. The latter double sign when drawn correctly represents the anagram of the Society—a T. S—and the head of the snake ought to turn the opposite way—ED. THEOS.
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“Elemental” for certain spirits—a word which, by the bye, the spiritualists accused the Theosophists of having coined, whereas the N. A. Cyclopœdia was published twenty years before the birth of the Theosophical Society. “This mysterious figure (the five-pointed star) must be consecrated by the four elements, breathed upon, sprinkled with water, and dried in the smoke of precious perfumes, and then the names of great spirits, as Gabriel, Raphael, Oriphiel and the letters of the sacred tetragram and other Kabalistical words, are whispered to it, and are inscribed upon it”—adds the Cyclopœdia copying its information from the books of old Mediæval Kabalists, and the more modern work of Eliphas Levi—Dogmes et Rituel de la Haute Magie. A modern London Kabalist, styling himself an “Adept,”—a correspondent in a London Spiritual paper, derides Eastern Theosophy and would—if he could—make it subservient to the Jewish Kabala with its Chaldeo—Phenikœan Angelology and Demonology. That new Cagliostro would probably explain the power and efficacy of the “five-pointed star” by the interference of the good “genii,” evoked by him; those jins which Solomon-like he has apparently bottled up by sealing the mouth of the vessel with King “Solomon’s Seal” servilely copied by that mythical potentate from the Indian Vaishnava sign, together with other things brought out by him from the no-less mythical Opher if his vessels ever went there. But the explanation given by the Theosophists for the occasional success obtained in relieving pain (such as scorpion-bites) by the application of the Pentagram—a success, by the bye, which with the knowledge of the cause producing it might with some persons become permanent and sure—is a little less supernatural, and rejects every theory of “Spirit” agency accomplishing it whether these spirits be claimed human or elemental. True, the five-pointed shape of the star has something to do with it, as will be now explained, but it depends on, and is fully subservient to, the chief agent in the operation, the alpha and the omega of the “magical” force—HUMAN WILL. All the paraphernalia of ceremonial magic,—perfumes, vestments, inscribed hieroglyphics and mummeries are good, but for the be- ginner; the neophyte whose powers have to be developed, his mental attitude during the operations defined, and his WILL educated by concentrating it on such symbols. The Kabalistic axiom that the magician can become the master of the Elemental Spirits only by surpassing them in courage and audacity in their own ele-
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ments, has an allegorical meaning. It was but to test the moral strength and daring of the candidate that the terrible trials of initiation into ancient mysteries were invented by the hierophants; and hence the neophyte who had proved fearless in water, fire, air and in the terrors of a Cymmerian darkness, was recognised as having become the master of the Undines, the Salamanders, Sylphs and Gnomes. He had “forced them into obedience,” and “could evoke the spirits” for having studied and acquainted himself with the ultimate essence of the occult or hidden nature and the respective properties of the Elements, he could produce at will the most wonderful manifestations or “occult” phenomena by the combination of such properties, combinations hitherto unknown to the profane, as progressive and exoteric science which proceeds slowly and cautiously, can marshal its discoveries, but one by one and in their successive order, for hitherto it has scorned to learn from those who had grasped all the mysteries of nature for long ages before. Many are the occult secrets ferreted out by her and wrung from the old magic, and yet it will not give it credit even for that which has been proved to have been known by the ancient esoteric scientists or “Adepts.” But our subject must not be digressed from, and we now turn to the mysterious influence of the Pentagram.
“What is in a sign?” will our readers ask. “No more than in a name” we shall reply—nothing except that as said above it helps to concentrate the attention, hence to nail the WILL of the operator to a certain spot. It is the magnetic or mesmeric fluid flowing out of the finger’s ends of the hand tracing the figure which cures or at least stops the acute pain in benumbing the nerves and not the figure per se. And yet there are some proficients who are able to demonstrate that the five-pointed star, whose points represent the five cordial limbs or those channels of man—the head, the two arms and the two legs—from whence the mesmeric currents issue the strongest, the simple tracing of that figure (a tracing produced with far more efficacy with the finger ends than with ink, chalk or pencil) helped by a strong desire to alleviate pain, will very often force out unconsciously the healing fluid from all these extremities, with far more force than it otherwise would. Faith in the figure is transformed into intense will, and the latter into energy; and energy from whatsoever feeling or cause it may proceed, is sure to rebound somewhere and strike the place with more or less force; and na-
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turally enough that place will be the locality upon which the attention of the operator is at that moment concentrated; and hence—the cure attributed by the self-ignorant mesmeriser to the PENTAGRAM. Truly remarks Shelling that “although magic has ceased to be an object of serious attention, it has had a history which links it on the one hand with the highest themes of symbolism, theosophy and early science, as well as on the other with the ridiculous or tragical delusions of the many forms of demonomania.
. . . In Greek
theurgy the ruins of a superior intelligence and even of a perfect system are to
be found, which would reach far beyond the horizon which the most ancient
written records present to us . . . and portions of the same system may be
discovered in the Jewish Kabala.”
. . That “perfect system” is now in the hands of a few proficients in the East.
The legitimacy of “Magic” may be disputed by the bigots, its reality as an art,
and especially as a science, can scarcely be doubted. Nor is it at all doubted
by the whole Roman Catholic Clergy, though their fear of its becoming a terrific
witness against the legitimacy of their own ascendency forces them to support
the argument that its marvels are due to malignant spirits or “fallen angels.”
In Europe it has still “a few learned and respectable professors and adepts”
admits the same Cyclopaœdia
And, throughout the “Pagan” world we may add its reality is almost universally
admitted and its proficients are numerous, though they do try to avoid the
attention of the sceptical world. [II, 240.]
To THE EDITOR OF THE THE0S0PHIST:
MADAME—In the last issue of your valuable Journal, a member of the New York Theosophical Society seeks to be enlightened as to the cause of a bright spot of light which he has often seen. I am also equally curious to have an explanation. I attribute it to the highest concentration of the soul. As soon as I place myself in that prescribed attitude, suddenly a bright spot appears before me which fills my heart with delight,—indeed, that being regarded as a special sign by the Indian devotee that he is in the right path, leading to ultimate success in the Yoga practice—that he is blessed by the special grace of the Almighty.
One evening, sitting on the ground cross-legged, in that state of innate concentration when the soul soars into the high re-
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gions, I was
blessed with a shower of flowers—a
most brilliant sight, and which I long to see again. I moved to catch at flowers
so rare, but they eluded my grasp and suddenly disappeared, leaving me much
disappointed. Finally two flowers fell on me, one touching my head and the other
my right shoulder but this time also the attempt to seize them was unsuccessful.
What can it be, if not a response that God has been pleased with his worshipper,
meditation being, I believe, the unique way of spiritual worship.
—P.
September 18, 1881
It depends. Those of our orthodox native contributors, who worship some particular God,—or, if they so prefer, the one ISWAR under some particular name—are too apt to attribute every psychological effect brought on by mental concentration during the hours of religious meditation to their special deity, whereas, in 99 cases out of 100, such effects are due simply to purely psycho-physiological effects. We know a number of mystically-inclined people who see such “lights” as that as soon as they concentrate their thoughts. Spiritualists attribute them to the agency of their de parted friends; Buddhists—who have no personal God—to a pre-nirvanic state; pantheists and Vedantins to Maya—illusion of senses; and Christians—to a foresight of the glories of Paradise. The modern Occultists say that, when not directly due to cerebral action whose normal functions are certainly impeded by such an artificial mode of deep concentration—these lights are glimpses of the Astral Light, or, to use a more scientific expression—of the “Universal Ether” firmly believed in by more than one man of science, as proved by Mr. Balfour Stewart’s Un-seen Universe. Like the pure blue sky closely shrouded by thick vapours on a misty day—is the Astral Light concealed from our physical senses, during the hours of our normal, daily life. But when concentrating a1l our spiritual faculties, we succeed, for the time being, to paralyze their enemy—physical senses, and the inner man becomes, so to say, distinct from the man of matter, then, the action of the ever-living spirit, like a breeze that clears the sky from its obstructing clouds—sweeps away the mist which lies between our normal vision and the Astral Light, and, we obtain glimpses into, and of, that light.
The days of “smoking furnaces” and “burning lamps” which form part of the Biblical visions are well gone by and—to return no more. But, whosoever, refusing natural explanations, prefers
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supernatural ones, is, of course, at liberty to imagine that an “Al mighty God” amuses us with visions of flowers, and sends burning lights before making “covenants” with his worshippers. [III 45,]
The physical phenomena of “stone showers,”
[A lengthy report in a French Spiritualist journal on the physical phenomena of “stone showers,” contributed by M. Riko, a Dutch correspondent of good education and wide repute, was reprinted by H.P.B. in the Theosophist and made the basis for extensive comments.—Eds.]
Meanwhile, M. Riko will perhaps permit us a word. The last sentence of his letter proves clearly that even he, a spiritist, is unable to trace such a uniformly senseless, idiotic phenomenon—one that periodically occurs in every part of the world and with out the slightest cause for it, as without the least moral effect upon those present,—to the agency of disembodied human spirits. We well know that, while most of the spiritists will attribute it to the Esprits maims (malicious disembodied spirits) the Roman Catholic world and most of the pious Protestants—at least who may have convinced themselves of the facts—will lay it at the door of the devil. Now for argument’s sake, and allowing the idea of such creatures as the “malicious human souls” of the spiritist and the “de- mons” of the Christian theology to exist elsewhere than in imagination, how can both these classes of believers account for the contradictions involved? Here are beings which or who—whether devils, or malicious ex-human imps—are evidently wicked. Their object—if they have any at all—must be to derive cruel pleasure from tormenting mortals? They cannot be less bent upon mischief or more careful of possible results than ordinary mischievous school-boys. Yet we see the stones, or whatever the missiles may be, carefully avoiding contact with those present. They fall all around without “even grazing” the little Javanese girl—evidently the medium in the case observed by General Michiels. They fall thick among the ranks of the soldiers at “Fort Victoria”; and pass incessantly for several days before the very noses of the police agents at Paris and the Hague, without ever touching, let alone hurting, any one! What does this mean? Malicious human spirits, to say nothing of devils, would certainly have no such delicate care
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for those they were bent upon tormenting. What are they then, these invisible persecutors? Ordinary human “spirits?” In such a case human intelligence would be but a name; a word devoid of meaning as soon as it gets separated from its physical organs. It would become a blind force, a remnant of intellectual energy that was, and we would have to credit every liberated soul with insanity!
Having disposed of the theory of “spirits,” “imps” and “devils” on the score of the idiocy and total absence of malevolence in the proceedings, once that the genuineness of the phenomenon is proved, to what else can it be attributed in its causation or origin, but to a blind though living force; one subjected to an intransgressible law of attraction and repulsion—in its course and effects—a law which exact science has yet to discover; for it is one of innumerable correlations due to magnetic conditions which are supplied only when both animal and terrestrial magnetism are present; meanwhile the former has to fight its way step by step for recognition, for science will not recognize it in its psychological effects,—do what its advocates may. The Spiritualists regard the phenomena of the stone-showers as irregular. We, Theosophists, answer that although their occurrence at a given place may appear to be very irregular, yet from a comparison of those in all parts of the world it might be found, if carefully recorded, that hitherto they have been uniform or nearly so. Perhaps they may be aptly compared with the terrestrial magnetic perturbations called by Science “fitful,” and distinctly separated by her, at one time, from that other class she named “periodical”; the “fitful” now being found to recur at as regular periods as the former. The cause of these variations of the magnetic needle is as entirely unknown to physical science as are the phenomena of stone showers to those who study psychological Science; yet both are closely connected. If we are asked what we mean by the comparison—and indignant may be the question on the part of both, Science and Spiritualism—we will humbly answer that such is the teaching of Occult Science. Both classes of our opponents have yet much to learn, and the Spiritualists—to first unlearn much in addition. Did our friends the believers in “spirits” ever go to the trouble of first studying “mediumship” and only then turning their attention to the phenomena occurring through the sensitives? We, at least, never heard that such is the case, not even during the most scientific investigation of mediumistic powers that ever took place—
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Professor Hare’s and Mr. Crookes’ experiments. And yet, had they done so, they might have found how closely related to and de pendent on the variation of terrestrial magnetism are those of the mediumistic or animal magnetic state. Whenever a true medium fails to get phenomena it is immediately attributed by the Spiritualists, and oftener by the “Spirits” themselves to “unfavorable con- ditions.” The latter are lumped together in a single phrase; but never did we hear the real scientific and chief cause for it given:
the unfavorable variations of the terrestrial magnetism. The lack of harmony in the “circle” of investigators; various and conflicting magnetisms of the “sitters” are all of secondary importance. The power of a real, strongly charged medium 1 will always prevail against the animal magnetism which may be adverse to it; but it cannot produce effects unless it received a fresh supply of molecular force, an impress from the invisible body of those we call blind “Elementals” or Forces of Nature, and which the Spiritualists in every case regard as the “spirits of the dead.” Showers of stones have been known to take place where there was not a living soul——consequently no medium. The medium charged by the atmospheric legion of “correlations” (we prefer calling them by the new scientific term) will attract stones within the periphery of his force, but will at the same time repel them, the polaric condition of his body preventing the missiles from touching it. And its own molecular condition will temporarily induct with its properties all the other human and even non-sensitive bodies around it. Sometimes there may be an exception to the rule produced by some chance condition.
This explanatory
postscript may be closed with the remark to M. Riko that we do not regard the
Elementals of the Kabalists as properly “beings.” They are the active Forces and
correlations of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, and their shape is like the hues of
the chameleon which has no permanent colour of its own. Through the
interplanetary and interstellar spaces, the vision of almost every clairvovant
can reach. But it is only the trained eye of the profi-
———————
1 I We hold that a ‘physical medium,” so called, is but an organism more sensitive than most others to the terrestrial electro-magnetic induction. That the powers of a medium for the production of phenomena fluctuate from one hour to another is a fact proven by Mr. Crookes’ experiments and, believing though we do in the existence of innumerable other so-called Spiritual Forces besides and quite independent of human spirits, we yet firmly maintain that physical mediums have very little, if anything to do with the latter. Their powers are purely physical and conditional; i.e., these powers depend almost entirely on the degree of receptivity, and chance polarization of the body of the medium by the electro-magnetic and atmospheric currents. Purely psychological manifestations are quite a different thing.
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cient in Eastern Occultism, that can fix the flitting shadows and give them a shape and a name. [II, 232-33.]
[The following comment responds to a reader’s request for the “esoteric point of view” concerning William Underwood, an American who could “generate fire through the medium of his breath.”—Eds.]
The exhalation of fire from the mouth is one of the stock illusions of the itinerant jugglers of various countries. In their case the dried powder of Lycopadium is employed, we believe, and the same substance is used in theatrical performances when it is desired to simulate either fire or lightning flashes. It may be that the American human volcano in question employs some such agent to impose upon his spectators, and we are always bound to exhaust the theories of the possible before venturing upon those of the seemingly impossible. Yet, personal character being a prime factor always, we must take it for granted that Mr. Underwood is above such trickery, since his phenomenon has such respectable endorsement. If then, we turn to occult science to seek for an explanation, we will find that there are cases of record of individuals who emit from their persons a luminous vapour or aura, under high states of nervous exaltation. Sometimes it appears as a wild radiance, sometimes as a lambent flame, and in others as an electric or rather odic corruscation. Rarely it is observed by day, but most frequently by night, and still oftener while the subject is deeply en- gaged in his devotions. A noted example is that of the fasting Peter of Alcantara, a Catholic devotee. The halo, or nimbus which painters depict about the heads and bodies of saints, yogis, gods and goddesses, is familiar to every one, and is a memento of this natural phenomenon. But the light in these instances is of an odic character, and though flaming and flickering like fire, has none of its combustive property. Writers upon sorcery and mediumship have frequently recorded anecdotes of the bursting forth of flames from the doors, windows, chimneys or roofs of buildings without apparent cause, and in fact at times when there was no fire in any part of the house, nor any articles stored within, such as cotton, cotton-waste, greased rags, or other substances liable to spon-
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taneous combustion. These mysterious burnings have been some times attended with stone-showers or throwings, equally unaccountable. The Spiritualists affirm that the agents in all these cases have been spirits; but unless they be fire-elementals or Salamanders of the Rosicrucians, they must be queer “Spirits.” Among modern Western mediums, equally with Hindus of the same class, are many who can handle burning coals, red-hot iron, and molten metal with perfect impunity, and walk through beds of blazing fire unscathed. In America there is a female medium named Mrs. Swydam, who has this gift, and in Europe a late, and the most noted of male mediums, has not only exhibited the feat of handling hot coals without receiving harm, but even laid them upon the heads of non-mediums in the company present or upon newspapers or books, without injury to person or property. The explanation in both classes of cases is that the fire-proof individual is a medium for these fire elementals, and contains in himself an unusual proportion of Salamandrine properties, the result of an abnormal combination of elemental forces in his foetal development. Normally, a human being contains the elementals of all the four kingdoms in almost equal proportions, any slight preponderance of one or the other determining the so-called “temperament.” [IV, 280.]
THE expression “physico-materialism,” as well as its pendant “spirito” or “metaphysico-materialism,” may be newly coined words, but some such are rigorously necessary in a publication like the Theosophist and with its present non-English editor. If they are not clear enough, we hope C.C.M. or some other friend will suggest better. In one sense every Buddhist as well as every Occultist, and even most of the educated Spiritualists, are, strictly speaking, Materialists. The whole question lies in the ultimate and scientific decision upon the nature or essence of FORCE. Shall we say that FORCE is—Spirit, or that Spirit is—a force? Is the latter physical or spiritual, Matter or SPIRIT? If the latter is some thing—it must be material, otherwise it is but a pure abstraction, a no-thing. Nothing which is capable of producing an effect on any
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portion of the physical,—objective or subjective—Kosmos can be otherwise than material. Mind—whose enormous potentiality is being discovered more and more with every day, could produce no effect were it not material; and believers in a personal God, have themselves either to admit that the deity in doing its work has to use material force to produce a physical effect, or—to advocate miracle, which is an absurdity. As A. J. Manley, of Minnesota, very truly observes in a letter:—“It has ever been an impossibility with me to realize or comprehend an effect, which requires motion or force, as being produced by ‘nothing’. The leaves of the forest are stirred by the gentlest breeze, and yet withhold the breeze, and leaves cease to move. While gas continues to escape from the tube, apply the match and you will have a brilliant light; cut off the supply and the wonderful phenomenon ceases. Place a magnet near a compass, and the needle is attracted by it; remove the former and the needle will resume its normal condition. By will-power the mesmerist compels his subject to perform various feats, but who becomes normal again when the will is withdrawn.
“I have observed in all physical phenomena, that when the propelling force is withdrawn, the phenomena invariably cease. From these facts, I infer that the producing causes must be material, though we do not see them. Again, if these phenomena were produced by ‘nothing,’ it would be impossible to withdraw the producing force, and the manifestations would never cease. Indeed, if such manifestations ever existed, they must of necessity be perpetual.”
Concurring fully with the above reasoning, it thus becomes of the utmost necessity for us, and under the penalty of being constantly accused of inconsistency, if not of flat contradictions, to make a well marked difference between those materialists who, believing that nothing can exist outside of matter in however sublimated a state, the latter yet believe in various subjective forces unknown to, only because as yet undiscovered by, science; rank sceptics and those transcendentalists who, mocking at the majesty of truth and fact fly into the face of logic by saying that “nothing is impossible to God”; that he is an extra-cosmic deity who created the universe out of nothing, was never subject to law, and can produce a miracle outside of all physical law and when ever it pleases him, etc. [IV, 105-6 In.]
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. . . the events [ “Can the ‘Double’ Murder?” printed in Occult Tales] actually occurred, and they possess a very deep interest for the student of psychological science. They show in a marked degree the enormous potentiality of the human will upon mesmeric subjects whose whole being may be so imbued with an imparted intellectual preconception that the “double,” or mayavi-rupa, when projected transcorporeally, will carry out the mesmerizer’s mandate with helpless subserviency. The fact that a mortal wound may be inflicted upon the inner man without puncturing the epidermis will be a novelty only to such readers as have not closely examined the records and noted the many proofs that death may result from many psychical causes besides the emotions whose lethal power is universally conceded. [IV, 99.]
It is precisely because we claim to know something of “practical” Occultism in addition to being a Theosophist that we answer without in the least “evading the question” that a mortal wound may be inflicted “not only upon, but also by one” inner man upon another. This is the A.B.C. of esoteric mesmerism. The wound is inflicted by neither a real dagger or a hand of flesh, bones and blood, but simply by—WILL. It is the intense will of the “Gospoja” that guided the astral or inner body, the Mayavi-rupa of Frozya. * It is the passively obedient action of the latter’s “double” that scanning space and material obstacles, followed the “trail” of, and found the real murderers. It is again that WILL shaped by the incessant thought of the revenger, that inflicted the internal wounds which though unable to kill or even to hurt the inner man, yet by reaction of the interior physical body proved mortal to the latter. If the fluid of the mesmerizer can cure, it can also kill. And now we have “established the fact as scientifically”—as science which generally disbelieves in and rejects such mesmeric phenomena will permit it. For those who believe in, and know something of, mesmerism, this will be plain. As to those who deny it the explanation will appear to them as absurd as any other psychological claim:
as much so as the claims of Yogism with its beatitudes of Samadhi and other states, for the matter of that. [IV, 246 fn.]
An important point
for the student of occult science should not be overlooked. The law of physics,
that action and reaction tend
——————
* “Gospoja” and “Frozya” are characters in H.P.B.’s “Can the ‘Double’ Murder?”, first published as one of the Occult Tales in 1876-77 in New York and later reprinted in the Theosophlst (January, 1883).—Eds.
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to equilibrate each other, holds in the realm of the occult. This has been fully explained in “Isis Unveiled” and other works of the kind. A current of Akasa, directed by a sorcerer at a given object with an evil intent, must either be propelled by such intensity of will as to break through every obstacle and overpower the resistant will of the selected victim, or it will rebound against the sender, and afflict him or her in the same way as it was intended the other should be hurt. So well is this law understood that it has been pre served to us in many popular proverbs, such as the English ones, ‘curses come home to roost,’ ‘The biter’s bit,’ etc. This reversal of a maleficent current upon the sender may be greatly facilitated by the friendly interference of another person who knows the secret of controlling the Akasic currents—if it is permissible for us to coin a new word that will soon be wanted in the Western parlance.
[I, 203.]
In view of the fact that occult science explains the mysteries of bird-flying and fish-swimming on principles entirely opposed to the accepted scientific theory of the day, one might well hesitate before putting out the true explanation. However, since we already stand so low in the favour of the orthodox scientists, we will say a few words upon the subject; but they must be few indeed. “If,” writes our correspondent, “we take the position that birds have the power to make themselves light or heavy at will, the phenomenon of their flight becomes easy to comprehend.”
And why not take up such a position? Whether by instinct or will, whether an effect identical with another is produced consciously or unconsciously, by animal or man, the cause underlying that invariable and identical result must be one and the same, barring diversity of conditions and exceptions as to unimportant details. The action of certain fishes which, by swallowing large draughts of air, distend an internal bag and thereby, becoming specifically lighter, float above the surface of the water, does not militate against the scientific theory of swimming, when it concerns such fish, man or a bladder filled with air. But we are left as wise as ever, when it is a question of rapid sinking, to the bottom, whether by man or whale. In the former case such sink- ing might be ascribed to volition. But man’s inability to sink as
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The mysteries of bird-flying
rapidly and to
such a depth, even though a most experienced diver,—who
has to sink himself by a stone—proves
that there must be something more than blind instinct or conscious volition.
What is it? Occult science tells us the word: it is “a change of polarity and of
normal gravity,” not yet admissible by science. With birds and animals—as
instinctive a mechanical action as any other they execute; with man, when he
thus defies the familiar conditions of gravity, it is something he can acquire,
in his training as a Yogi. Though the former act unconsciously, and he changes
his polarity at will, the same cause is made operative, and both produce an
identical effect. There are certainly alternating changes of polarity going on
in the bird while ascending or dropping, and a maintenance of the same polarity
while sailing at any given altitude.
[III, 271-72.]
To such “impossible” facts, belong the phenomena of Hypnotism, which have created such a new stir in Germany, Russia and France, as well as the manifestations (belonging to the same kind) produced and observed by Dr. Charcot upon his hysterical patients. With the latter phenomena we must class those induced by the so-called metaloscopy and xiloscopy. Under the former are meant in medicine the now firmly established facts proving the characteristic influence on the animal organism of various metals and of the magnet, through their simple contact with the skin of the patient: each producing a different effect. As to xiloscopy, it is the name given to the same effects produced by various kinds of woods, especially by the quinine bark. Metaloscopia has already given birth to Metalotherapia—the science of using metals for curative means. The said “impossibilities” begin to be recognized as facts, though a Russian medical Encyclopædia does call them “monstrous.” The same fate awaits other branches of the occult sciences of the ancients. Hitherto rejected, they now begin to be—although still reluctantly—accepted. Prof. Ziggler of Geneva has well nigh proved the influence of metals, of quinine and of some parts of the living organisms (the ancient fascination of flowers) upon plants and trees. The plant named Drosera, the quasi in visible hairs of which are endowed with partial motion, and which was regarded by Darwin as belonging to the insect-eating plants, is
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The phenomena of Hypnotism
shown by Ziggler as affected even at a distance by animal magnetism as well as by certain metals, by means of various conductors. And a quarter century ago M. Adolphe Didier, the famous French somnambule and author, reports that an acquaintance of his met with much success in the experimental application of the mesmeric aura to flowers and fruits to promote their growth, color, flavour, and perfume. Miss C. L. Hunt, who quotes this fact approvingly in her useful “Compendium of Mesmeric Information,” mentions (p. 180, foot-note) that there “are persons who are unable to wear or handle flowers, as they begin to wither and droop directly, as though the vitality of the plant were being appropriated by the wearer, instead of being sustained.” To corroborate which foregoing observations by Western authorities, our Brahmin readers need only be reminded of the imperative injunction of their ancient Sutras that if any one should even salute a Brahmin when on his way to the river or tank for his morning puja (devotions), he must at once throw away the flowers he is carrying according to the ritualistic custom, return home and procure fresh flowers. This simple explanation being that the magnetic current projected towards him by the salutor taints the floral aura and makes the blossoms no longer fit for the mystical psychic ceremony of which they are necessary accessories. [IV 107 fn.]
The power of the Yogi to quit his own body and enter and animate that of another person, though affirmed by Patânjali and included among the Siddhis of Krishna, is discredited by Europeanized young Indians. Naturally enough, since, as Western biologists deny a soul to man, it is an unthinkable proposition to them that the Yogi’s soul should be able to enter another’s body. That such an unreasoning infidelity should prevail among the pupils of European schools, is quite reason enough why an effort should be made to revive in India those schools of Psychology in which the Aryan youth were theoretically and practically taught the occult laws of Man and Nature. We, who, have at least some triffling acquaintance with modern science, do not hesitate to affirm our belief that this temporary transmigration of souls is possible. We may even go so far as to say that the phenomenon has been experi-
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mentally proved to us—in New York, among other places. And, since we would be among the last to require so marvellous a statement to be accepted upon any one’s unsupported testimony, we urge our readers to first study Aryan literature, and then get from personal experience the corroborative evidence. The result must inevitably be to satisfy every honest enquirer that Patânjali and Sankaracharaya did, and Tyndall, Carpenter and Huxley do not, know the secrets of our being. [I, 89.]
An unmistakable error. . . . confounds the Raja with the Hatha Yogins, whereas the former have nothing to do with the physical training of the Hatha nor with any other of the innumerable sects who have now adopted the name and emblems of Yogins. Wilson in his Essays on the Religions of the Hindus falls into ...confusion and knows very little, if anything at all, of the true Raja Yogins who have no more to do with Siva than with Vishnu or any other deity. Alone, the most learned among the Sankara’s Dandis of Northern India, especially those who are settled in Rajputana who would be able—if they would to give some correct notions about the Raja Yogins. . . . If, in speaking of the Dandis, we have used above the phrase beginning with the conjunction “if,” it is because we happen to know how carefully the secrets of the real Yogins—nay even their existence itself—are denied within this fraternity. It is comparatively but lately that the usual excuse adopted by them, in support of which they bring their strongest authorities, who affirm that the Yogi state is unattainable in the present or Kali age—has been set afloat by them. “From the unsteadiness of the senses, the prevalence of sin in the Kali, and the shortness of life, how can exaltation by the Yoga be obtained?” enquires Kasikhanda. But this declaration can be refuted in two words and with their own weapons. The duration of the present Kali Yuga is 432,000 years of which 4,979 have already expired. It is at the very beginning of Kali Yuga that Krishna and Arjuna were born. It is since Vishnu’s eighth incarnation that the country had all its historical Yogis, for as to the prehistoric ones, or claimed as such, we do not find ourselves entitled to force them upon public notice. Are we then to understand that none of these numerous saints, philosophers and ascetics from Krishna down to the late Vishnu Brahmarchári Báwa of Bombay had ever reached the “exaltation by Yoga?” To repeat this assertion is simply suicidal in their own interests. [II, 31.]
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IT is not that among the Hatha Yogins—men who at times had reached through a physical and well-organized system of training the highest powers as “wonder-workers”—there has never been a man worthy of being considered as a true Yogin. What we say, is simply this: the Raja Yogin trains but his mental and intellectual powers, leaving the physical alone, and making but little of the exercise of phenomena simply of a physical character. Hence it is the rarest thing in the world to find a real Yogi boasting of being one, or willing to exhibit such powers—though he does acquire them as well as the one practising Hatha Yoga, but through another and far more intellectual system. Generally, they deny these powers pointblank, for reasons but too well-grounded. The latter need not even belong to any apparent order of ascetics, and are oftener known as private individuals than members of a religious fraternity, nor need they necessarily be Hindus. Kabir, who was one of them, fulminates against most of the later sects of mendicants who occasionally become warriors when not simply brigands, and sketches them with a masterly hand:
“I never beheld such a Yogi, Oh, brother! who forgetting his doctrine roves about in negligence. He follows professedly the faith of MAHADEVA and calls himself an eminent teacher; the scene of his abstraction is the fair or market. MAYA is the mistress of the false saint. When did DATTATRAYA demolish a dwelling? When did SUKHADEVA collect an armed host? When did NARADA mount a matchlock? When did VYASADEVA blow a trumpet? etc.” [II, 31.]
It certainly is not worth the while of any sensible man to spend time in learning such puerilities as are above described [in a report of phenomena produced by a fakir]. These are the baser branches of occultism. A Yogi who gets frightened at any threat is no Yogi, but one of those who learn to produce effects without knowing or having learnt what are the causes. Such men, if not tricksters, are simply passive mediums—not adepts! [II, 144.1
If an ascetic prefers a subterranean cave to the open fresh air, takes (apparently) the vow of silence and meditation, refuses to touch money or anything metallic, and, lastly, passes his days in what appears the most ludicrous occupation of all, that of concentrating his whole thoughts on the tip of his nose,—he does this, neither for the sake of playing an aimless comedy nor yet out of mere unreasoned superstition, but as a physical discipline. based on strictly scientific principles. Most of the thousands of
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fakirs, gosseins,
bayraguis and others of the mendicant order, who throng the villages and
religious fairs of India in our present age, may be and undoubtedly are
worthless and idle vagabonds, modern clowns, imitating the great students of the
philosophic ages of the past. And, there is but little doubt that, though they
ape the postures and servilely copy the traditional customs of their nobler
brethren, they understand no more why they do it than the sceptic who laughs at
them. But, if we look closer at the origin of their school and study Patanjali’s
Yoga Vidya—we
will be better able to understand and hence appreciate their seemingly
ridiculous practices. If the ancients were not as well versed in the details of
physiology as are our physicians of the Carpenterian modern school
—a
question still sub judice—they
may perhaps be proved, on the other hand, to have fathomed this science in
another direction by other methods far deeper than the former; in short, to have
made themselves better acquainted with its occult and exceptional laws than we
are. That the ancients of all countries were intimately acquainted with what is
termed in our days “hypnotism” or self-mesmerisation, the production, in a word,
of voluntary trance—cannot
be denied. One of the many proofs is found in the fact that the same method,
described here, is known as tradition and practised by the Christian monks at
Mount Athos even to this very day. These, to induce “divine visions,”
concentrate their thoughts and fix their eyes on the navel for hours together. A
number of Russian travellers testify to such an occupation in the Greek
convents, and writers of other nationalities, who have visited this celebrated
hermitage, will bear out our assertion. . . . [I, 315.]
As the science and study of Yoga Philosophy pertains to Buddhist, Lamaic and other religions supposed to be atheistical, i.e., rejecting belief in a personal deity, and as a Vedantin would by no means use such an expression, we must understand the term “absorption into God” in the sense of union with the Universal Soul, or Parama Purusha—the Primal or One Spirit. [II, 72.]
The physical body incarnates and disincarnates—that is its elements change—continually from the time of fœtal existence until death. The life principle acts from the time of conception until death, the lower principles are fed continually during that time from the astral plane; that which constitutes the individual monad reincarnates at the time of birth, but whether or not the highest principles may assimilate with that germ during a lifetime, and to
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which extent they will either assimilate or be lost, will depend on the will and the exertions of the individual. [VI, 71.]
Human hibernation belongs to the Yoga system and may be termed one of its many results, but it cannot be called “Yoga.”
[I, 314.1
In reference to the arrest of the growth of the hair, some adepts in the secret science, which is generally known in India under the name of Yoga, claim to know something more than this. They prove their ability to completely suspend the functions of life each night during the hours intended for sleep. Life then is, so to say, held in total abeyance. The wear and tear of the inner as well as the outer organism being thus artificially arrested, and there being no possibility of waste, these men accumulate as much vital energy for use in their waking state as they would have lost in sleep during which state, if natural, the process of energy and expanse of force is still mechanically going on in the human body. In the induced state described, as in that of a deep swoon, the brain no more dreams than if it were dead. One century, if passed, would appear no longer than one second, for all perception of time is lost for him who is subjected to it. Nor do the hairs or nails grow under such circumstances, though they do for a certain time in a body actually dead, which proves, if anything can, that the atoms and tissues of the physical body are held under conditions quite different from those of the state we call death. For, to use a physiological paradox, life in a dead animal organism is even more intensely active than it ever is in a living one, which as we see, does not hold good in the case under notice. Though the average skeptic may regard this statement as sheer nonsense, those who have experienced this in themselves know it is an undoubted fact. Two certain fakirs from Nepaul once agreed to try the experiment. One of them, previous to attempting the hibernation, underwent all the ceremonies of preparation . . . and took all the necessary precautions; the other simply threw himself by a process known to himself and others into that temporary state of complete paralysis, which imposes no limits of time, may last months as well as hours, and which is known in certain Tibet lamaseries as . .
The result was that while the hair, beard, and nails of the former
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had grown at the end of six weeks, though feebly yet perceptibly, the cells of the latter had remained as closed and inactive as if he had been transformed for the lapse of time into a marble statue. Not having personally seen either of the two men, or the experiment, we can vouch only in a general way for the possibility of the phenomenon, not for the details of this peculiar case, though we would as soon doubt our existence as the truthfulness of those from whom we have the story. We only hope that among the skeptical and materialistic who may scoff, we may not find either people who, nevertheless accept with a firm and pious conviction the story of the resurrection of the half-decayed Lazarus and other like miracles, or yet those who, while ready to crush a theosophist for his beliefs, would never dare scoff at that of a Christian. [II, 146.]
This system, evolved by long ages of practice until it was brought to bear the above—described results, was not practised in India alone in the days of antiquity. The greatest philosophers of all countries sought to acquire these powers; and certainly, behind the external ridiculous postures of the Yogis of today, lies concealed the profound wisdom of the archaic ages; one that included among other things a perfect knowledge of what are now termed physiology and psychology. Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Proclus and others practised it in Egypt; and Greece and Rome did not shrink even at all in their time of philosophical glory, to follow suit. Pythagoras speaks of the celestial music of the spheres that one hears in hours of ecstacy; Zeno finds a wise man who having conquered all passions, feels happiness and emotion, but in the midst of torture. Plato advocates the man of meditation and likens his powers to those of the divinity; and we see the Christian ascetics themselves through a mere life of contemplation and self-torture acquire powers of levitation or aethrobacy, which, though attributed to the miraculous intervention of a personal God, are nevertheless real and the result of physiological changes in the human body. “The Yogi,” says Patanjali, “will hear celestial sounds, the songs and conversations of celestial choirs. He will have the perception of their touch in their passage through the air,”—which translated into a more sober language means that the ascetic is enabled to see with the spiritual eye in the Astral Light, hear with the spiritual ear subjective sounds inaudible to others, and live and feel, so to say, in the Unseen Universe.
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“The Yogi is able to enter a dead or a living body by the path of the senses, and in this body to act as though it were his own.” The “path of the senses”—our physical senses supposed to originate in the astral body, the ethereal counterpart of man, or the jivatma, which dies with body—the senses are here meant in their spiritual sense—volition of the higher principle in man. The true Raj Yogi is a Stoic; and Kapila, who deals but with the latter—utterly rejecting the claim of the Hatha Yogis to converse during Samadhi with the In finite Iswar—describes their state in the following words:—”To a Yogi, in whose mind all things are identified as spirit, what is infatuation? what is grief? He sees all things as one; he is destitute of affections; he neither rejoices in good nor is offended with evil. . . . A wise man sees so many false things in those which are called true, so much misery in what is called happiness, that he turns away with disgust. . . . He who in the body has obtained liberation (from the tyranny of the senses) is of no caste, of no sect, of no order, attends to no duties, adheres to no shastras, to no formulas, to no works of merit; he is beyond the reach of speech; he remains at a distance from all secular concerns; he has renounced the love and the knowledge of sensible objects; he flatters none, he honours none, he is not worshipped, he worships none; whether he practises and follows the customs of his fellowmen or not, this is his character.”
And a selfish and a disgustingly misanthropical one this character would be, were it that for which the TRUE ADEPT would be striving. But, it must not be understood literally . . . [II, 75.]
Do female adepts exist at all?
Will you kindly let me know whether females can attain to adeptship, and whether female adepts exist at all?
“An INQUIRER”
Note.—It is difficult to see any good reason why females should not become Adepts. None of us, Chelas, are aware of any physical or other defect which might entirely incapacitate them from under taking the dreary ordeal. It may be more difficult, more dangerous for them than it is for men, still not impossible. The Hindu sacred
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books and traditions mention such cases, and since the laws of Nature are immutable, what was possible some thousand years ago must be possible now. If our correspondent had referred to the Editorial Notes, page 148, Vol. III, “Re-Incarnation in Tibet,”* he would have found the existence of a female Adept hinted at—the pious Chinese Princess who, after living for ten years a married life, renounced it with her husband’s consent and became a Gelungma, or Ani, i.e., a nun. She is believed to be still re-incarnating herself “in a succession of female Lamas.” The late Tde-Shoo Lama’s sister is said to be one of such re-incarnations. From this lady-Adept, the Superior of the Nunnery on the Palte-Lake—a Tibetan pedlar of Darjeeling acknowledged to some Bengal Theosophists, who visited that place last year, to have received a talisman. . . . In Nepaul, we all know, there is a high female Adept. And in Southern India, flourished at a recent date, another great female Initiate named Ouvaiyar. Her mysterious work in Tamil on Occultism is still extant. It is styled Kural, and is said to be very enigmatically written, and consequently inexplicable. In Benares too lives a certain lady, unsuspected and unknown, but to the very few to whom reference has been made in the Theosophist, (page 47, Vol. II). Further information about these few already mentioned or any other female Adepts we may know of, we do not feel at liberty to give. . . . D.K.M. [V 29.]
Some enquire how
the world is to go on if all were to become occultists, one of the vital
conditions of that order being celibacy. Others say that the ancient Rishis
married, quoting some of the names mentioned in the Hindu religious books; and
argue there from, that celibacy is not an essential condition for progress in
practical occultism. Generally, they put a literal interpretation upon what is
beautifully conveyed by means of an allegory and insist upon the dead-letter
sense being correct, whenever such a course is profitable in their narrow
interests. They find it difficult to control the lower animal desires; and, in
order to justify their conduct of persistence in hankering after sensual
pleasures, they resort to these books as their authority, interpreting them in a
manner most convenient to themselves. Of course, when any passages, even in
their exoteric sense, conflict with the dictates of their “lower self,” then
others are quoted, which esoterically convey the same sense, although
exoterically supporting their peculiar views.
——————
*See H.P.B. Articles, Vol. III, 356.
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The question of the marriage of the Rishis is one of such disputed points. The readers of the Theosophist may recall here, with ad vantage, a passage occurring in the article under the heading of “Magicon,” where one of the occultists is said to have rejected the hand of a beautiful young lady, on the ground of his having taken the vow of celibacy, although he himself confesses further on to be courting a virgin whose name was “Sophia.” Now, it is explained there that “Sophia” is wisdom or the Buddhi—the spiritual soul (our sixth principle). This principle is everywhere represented as a “female,” because it is passive in as much as it is merely the vehicle of the seventh principle. This latter—which is called Atma when spoken of in connection with an individual and Purusha when applied in its relation to the Universe—is the active male, for it is the CENTRE OF ENERGY acting through and upon its female vehicle, the sixth principle.
The occultist, when he has identified himself thoroughly with his Atma, acts upon the Buddhi, for, according to the laws of Cosmic Evolution, the Purusha—the universal seventh principle—is perpetually acting upon and manifesting itself through Prakriti—the universal sixth principle. Thus the MAHATMA, who has become one with his seventh principle—which is identical with Purusha, since there is no isolation in the spiritual monad—is practically a creator, for he has identified himself with the evoluting and the manifesting energy of nature. It was in this sense that the Rishis are said to have married. And the union of Siva and Sakti represents the same allegory. Siva is the Logos, the Vach, manifested through the Sakti; and the union of the two produces the phenomenal creation, for until the Son is born, the Father and the Mother are non-existent. Now Sakti being a female principle, it is fully manifested through a woman, although, properly speaking, the inner man is neither male, nor female. It is only the preponderance of either of the two principles (positive and negative) which determines the sex. Now, this preponderance is determined by the Law of Affinity; and hence in a woman is manifested abnormally the occult power represented by Sakti. She is moreover gifted with a wonderfully vivid imagination—stronger than man’s. And as the phenomenal is the realisation or rather the manifestation of the IDEAL, which can be properly and strongly conceived only by a powerful IMAGINATION—a WOMAN-ADEPT can produce high occultists—a race of “Buddhas and Christs,” born “without
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sin.” The more and the sooner the animal sexual affinities are given up, the stronger and the sooner will be the manifestation of the higher occult powers which alone can produce the “immaculate conception.” And this art is practically taught to the occultists at a very high stage of initiation. The “Adept,” whether the Sthula Sarira be male or female, is then able to bring a new being into existence by the manipulation of cosmic forces. Anusáya, a female adept of the ancient times, is thus said to have conceived immaculately Dárvasa, Dattatraya and Chandra—the three distinct types of Adeptship. Thus it will be seen that the marriage of the occultist (who is, as already explained, neither male nor female) is a “holy union,” devoid of sin, in the same manner as Krishna’s union with thousands of Gopies. Sensual-minded men have taken this fact up too literally; and, out of a wrong interpretation of the text, has arisen a sect which indulges in the most degrading practices. But, in fact, Krishna represents the seventh principle, while the Gopies indicate the innumerable powers of that principle manifested through its “vehicle.” Its union “without sin,” or rather the action or manifestation of each of these powers through the “female principle” gives rise to the phenomenal appearances. In such a union the occultist is happy and “without sin” for the “conception” of his other-half—the female principle—is “immaculate.” The very fact, that this stage pertains to one of the very highest initiations, shows that the time—when ordinary humanity, during the course of cosmic evolution, will, in this manner, be able to produce a race of “Buddhas,” &c, born “without sin”—is yet very, very far off—perhaps attainable in the sixth or the seventh “round.” But when once this possibility and the actuality of this fact is recognised, the course of living and education may be so moulded as to hasten the approach of that eventful day when on this earth will descend “the Kingdom of Heaven.” [V, 264.]
Neither Tibetan nor Hindu Mahatmas meddle with politics
Neither the Tibetan nor the modern Hindu Mahatmas for the matter of that, ever meddle with politics, though they may bring their influence to bear upon more than one momentous question in the history of a nation—their mother country especially. If any Adepts have influenced Washington or brought about the great
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American Revolution, it was not the “Tibetan Mahatmas” at any rate; for these have never shown much sympathy with the Pelings of whatever Western race, except as forming a part of Humanity in general. Yet it is as certain though this conviction is merely a personal one, that several Brothers of the Rosie Cross—or “Rosicrucians,” so called—did take a prominent part in the American struggle for independence, as much as in the French Revolution during the whole of the past century. We have documents to that effect, and the proofs of it are in our possession. But these Rosicrucians were Europeans and American settlers who acted quite independently of the Indian or Tibetan Initiates. And the “Ex- asiatic” who premises by saying that his statements are made entirely upon his own personal responsibility—settles this question from the first. He refers to Adepts in general and not to Tibetan or Hindu Mahatmas necessarily, as our correspondent seems to think.
No Occult theosophist has ever thought of connecting Benjamin Franklin, or “Brother Benjamin” as he is called in America, with theosophy; with this exception, however, that the great philosopher and electrician seems to be one more proof of the mysterious influence of numbers and figures connected with the dates of the birth, death and other events in the life of certain remarkable individuals. Franklin was born on the 17th of the month (January, 1706) died on the 17th (April, 1790) and was the youngest of the 17 children of his parents. Beyond this, there is certainly nothing to connect him with modern theosophy or even with the theosophists of the 18th century—as the great body of alchemists and Rosicrucians called themselves.
Again neither the editor nor any member of the Society acquainted even superficially with the rules of the Adepts—[the former individual named, disclaiming emphatically the rather sarcastic charge of the writer to her being “alone to enjoy or claim the extraordinary felicity of personal communication with the Adepts”]—would believe for one moment that any of the cruel, blood-thirsty heroes—the regicides and others of English and French history—could have ever been inspired by any Adept—let alone a Hindu or Buddhist Mahatma. The inferences drawn from the article “The Adepts in America in 1776,” are a little too far-fetched by our imaginative correspondent. President Bradshaw—if such a cold, hard and impassive man can be suspected of having ever been in-
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fluenced by any power outside of, and foreign to, his own soulless entity—must have been inspired by the “lower Jehovah” of the old Testament—the Mahatma and Paramatma, or the “personal” god of Calvin and those Puritans who burnt to the greater glory of their deity—”ever ready for a bribe of blood to aid the foulest cause”—alleged witches and heretics by hundred of thousands. Surely it is not the living Mahatmas but “the Biblical one living God,” he who, thousand of years ago, had inspired Jepthah to murder his daughter, and the weak David to hang the seven Sons and grandsons of Saul “in the hill before the Lord”; and who again in our own age had moved Guiteau to shoot President Garfield—that must have also inspired Danton and Robespierre, Marat and the Russian Nihilists to open eras of Terror and turn Churches into slaughter houses.
Nevertheless, it is our firm conviction based on historical evidence and direct inferences from many of the Memoirs of those days that the French Revolution is due to one Adept. It is that mysterious personage, now conveniently classed with other “historical charlatans” (i.e., great men whose occult knowledge and powers shoot over the heads of the imbecile majority), namely, the Count de St. Germain who brought about the just outbreak among the paupers, and put an end to the selfish tyranny of the French kings—the “elect, and the Lord’s anointed.” And we know also that among the Carbonari—the precursors and pioneers of Garibaldi there was more than one Freemason deeply versed in occult sciences and Rosicrucianism. To infer from the article that a claim is laid down for Paine “to supernatural visitors” is to misconstrue the entire meaning of its author; and it shows very little knowledge of theosophy itself. There may be Theosophists who are also Spiritualists, in England and America who firmly believe in disembodied visitors; but neither they nor we, Eastern Theosophists, have ever believed in the existence of supernatural visitors. We leave this to the orthodox followers of their respective religions. It is quite possible that certain arguments adduced in this journal in proof of the existence of our Mahatmas, “have failed to bring conviction home” to our correspondent; nor does it much matter if they have not. But whether we refer to the Mahatmas he believes in, or to those whom we personally know—once that a man has raised himself to the eminence of one, unless he be a sorcerer, or a Dugpa, he can never be an inspirer of sinful
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acts. To the Hebrew saying, “I, the Lord create evil,” the Mahatma answers,—”I, the Initiate try to counteract and destroy it.” [V, 80.]
The belief in a personal god may do some good under certain circumstances, but it may also do a great deal of harm according to the attributes which we give to that personal god. A personal god without personal attributes is unthinkable and illogical; because it is his personal attributes, which constitute him a “personal” god. If we believe that such a god is passionate, revengeful and changeable, if we believe that he favors some and condemns others, that he can be persuaded to forgive our sins and thereby act contrary to the law of justice, such a belief not only impedes our own progress, but is highly pernicious.
The words “right” and “wrong” may be used in the absolute or in the relative sense. Generally speaking it is the intention with which the act is done, that constitutes its right or wrong. If it is in accordance with the law of justice, it cannot be wrong; but we cannot obtain a perfect sense of justice without a corresponding degree of knowledge. [VI, 18.]
Rather than believe in such a “God,” many good men have ceased to believe in one at all. It is against the interpretations of the words of Jesus of Nazareth and not the words themselves (which mean quite a different thing) that so many ex-Christians have rebelled. [IV, 272 fn.]
We cannot conceive of an “All-pervading whole,” being separate from its part. The idea . . . is of course the theistic, but not very philosophical doctrine which teaches the relation of man to God as that between father and child.
How can Parabrahma be “the ever-active state of the whole” when the only attribute—an absolutely negative one—of Parabrahma is passivity, unconscious-ness, etc. And how can Parabrahma, the one principle, the universal Essence of the TOTALITY be only a “state of the WHOLE” when it is itself the WHOLE, and when even the Vedantic Awaitees assert that Iswara is but a mere manifestation of, and secondary to, Parabrahma which is the “All Pervading” TOTAL?
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. . . If the whole is “all-pervading” and “infinite,” all its parts must be indivisibly linked together. The idea of separation involves the possibility of a vacuum—a portion of space or time where the whole is supposed to be absent from some given point. Hence the absurdity of speaking of the parts of one Infinite being also infinite. To illustrate geometrically, suppose there is an infinite line, which has neither a beginning nor end. Its parts cannot also be infinite, for when you say “parts,” they must have a beginning and end; or, in other words, they must be finite, either at one or the other end, which is as evident a fallacy as to speak of an immortal soul which was at some time created—thus implying a beginning to that which, if the word has any sense, is eternal.
Would it not be better and far more philosophical to resort, in such a case, to the oft-repeated simile of the ocean? If we suppose for a moment, infinity to be a vast and all-pervading ocean, we can conceive of the individual existence of each of the drops composing that sea. All are alike in essence, but their manifestations may and do differ according to their surrounding conditions. In the same manner, all human individualities, although alike in nature, yet differ in manifestations according to the vehicles and the conditions through which they have to act. The Yogi, therefore, so far elevates his other principles, or let us call them vehicles, if preferred, as to facilitate the manifestation of his individuality in its original nature. [IV, 228.]
THE letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” this is the key note of all true reform. Theosophy is the vehicle of the spirit that gives life, consequently nothing dogmatic can be truly theosophical.
It is incorrect, therefore, to describe a mere unearthing of dead letter dogmas as “Theosophic work.”
When a word, phrase, or symbol, having been once used for the purpose of suggesting an idea new to the mind or minds being operated on, is insisted upon irrespective of the said idea, it becomes a dead letter dogma and loses its vitalising power, and serves rather as an obstruction to, than as vehicle of the spirit; but, alas, this insistence upon the letter is too often carried on under the honoured name of “Theosophy.”
A man cannot acquire an idea new to him unless it grows in his mind.
The mere familiarity with the sound of a word, or a phrase, or the mere familiarity with the appearance of a symbol, does not, of necessity, involve the possession of the idea properly associated with the said word, phrase or symbol. To insist, therefore, on the contrary cannot be theosophical; but would be better described as untheosophical.
It would certainly be theosophical work to point out kindly and temperately how certain words, phrases and symbols appear to have been misunderstood or misapplied, how various claims and professions may be excessive or confused as a consequence of ignorance or vanity, or both. But it is quite another thing to condemn a man or a body of men outright, for certain errors in judgment or action; even though they were the result of vanity, greed or hypocrisy; indeed such wholesale condemnation would, on the contrary, be untheosophical.
The one eternal, immutable law of life alone can judge and condemn a man absolutely. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”
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Were I asked how I would dare attempt “to dethrone the gods, overthrow the temple, destroy the law which feeds the priests and props the realm; I should answer as the Buddha is made to answer in the Light of Asia: ‘What thou bidst me keep is form which passes while the free truth stands; get thee to thy darkness.’
“What good gift hath my brother but it comes from search and strife (inward) and loving sacrifice.”
*
* *
Lucifer, October, 1887
(Written by a Master of Wisdom)
IT is divine philosophy alone, the spiritual and psychic blending of man with nature, which, by revealing the fundamental truths that lie hidden under the objects of sense and perception, can promote a spirit of unity and harmony in spite of the great diversities of conflicting creeds. Theosophy, therefore, expects and demands from the Fellows of the Society a great mutual toleration and charity for each other’s shortcomings, ungrudging mutual help in the search for truths in every department of nature—moral and physical. And this ethical standard must be unflinchingly applied to daily life.
“Theosophy should not represent merely a collection of moral verities, a bundle of metaphysical ethics, epitomized in theoretical dissertations. Theosophy must be made practical; and it has, therefore, to be disencumbered of useless digressions, in the sense of desultory orations and fine talk. Let every Theosophist only do his duty, that which he can and ought to do, and very soon the sum of human misery, within and around the areas of every Branch of your Society, will be found visibly diminished. Forget SELF in working for others—and the task will become an easy and a light one for you.
“Do not set your pride in the appreciation and acknowledgement of that work by others. Why should any member of the Theosophical Society, striving to become a Theosophist, put any value upon his neighbour’s good or bad opinion of himself and his work, so long as he himself knows it to be useful and beneficent to other people? Human praise and enthusiasm are short-lived at best; the laugh of the scoffer and condemnation of the indifferent looker-on are sure to follow, and generally to out-weigh, the admiring praise of the friendly. Do not despise the opinion of the world, nor provoke it uselessly to unjust criticism. Remain rather as indifferent to the abuse as to the praise of those who can never know you as you really are, and who ought, therefore, to find you unmoved by either, and ever placing the approval or condemnation of your own
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Inner Self higher than that of the multitudes.
“Those of you who would know yourselves in the spirit of truth, learn to live alone even amidst the great crowds which may some times surround you. Seek communion and intercourse only with the God within your own soul; heed only the praise or blame of that deity which can never be separated from your true self, as it is verily that God itself: called the HIGHER Consciousness. Put without delay your good intentions into practice, never leaving a single one to remain only an intention—expecting, meanwhile, neither reward nor even acknowledgement for the good you may have done. Reward and acknowledgement are in yourself and in separable from you, as it is your Inner Self alone which can appreciate them at their true degree and value. For each one of you contains within the precincts of his inner tabernacle the Supreme Court—prosecutor, defense, jury and judge—whose sentence is the only one without appeal; since none can know you better than you do yourself, when once you have learned to judge that Self by the never wavering light of the inner divinity—your higher Consciousness. Let, therefore, the masses, which can never know your true selves, condemn your outer selves according to their own false lights.
“The majority of the public Areopagus is generally composed of self-appointed judges, who have never made a permanent deity of any idol save their own personalities—their lower selves; for those who try in their walk in life, to follow their inner light will never be found judging, far less condemning, those weaker than themselves. What does it matter, then, whether the former condemn or praise, whether they humble you or exalt you on a pinnacle? They will never comprehend you one way or the other. They may make an idol of you, so long as they imagine you a faithful mirror of themselves on the pedestal or altar which they have reared for you, and while you amuse or benefit them. You cannot expect to be anything for them but a temporary fetish, succeeding another fetish just overthrown, and followed in your turn by an other idol. Let, therefore, those who have created that idol destroy it whenever they like, casting it down with as little cause as they had for setting it up. Your Western Society can no more live with out its Khalif of an hour than it can worship one for any longer period; and whenever it breaks an idol and then besmears it with mud, it is not the model, but the disfigured image created by its
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own foul fancy and which it has endowed with its own vices, that Society dethrones and breaks.
“Theosophy can only find objective expression in an all-embracing code of life, thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of mutual tolerance, charity, and brotherly love, its Society, as a body, has a task before it which, unless performed with the utmost discretion, will cause the world of the indifferent and the selfish to rise up in arms against it. Theosophy has to fight intolerance, prejudice, ignorance, and selfishness, hidden under the mantle of hypocrisy. It has to throw all the light it can from the torch of Truth, with which its servants are entrusted. It must do this without fear or hesitation, dreading neither reproof nor condemnation. Theosophy, through its mouthpiece, the Society, has to tell the TRUTH to the very face of LIE; to beard the tiger in its den, without thought or fear of evil consequences, and to set at defiance calumny and threats. As an Association, it has not only the right, but the duty to uncloak vice and do its best to redress wrongs, whether through the voice of its chosen lecturers or the printed word of its journals and publications—making its accusations, however, as impersonal as possible. But its Fellows, or Members have individually no such right, Its followers have, first of all, to set the example of a firmly outlined and as firmly applied morality, before they obtain the right to point out, even in a spirit of kindness, the absence of a like ethic unity and singleness of purpose in other associations or individuals. No Theosophist should blame a brother, whether within or outside of the association; neither may he throw a slur upon another’s actions or denounce him, lest he himself lose the right to be considered a Theosophist. For, as such, he has to turn away his gaze from the imperfections of his neighbour, and centre rather his attention upon his own shortcomings, in order to correct them and become wiser. Let him not show the disparity between claim and action in another, but, whether in the case of a brother, a neighbor, or simply a fellow man, let him rather ever help one weaker than himself on the arduous walk of life.
“The problems of true Theosophy and its great mission are, first, the working out of clear unequivocal conceptions of ethic ideas and duties, such as shall best and most fully satisfy the right and altruistic feelings in men; and, second, the modeling of these conceptions for their adaptation into such forms of daily life, as shall offer a field where they may be applied with most equitableness.
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“Such is the common work placed before all who are willing to act on these principles. It is a laborious task, and will require strenuous and persevering exertion; but it must lead you insensibly to progress, and leave you no room for any selfish aspirations outside the limits traced. . . . Do not indulge personally in unbrotherly comparison between the task accomplished by yourself and the work left undone by your neighbours or brothers. In the fields of Theosophy none is held to weed out a larger plot of ground than his strength and capacity will permit him. Do not be too severe on the merits or demerits of one who seeks admission among your ranks, as the truth about the actual state of the inner man can only be known to Karma, and can be dealt with justly by that all-seeing Law alone. Even the simple presence amidst you of a well—intentioned and sympathizing individual may help you magnetically. .
You are the free volunteer workers on the fields of Truth, and as such must leave no obstruction on the paths leading to that field.”
* * * * *
“The degree of success or failure are the landmarks the Masters have to follow, as they will constitute the barriers placed with your own hands between yourselves and those whom you have asked to be your teachers. The nearer your approach to the goal contemplated—the shorter the distance between the student and the Master.”
Lucifer, January, 1888
THE first three of the numbered rules of “Light on the Path” must appear somewhat of an unequal character to bracket together. The sense in which they follow each other is purely spiritual. Ambition is the highest point of personal activity reached by the mind, and there is something noble in it, even to an Occultist. Having conquered the desire to stand above his fellows, the restless aspirant, in seeking what his personal desires are, finds the thirst for life stands next in his way. For all that are ordinarily classed as desires has long since been subjugated, passed by, or forgotten, before this pitched battle of the soul is begun. The desire for life is entirely a desire of the spirit, not mental at all; and in facing it a man begins to face his own soul. But very few have even attempted to face it; still fewer can guess at all at its meaning.
The connection between ambition and the desire of life is of this kind. Men are seldom really ambitious in whom the animal passions are strong. What is taken for ambition in men of powerful physique is more often merely the exercise of great energy in order to obtain full gratification of all physical desires. Ambition pure and simple is the struggle of the mind upwards, the exercise of a native intellectual force which lifts a man altogether above his peers. To rise—to be preeminent in some special manner, in some department of art, science, or thought, is the keenest longing of delicate and highly-tuned minds. It is quite a different thing from the thirst for knowledge which makes of a man a student always—a learner to the end, however great he may become. Ambition is born of no love for anything for its own sake, but purely for the sake of oneself. “It is I that will know, I that will rise, and by my own power.”
Cromwell, I charge
thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels.
The place-seeking for which the word was originally used, differs in degree, not in kind, from that more abstract meaning now generally attached to it. A poet is considered ambitious when
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he writes for fame. It is true; so he is. He may not be seeking a place at court, but he is certainly seeking the highest place he knows of. Is it conceivable that any great author could really be anonymous, and remain so? The human mind revolts against the theory of the Baconian authorship of Shakespeare’s works, not only because it deprives the world of a splendid figure, but also because it makes of Bacon a monster, unlike all other human beings. To the ordinary intelligence it is inconceivable that a man should hide his light in this purposeless manner. Yet it is conceivable to an occultist that a great poet might be inspired by one greater than himself, who would stand back entirely from the world and all contact with it. This inspirer would not only have conquered ambition but also the abstract desire for life, before he could work vicariously to so great an extent. For he would part with his work for ever when once it had gone to the world; it would never be his. A person who can imagine making no claim on the world, neither desiring to take pleasure from it nor to give pleasure to it, can dimly apprehend the condition which the occultist has reached when he no longer desires to live. Do not suppose this to mean that he neither takes nor gives pleasure; he does both, as also he lives. A great man, full of work and thought, eats his food with pleasure; he does not dwell on the prospect of it, and linger over the memory, like the gluttonous child, or the gourmand pure and simple. This is a very material image, yet sometimes these simple illustrations serve to help the mind more than any others, It is easy to see, from this analogy, that an advanced occultist who has work in the world may be perfectly free from the desires which would make him a part of it, and yet may take its pleasures and give them back with interest. He is enabled to give more pleasure than he takes, because he is incapable of fear or disappointment. He has no dread of death, nor of that which is called annihilation. He rests on the waters of life, submerged and sleeping, or above them and conscious, indifferently. He cannot feel disappointment, because although pleasure is to him intensely vivid and keen, it is the same to him whether he enjoys it himself or whether another enjoys it. It is pleasure, pure and simple, untarnished by personal craving or desire. So with regard to what occultists call “progress”—the advance from stage to stage of knowledge. In a school of any sort in the external world emulation is the great spur to progress.
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The occultist, on the contrary, is incapable of taking a single step until he has acquired the faculty of realizing progress as an abstract fact. Someone must draw nearer to the Divine in every moment of life; there must always be progress. But the disciple who desires that he shall be the one to advance in the next moment, may lay aside all hope of it. Neither should he be conscious of preferring progress for another or of any kind of vicarious sacrifice. Such ideas are in a certain sense unselfish, but they are essentially characteristic of the world in which separateness exists, and form is regarded as having a value of its own. The shape of a man is as much an eidolon as though no spark of divinity in habited it; at any moment that spark may desert the particular shape, and we are left with a substantial shadow of the man we knew. It is in vain, after the first step in occultism has been taken. that the mind clings to the old beliefs and certainties. Time and space are known to be non-existent, and are only regarded as existing in practical life for the sake of convenience. So with the separation of the divine-human spirit into the multitudes of men on the earth. Roses have their own colours, and lilies theirs; none can tell why this is when the same sun, the same light, gives the colour to each. Nature is indivisible. She clothes the earth, and when that clothing is torn away, she bides her time and re-clothes it again when there is no more interference with her. Encircling the earth like an atmosphere, she keeps it always glowing and green, moistened and sunlit. The spirit of man encompasses the earth like a fiery spirit, living on Nature, devouring her, sometimes being devoured by her, but always in the mass remaining more ethereal and sublime than she is. In the individual, man is conscious of the vast superiority of Nature; but when once he becomes conscious that he is part of an indivisible and indestructible whole, he knows also that the whole of which he is part stands above nature. The starry sky is a terrible sight to a man who is just self-less enough to be aware of his own littleness and unimportance as an individual; it almost crushes him. But let him once touch on the power which comes from knowing himself as part of the human spirit, and nothing can crush him by its greatness. For if the wheels of the chariot of the enemy pass over his body, he forgets that it is his body, and rises again to fight among the crowd of his own army. But this state can never be reached, nor even approached, until the last of the three desires is conquered,
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as well as the first. They must be apprehended and encountered together.
Comfort, in the language used by occultists, is a very comprehensive word. It is perfectly useless for a neophyte to practice discomfort or asceticism as do religious fanatics. He may come to prefer deprivation in the end, and then it has become his comfort. Homelessness is a condition to which the religious Brahmin pledges himself; and in the external religion he is considered to fulfill this pledge if he leaves wife and child, and becomes a begging wanderer, with no shelter of his own to return to. But all external forms of religion are forms of comfort, and men take vows of abstinence in the same spirit that they take pledges of boon companionship. The difference between these two sides of life is only apparent. But the homelessness which is demanded of the neophyte is a much more vital thing than this. It demands the surrender from him of choice or desire. Dwelling with wife and child, under the shelter of a familiar roof-tree, and fulfilling the duties of citizenship, the neophyte may be far more homeless, in the esoteric sense, than when he is a wanderer or an outcast. The first lesson in practical occultism usually given to a pledged disciple is that of fulfilling the duties immediately to hand with the same subtle mixture of enthusiasm and indifference as the neophyte would imagine himself able to feel when he had grown to the size of a ruler of worlds and a designer of destinies. This rule is to be found in the Gospels and in the Bhagavad Gita. The immediate work, whatever it may be, has the abstract claim of duty, and its relative importance or non-importance is not to be considered at all. This law can never be obeyed until all desire of comfort is forever destroyed. The ceaseless assertions and re-assertions of the personal self must be left behind forever. They belong as completely to the character of this world as does the desire to have a certain balance at the bank, or to retain the affections of a loved person. They are equally subject to the change which is characteristic of this world; indeed, they are even more so, for what the neophyte does by becoming a neophyte is simply to enter a forcing house. Change, disillusionment, disheartenment, despair will crowd upon him by invitation; for his wish is to learn his lessons quickly. And as he turns these evils out they will probably be replaced by others worse than themselves—a passionate longing for separate life, for sensation, for the consciousness of growth in his own self,
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will rush in upon him and sweep over the frail barriers which he has raised. And no such barriers as asceticism, as renunciation, nothing indeed which is negative, will stand for a single moment against this powerful tide of feeling. The only barrier is built up of new desires. For it is perfectly useless for the neophyte to imagine he can get beyond the region of desires. He cannot; he is still a man; Nature must bring forth flowers while she is still Nature, and the human spirit would loose its hold on this form of existence altogether did it not continue to desire. The individual man cannot wrench himself instantly out of that life of which he is an essential part. He can only change his position in it. The man whose intellectual life dominates his animal life, changes his position; but he is still in the dominion of desire. The disciple who believes it possible to become selfless in a single effort, will find himself flung into a bottomless pit as the consequence of his rash endeavour. Seize upon a new order of desires, purer, wider, nobler; and so plant your foot upon the ladder firmly. It is only on the last and topmost rung of the ladder, at the very entrance upon Divine or Mahatmic life, that it is possible to hold fast to that which has neither substance or existence.
The first part of “Light on the Path” is like a chord in music; the notes have to be struck together though they must be touched separately. Study and seize hold of the new desires before you have thrust out the old ones; otherwise in the storm you will be lost. Man while he is man has substance and needs some step to stand on, some idea to cling to. But let it be the least possible. Learn as the acrobat learns, slowly and with care, to become more independent. Before you attempt to cast out the devil of ambition— the desire of something, however fine and elevated, outside of your self,—seize on the desire to find the light of the world within your self. Before you attempt to cast out the desire of conscious life, learn to look to the unattainable or in other language to that which you know you can only reach in unconsciousness. In knowing that your aim is of this lofty character, that it will never bring conscious success, never bring comfort to you, that it will never carry you in your own temporary personal self to any haven of rest or place of agreeable activity, you cut away all the force and power of the desires of the lower astral nature. For what avail is it, when these facts have been once realised, to desire separateness, sensation or growth?
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The armour of the warrior who rises to fight for you in the battle depicted in the second part of “Light on the Path,” is like the shirt of the happy man in the old story. The king was to be cured of all his ills by sleeping in this shirt; but when the one happy man in his kingdom was found, he was a beggar, without care, without anxiety—and shirtless. So with the divine warrior. None can take his armour and use it, for he has none. The king could never find happiness like that of the careless beggar. The man of the world, however fine and cultivated he may be, is hampered by a thousand thoughts and feelings which have to be cast aside before he can even stand on the threshold of occultism. And, be it observed, he is chiefly handicapped by the armour he wears, which isolates him. He has personal pride, personal respect. These things must die out as the personality recedes. The process described in the first part of “Light on the Path,” is one which takes off that shell, or armour, and casts it aside forever. Then the warrior arises, armourless, defenseless, offenseless, identified with the afflicters and the afflicted, the angered and the one that angers; fighting not on any side, but for the Divine, the highest in all.
Lucifer, February, 1888
WHAT GOOD HAS THEOSOPHY DONE IN INDIA?
The race of mankind would perish, did they cease to aid each other. From the time that the mother binds the child’s head, till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid, have a right to ask it from their fellow-mortals. No one who holds the power of granting, can refuse it without guilt.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
SEVERAL correspondents and enquirers have lately asked us “What good have you done in India?” To answer it would be easy. One has but to ask the doubters to read the January Number, 1888, of the Madras Theosophist—our official organ— and, turning to the report in it on the Anniversary Meeting of the Theosophical Society, whose delegates meet yearly at Adyar, see for himself. Many and various are the good works done by the 127 active branches of the Theosophical Society scattered through out the length and breadth of India. But as most of those works are of a moral and reformatory character, the ethical results upon the members are difficult to describe. Free Sanskrit schools have been opened wherever it was possible; gratuitous classes are held; free dispensaries—homo-eopathic and allopathic—established for the poor, and many of our Theosophists feed and clothe the needy.
All this, however, might have been done by people without be longing to our Brotherhood, we may be told. True; and much the same has been done before the T.S. appeared in India, and from time immemorial. Yet such work has been hitherto done, and such help given by the wealthier members of one caste or religious community exclusively to the poorer members of the same caste and religious denomination. No Brahmin would have held brotherly intercourse even with a Brahmin of another division of his own high caste, let alone with a Jain or Buddhist. A Parsee
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would only protect and defend his own brother follower of Zoroaster. A Jain would feed and take care of a lame and sick animal, but would turn away from a Hindu of the Vaishnava or any other sect. He would spend thousands on the “Hospital for Animals” where bullocks, old crippled tigers and dogs are nursed, but would not approach a fellowman in need unless he was a Jain like himself. But now, since the advent of the Theosophical Society, things in India are, slowly it is true, yet gradually, becoming otherwise.
We have, then, to show rather the good moral effect produced by the Society in general, and each branch of it in its own district on the population, than to boast of works of charity, for which India has ever been noted. We shall not enter even into a disquisition upon the benefits to be reaped by the establishment of a Sanskrit, or rather an Oriental and European library at Adyar, which, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the President-Founder and his colleagues, begins now to assume quite hopeful proportions. But we will draw at once the attention of the enquirers to the ethical aspect of the question; for all the visible or objective works, whether of charity or any other kind, must pale before the results achieved through the influence of the chief universal, ethical aim and idea of our Society.
Yes; the seeds of a true Universal Brotherhood of man, not of brother-religionists or sectarians only, have been finally sown on the sacred soil of India! The letter that follows these lines proves it most undeniably. These seeds have been thrown since 1881 into that soil, which, for thousands of years, has stubbornly and systematically ejected everything foreign to its system of caste, and refused to assimilate any heterogeneous element alien to Brahmanism, the chief master of the soil of Aryavarta, or to accept any ideas not based upon the Laws of Manu. The Orientalist and the Anglo-Indian, who know something of that tyranny of caste which has hitherto formed an impassable barrier, an almost fathomless gulf between Brahmanism and every other religion, know also of the great hatred of the orthodox “twice born,” the dwija Brahmin, to the Buddhist nastika (the atheist, he who refuses to recognise the Brahminical gods and idols); and they, above all others, will realise, even if they do not fully appreciate, the importance of what has now been achieved by the Theosophical Society. It took several years of incessant efforts to bring about
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even the beginning of a rapprochement between the Brahmin and Buddhist theosophists. A few years ago the President-Founder of the Society, Colonel H. S. Olcott, had almost succeeded in making a breach in the Chinese wall of Brahmanism. It was an unprecedented event; and it created a great stir among the natives, a sincere enthusiasm among the “Heathen,” and much malicious opposition, gossip, and slanderous denial from those who, above all men, ought to work for the idea of Universal Brotherhood preached by their Master—the good Christian Missionaries. Colonel Olcott had succeeded in arranging a kind of preliminary reconciliation between the Brahminical Theosophical Society of Tinevelly and their brother Theosophists and neighbors of Ceylon. Several Buddhists had been brought from Lanka, led by the President, carrying with them, as an emblem of peace and reconciliation, a sprout of the sacred rajah (king) cocoanut-tree. This actually was to be planted in one of the courts of the Tinevelly pagoda, as a living and growing witness to the event. It was an extraordinary and imposing sight that day, namely October 25th, 1881, when, before an immense crowd numbering several thousands of Hindus and other natives, the Delegates of the Buddhist Theosophical Societies of Ceylon, met with their brother Theosophists of the Tinevelly Branch and their Brahmin priests of the pagoda. For over 2,000 years an irreconcilable religious feud had raged between the two creeds and their respective followers. And now they were brought once more together on Hindu soil, and even within the thrice sacred, and to all strangers almost impenetrable, precincts of a Hindu temple, which would have been, only a few days previous to the occurrence, regarded as irretrievably desecrated had even the very shadow of a Buddhist nastika fallen upon its outward walls. Signs of the times, indeed! The cocoanut sprout was planted with great ceremony, and to the sounds of the music of the pagoda orchestra. After that, year after year, Hindus and Buddhi