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Theosophy House
Five Years Of
Theosophy,
by
Various Theosophical
Authors
Mystical,
Philosophical, Theosophical, Historical
and Scientific
Essays Selected from "The Theosophist"
Edited by
George Robert Stow Mead
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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FIVE YEARS OF THEOSOPHY
Mystical, Philosophical, Theosophical,
Historical and Scientific Essays
Selected from "The Theosophist"
Edited by George Robert Stow Mead
CONTENTS
Mystical
The "Elixir of Life"
Is the Desire to "Live" Selfish?
Contemplation
Chelas and Lay Chelas
Ancient Opinions upon Psychic Bodies
The Nilgiri Sannyasis
Witchcraft on the Nilgiris
Shamanism and Witchcraft Amongst the Kolarian
Tribes
Mahatmas and Chelas
The Brahmanical Thread
Reading in a Sealed Envelope
The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac
The Sishal and Bhukailas Yogis
Philosophical
True and False Personality
Chastity
Zorastrianism on the Septenary Constitution of
Man
Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man
The Septenary Principle in Esotericism
Personal and Impersonal God
Prakriti and Parusha
Morality and Pantheism
Occult Study
Some Inquiries Suggested by Mr. Sinnett's
"Esoteric Buddhism"
Sakya Muni's Place in History
Inscriptions Discovered by General A. Cunningham
Discrimination of Spirit and Not-Spirit
Was Writing Known Before Panini?
Theosophical
What is Theosophy?
How a "Chela" Found His
"Guru"
The Sages of the Himavat
The Himalayan Brothers--Do They Exist?
Interview With a Mahatma
The Secret Doctrine
Historical
The Puranas on the Dynasty of the Moryas and on
Koothoomi
The Theory of Cycles
Scientific
Odorigen and Jiva
Introversion of Mental Vision
"Precipitation"
"How Shall We Sleep?"
Transmigration of the Life Atoms
"
FIVE YEARS OF THEOSOPHY
Mystical
The "Elixir of Life"
From a Chela's* Diary. By
G---M---, F.T.S.
"And Enoch walked with the Elohim, and the
Elohim took him."
--Genesis
Introduction
[The curious information-for whatsoever else the
world may think of it,
it will doubtless be acknowledged to be
that--contained in the article
that follows, merits a few words of
introduction. The details given in
it on the subject of what has always been
considered as one of the
darkest and most strictly guarded of the
mysteries of the initiation
into occultism--from the days of the Rishis
until those of the
Theosophical Society--came to the knowledge of
the author in a way that
would seem to the ordinary run of Europeans
strange and supernatural.
He himself, however, we may assure the reader,
is a most thorough
disbeliever in the Supernatural, though he has
learned too much to limit
the capabilities of the natural as some do. Further, he has to make the
following confession of his own belief. It will be apparent, from a
careful perusal of the facts, that if the matter
be really as stated
therein, the author cannot himself be an adept
of high grade, as the
article in such a case would never have been
written. Nor does he
pretend to be one. He is, or rather was, for a few years an
humble
Chela. Hence, the converse must consequently be
also true, that as
regards the higher stages of the mystery he can
have no personal
experience, but speaks of it only as a close
observer left to his own
surmises--and no more. He may, therefore, boldly state that during,
and
notwithstanding, his unfortunately rather too
short stay with some
adepts, he has by actual experiment and
observation verified some of the
less transcendental or incipient parts of the
"Course." And, though it
will be impossible for him to give positive
testimony as to what lies
beyond, he may yet mention that all his own
course of study, training
and experience, long, severe and dangerous as it
has often been, leads
him to the conviction that everything is really
as stated, save some
details purposely veiled. For causes which cannot be explained to the
public, he himself may he unable or unwilling to
use the secret he has
gained access to. Still he is permitted by one to whom all his
reverential affection and gratitude are due--his
last guru--to divulge
for the benefit of Science and Man, and
specially for the good of those
who are courageous enough to personally make the
experiment, the
following astounding particulars of the occult
methods for prolonging
life to a period far beyond the common.--G.M.]
---------
* A. Chela is the pupil and disciple of an
initiated Guru or
Master.--Ed.
---------
Probably one of the first considerations which
move the worldly-minded
at present to solicit initiation into Theosophy
is the belief, or hope,
that, immediately on joining, some extraordinary
advantage over the rest
of mankind will be conferred upon the
candidate. Some even think that
the ultimate result of their initiation will
perhaps be exemption from
that dissolution which is called the common lot
of mankind. The
traditions of the "Elixir of Life,"
said to be in the possession of
Kabalists and Alchemists, are still cherished by
students of Medieval
Occultism--in
is still credited as a
fact by the degraded remnants of the Asiatic
esoteric sects ignorant of the real GREAT
SECRET. The "pungent and fiery
Essence," by which Zanoni renewed his
existence, still fires the
imagination of modern visionaries as a possible
scientific discovery of
the future.
Theosophically, though the fact is distinctly
declared to be true, the
above-named conceptions of the mode of procedure
leading to the
realization of the fact, are known to be false.
The reader may or may
not believe it;
but as a matter of fact, Theosophical Occultists claim
to have communication with (living)
Intelligences possessing an
infinitely wider range of observation than is
contemplated even by the
loftiest aspirations of modern science, all the
present "Adepts" of
even as those superior
Intelligences have investigated (or, if
preferred, are alleged to have investigated),
and remotely as they may
have searched by the help of inference and
analogy, even They have
failed to discover in the Infinity anything
permanent but--SPACE. ALL
IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Reflection, therefore, will easily suggest to
the
reader the further logical inference that in a
Universe which is
essentially impermanent in its conditions,
nothing can confer
permanency.
Therefore, no possible substance, even if drawn from the
depths of Infinity; no imaginable combination of drugs, whether
of our
earth or any other, though compounded by even
the Highest Intelligence;
no system of life or discipline though directed
by the sternest
determination and skill, could possibly produce
Immutability. For in
the universe of solar systems, wherever and
however investigated,
Immutability necessitates "Non-Being"
in the physical sense given it by
the Theists-Non-Being which is nothing in the
narrow conceptions of
Western Religionists--a reductio ad
absurdum. This is a gratuitous
insult even when applied to the pseudo-Christian
or ecclesiastical
Jehovite idea of God.
Consequently, it will be seen that the common
ideal conception of
"Immortality" is not only essentially
wrong, but a physical and
metaphysical impossibility. The idea, whether
cherished by Theosophists
or non-Theosophists, by Christians or
Spiritualists, by Materialists or
Idealists, is a chimerical illusion. But the actual prolongation of
human life is possible for a time so long as to
appear miraculous and
incredible to those who regard our span of
existence as necessarily
limited to at most a couple of hundred
years. We may break, as it were,
the shock of Death, and instead of dying, change
a sudden plunge into
darkness to a transition into a brighter
light. And this may be made so
gradual that the passage from one state of
existence to another shall
have its friction minimized, so as to be
practically imperceptible.
This is a very different matter, and quite
within the reach of Occult
Science.
In this, as in all other cases, means properly directed will
gain their ends, and causes produce effects. Of
course, the only
question is, what are these causes, and how, in
their turn, are they to
be produced.
To lift, as far as may be allowed, the veil from this
aspect of Occultism, is the object of the
present paper.
We must premise by reminding the reader of two
Theosophic doctrines,
constantly inculcated in "
that ultimately the Kosmos
is One--one under infinite variations and
manifestations, and (b) that the so-called man
is a "compound being"--
composite not only in the exoteric scientific
sense of being a congeries
of living so-called material Units, but also in
the esoteric sense of
being a succession of seven forms or parts of
itself, interblended with
each other.
To put it more clearly we might say that the more ethereal
forms are but duplicates of the same
aspect,--each finer one lying
within the inter-atomic spaces of the next
grosser. We would have the
reader understand that these are no subtleties,
no "spiritualities" at
all in the Christo-Spiritualistic sense. In the actual man reflected in
your mirror are really several men, or several
parts of one composite
man; each
the exact counterpart of the other, but the "atomic
conditions" (for want of a better word) of
each of which are so arranged
that its atoms interpenetrate those of the next
"grosser" form. It does
not, for our present purpose, matter how the
Theosophists,
Spiritualists, Buddhists, Kabalists, or
Vedantists, count, separate,
classify, arrange or name these, as that war of
terms may be postponed
to another occasion. Neither does it matter what relation each of
these
men has to the various "elements" of
the Kosmos of which he forms a
part. This knowledge, though of vital importance
in other respects, need
not be explained or discussed now. Nor does it much more concern us
that the Scientists deny the existence of such
an arrangement, because
their instruments are inadequate to make their
senses perceive it. We
will simply reply--"get better instruments
and keener senses, and
eventually you will."
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 so-called exact
science--laughs at it.
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 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 (hints of which will
be found further on) 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 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.
We see, moreover, that in process of time any
cut or lesion upon the
body, however deep, has a tendency to repair the
loss and reunite; a
piece of lost skin is very soon replaced by
another. Hence, if a man,
partially flayed alive, may sometimes survive
and be covered with a new
skin, so our astral, vital body--the fourth of
the seven (having
attracted and assimilated to itself the second)
and which is so much
more ethereal than the physical one--may be 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. The Magdalene is not the only
one who could be accused of having "seven
spirits" in her, though men
who have a lesser number of spirits (what a
misnomer that word!) in
them, are not few or exceptional; they are the frequent failures of
nature--the incomplete men and women.*
-----------
* This is not to be taken as meaning that such
persons are thoroughly
destitute of some one or several of the seven
principles--a man born
without an arm has still its ethereal counterpart; but that they are so
latent that they cannot be developed, and
consequently are to be
considered as non-existing.--Ed. Theos.
----------
Each of these has in turn to survive the
preceding and more dense one,
and then die.
The exception is the sixth when absorbed into and blended
with the seventh. The "Phatu" * of the old Hindu
physiologist had a
dual meaning, the esoteric side of which
corresponds with the Tibetan
"Zung" (seven principles of the body).
We Asiatics, have a proverb, probably handed
down to us, and by the
Hindus repeated ignorantly as to its esoteric
meaning. It has been
known ever since the old Rishis mingled
familiarly with the simple and
noble people they taught and led on. The Devas had whispered into every
man's ear--Thou only--if thou wilt--art
"immortal." Combine with this
the saying of a Western author that if any man
could just realize for an
instant, that he had to die some day, he would
die that instant. The
Illuminated will perceive that between these two
sayings, rightly
understood, stands revealed the whole secret of
Longevity. We only die
when our will ceases to be strong enough to make
us live. In the
majority of cases, death comes when the torture
and vital exhaustion
accompanying a rapid change in our physical
conditions becomes so
intense as to weaken, for one single instant,
our "clutch on life," or
the tenacity of the will to exist. Till then, however severe may be the
disease, however sharp the pang, we are only
sick or wounded, as the
case may be.
-----------
* Dhatu--the seven principal substances of the
human body--chyle, flesh,
blood, fat, bones, marrow, semen.
-----------
This explains the cases of sudden deaths from
joy, fright, pain, grief
or such other causes. The sense of a life-task consummated, of the
worthlessness of one's existence, if strongly
realized, produced death
as surely as poison or a rifle-bullet. On the
other hand, a stern
determination to continue to live, has, in fact,
carried many through
the crises of the most severe diseases, in
perfect safety.
First, then, must be the determination--the
Will--the conviction of
certainty, to survive and continue.* 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
relaxation. In a word, the
would-be "Immortal" must be on his
watch night and day, guarding self
against-himself.
To live--to live--to live--must be his unswerving
resolve.
He must as little as possible allow himself to be turned aside
from it.
It may be said that this is the most concentrated form of
selfishness,--that it is utterly opposed to our
Theosophic professions
of benevolence, and disinterestedness, and
regard for the good of
humanity.
Well, viewed in a short-sighted way, it is so. But to do
good, as in everything else, a man must have
time and materials to work
with, and this is a necessary means to the
acquirement of powers by
which infinitely more good can be done than
without them.
----------
* Col. Olcott has epigrammatically explained the
creative or rather the
re-creative power of the Will, in his
"Buddhist Catechism." He there
shows--of course, speaking on behalf of the
Southern Buddhists--that
this Will to live, if not extinguished in the
present life, leaps over
the chasm of bodily death, and recombines the
Skandhas, or groups of
qualities that made up the individual into a new
personality. Man is,
therefore, reborn as the result of his own
unsatisfied yearning for
objective existence. Col. Olcott puts it in this way:
Q.
123. What is that, in man, which
gives him the impression of
having a permanent individuality?
A. Tanha,
or the unsatisfied desire for existence.
The being having
done that for which he must be rewarded or
punished in future, and
having Tanha, will have a rebirth through the
influence of Karma.
Q.
124. ....What is it that is
reborn?
A. A new
aggregation of Skandhas, or individuality, caused by the last
yearning of the dying person.
Q. 128.
To what cause must we attribute the differences in the
combination of the Five Skandhas has which makes
every individual
different from every other individual?
A. To the
Karma of the individual in the next preceding birth.
Q.
129. What is the force or energy
that is at work, under the
guidance of Karma, to produce the new being?
A.
Tanha--the "Will to Live."
----------
When these are once mastered, the opportunities
to use them will arrive,
for there comes a moment when further watch and
exertion are no longer
needed:--the moment when the turning-point is
safely passed. For the
present as we deal with aspirants and not with
advanced chelas, in the
first stage a determined, dogged resolution, and
an enlightened
concentration of self on self, are all that is
absolutely necessary. It
must not, however, be considered that the
candidate is required to be
unhuman or brutal in his negligence of
others. Such a recklessly
selfish course would be as injurious to him as
the contrary one of
expending his vital energy on the gratification
of his physical desires.
All that is required from him is a purely
negative attitude. Until the
turning-point is reached, he must not "lay
out" his energy in lavish or
fiery devotion to any cause, however noble,
however "good," however
elevated.*
Such, we can solemnly assure the reader, would bring its
reward in many ways--perhaps in another life,
perhaps in this world, but
it would tend to shorten the existence it is
desired to preserve, as
surely as self-indulgence and profligacy. That is why very few of the
truly great men of the world (of course, the
unprincipled adventurers
who have applied great powers to bad uses are
out of the question)--the
martyrs, the heroes, the founders of religions,
the liberators of
nations, the leaders of reforms--ever became
members of the long-lived
"Brotherhood of Adepts" who were by
some and for long years accused of
selfishness.
(And that is also why the Yogis, and the Fakirs of modern
required if they would be considered living up
to the principles of
their profession--to appear entirely dead to
every inward feeling or
emotion.) Notwithstanding the purity of their
hearts, the greatness of
their aspirations, the disinterestedness of
their self-sacrifice, they
could not live for they had missed the hour.
--------
* On page 151 of Mr. Sinnett's "Occult
World," the author's much abused,
and still more doubted correspondent assures him
that none yet of his
"degree are like the stern hero of
Bulwer's" Zanoni.... "the heartless
morally dried up mummies some would fancy us to
be" and adds that few of
them "would care to play the part in life
of a desiccated pansy between
the leaves of a volume of solemn
poetry." But our adept omits saying
that one or two degrees higher, and he will have
to submit for a period
of years to such a mummifying process unless,
indeed, he would
voluntarily give up a life-long labour
and--Die.--Ed.
----------
They may at times have exercised powers which
the world called
miraculous;
they may have electrified man and subdued Nature by fiery
and self-devoted Will; they may have been possessed of a so-called
superhuman intelligence; they may have even had knowledge of, and
communion with, members of our own occult
Brotherhood; but, having
deliberately resolved to devote their vital
energy to the welfare of
others, rather than to themselves, they have
surrendered life; and,
when perishing on the cross or the scaffold, or
falling, sword in hand,
upon the battle-field, or sinking exhausted
after a successful
consummation of the life-object, on death-beds
in their chambers, they
have all alike had to cry out at last: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!"
So far so good.
But, given the will to live, however powerful, we have
seen that, in the ordinary course of mundane
life, the throes of
dissolution cannot be checked. The desperate, and again and again
renewed struggle of the Kosmic elements to
proceed with a career of
change despite the will that is checking them,
like a pair of runaway
horses struggling against the determined driver
holding them in, are so
cumulatively powerful, that the utmost efforts
of the untrained human
will acting within an unprepared body become
ultimately useless. The
highest intrepidity of the bravest soldier; the interest desire of the
yearning lover;
the hungry greed of the unsatisfied miser; the most
undoubting faith of the sternest fanatic; the practiced insensibility
to pain of the hardiest red Indian brave or
half-trained Hindu Yogi;
the most deliberate philosophy of the calmest
thinker--all alike fail at
last.
Indeed, sceptics will allege in opposition to the verities of
this article that, as a matter of experience, it
is often observed that
the mildest and most irresolute of minds and the
weakest of physical
frames are often seen to resist
"Death" longer than the powerful will of
the high-spirited and obstinately-egotistic man,
and the iron frame of
the labourer, the warrior and the athlete. In reality, however, the key
to the secret of these apparently contradictory
phenomena is the true
conception of the very thing we have already
said. If the physical
development of the gross "outer shell"
proceeds on parallel lines and at
an equal rate with that of the will, it stands
to reason that no
advantage for the purpose of overcoming it, is
attained by the latter.
The acquisition of improved breechloaders by one
modern army confers no
absolute superiority if the enemy also becomes
possessed of them.
Consequently it will be at once apparent, to
those who think on the
subject, that much of the training by which what
is known as "a powerful
and determined nature," perfects itself for
its own purpose on the stage
of the visible world, necessitating and being
useless without a parallel
development of the "gross" and
so-called animal frame, is, in short,
neutralized, for the purpose at present treated
of, by the fact that its
own action has armed the enemy with weapons
equal to its own. The force
of the impulse to dissolution is rendered equal
to the will to oppose
it; and
being cumulative, subdues the will-power and triumphs at last.
On the other hand, it may happen that an
apparently weak and vacillating
will-power residing in a weak and undeveloped
physical frame, may be so
reinforced by some unsatisfied desire--the
Ichcha (wish)--as it is
called by the Indian Occultists (for instance, a
mother's heart-yearning
to remain and support her fatherless
children)--as to keep down and
vanquish, for a short time, the physical throes
of a body to which it
has become temporarily superior.
The whole rationale then, of the first condition
of continued existence
in this world, is (a) the development of a Will
so powerful as to
overcome the hereditary (in a Darwinian sense)
tendencies of the atoms
composing the "gross" and palpable
animal frame, to hurry on at a
particular period in a certain course of Kosmic
change; and (b) to so
weaken the concrete action of that animal frame
as to make it more
amenable to the power of the Will. To defeat an army, you must
demoralize and throw it into disorder.
To do this then, is the real object of all the
rites, ceremonies, fasts,
"prayers," meditations, initiations
and procedures of self-discipline
enjoined by various esoteric Eastern sects, from
that course of pure and
elevated aspiration which leads to the higher
phases of Adeptism Real,
down to the fearful and disgusting ordeals which
the adherent of the
"Left-hand-Road" has to pass through,
all the time maintaining his
equilibrium.
The procedures have their merits and their demerits, their
separate uses and abuses, their essential and
non-essential parts, their
various veils, mummeries, and labyrinths. But in all, the result aimed
at is reached, if by different processes. The Will is strengthened,
encouraged and directed, and the elements
opposing its action are
demoralized.
Now, to any one who has thought out and connected the
various evolution theories, as taken, not from
any occult source, but
from the ordinary scientific manual accessible
to all--from the
hypothesis of the latest variation in the habits
of species--say, the
acquisition of carnivorous habits
by the
instance--to the farthest
glimpses backwards into Space and Eternity
afforded by the "Fire Mist" doctrine,
it will be apparent that they all
rest on one basis. That basis is, that the
impulse once given to a
hypothetical Unit has a tendency to
continue; and consequently, that
anything "done" by something at a
certain time and certain place tends
to repeat itself at other times and places.
Such is the admitted rationale of heredity and
atavism. That the same
things apply to our ordinary conduct is apparent
from the notorious ease
with which "habits,"--bad or good, as
the case may be--are acquired, and
it will not be questioned that this applies, as
a rule, as much to the
moral and intellectual, as to the physical
world.
Furthermore, History and Science teach us
plainly that certain physical
habits conduce to certain moral and intellectual
results. There never
yet was a conquering nation of vegetarians. Even
in the old Aryan times,
we do not learn that the very Rishis, from whose
lore and practice we
gain the knowledge of Occultism, ever
interdicted the Kshetriya
(military) caste from hunting or a carnivorous
diet. Filling, as they
did, a certain place in the body politic in the
actual condition of the
world, the Rishis as little thought of
interfering with them, as of
restraining the tigers of the jungle from their
habits. That did not
affect what the Rishis did themselves.
The aspirant to longevity then must be on his
guard against two dangers.
He must beware especially of impure and animal*
thoughts. For Science
shows that thought is dynamic, and the
thought-force evolved by nervous
action expanding 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.
----------
* In other words, the thought tends to provoke
the deed.--G.M.
** We use the word in the plural, reminding the
reader that, according
to our doctrine, man is septenary.--G.M.
----------
And, on the other hand, certain actions have a
tendency to produce
actual physical conditions unfavourable to pure
thoughts, hence to the
state required for developing the supremacy of
the inner man.
To return to the practical process. A normally healthy mind, in a
normally healthy body, is a good
starting-point. Though exceptionally
powerful and self-devoted natures may sometimes
recover the ground lost
by mental degradation or physical misuse, by
employing proper means,
under the direction of unswerving resolution,
yet often things may have
gone so far that there is no longer stamina
enough to sustain the
conflict sufficiently long to perpetuate this
life; though what in
Eastern parlance is called the "merit"
of the effort will help to
ameliorate conditions and improve matters in
another.
However this may be, the prescribed course of
self-discipline commences
here. It
may be stated briefly that its essence is a course of moral,
mental, and physical development, carried on in
parallel lines--one
being useless without the other. The physical man must be rendered more
ethereal and sensitive; the mental man more penetrating and profound;
the moral man more self-denying and
philosophical. And it may be
mentioned that all sense of restraint--even if
self-imposed--is useless.
Not only is all "goodness" that
results from the compulsion of physical
force, threats, or bribes (whether of a physical
or so-called
"spiritual" nature) absolutely useless
to the person who exhibits it,
its hypocrisy tending to poison the moral
atmosphere of the world, but
the desire to be "good" or
"pure," to be efficacious must be
spontaneous.
It must be a self-impulse from within, a real preference
for something higher, not an abstention from
vice because of fear of the
law: not
a chastity enforced by the dread of Public Opinion; not a
benevolence exercised through love of praise or
dread of consequences in
a hypothetical Future Life.*
----------
* Col. Olcott clearly and succinctly explains
the Buddhist doctrine of
Merit or Karma, in his "Buddhist
Catechism."
(Question 83).--G.M.
----------
It will be seen now in connection with the
doctrine of the tendency
to the renewal of action, before discussed, that
the course of
self-discipline recommended as the only road to
Longevity by Occultism
is not a "visionary" theory dealing
with vague "ideas," but actually a
scientifically devised system of drill. It is a system by which each
particle of the several men composing the
septenary individual receives
an impulse, and a habit of doing what is
necessary for certain purposes
of its own free-will and with
"pleasure." Every one must be
practiced
and perfect in a thing to do it with
pleasure. This rule especially
applies to the case of the
development of
good in its way--it may lead
to the grandest results. But to become
efficacious it has to be practiced cheerfully
not with reluctance or
pain. As
a consequence of the above consideration the candidate for
Longevity at the commencement of his career must
begin to eschew his
physical desires, not from any sentimental
theory of right or wrong, but
for the following good reason. As, according to a well-known and now
established scientific theory, his visible
material frame is always
renewing its particles; he will, while abstaining from the
gratification of his desires, reach the end of a
certain period during
which those particles which composed the man of
vice, and which were
given a bad predisposition, will have
departed. At the same time, the
disuse of such functions will tend to obstruct
the entry, in place of
the old particles, of new particles having a
tendency to repeat the said
acts. And
while this is the particular result as regards certain
"vices," the general result of an
abstention from "gross" acts will be
(by a modification of the well-known Darwinian
law of atrophy by
non-usage) to diminish what we may call the
"relative" density and
coherence of the outer shell (as a result of its
less-used molecules);
while the diminution in the quantity of its
actual constituents will he
"made up" (if tried by scales and
weights) by the increased admission of
more ethereal particles.
What physical desires are to be abandoned and in
what order? First and
foremost, he must give up alcohol in all
forms; for while it supplies
no nourishment, nor any direct pleasure (beyond
such sweetness or
fragrance as may be gained in the taste of wine,
&c., to which alcohol,
in itself, is non-essential) to even the
grossest elements of the
"physical" frame, it induces a
violence of action, a rush so to speak,
of life, the stress of which can only be
sustained by very dull, gross,
and dense elements, and which, by the operation
of the well-known law of
Re-action (in commercial phrase, "supply
and demand") tends to summon
them from the surrounding universe, and
therefore directly counteracts
the object we have in view.
Next comes meat-eating, and for the very same
reason, in a minor degree.
It increases the rapidity of life, the energy of
action, the violence of
passions.
It may be good for a hero who has to fight and die, but not
for a would-be sage who has to exist and....
Next in order come the sexual desires; for these, in addition to the
great diversion of energy (vital force) into
other channels, in many
different ways, beyond the primary one (as, for
instance, the waste of
energy in expectation, jealousy, &c.), are
direct attractions to a
certain gross quality of the original matter of
the Universe, simply
because the most pleasurable physical sensations
are only possible at
that stage of density. Alongside with and extending beyond all these
and other gratifications of the senses (which
include not only those
things usually known as "vicious," but
all those which, though
ordinarily regarded as "innocent,"
have yet the disqualification of
ministering to the pleasures of the body--the
most harmless to others
and the least "gross" being the
criterion for those to be last abandoned
in each case)--must be carried on the moral
purification.
Nor must it be imagined that
"austerities" as commonly understood can,
in the majority of cases, avail much to hasten
the "etherealizing"
process.
That is the rock on which many of the Eastern esoteric sects
have foundered, and the reason why they have
degenerated into degrading
superstitions.
The Western monks and the
will reach the apex of
powers by concentrating their thought on their
navel, or by standing on one leg, are practicing
exercises which serve
no other purpose than to strengthen the
willpower, which is sometimes
applied to the basest purposes. These are examples of this one-sided
and dwarf development. It is no use to fast as long as you require
food. The
ceasing of desire for food without impairment of health is
the sign which indicates that it should be taken
in lesser and ever
decreasing quantities until the extreme limit
compatible with life is
reached.
A stage will be finally attained where only water will be
required.
Nor is it of any use for this particular purpose
of longevity to abstain
from immorality so long as you are craving for
it in your heart; and so
on with all other unsatisfied inward cravings. 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.
So it must be with the moral purification of the
heart. The "basest"
inclinations must go first--then the others. First avarice, then fear,
then envy, worldly pride, uncharitableness,
hatred; last of all
ambition and curiosity must be abandoned
successively. The
strengthening of the more ethereal and so-called
"spiritual" parts of
the man must go on at the same time. Reasoning
from the known to the
unknown, meditation must be practiced and
encouraged. Meditation 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,
but which has now no synonym in the European
languages, because the
thing no longer exists in the West, and its name
has been vulgarized to
the make-believe shams known as prayer,
glorification, and repentance.
Through all stages of training the equilibrium
of the consciousness--the
assurance that all must be right in the Kosmos,
and therefore with you a
portion of it--must be retained. The process of
life must not be hurried
but retarded, if possible; to do otherwise may do good to others--
perhaps even to yourself in other spheres, but
it will hasten your
dissolution in this.
Nor must the externals be neglected in this
first stage. Remember that
an adept, though "existing" so as to
convey to ordinary minds the idea
of his being immortal, is not also invulnerable
to agencies from
without.
The training to prolong life does not, in itself, secure one
from accidents.
As far as any physical preparation goes, the sword may
still cut, the disease enter, the poison
disarrange. This case is very
clearly and beautifully put in
"Zanoni," and it is correctly put and
must be so, unless all "adeptism" is a
baseless lie. The adept may be
more secure from ordinary dangers than the
common mortal, but he is so
by virtue of the superior knowledge, calmness,
coolness and penetration
which his lengthened existence and its necessary
concomitants have
enabled him to acquire; not by virtue of any preservative power in
the
process itself.
He is secure as a man armed with a rifle is more secure
than a naked baboon; not secure in the sense in which the deva
(god)
was supposed to be securer than a man.
If this is so in the case of the high adept, how
much more necessary is
it that the neophyte should be not only
protected but that he himself
should use all possible means to ensure for himself
the necessary
duration of life to complete the process of
mastering the phenomena we
call death!
It may be said, why do not the higher adepts protect him?
Perhaps they do to some extent, but the child
must learn to walk alone;
to make him independent of his own efforts in
respect to safety, would
be destroying one element necessary to his
development--the sense of
responsibility.
What courage or conduct would be called for in a man
sent to fight when armed with irresistible
weapons and clothed in
impenetrable armour? Hence the neophyte should endeavour, as far
as
possible, to fulfill every true canon of
sanitary law as laid down by
modern scientists. Pure air, pure water, pure food, gentle
exercise,
regular hours, pleasant occupations and surroundings,
are all, if not
indispensable, at least serviceable to his
progress. It is to secure
these, at least as much as silence and solitude,
that the Gods, Sages,
Occultists of all ages have retired as much as
possible to the quiet of
the country, the cool cave, the depths of the
forest, the expanse of the
desert, or the heights of the mountains. Is it not suggestive that the
Gods have always loved the "high
places"; and that in the present
day
the highest section of the Occult Brotherhood on
earth inhabits the
highest mountain plateaux of the earth?*
---------
* The stern prohibition to the Jews to serve
"their gods upon the high
mountains and upon the hills" is traced
back to the unwillingness of
their ancient elders to allow people in most
cases unfit for adeptship
to choose a life of celibacy and asceticism, or
in other words, to
pursue adeptship. This prohibition had an esoteric meaning
before it
became the prohibition, incomprehensible in its
dead-letter sense: for
it is not India alone whose sons accorded divine
honours to the Wise
Ones, but all nations regarded their adepts and
initiates as divine.--
G.M.
---------
Nor must the beginner disdain the assistance of
medicine and good
medical regimen.
He is still an ordinary mortal, and he requires the
aid of an ordinary mortal.
"Suppose, however, all the conditions
required, or which will be
understood as required (for the details and
varieties of treatment
requisite, are too numerous to be detailed
here), are fulfilled, what is
the next step?" the reader will ask. Well if there have been no
backslidings or remissness in the procedure
indicated, the following
physical results will follow:--
First the neophyte will take more pleasure in
things spiritual and pure.
Gradually gross and material occupations will
become not only uncraved
for or forbidden, but simply and literally
repulsive to him. He will
take more pleasure in the simple sensations of
Nature--the sort of
feeling one can remember to have experienced as
a child. He will feel
more light-hearted, confident, happy. Let him take care the sensation
of renewed youth does not mislead, or he will
yet risk a fall into his
old baser life and even lower depths. "Action and Re-action are equal."
Now the desire for food will begin to
cease. Let it be left off
gradually--no fasting is required. Take what you feel you require. The
food craved for will be the most innocent and
simple. Fruit and milk
will usually be the best. Then as till now, you have been simplifying
the quality of your food, gradually--very
gradually--as you feel capable
of it diminish the quantity. You will ask:
"Can a man exist without
food?"
No, but before you mock, consider the character of the process
alluded to.
It is a notorious fact that many of the lowest and simplest
organisms have no excretions. The common guinea-worm is a very good
instance.
It has rather a complicated organism, but it has no
ejaculatory duct. All it consumes--the poorest essences of the
human
body--is applied to its growth and
propagation. Living as it does in
human tissue, it passes no digested food
away. The human neophyte, at a
certain stage of his development, is in a
somewhat analogous condition,
with this difference or differences, that he
does excrete, but it is
through the pores of his skin, and by those too
enter other etherealized
particles of matter to contribute towards his
support.* Otherwise, all
the food and drink is sufficient only to keep in
equilibrium those
"gross" parts of his physical body
which still remain to repair their
cuticle-waste through the medium of the
blood. Later on, the process of
cell-development in his frame will undergo a
change; a change for the
better, the opposite of that in disease for the
worse--he will become
all living and sensitive, and will derive
nourishment from the Ether
(Akas).
But that epoch for our neophyte is yet far distant.
---------
* He is in a state similar to the physical state
of a fetus
before birth into the world.--G.M.
---------
Probably, long before that period has arrived,
other results, no less
surprising than incredible to the uninitiated
will have ensued to give
our neophyte courage and consolation in his
difficult task. It would be
but a truism to repeat what has been again
alleged (in ignorance of its
real rationale) by hundreds and hundreds of
writers as to the happiness
and content conferred by a life of innocence and
purity. But often at
the very commencement of the process some real
physical result,
unexpected and unthought of by the neophyte,
occurs. Some lingering
disease, hitherto deemed hopeless, may take a
favourable turn; or he may
develop healing mesmeric powers himself; or some hitherto unknown
sharpening of his senses may delight him. The rationale of these things
is, as we have said, neither miraculous nor
difficult of comprehension.
In the first place, the sudden change in the
direction of the vital
energy (which, whatever view we take of it and
its origin, is
acknowledged by all schools of philosophy as
most recondite, and as the
motive power) must produce results of some
kind. In the second,
Theosophy shows, as we said before, that a man
consists of several men
pervading each other, and on this view (although
it is very difficult to
express the idea in language) it is but natural
that the progressive
etherealization of the densest and most gross of
all should leave the
others literally more at liberty. A troop of horses may be blocked by a
mob and have much difficulty in fighting its way
through; but if every
one of the mob could be changed suddenly into a
ghost, there would be
little to retard it. And as each interior entity is more rare,
active,
and volatile than the outer and as each has
relation with different
elements, spaces, and properties of the Kosmos which
are treated of in
other articles on Occultism, the mind of the
reader may conceive--though
the pen of the writer could not express it in a
dozen volumes--the
magnificent possibilities gradually unfolded to
the neophyte.
Many of the opportunities thus suggested may be
taken advantage of by
the neophyte for his own safety, amusement, and
the good of those around
him; but
the way in which he does this is one adapted to his fitness--a
part of the ordeal he has to pass through, and
misuse of these powers
will certainly entail the loss of them as a
natural result. The Itchcha
(or desire) evoked anew by the vistas they open
up will retard or throw
back his progress.
But there is another portion of the Great Secret
to which we must
allude, and which is now, for the first, in a
long series of ages,
allowed to be given out to the world, as the
hour for it is come.
The educated reader need not be reminded again
that one of the great
discoveries which has immortalized
the name of
organism has always a tendency
to repeat, at an analogous period in its
life, the action of its progenitors, the more
surely and completely in
proportion to their proximity in the scale of
life. One result of this
is, that, in general, organized beings usually
die at a period (on an
average) the same as that of their
progenitors. It is true that there
is a great difference between the actual ages at
which individuals of
any species die.
Disease, accidents and famine are the main agents in
causing this.
But there is, in each species, a well-known limit within
which the Race-life lies, and none are known to
survive beyond it. This
applies to the human species as well as any
other. Now, supposing that
every possible sanitary condition had been
complied with, and every
accident and disease avoided by a man of
ordinary frame, in some
particular case there would still, as is known
to medical men, come a
time when the particles of the body would feel
the hereditary tendency
to do that which leads inevitably to
dissolution, and would obey it. It
must be obvious to any reflecting man that, if
by any procedure this
critical climacteric could be once thoroughly
passed over, the
subsequent danger of "Death" would be
proportionally less as the years
progressed.
Now this, which no ordinary and unprepared mind and body
can do, is possible sometimes for the will and
the frame of one who has
been specially prepared. There are fewer of the grosser particles
present to feel the hereditary bias--there is
the assistance of the
reinforced "interior men" (whose
normal duration is always greater even
in natural death) to the visible outer shell,
and there is the drilled
and indomitable Will to direct and wield the
whole.*
-----------
* In this connection we may as well show what
modern science, and
especially physiology has to say as to the power
of the human will.
"The force of will is a potent element in
determining longevity. This
single point must be granted without argument,
that of two men every way
alike and similarly circumstanced, the one who
has the greater courage
and grit will be longer-lived. One does not need
to practice medicine
long to learn that men die who might just as
well live if they resolved
to live, and that myriads who are invalids could
become strong if they
had the native or acquired will to vow they
would do so. Those who have
no other quality favourable to life, whose
bodily organs are nearly
all diseased, to whom each day is a day of pain,
who are beset by
life-shortening influences, yet do live by will
alone."
--Dr. George M. Beard.
-------------
From that time forward the course of the
aspirant is clearer. He has
conquered "the Dweller of the
Threshold"--the hereditary enemy of his
race, and, though still exposed to ever-new
dangers in his progress
towards Nirvana, he is flushed with victory, and
with new confidence and
new powers to second it, can press onwards to
perfection.
For, it must be remembered, that nature
everywhere acts by Law, and that
the process of purification we have been
describing in the visible
material body, also takes place in those which
are interior, and not
visible to the scientist by modifications of the
same process. All is
on the change, and the metamorphoses of the more
ethereal bodies
imitate, though in successively multiplied
duration, the career of the
grosser, gaining an increasing wider range of
relations with the
surrounding kosmos, till in Nirvana the most
rarefied Individuality is
merged at last into the INFINITE TOTALITY.
From the above description of the process, it
will be inferred why it is
that "Adepts" are so seldom seen in
ordinary life; for, pari passu, with
the etherealization of their bodies and the
development of their power,
grows an increasing distaste, and a so-to-speak,
"contempt" for the
things of our ordinary mundane existence. Like the fugitive who
successively casts away in his flight those
articles which incommode his
progress, beginning with the heaviest, so the
aspirant eluding "Death"
abandons all on which the latter can take
hold. In the progress of
Negation everything got rid of is a help. As we said before, the adept
does not become "immortal" as the word
is ordinarily understood. By or
about the time when the Death-limit of his race
is passed he is actually
dead, in the ordinary sense, that is to say, he
has relieved himself of
all or nearly all such material particles as
would have necessitated in
disruption the agony of dying. He has been dying gradually during the
whole period of his Initiation. The catastrophe cannot happen twice
over. He
has only spread over a number of years the mild process of
dissolution which others endure from a brief
moment to a few hours. The
highest Adept is, in fact, dead to, and
absolutely unconscious of, the
world; he
is oblivious of its pleasures, careless of its miseries, in
so far as sentimentalism goes, for the stern
sense of DUTY never leaves
him blind to its very existence. For the new ethereal senses opening to
wider spheres are to ours much in the relation
of ours to the Infinitely
Little.
New desires and enjoyments, new dangers and new hindrances
arise, with new sensations and new
perceptions; and far away down in
the mist--both literally and metaphorically--is
our dirty little earth
left below by those who have virtually
"gone to join the gods."
And from this account too, it will be
perceptible how foolish it is for
people to ask the Theosophist to "procure
for them communication with
the highest Adepts." It is with the utmost difficulty that one or
two
can be induced, even by the throes of a world,
to injure their own
progress by meddling with mundane affairs. The ordinary reader will
say:
"This is not god-like. This is the acme of selfishness." ....
But
let him realize that a very high Adept,
undertaking to reform the world,
would necessarily have to once more submit to
Incarnation. And is the
result of all that have gone before in that line
sufficiently
encouraging to prompt a renewal of the attempt?
A deep consideration of all that we have
written, will also give the
Theosophists an idea of what they demand when
they ask to be put in the
way of gaining practically "higher
powers." Well, there, as plainly as
words can put it, is the PATH .... can they
tread it?
Nor must it be disguised that what to the
ordinary mortal are unexpected
dangers, temptations and enemies also beset the
way of the neophyte.
And that for no fanciful cause, but the simple
reason that he is, in
fact, acquiring new senses, has yet no practice
in their use, and has
never before seen the things he sees. A man born blind suddenly endowed
with vision would not at once master the meaning
of perspective, but
would, like a baby, imagine in one case, the
moon to be within his
reach, and, in the other, grasp a live coal with
the most reckless
confidence.
And what, it may be asked, is to recompense this
abnegation of all the
pleasures of life, this cold surrender of all
mundane interests, this
stretching forward to an unknown goal which
seems ever more
unattainable?
For, unlike some of the anthropomorphic creeds, Occultism
offers to its votaries no eternally permanent
heaven of material
pleasure, to be gained at once by one quick dash
through the grave. As
has, in fact, often been the case many would be
prepared willingly to
die now for the sake of the paradise
hereafter. But Occultism gives no
such prospect of cheaply and immediately gained
infinitude of pleasure,
wisdom and existence. It only promises extensions of these,
stretching
in successive arches obscured by successive
veils, in an unbroken series
up the long vista which leads to NIRVANA. And this too, qualified by
the necessity that new powers entail new
responsibilities, and that the
capacity of increased pleasure entails the
capacity of increased
sensibility to pain. To this, the only answer that can be given is
two-fold:
(1st) the consciousness of Power is itself the most exquisite
of pleasures, and is unceasingly gratified in the
progress onwards with
new means for its exercise and (2ndly) as has
been already said--THIS is
the only road by which there is the faintest
scientific likelihood that
"Death" can be avoided, perpetual
memory secured, infinite wisdom
attained, and hence an immense helping of
mankind made possible, once
that the adept has safely crossed the
turning-point. Physical as well
as metaphysical logic requires and endorses the
fact that only by
gradual absorption into infinity can the Part
become acquainted with the
Whole, and that that which is now something can
only feel, know, and
enjoy EVERYTHING when lost in Absolute Totality
in the vortex of that
Everything itself is identified with the NOTHING.
Is the Desire to "Live" Selfish?
The passage "to live, to live, to live must
be the unswerving resolve,"
occurring in the article on the Elixir of Life,
is often quoted by
superficial and unsympathetic readers as an
argument that the teachings
of occultism are the most concentrated form of
selfishness. In order to
determine whether the critics are right or
wrong, the meaning of the
word "selfishness" must first be
ascertained.
According to an established authority,
selfishness is that "exclusive
regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or
self-preference which leads a person to direct
his purposes to the
advancement of his own interest, power, or
happiness, without regarding
those of others."
In short, an absolutely selfish individual is
one who cares for himself
and none else, or, in other words, one who is so
strongly imbued with a
sense of the importance of his own personality
that to him it is the
crown of all thoughts, desires, and aspirations,
and beyond which lies
the perfect blank. Now, can an occultist be then said to be
"selfish"
when he desires to live in the sense in which
that word is used by the
writer of the article on the Elixir of
Life? It has been said over and
over again that the ultimate end of every
aspirant after occult
knowledge is Nirvana or Mukti, when the
individual, freed from all
Mayavic Upadhi, becomes one with Paramatma, or
the Son identifies
himself with the Father in Christian
phraseology. For that purpose,
every veil of illusion which creates a sense of
personal isolation, a
feeling of separateness from THE ALL, must be
torn asunder, or, in other
words, the aspirant must gradually discard all
sense of selfishness with
which we are all more or less affected. A study of the Law of Kosmic
Evolution teaches us that the higher the
evolution, the more does it
tend towards Unity. In fact, Unity is the ultimate possibility of
Nature, and those who through vanity and
selfishness go against her
purposes, cannot but incur the punishment of
annihilation. The
occultist thus recognizes that unselfishness and
a feeling of universal
philanthropy are the inherent laws of our being,
and all he does is to
attempt to destroy the chains of selfishness
forged upon us all by Maya.
The struggle then between Good and Evil, God and
Satan, Suras and
Asuras, Devas and Daityas, which is mentioned in
the sacred books of all
the nations and races, symbolizes the battle
between unselfish and
selfish impulses, which takes place in a man, who
tries to follow the
higher purposes of Nature, until the lower
animal tendencies, created by
selfishness, are completely conquered, and the
enemy thoroughly routed
and annihilated.
It has also been often put forth in various
Theosophical and other occult writings that the
only difference between
an ordinary man who works along with Nature
during the course of Kosmic
evolution and an occultist, is that the latter,
by his superior
knowledge, adopts such methods of training and
discipline as will hurry
on that process of evolution, and he thus
reaches in a comparatively
short time the apex which the ordinary
individual will take perhaps
billions of years to reach. In short, in a few thousand years he
approaches that type of evolution which ordinary
humanity attains in the
sixth or seventh Round of the Manvantara, i.e.,
cyclic progression. It
is evident that an average man cannot become a
MAHATMA in one life, or
rather in one incarnation. Now those, who have studied the occult
teachings concerning Devachan and our
after-states, will remember that
between two incarnations there is a considerable
period of subjective
existence.
The greater the number of such Devachanic periods, the
greater is the number of years over which this evolution
is extended.
The chief aim of the occultist is therefore to
so control himself as to
be able to regulate his future states, and
thereby gradually shorten the
duration of his Devachanic existence between two
incarnations. In the
course of his progress, there comes a time when,
between one physical
death and his next rebirth, there is no Devachan
but a kind of spiritual
sleep, the shock of death, having, so to say,
stunned him into a state
of unconsciousness from which he gradually
recovers to find himself
reborn, to continue his purpose. The period of this sleep may vary from
twenty-five to two hundred years, depending upon
the degree of his
advancement.
But even this period may be said to be a waste of time,
and hence all his exertions are directed to
shorten its duration so as
to gradually come to a point when the passage
from one state of
existence into another is almost
imperceptible. This is his last
incarnation, as it were, for the shock of death
no more stuns him. This
is the idea the writer of the article on the
Elixir of Life means to
convey when he says:
By or about the time when the Death-limit of his
race is passed he is
actually dead, in the ordinary sense, that is to
say, he has relieved
himself of all or nearly all such material particles
as would have
necessitated in disruption the agony of
dying. He has been dying
gradually during the whole period of his
Initiation. The catastrophe
cannot happen twice over, he has only spread
over a number of years the
mild process of dissolution which others endure
from a brief moment to a
few hours.
The highest Adept is, in fact, dead to, and absolutely
unconscious of, the World; he is oblivious of its pleasures, careless
of its miseries, in so far as sentimentalism goes,
for the stern sense
of Duty never leaves him blind to its very
existence....
The process of the emission and attraction of
atoms, which the occultist
controls, has been discussed at length in that
article and in other
writings.
It is by these means that he gets rid gradually of all the
old gross particles of his body, substituting
for them finer and more
ethereal ones, till at last the former sthula
sarira is completely dead
and disintegrated, and he lives in a body
entirely of his own creation,
suited to his work. That body is essential to his purposes; as the
Elixir of Life says:--
To do good, as in every thing else, a man most
have time and materials
to Work with, and this is a necessary means to
the acquirement of powers
by which infinitely more good can be done than
without them. When these
are once mastered, the opportunities to use them
will arrive....
Giving the practical instructions for that
purpose, the same paper
continues:--
The physical man must be rendered more ethereal
and sensitive; the
mental man more penetrating and profound; the moral man more
self-denying and philosophical.
Losing sight of the above important
considerations, the following
passage is entirely misunderstood:--
And from this account too, it will be
perceptible how foolish it is for
people to ask the Theosophist "to procure
for them communication with
the highest Adepts." It is with the utmost difficulty that one or
two
can be induced, even by the throes of a world,
to injure their own
progress by meddling with mundane affairs. The ordinary reader will
say:
"This is not god-like. This is the acme of selfishness."
....But
let him realize that a very high Adept,
undertaking to reform the world,
would necessarily have to once more submit to
Incarnation. And is the
result of all that have gone before in that line
sufficiently
encouraging to prompt a renewal of the attempt?
Now, in condemning the above passage as
inculcating selfishness,
superficial critics neglect many profound
truths. In the first place,
they forget the other extracts already quoted
which impose self-denial
as a necessary condition of success, and which
say that, with progress,
new senses and new powers are acquired with
which infinitely more good
can be done than without them. The more spiritual the Adept becomes the
less can he meddle with mundane gross affairs
and the more he has to
confine himself to spiritual work. It has been repeated, times out of
number, that the work on the spiritual plane is
as superior to the work
on the intellectual plane as the latter is
superior to that on the
physical plane.
The very high Adepts, therefore, do help humanity, but
only spiritually: they are constitutionally incapable of
meddling with
worldly affairs.
But this applies only to very high Adepts. There are
various degrees of Adept-ship, and those of each
degree work for
humanity on the planes to which they may have
risen. It is only the
chelas that can live in the world, until they
rise to a certain degree.
And it is because the Adepts do care for the
world that they make their
chelas live in and work for it, as many of those
who study the subject
are aware.
Each cycle produces its own occultists capable of working
for the humanity of the time on all the
different planes; but when the
Adepts foresee that at a particular period
humanity will he incapable of
producing occultists for work on particular
planes, for such occasions
they do provide by either voluntarily giving up
their further progress
and waiting until humanity reaches that period,
or by refusing to enter
into Nirvana and submitting to re-incarnation so
as to be ready for work
when the time comes. And although the world may not be aware of
the
fact, yet there are even now certain Adepts who
have preferred to remain
in statu quo and refuse to take the higher
degrees, for the benefit of
the future generations of humanity. In short, as the Adepts work
harmoniously, since unity is the fundamental law
of their being, they
have, as it were, made a division of labour,
according to which each
works on the plane appropriate to himself for
the spiritual elevation of
us all--and the process of longevity mentioned
in the Elixir of Life is
only the means to the end which, far from being
selfish, is the most
unselfish purpose for which a human being can
labour.
(--H.P. Blavatsky)
Contemplation
A general misconception on this subject seems to
prevail. One confines
oneself for some time in a room, and passively gazes
at one's nose, a
spot on the wall, or, perhaps, a crystal, under
the impression that such
is the true form of contemplation enjoined by
Raj Yoga. Many fail to
realize that true occultism requires a physical,
mental, moral and
spiritual development to run on parallel lines,
and injure themselves,
physically and spiritually, by practice of what
they falsely believe to
be Dhyan.
A few instances may be mentioned here with advantage, as a
warning to over-zealous students.
At
Farrukhabad, who narrated his experiences and
shed bitter tears of
repentance for his past follies--as he termed
them. It appears from his
account that fifteen or twenty years ago having
read about contemplation
in the Bhagavad Gita, he undertook the practice
of it, without a proper
comprehension of its esoteric meaning 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 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 healthy state of mind and
body.
Another case came under the writer's observation
at
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 cited. While
penning these lines, the writer has on his table
two letters upon this
subject, one from
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 pin their faith to the following
clause in that paper:--
Reasoning from the known to the unknown
meditation must be practiced and
encouraged.
But, alas! their preconceptions have prevented
them from comprehending
what is meant by meditation. They forget that the meditation spoken of
"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 would be thrown upon
this subject if the reader were to turn to an
earlier part of the same
paper, and peruse attentively the following
paragraphs:--
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 the 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 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 be 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 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 his
bodily tenement only such particles as are
necessary to give them
expression.
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 less
gross 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 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 into 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 almost
incomprehensible axiom for the profane. The Hindu ought to know better
from 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 court-room, the king having
read their thoughts--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 singing the must
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 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
(illusion) 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
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.
It will be evident from the above that true
meditation consists in 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 the inductive. The student must first learn the
general axioms, which have sufficiently been
laid down in the Elixir of
Life and other occult writings. 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 must first be
determined. The higher stage, in fact,
consists in practically realizing 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.
The Elixir of Life not only gives the
preliminary steps in the ladder of
contemplation but also tells the reader how to
realize the higher
stages.
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 the student what
ideal to 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 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 the one for the other. There, all is Infinite Love,
understood in its true sense.
It may now not be 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.
--Damodar K. Mavalaukar
Chelas and Lay Chelas
A "chela" is a person who has offered
himself to a master as a pupil to
learn practically the "hidden mysteries of
Nature and the psychical
powers latent in man." The master who accepts him is called in India
a
Guru; and
the real Guru is always an adept in the Occult Science. A
man of profound knowledge, exoteric and
esoteric, especially the latter;
and one who has brought his carnal nature under
the subjection of the
WILL; who
has developed in himself both the power (Siddhi) to control
the forces of Nature, and the capacity to probe
her secrets by the help
of the formerly latent but now active powers of
his being--this is the
real Guru.
To offer oneself as a candidate for Chelaship is easy
enough, to develop into an adept the most
difficult task any man could
possibly undertake. There are scores of "natural-born"
poets,
mathematicians, mechanics, statesmen,
&c. But a natural-born adept is
something practically impossible. For, though we do hear at very rare
intervals of one who has an extraordinary innate
capacity for the
acquisition of occult knowledge and power, yet
even he has to pass the
self-same tests and probations, and go through
the self-same training as
any less endowed fellow aspirant. In this matter it is most true that
there is no royal road by which favourites may
travel.
For centuries the selection of Chelas--outside
the hereditary group
within the gon-pa (temple)--has been made by the
Himalayan Mahatmas
themselves from among the class--in Tibet, a
considerable one as to
number--of natural mystics. The only exceptions have been in the cases
of Western men like Fludd, Thomas Vaughan,
Paracelsus, Pico di
Mirandolo, Count St. Germain, &c., whose
temperament affinity to this
celestial science, more or less forced the
distant Adepts to come into
personal relations with them, and enabled them
to get such small (or
large) proportion of the whole truth as was
possible under their social
surroundings.
From Book IV. of Kui-te, Chapter on "The Laws of
Upasanas," we learn that the qualifications
expected in a Chela were:--
1. Perfect physical health;
2. Absolute mental and physical purity;
3. Unselfishness of purpose; universal charity; pity for all
animate beings;
4. Truthfulness and unswerving faith in the law
of Karma, independent of
the intervention of any power in Nature: a law whose course is not to
be obstructed by any agency, not to be caused to
deviate by prayer or
propitiatory exoteric ceremonies;
5. A courage undaunted in every emergency, even
by peril to life;
6. An intuitional perception of one's being the
vehicle of the
manifested Avalokiteswara or Divine Atma
(Spirit);
7. Calm indifference for, but a just
appreciation of, everything that
constitutes the objective and transitory world,
in its relation with,
and to, the invisible regions.
Such, at the least, must have been the
recommendations of one aspiring
to perfect Chelaship. With the sole exception of the first, which
in
rare and exceptional cases might have been
modified, each one of these
points has been invariably insisted upon, and
all must have been more or
less developed in the inner nature by the
Chela's unhelped exertions,
before he could be actually "put to the
test."
When the self-evolving ascetic--whether in, or
outside the active
world--has placed himself, according to his
natural capacity, above,
hence made himself master of his (1)
Sarira--body; (2) Indriya--senses;
(3) Dosha--faults; (4) Dukkha--pain; and is ready to become one with
his Manas--mind;
Buddhi--intellection, or spiritual intelligence; and
Atma--highest soul, i.e., spirit; when he is
ready for this, and,
further, to recognize in Atma the highest ruler
in the world of
perceptions, and in the will, the highest
executive energy (power), then
may he, under the time-honoured rules, be taken
in hand by one of the
Initiates.
He may then be shown the mysterious path at whose farther
end is obtained the unerring discernment of
Phala, or the fruits of
causes produced, and given the means of reaching
Apavarga--emancipation
from the misery of repeated births, pretya-bhava,
in whose determination
the ignorant has no hand.
But since the advent of the Theosophical
Society, one of whose arduous
tasks it is to re-awaken in the Aryan mind the
dormant memory of the
existence of this science and of those
transcendent human capabilities,
the rules of Chela selection have become
slightly relaxed in one
respect.
Many members of the Society who would not have been otherwise
called to Chelaship became convinced by
practical proof of the above
points, and rightly enough thinking that if
other men had hitherto
reached the goal, they too, if inherently
fitted, might reach it by
following the same path, importunately pressed
to be taken as
candidates.
And as it would be an interference with Karma to deny them
the chance of at least beginning, they were
given it. The results have
been far from encouraging so far, and it is to
show them the cause of
their failure as much as to warn others against
rushing heedlessly upon
a similar fate, that the writing of the present
article has been
ordered.
The candidates in question, though plainly warned against it
in advance, began wrong by selfishly looking to
the future and losing
sight of the past. They forgot that they had done nothing to
deserve
the rare honour of selection, nothing which
warranted their expecting
such a privilege; that they could boast of none of the above
enumerated
merits.
As men of the selfish, sensual world, whether married or
single, merchants, civilian or military
employees, or members of the
learned professions, they had been to a school
most calculated to
assimilate them to the animal nature, least so
to develop their
spiritual potentialities. Yet each and all had vanity enough to suppose
that their case would be made an exception to
the law of countless
centuries, as though, indeed, in their person
had been born to the world
a new Avatar!
All expected to have hidden things taught, extraordinary
powers given them, because--well, because they
had joined the
Theosophical Society. Some had sincerely resolved to amend their
lives,
and give up their evil courses: we must do them that justice, at all
events.
All were refused at first, Col. Olcott the
President himself, to begin
with: and
he was not formally accepted as a Chela until he had proved
by more than a year's devoted labours and by a
determination which
brooked no denial, that he might safely be
tested. Then from all sides
came complaints--from Hindus, who ought to have
known better, as well as
from Europeans who, of course, were not in a
condition to know anything
at all about the rules. The cry was that unless at least a few
Theosophists were given the chance to try, the
Society could not endure.
Every other noble and unselfish feature of our programme
was ignored--a
man's duty to his neighbour, to his country, his
duty to help,
enlighten, encourage and elevate those weaker
and less favoured than he;
all were trampled out of sight in the insane
rush for adeptship. The
call for phenomena, phenomena, phenomena,
resounded in every quarter,
and the Founders were impeded in their real work
and teased
importunately to intercede with the Mahatmas,
against whom the real
grievance lay, though their poor agents had to
take all the buffets. At
last, the word came from the higher authorities
that a few of the most
urgent candidates should be taken at their
word. The result of the
experiment would perhaps show better than any
amount of preaching what
Chelaship meant, and what are the consequences
of selfishness and
temerity.
Each candidate was warned that be must wait for year in any
event, before his fitness could be established,
and that he must pass
through a series of tests that would bring out
all there was in him,
whether bad or good. They were nearly all married men, and hence
were
designated "Lay Chelas"--a term new in
English, but having long had its
equivalent in Asiatic tongues. A Lay Chela is but a man of the world
who affirms his desire to become wise in
spiritual things. Virtually,
every member of the Theosophical Society who
subscribes to the second of
our three "Declared Objects" is
such; for though not of the number of
true Chelas, he has yet the possibility of
becoming one, for he has
stepped across the boundary-line which separated
him from the Mahatmas,
and has brought himself, as it were, under their
notice. In joining the
Society and binding himself to help along its
work, he has pledged
himself to act in some degree in concert with
those Mahatmas, at whose
behest the Society was organized, and under
whose conditional protection
it remains. The joining is then, the
introduction; all the rest depends
entirely upon the member himself, and he need
never expect the most
distant approach to the "favour" of
one of our Mahatmas or any other
Mahatmas in the world--should the latter consent
to become known--that
has not been fully earned by personal merit. The
Mahatmas are the
servants, not the arbiters of the Law of Karma.
Lay-Chelaship confers no privilege upon any one
except that of working
for merit under the observation of a
Master. And whether that Master be
or be not seen by the Chela makes no difference
whatever as to the
result:
his good thought, words and deeds will bear their fruits, his
evil ones, theirs. To boast of Lay Chelaship or make a parade of
it, is
the surest way to reduce the relationship with
the Guru to a mere empty
name, for it would be prima facie evidence of
vanity and unfitness for
farther progress. And for years we have been teaching everywhere
the
maxim "First deserve, then desire"
intimacy with the Mahatmas.
Now there is a terrible law operative in Nature,
one which cannot be
altered, and whose operation clears up the
apparent mystery of the
selection of certain "Chelas" who have
turned out sorry specimens of
morality, these few years past. Does the reader recall the old proverb,
"Let sleeping dogs lie?" There is a world of occult meaning in
it. No
man or woman knows his or her moral strength
until it is tried.
Thousands go through life very respectably,
because they were never put
to the test.
This is a truism doubtless, but it is most pertinent to
the present case. One who undertakes to try for
Chelaship by that very
act rouses and lashes to desperation every
sleeping passion of his
animal nature.
For this is the commencement of a struggle for mastery
in which quarter is neither to be given nor
taken. It is, once for all,
"To be, or Not to be;" to conquer, means Adept-ship: to fail, an
ignoble Martyrdom; for to fall victim to lust, pride, avarice,
vanity,
selfishness, cowardice, or any other of the
lower propensities, is
indeed ignoble, if measured by the standard of
true manhood. The Chela
is not only called to face all the latent evil
propensities of his
nature, but, in addition, the momentum of
maleficent forces accumulated
by the community and nation to which he
belongs. For he is an integral
part of those aggregates, and what affects
either the individual man or
the group (town or nation), reacts the one upon
the other. And in this
instance his struggle for goodness jars upon the
whole body of badness
in his environment, and draws its fury upon him.
If he is content to go
along with his neighbours and be almost as they
are--perhaps a little
better or somewhat worse than the average--no
one may give him a
thought.
But let it be known that he has been able to detect the hollow
mockery of social life, its hypocrisy,
selfishness, sensuality, cupidity
and other bad features, and has determined to
lift himself up to a
higher level, at once he is hated, and every
bad, bigotted, or malicious
nature sends at him a current of opposing
will-power. If he is innately
strong he shakes it off, as the powerful swimmer
dashes through the
current that would bear a weaker one away. But in this moral battle, if
the Chela has one single hidden blemish--do what
he may, it shall and
will be brought to light. The varnish of conventionalities which
"civilization" overlays us all with
must come off to the last coat, and
the inner self, naked and without the slightest
veil to conceal its
reality, is exposed. The habits of society which
hold men to a certain
degree under moral restraint, and compel them to
pay tribute to virtue
by seeming to be good whether they are so or
not--these habits are apt
to be all forgotten, these restraints to be all
broken through under the
strain of Chelaship. He is now in an atmosphere of
illusions--Maya.
Vice puts on its most alluring face, and the
tempting passions attract
the inexperienced aspirant to the depths of
psychic debasement. This is
not a case like that depicted by a great artist,
where Satan is seen
playing a game of chess with a man upon the
stake of his soul, while the
latter's good angel stands beside him to counsel
and assist. For the
strife is in this instance between the Chela's
will and his carnal
nature, and Karma forbids that any angel or Guru
should interfere until
the result is known. With the vividness of poetic fancy Bulwer
Lytton
has idealized it for us in his
"Zanoni," a work which will ever be
prized by the occultist while in his
"Strange Story" he has with equal
power shown the black side of occult research
and its deadly perils.
Chelaship was defined, the other day, by a
Mahatma as a "psychic
resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves
only the pure gold
behind." If the candidate has the latent
lust for money, or political
chicanery, or materialistic scepticism, or vain
display, or false
speaking, or cruelty, or sensual gratification
of any kind the germ is
almost sure to sprout; and so, on the other hand, as regards the
noble
qualities of human nature. The real man comes out. Is it not the
height of folly, then, for any one to leave the
smooth path of
commonplace life to scale the crags of Chelaship
without some reasonable
feeling of certainty that he has the right stuff
in him? Well says the
Bible:
"Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall"--a text that
would-be Chelas should consider well before they
rush headlong into the
fray! It
would have been well for some of our Lay Chelas if they had
thought twice before defying the tests. We call to mind several sad
failures within a twelve-month. One went wrong in the head, recanted
noble sentiments uttered but a few weeks
previously, and became a member
of a religion he had just scornfully and
unanswerably proven false. A
second became a defaulter and absconded with his
employer's money--the
latter also a Theosophist. A third gave himself up to gross debauchery,
and confessed it, with ineffectual sobs and
tears, to his chosen Guru.
A fourth got entangled with a person of the
other sex and fell out with
his dearest and truest friends. A fifth showed signs of mental
aberration and was brought into Court upon
charges of discreditable
conduct.
A sixth shot himself to escape the consequences of
criminality, on the verge of detection! And so we might go on and on.
All these were apparently sincere searchers
after truth, and passed in
the world for respectable persons. Externally, they were fairly
eligible as candidates for Chelaship, as
appearances go; but "within
all was rottenness and dead men's
bones." The world's varnish was so
thick as to hide the absence of the true gold
underneath; and the
"resolvent" doing its work, the
candidate proved in each instance but a
gilded figure of moral dross, from circumference
to core.
In what precedes we have, of course, dealt but
with the failures among
Lay Chelas;
there have been partial successes too, and these are
passing gradually through the first stages of their
probation. Some are
making themselves useful to the Society and to
the world in general by
good example and precept. If they persist, well for them, well for us
all: the
odds are fearfully against them, but still "there is no
impossibility to him who Wills." The difficulties in Chelaship will
never be less until human nature changes and a
new order is evolved.
St. Paul (Rom. vii. 18,19) might have had a
Chela in mind when he said
"to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I
find not.
For the good I would I do not;
but the evil which I would
not, that I do." And in the wise Kiratarjuniyam of Bharavi it
is
written:--
The
enemies which rise within the body,
Hard
to be overcome--the evil passions--
Should manfully be fought; who conquers these
Is
equal to the conqueror of worlds. (XI. 32.)
(--H.P. Blavatsky)
Ancient Opinions Upon Psychic Bodies
It must be confessed that modern Spiritualism
falls very short of the
ideas formerly suggested by the sublime
designation which it has
assumed.
Chiefly intent upon recognizing and putting forward the
phenomenal proofs of a future existence, it
concerns itself little with
speculations on the distinction between matter
and spirit, and rather
prides itself on having demolished Materialism
without the aid of
metaphysics.
Perhaps a Platonist might say that the recognition of a
future existence is consistent with a very
practical and even dogmatic
materialism, but it is rather to be feared that
such a materialism as
this would not greatly disturb the spiritual or
intellectual repose of
our modern phenomenalists.* Given the consciousness with its
sensibilities safely housed in the psychic body
which demonstrably
survives the physical carcase, and we are like men
saved from shipwreck,
who are for the moment thankful and content, not
giving thought whether
they are landed on a hospitable shore, or on a
barren rock, or on an
island of cannibals. It is not of course intended that this
"hand to
mouth" immortality is sufficient for the
many thoughtful minds whose
activity gives life and progress to the
movement, but that it affords
the relief which most people feel when in an age
of doubt they make the
discovery that they are undoubtedly to live
again. To the question "how
are the dead raised up, and with what body do
they come?" modern
Spiritualism, with its empirical methods, is not
adequate to reply. Yet
long before Paul suggested it, it had the
attention of the most
celebrated schools of philosophy, whose speculations
on the subject,
however little they may seem to be verified,
ought not to be without
interest to us, who, after all, are still in the
infancy of a
spiritualist revival.
---------
* "I am afraid," says Thomas Taylor in
his Introduction to the Phaedo,
"there are scarcely any at the present day
who know that it is one thing
for the soul to be separated from the body, and
another for the body to
be separated from the soul, and that the former
is by no means a
necessary consequence of the latter."
-----------
It would not be necessary to premise, but for
the frequency with which
the phrase occurs, that the "spiritual
body" is a contradiction in
terms.
The office of body is to relate spirit to an objective world.
By Platonic writers it is usually termed
okhema--"vehicle." It is the
medium of action, and also of sensibility. In this philosophy the
conception of Soul was not simply, as with us,
the immaterial subject of
consciousness.
How warily the interpreter has to tread here, every one
knows who has dipped, even superficially, into
the controversies among
Platonists themselves. All admit the distinction between the
rational
and the irrational part or principle, the latter
including, first, the
sensibility, and secondly, the Plastic, or that
lower which in obedience
to its sympathies enables the soul to attach
itself to, and to organize
into a suitable body those substances of the
universe to which it is
most congruous.
It is more difficult to determine whether Plato or his
principal followers, recognized in the rational
soul or nous a distinct
and separable entity, that which is sometimes
discriminated as "the
Spirit."
Dr. Henry More, no mean authority, repudiates this
interpretation.
"There can be nothing more monstrous," he says, "than
to make two souls in man, the one sensitive, the
other rational, really
distinct from one another, and to give the name
of Astral spirit to the
former, when there is in man no Astral spirit
beside the Plastic of the
soul itself, which is always inseparable from
that which is rational.
Nor upon any other account can it be called
Astral, but as it is liable
to that corporeal temperament which proceeds
from the stars, or rather
from any material causes in general, as not
being yet sufficiently
united with the divine body--that vehicle of
divine virtue or power."
So he maintains that the Kabalistic three
souls--Nephesh, Ruach,
Neschamah--originate in a misunderstanding of
the true Platonic
doctrine, which is that of a threefold
"vital congruity." These
correspond to the three degrees of bodily
existence, or to the three
"vehicles," the terrestrial, the
aerial, and the ethereal. The latter
is the augoeides--the luciform vehicle of the
purified soul whose
irrational part has been brought under complete
subjection to the
rational.
The aerial is that in which the great majority of mankind
find themselves at the dissolution of the
terrestrial body, and in which
the incomplete process of purification has to be
undergone during long
ages of preparation for the soul's return to its
primitive, ethereal
state.
For it must be remembered that the preexistence of souls is a
distinguishing tenet of this philosophy as of
the Kabala. The soul has
"sunk into matter." From its highest
original state the revolt of its
irrational nature has awakened and developed
successively its "vital
congruities" with the regions below,
passing, by means of its "Plastic,"
first into the aerial and afterwards into the
terrestrial condition.
Each of these regions teems also with an
appropriate population which
never passes, like the human soul, from one to
the other--"gods,"
"demons," and animals.* As to duration, "the shortest of all is
that of
the terrestrial vehicle. In the aerial, the soul may inhabit, as they
define, many ages, and in the ethereal, for
ever."
---------
* The allusion here is to those beings of the
several kingdoms of the
elements which we Theosophists, following after
the Kabalists, have
called the "Elementals." They never become men.
--Ed. Theos.
---------
Speaking of the second body, Henry More says
"the soul's astral vehicle
is of that tenuity that itself can as easily
pass the smallest pores of
the body as the light does glass, or the
lightning the scabbard of a
sword without tearing or scorching of
it." And again, "I shall make
bold to assert that the soul may live in an
aerial vehicle as well as in
the ethereal, and that there are very few that
arrive to that high
happiness as to acquire a celestial vehicle
immediately upon their
quitting the terrestrial one; that heavenly chariot necessarily
carrying us in triumph to the greatest happiness
the soul of man is
capable of, which would arrive to all men
indifferently, good or bad, if
the parting with this earthly body would
suddenly mount us into the
heavenly.
When by a just Nemesis the souls of men that are not
heroically virtuous will find themselves
restrained within the compass
of this caliginous air, as both Reason itself
suggests, and the
Platonists have unanimously determined."
Thus also the most
thorough-going, and probably the most deeply
versed in the doctrines of
the master among modern Platonists, Thomas
Taylor (Introduction.
Phaedo):--"After this our divine
philosopher informs that the pure soul
will after death return to pure and eternal
natures; but that the
impure soul, in consequence of being imbued with
terrene affections,
will be drawn down to a kindred nature, and be
invested with a gross
vehicle capable of being seen by the corporeal
eye.* For while a
propensity to body remains in the soul, it
causes her to attract a
certain vehicle to herself; either of an aerial nature, or composed
from the spirit and vapours of her terrestrial
body, or which is
recently collected from surrounding air; for according to the arcana of
the Platonic philosophy, between an ethereal
body, which is simple and
immaterial and is the eternal connate vehicle of
the soul, and a terrene
body, which is material and composite, and of
short duration, there is
an aerial body, which is material indeed, but
simple and of a more
extended duration; and in this body the
unpurified soul dwells for a
long time after its exit from hence, till this
pneumatic vehicle being
dissolved, it is again invested with a composite
body; while on the
contrary the purified soul immediately ascends
into the celestial
regions with its ethereal vehicle alone."
----------
* This is the Hindu theory of nearly every one
of the Aryan
philosophies.--Ed. Theos.
----------
Always it is the disposition of the soul that determines
the quality of
its body.
"However the soul be in itself affected," says Porphyry
(translated by Cudworth), "so does it
always find a body suitable and
agreeable to its present disposition, and
therefore to the purged soul
does naturally accrue a body that comes next to
immateriality, that is,
an ethereal one." And the same author, "The soul is never
quite naked
of all body, but hath always some body or other
joined with it, suitable
and agreeable to its present disposition (either
a purer or impurer
one). But
that at its first quitting this gross earthly body, the
spirituous body which accompanieth it (as its
vehicle) must needs go
away fouled and incrassated with the vapours and
steams thereof, till
the soul afterwards by degrees purging itself,
this becometh at length a
dry splendour, which hath no misty obscurity nor
casteth any shadow."
Here it will be seen, we lose sight of the
specific difference of the
two future vehicles--the ethereal is regarded as
a sublimation of the
aerial.
This, however, is opposed to the general consensus of Plato's
commentators. Sometimes the ethereal body, or
augoeides, is appropriated
to the rational soul, or spirit, which must then
be considered as a
distinct entity, separable from the lower
soul. Philoponus, a Christian
writer, says, "that the Rational Soul, as
to its energie, is separable
from all body, but the irrational part or life
thereof is separable only
from this gross body, and not from all body
whatsoever, but hath after
death a spirituous or airy body, in which it
acteth--this I say is a
true opinion which shall afterwards be proved by
us.... The irrational
life of the soul hath not all its being in this
gross earthly body, but
remaineth after the soul's departure out of it,
having for its vehicle
and subject the spirituous body, which itself is
also compounded out of
the four elements, but receiveth its
denomination from the predominant
part, to wit, Air, as this gross body of ours is
called earthy from what
is most predominant therein."--Cudworth,
"Intell. Syst." From the same
source we extract the following: "Wherefore these ancients say that
impure souls after their departure out of this
body wander here up and
down for a certain space in their spirituous
vaporous and airy body,
appearing about sepulchres and haunting their
former habitation. For
which cause there is great reason that we should
take care of living
well, as also of abstaining from a fouler and
grosser diet; these
Ancients telling us likewise that this
spirituous body of ours being
fouled and incrassated by evil diet, is apt to
render the soul in this
life also more obnoxious to the disturbances of
passions. They further
add that there is something of the Plantal or
Plastic life, also
exercised by the soul, in those spirituous or
airy bodies after death;
they being nourished too, though not after the
same manner, as those
gross earthy bodies of ours are here, but by
vapours, and that not by
parts or organs, but throughout the whole of
them (as sponges), they
imbibing everywhere those vapours. For which
cause they who are wise
will in this life also take care of using a
thinner and dryer diet, that
so that spirituous body (which we have also at
this present time within
our proper body) may not be clogged and
incrassed, but attenuated. Over
and above which, those Ancients made use of
catharms, or purgations to
the same end and purpose also. For as this earthy body is washed by
water so is that spirituous body cleansed by
cathartic vapours--some of
these vapours being nutritive, others
purgative. Moreover, these
Ancients further declared concerning this
spirituous body that it was
not organized, but did the whole of it in every
part throughout exercise
all functions of sense, the soul hearing, seeing
and perceiving all
sensibles by it everywhere. For which cause Aristotle himself affirmeth
in his Metaphysics that there is properly but
one sense and one Sensory.
He by this one sensory meaneth the spirit, or
subtle airy body, in which
the sensitive power doth all of it through the
whole immediately
apprehend all variety of sensibles. And if it be demanded to how it
comes to pass that this spirit becomes organized
in sepulchres, and most
commonly of human form, but sometimes in the
forms of other animals, to
this those Ancients replied that their appearing
so frequently in human
form proceeded from their being incrassated with
evil diet, and then, as
it were, stamped upon with the form of this
exterior ambient body in
which they are, as crystal is formed and
coloured like to those things
which it is fastened in, or reflects the image
of them. And that their
having sometimes other different forms
proceedeth from the phantastic
power of the soul itself, which can at pleasure
transform the spirituous
body into any shape. For being airy, when it is condensed and
fixed, it
becometh visible, and again invisible and
vanishing out of sight when it
is expanded and rarified." Proem in Arist. de Anima. And Cudworth
says, "Though spirits or ghosts had certain
supple bodies which they
could so far condense as to make them sometimes
visible to men, yet is
it reasonable enough to think that they could
not constipate or fix them
into such a firmness, grossness and solidity, as
that of flesh and bone
is to continue therein, or at least not without
such difficulty and pain
as would hinder them from attempting the
same. Notwithstanding which it
is not denied that they may possibly sometimes
make use of other solid
bodies, moving and acting them, as in that
famous story of Phlegons when
the body vanished not as other ghosts use to do,
but was left a dead
carcase behind."
In all these speculations the Anima Mundi plays
a conspicuous part. It
is the source and principle of all animal souls,
including the
irrational soul of man. But in man, who would otherwise be merely
analogous to other terrestrial animals--this
soul participates in a
higher principle, which tends to raise and
convert it to itself. To
comprehend the nature of this union or
hypostasis it would be necessary
to have mastered the whole of Plato's philosophy
as comprised in the
Parmenides and the Timaeus; and he would dogmatize rashly who without
this arduous preparation should claim Plato as
the champion of an
unconditional immortality. Certainly in the Phaedo the dialogue
popularly supposed to contain all Plato's
teaching on the subject--the
immortality allotted to the impure soul is of a
very questionable
character, and we should rather infer from the
account there given that
the human personality, at all events, is lost by
successive immersions
into "matter." The following passage from Plutarch (quoted
by Madame
Blavatsky, "Isis Unveiled," vol. ii.
p. 284) will at least demonstrate
the antiquity of notions which have recently
been mistaken for fanciful
novelties.
"Every soul hath some portion of nous, reason, a man cannot
be a man without it; but as much of each soul as is mixed with
flesh
and appetite is changed, and through pain and
pleasure becomes
irrational.
Every soul doth not mix herself after one sort; some
plunge themselves into the body, and so in this
life their whole frame
is corrupted by appetite and passion; others are mixed as to some part,
but the purer part still remains without the
body. It is not drawn down
into the body, but it swims above, and touches
the extremest part of the
man's head;
it is like a cord to hold up and direct the subsiding part
of the soul, as long as it proves obedient and
is not overcome by the
appetites of the flesh. The part that is plunged into the body is
called soul.
But the incorruptible part is called the nous, and the
vulgar think it is within them, as they likewise
imagine the image
reflected from a glass to be in that glass. But the more intelligent,
who know it to be without, call it a
Daemon." And in the same learned
work ("Isis Unveiled ") we have two
Christian authorities, Irenaeus and
Origen, cited for like distinction between
spirit and soul in such a
manner as to show that the former must
necessarily be regarded as
separable from the latter. In the distinction itself there is of course
no novelty for the most moderately
well-informed. It is insisted upon
in many modern works, among which may be
mentioned Heard's "Trichotomy
of Man" and Green's "Spiritual
Philosophy"; the latter being an
exposition of Coleridge's opinion on this and
cognate subjects. But the
difficulty of regarding the two principles as
separable in fact as well
as in logic arises from the senses, if it is not
the illusion of
personal identity. That we are particle, and that one part only
is
immortal, the non-metaphysical mind rejects with
the indignation which
is always encountered by a proposition that is
at once distasteful and
unintelligible.
Yet perhaps it is not a greater difficulty (if, indeed,
it is not the very same) than that hard saying
which troubled Nicodemus,
and which has been the key-note of the mystical
religious consciousness
ever since.
This, however, is too extensive and deep a question to be
treated in this paper, which has for its object
chiefly to call
attention to the distinctions introduced by
ancient thought into the
conception of body as the instrument or
"vehicle" of soul. That there
is a correspondence between the spiritual
condition of man and the
medium of his objective activity every spiritualist
will admit to be
probable, and it may well be that some light is
thrown on future states
by the possibility or the manner of spirit
communication with this one.
--C. C. Massey
The Nilgiri Sannyasis
I was told that Sannyasis were sometimes met
with on a mountain called
Velly Mallai Hills, in the Coimbatore District,
and trying to meet with
one, I determined to ascend this mountain. I traveled up its steep
sides and arrived at an opening, narrow and low,
into which I crept on
all fours.
Going up some twenty yards I reached a cave, into the
opening of which I thrust my head and
shoulders. I could see into it
clearly, but felt a cold wind on my face, as if
there was some opening
or crevice--so I looked carefully, but could see
nothing. The room was
about twelve feet square. I did not go into it. I saw arranged round
its sides stones one cubit long, all placed
upright. I was much
disappointed at there being no Sannyasi, and
came back as I went,
pushing myself backwards as there was no room to
turn. I was then told
Sannyasis had been met with in the dense sholas
(thickets), and as my
work lay often in such places, I determined to
prosecute my search, and
did so diligently, without, however, any
success.
One day I contemplated a journey to Coimbatore
on my own affairs, and
was walking up the road trying to make a bargain
with a handy man whom I
desired to engage to carry me there; but as we could not come to terms,
I parted with him and turned into the Lovedale
Road at 6 P.M. I had not
gone far when I met a man dressed like a
Sannyasi, who stopped and spoke
to me. He
observed a ring on my finger and asked me to give it to him.
I said he was welcome to it, but inquired what
he would give me in
return, he said, "I don't care particularly
about it; I would rather
have that flour and sugar in the bundle on your
back." "I will give you
that with pleasure," I said, and took down
my bundle and gave it to him.
"Half is enough for me," he said; but subsequently changing his mind
added, "now let me see what is in your
bundle," pointing to my other
parcel.
"I can't give you that."
He said, "Why cannot you give me your
swami (family idol)?" I said, "It is my swami, I will not part
with it;
rather take my life." On this he pressed me no more, but said,
"Now you
had better go home." I said, "I will not leave
you." "Oh you must," he
said, "you will die here of
hunger." "Never mind," I
said, "I can but
die once."
"You have no clothes to protect you from the wind and rain;
you may meet with tigers," he said. "I don't care," I replied. "It is
given to man once to die. What does it signify how he dies?" When I
said this he took my hand and embraced me, and
immediately I became
unconscious.
When I returned to consciousness, I found myself with the
Sannyasi in a place new to me on a hill, near a
large rock and with a
big shola near.
I saw in the shola right in front of us, that there was
a pillar of fire, like a tree almost. I asked the Sannyasi what was
that like a high fire. "Oh," he said, "most likely a
tree ignited by
some careless wood-cutters."
"No," I said, "it is not like any
common fire--there is no smoke, nor
are there flames--and it's not lurid and
red. I want to go and see it."
"No, you must not do so, you cannot go near
that fire and escape alive."
"Come with me then," I begged. "No--I cannot," he said, "if
you wish to
approach it, you must go alone and at your own
risk; that tree is the
tree of knowledge and from it flows the milk of
life: whoever drinks
this never hungers again." Thereupon I regarded the tree with awe.
I next observed five Sannyasis approaching. They came up and joined the
one with me, entered into talk, and finally
pulled out a hookah and
began to smoke. They asked me if I could smoke. I said no.
One of
them said to me, let us see the swami in your
bundle (here gives a
description of the same). I said, "I cannot, I am not clean enough
to
do so."
"Why not perform your ablutions in yonder stream?" they said.
"If you sprinkle water on your forehead
that will suffice." I went to
wash my hands and feet, and laved my head, and
showed it to them. Next
they disappeared. "As it is very late, it is time you
returned home,"
said my first friend. "No," I said, "now I have
found you I will not
leave you."
"No, no," he said, "you must go home. You cannot leave the
world yet;
you are a father and a husband, and you must not neglect
your worldly duties. Follow the footsteps of your late respected
uncle;
he did not neglect his worldly affairs, though
he cared for the
interests of his soul; you must go, but I will meet you again when
you
get your fortnightly holiday." On this he embraced me, and I again
became unconscious. When I returned to myself, I
found myself at the
bottom of Col. Jones' Coffee Plantation above
Coonor on a path. Here
the Sannyasi wished me farewell, and pointing to
the high road below, he
said, "Now you will know your way
home;" but I would not part from
him.
I said, "All this will appear a dream to me
unless you will fix a day
and promise to meet me here again." "I promise," he said. "No, promise
me by an oath on the head of my idol." Again he promised, and touched
the head of my idol. "Be here," he said, "this day
fortnight." When
the day came I anxiously kept my engagement and
went and sat on the
stone on the path. I waited a long time in vain. At last I said to
myself, "I am deceived, he is not coming,
he has broken his oath"--and
with grief I made a poojah. Hardly had these thoughts passed my mind,
than lo! he stood beside me. "Ah, you doubt me," he said; "why this
grief."
I fell at his feet and confessed I had doubted him and begged
his forgiveness.
He forgave and comforted me, and told me to keep in my
good ways and he would always help me; and he told me and advised me
about all my private affairs without my telling
him one word, and he
also gave me some medicines for a sick friend
which I had promised to
ask for but had forgotten. This medicine was given to my friend and he
is perfectly well now.
A verbatim translation of a Settlement Officer's
statement to
--E.H. Morgan
Witchcraft on the Nilgiris
Having lived many years (30) on the Nilgiris,
employing the various
tribes of the Hills on my estates, and speaking their
languages, I have
had many opportunities of observing their
manners and customs and the
frequent practice of Demonology and Witchcraft
among them. On the
slopes of the Nilgiris live several semi-wild
people: 1st, the
"Curumbers," who frequently hire
themselves out to neighbouring estates,
and are first-rate fellers of forest; 2nd, the "Tain" ("Honey
Curumbers"), who collect and live largely
on honey and roots, and who do
not come into civilized parts; 3rd, the "Mulu" Curumbers, who are
rare
on the slopes of the hills, but common in Wynaad
lower down the plateau.
These use bows and arrows, are fond of hunting,
and have frequently been
known to kill tigers, rushing in a body on their
game and discharging
their arrows at a short distance. In their eagerness they frequently
fall victims to this animal; but they are supposed to possess a
controlling power over all wild animals,
especially elephants and
tigers;
and the natives declare they have the power of assuming the
forms of various beasts. Their aid is constantly invoked both by the
Curumbers first named, and by the natives
generally, when wishing to be
revenged on an enemy.
Besides these varieties of Curumbers there are
various other wild tribes
I do not now mention, as they are not concerned
in what I have to
relate.
I had on my estate near Ootacamund a gang of
young Badagas, some 30
young men, whom I had had in my service since
they were children, and
who had become most useful handy fellows. From week to week I missed
one or another of them, and on inquiry was told
they had been sick and
were dead!
One market-day I met the Moneghar of the village
to which my gang
belonged and some of his men, returning home
laden with their purchases.
The moment he saw me he stopped, and coming up
to me, said, "Mother, I
am in great sorrow and trouble, tell me what I
can do!" "Why, what is
wrong?" I asked. "All my young men are dying, and I
cannot help them,
nor prevent it;
they are under a spell of the wicked Curumbers who are
killing them, and I am powerless." "Pray explain," I said; "why do the
Curumbers behave in this way, and what do they
do to your people?" "Oh,
Madam, they are vile extortioners, always asking
for money; we have
given and given till we have no more to
give. I told them we had no
more money and then they said,--All right--as
you please; we shall see.
Surely as they say this, we know what will
follow--at night when we are
all asleep, we wake up suddenly and see a
Curumber standing in our
midst, in the middle of the room occupied by the
young men." "Why do
you not close and bolt your doors
securely?" I interrupted.
"What is
the use of bolts and bars to them? they come
through stone walls.... Our
doors were secure, but nothing can keep out a
Curumber. He points his
finger at Mada, at Kurira, at Jogie--he utters
no word, and as we look
at him he vanishes! In a few days these three young men sicken, a
low
fever consumes them, their stomachs swell, they
die. Eighteen young
men, the flower of my village, have died thus
this year. These effects
always follow the visit of a Curumber at
night." "Why not complain to
the Government?" I said. "Ah, no use, who will catch
them?" "Then give
them the 200 rupees they ask this once on a solemn
promise that they
exact no more" "I suppose we must find the money
somewhere," he said,
turning sorrowfully away.
A Mr. K---is the owner of a coffee estate near
this, and like many
other planters employs Burghers. On one occasion he went down the
slopes of the hills after bison and other large
game, taking some seven
or eight Burghers with him as gun carriers
(besides other things
necessary in jungle-walking--axes to clear the
way, knives and ropes,
&c.).
He found and severely wounded a fine elephant with tusks.
Wishing to secure these, he proposed following
up his quarry, but could
not induce his Burghers to go deeper and further
into the forests; they
feared to meet the "Mula Curumbers"
who lived thereabouts. For long he
argued in vain, at last by dint of threats and
promises he induced them
to proceed, and as they met no one, their fears
were allayed and they
grew bolder, when suddenly coming on the
elephant lying dead (oh, horror
to them!), the beast was surrounded by a party
of Mulu Curumbers busily
engaged in cutting out the tusks, one of which
they had already
disengaged!
The affrighted Burghers fell back, and nothing Mr. K---
could do or say would induce them to approach
the elephant, which the
Curumbers stoutly declared was theirs. They had killed him they said.
They had very likely met him staggering under
his wound and had finished
him off.
Mr. K---was not likely to give up his game in this fashion.
So walking threateningly to the Curumbers he compelled
them to retire,
and called to his Burghers at the same
time. The Curumbers only said,
"Just you DARE to touch that
elephant," and retired. Mr.
K---thereupon
cut out the remaining tusk himself, and slinging
both on a pole with no
little trouble, made his men carry them. He took
all the blame on
himself, showed them that they did not touch
them, and finally declared
he would stay there all night rather than lose
the tusks. The idea of a
night near the Mulu Curumbers was too much for
the fears of the
Burghers, and they finally took up the pole and
tusks and walked home.
From that day those men, all but one who
probably carried the gun,
sickened, walked about like spectres, doomed,
pale and ghastly, and
before the month was out all were dead men, with
the one exception!
A few months ago, at the village of Ebanaud, a
few miles from this, a
fearful tragedy was enacted. The Moneghar or headman's child was sick
unto death.
This, following on several recent deaths, was attributed to
the evil influences of a village of Curumbers
hard by. The Burghers
determined on the destruction of every soul of
them. They procured the
assistance of a Toda, as they invariably do on
such occasions, as
without one the Curumbers are supposed to be
invulnerable. They
proceeded to the Curumber village at night and
set their huts on fire,
and as the miserable inmates attempted to
escape, flung them back into
the flames or knocked them down with clubs. In the confusion one old
woman escaped unobserved into the adjacent
bushes. Next morning she
gave notice to the authorities, and identified
seven Burghers, among
whom was the Moneghar or headman, and one Toda.
As the murderers of her
people they were all brought to trial in the
Courts here,--except the
headman, who died before he could be brought
in--and were all sentenced
and duly executed, that is, three Burghers and
the Toda, who were proved
principals in the murders.
Two years ago an almost identical occurrence
took place at Kotaghery,
with exactly similar results, but without the
punishment entailed having
any deterrent effect. They pleaded "justification," as
witchcraft had
been practiced on them. But our Government ignores all occult
dealings
and will not believe in the dread power in the
land. They deal very
differently with these matters in Russia, where,
in a recent trial of a
similar nature, the witchcraft was admitted as
an extenuating
circumstance and the culprits who had burnt a
witch were all acquitted.
All natives of whatever caste are well aware of
these terrible powers
and too often do they avail themselves of
them--much oftener than any
one has an idea of. One day as I was riding along I came upon a
strange
and ghastly object--a basket containing the
bloody head of a black
sheep, a cocoanut, 10 rupees in money, some rice
and flowers. These
smaller items I did not see, not caring to
examine any closer; but I
was told by some natives that those articles
were to be found in the
basket. The basket was placed at the apex of a triangle
formed by three
fine threads tied to three small sticks, so
placed that any one
approaching from the roads on either side had to
stumble over the
threads and receive the full effects of the
deadly "Soonium" as the
natives call it.
On inquiry I learnt that it was usual to prepare such
a "Soonium" when one lay sick unto
death; as throwing it on another was
the only means of rescuing the sick one, and woe
to the unfortunate who
broke a thread by stumbling over it!
--E.H. Morgan
Shamanism and Witchcraft Amongst the Kolarian
Tribes
Having resided for some years amongst the Mimdas
and Hos of Singbhoom,
and Chutia Nagpur, my attention was drawn at
times to customs differing
a good deal in some ways, but having an evident
affinity to those
related of the Nilghiri "Curumbers" in
Mrs. Morgan's article. I do not
mean to say that the practices I am about to
mention are confined simply
to the Kolarian tribes, as I am aware both
Oraons (a Dravidian tribe),
and the different Hindu castes living side by
side with the Kols, count
many noted wizards among their number; but what little I have come to
know of these curious customs, I have learnt
among the Mimdas and Hos,
some of the most celebrated practitioners among
them being Christian
converts.
The people themselves say, that these practices are peculiar
to their race, and not learnt from the Hindu
invaders of their plateau;
but I am inclined to think that some, at least,
of the operations have a
strong savour of the Tantric black magic about
them, though practiced by
people who are often entirely ignorant of any
Hindu language.
These remarks must he supplemented by a short
sketch of Kol ideas of
worship.
They have nothing that I have either seen or heard of in the
shape of an image, but their periodical
offerings are made to a number
of elemental spirits, and they assign a genie to
every rock or tree in
the country, whom they do not consider
altogether malignant, but who, if
not duly "fed" or propitiated, may
become so.
The Singbonga (lit., sun or light spirit) is the
chief; Buru Bonga
(spirit of the hills), and the Ikhir Bonga
(spirit of the deep), come
next.
After these come the Darha, of which each family has its own, and
they may be considered in the same light as
Lares and Penates. But
every threshing, flour and oil mill, has its
spirit, who must be duly
fed, else evil result may be expected. Their great festival (the Karam)
is in honour of Singbonga and his
assistants; the opening words of the
priests' speech on that occasion, sufficiently
indicate that they
consider Singbonga, the creator of men and
things. Munure Singbonga
manokoa luekidkoa (In the beginning Singbonga
made men).
Each village has its Sarna or sacred grove,
where the hereditary priest
from time to time performs sacrifices, to keep
things prosperous; but
this only relates to spirits actually connected
with the village, the
three greater spirits mentioned, being
considered general, are only fed
at intervals of three or more years, and always
on a public road or
other public place, and once every ten years a
human being was (and as
some will tell you is sacrificed to keep the
whole community of spirits
in good train.)
The Pahans, or village priests, are regular servants of
the spirits, and the najo, deona and bhagats are
people who in some way
are supposed to obtain an influence or command
over them. The first and
lowest grade of these adepts, called najos
(which may be translated as
practitioners of witchcraft pure and simple),
are frequently women.
They are accused, like the "Mula
Curumbers," of demanding quantities of
grain or loans of money, &c., from people,
and when these demands are
refused, they go away with a remark to the
effect, "that you have lots
of cattle and grain just now, but we'll see what
they are like after a
month or two." Then probably the cattle of the bewitched
person will
get some disease, and several of them die, or
some person of his family
will become ill or get hurt in some
unaccountable way. Till at last,
thoroughly frightened, the afflicted person
takes a little uncooked rice
and goes to a deona or mati (as he is called in
the different
vernaculars of the province)--the grade
immediately above najo in
knowledge--and promising him a reward if he will
assist him, requests
his aid;
if the deona accedes to the request, the proceedings are as
follows.
The deona taking the oil brought, lights a small lamp and
seats himself beside it with the rice in a surpa
(winnower) in his
hands.
After looking intently at the lamp flame for a few minutes, he
begins to sing a sort of chant of invocation in
which all the spirits
are named, and at the name of each spirit a few
grains of rice are
thrown into the lamp. When the flame at any particular name gives a
jump and flares up high, the spirit concerned in
the mischief is
indicated.
Then the deona takes a small portion of the rice wrapped up
in a sal (Shorea robusta) leaf and proceeds to
the nearest new white-ant
nest from which he cuts the top off and lays the
little bundle, half in
and half out of the cavity. Having retired, he
returns in about an hour
to see if the rice is consumed, and according to
the rapidity with which
it is eaten he predicts the sacrifice which will
appease the spirit.
This ranges from a fowl to a buffalo, but whatever
it may include, the
pouring out of blood is an essential. It must be noted, however, that
the mati never tells who the najo is who has
excited the malignity of
the spirit.
But the most important and lucrative part of a
deona's business is the
casting out of evil spirits, which operation is
known variously as ashab
and langhan.
The sign of obsession is generally some mental alienation
accompanied (in bad cases) by a combined
trembling and restlessness of
limbs, or an unaccountable swelling up of the
body. Whatever the
symptoms may be the mode of cure appears to be
much the same. On such
symptoms declaring themselves, the deona is
brought to the house and is
in the presence of the sick man and his friends
provided with some rice
in a surpa, some oil, a little vermilion, and
the deona produces from
his own person a little powdered sulphur and an
iron tube about four
inches long and two tikli.* Before the proceedings begin all the things
mentioned are touched with vermilion, a small
quantity of which is also
mixed with the rice. Three or four grains of rice and one of the
tikli
being put into the tube, a lamp is then lighted
beside the sick man and
the deona begins his chant, throwing grains of
rice at each name, and
when the flame flares up, a little of the
powdered sulphur is thrown
into the lamp and a little on the sick man, who
thereupon becomes
convulsed, is shaken all over and talks
deliriously, the deona's chant
growing louder all the while. Suddenly the convulsions and the chant
cease, and the deona carefully takes up a little
of the sulphur off the
man's body and puts into the tube, which he then
seals with the second
tikli.
The deona and one of the man's friends then leave the hut,
taking the iron tube and rice with them, the spirit
being now supposed
out of the man and bottled up in the iron
tube. They hurry across
country until they leave the hut some miles
behind. Then they go to the
edge of some tank or river, to some place they
know to be frequented by
people for the purposes of bathing, &c.,
where, after some further
ceremony, the iron is stuck into the ground and
left there. This is
done with the benevolent intention that the
spirit may transfer its
attentions to the unfortunate person who may
happen to touch it while
bathing.
I am told the spirit in this case usually chooses a young and
healthy person.
Should the deona think the spirit has not been able to
suit itself with a new receptacle, he repairs to
where a bazaar is
taking place and there (after some ceremony) he
mixes with the crowd,
and taking a grain of the reddened rice jerks it
with his forefinger and
thumb in such a way that without attracting
attention it falls on the
person or clothes of some. This is done several times to make certain.
Then the deona declares he has done his work,
and is usually treated to
the best dinner the sick man's friends can
afford. It is said that the
person to whom the spirit by either of these
methods is transferred may
not be affected for weeks or even months. But some fine day while he is
at his work, he will suddenly stop, wheel round
two or three times on
his heels and fall down more or less convulsed,
from that time forward
he will begin to be troubled in the same way as
his dis-obsessed
predecessor was.
--------
* Tikli is a circular piece of gilt paper which
is stuck on between the
eyebrows of the women of the Province as
ornament.
--------
Having thus given some account of the deona, we
now come to the bhagat,
called by the Hindus sokha and sivnath. This is the highest grade of
all, and, as I ought to have mentioned before,
the 'ilm (knowledge) of
both the deona and bhagat grades is only to be
learned by becoming a
regular chela of a practitioner; but I am given to understand that the
final initiation is much hastened by a
seasonable liberality on the part
of the chela. During the initiation of the sokha
certain ceremonies are
performed at night by aid of a human corpse,
this is one of the things
which has led me to think that this part at
least of these practices is
connected with Tantric black magic.
The bhagat performs two distinct functions: (1st), a kind of divination
called bhao (the same in Hindi), and (2nd), a
kind of Shamanism called
darasta in Hindi, and bharotan in Horokaji,
which, however, is resorted
to only on very grave occasions--as, for
instance, when several families
think they are bewitched at one time and by the
same najo.
The bhao is performed as follows:--The person
having some query to
propound, makes a small dish out of a sal leaf
and puts in it a little
uncooked rice and a few pice; he then proceeds to the bhagat and lays
before him the leaf and its contents,
propounding at the same time his
query.
The bhagat then directs him to go out and gather two golaichi
(varieties of Posinia) flowers (such
practitioners usually having a
golaichi tree close to their abodes); after the flowers are brought the
bhagat seats himself with the rice close to the
inquirer, and after some
consideration selects one of the flowers, and
holding it by the stalk at
about a foot from his eyes in his left hand
twirls it between his thumb
and fingers, occasionally with his right hand
dropping on it a grain or
two of rice.*
In a few minutes his eyes close and he begins to talk--
usually about things having nothing to do with
the question in hand, but
after a few minutes of this, he suddenly yells
out an answer to the
question, and without another word retires. The inquirer takes his
meaning as he can from the answer, which, I believe,
is always
ambiguous.
---------
* This is the process by which the bhagat
mesmerizes himself.
---------
The bharotan as I have above remarked is only
resorted to when a matter
of grave import has to be inquired about; the bhagat makes a high
charge for a seance of this description. We will fancy that three or
four families in a village consider themselves
bewitched by a najo, and
they resolve to have recourse to a bhagat to
find out who the witch is;
with this view a day is fixed on, and two delegates
are procured from
each of five neighbouring villages, who
accompany the afflicted people
to the house of the bhagat, taking with them a
dali or offering,
consisting of vegetables, which on arrival is
formally presented to him.
Two delegates are posted at each of the four
points of the compass, and
the other two sent themselves with the afflicted
parties to the right of
the bhagat, who occupies the centre of the
apartment with four or five
chelas, a clear space being reserved on the
left. One chela then brings
a small earthenware-pot full of lighted
charcoal, which is set before
the bhagat with a pile of mango wood chips and a
ball composed of dhunia
(resin of Shorea robusta), gur (treacle), and
ghee (clarified butter),
and possibly other ingredients. The bhagat's sole attire consists of a
scanty lenguti (waist-cloth), a necklace of the
large wooden beads such
as are usually worn by fakeers, and several
garlands of golaichi flowers
round his neck, his hair being unusually long
and matted. Beside him
stuck in the ground is his staff. One chela stands over the firepot
with a bamboo-mat fan in his hand, another takes
charge of the pile of
chips, and a third of the ball of composition,
and one or two others
seat themselves behind the bhagat, with drums
and other musical
instruments in their hands. All being in readiness, the afflicted ones
are requested to state their grievance. This they do, and pray the
bhagat to call before him the najo, who has
stirred up the spirits to
afflict them, in order that he may be
punished. The bhagat then gives a
sign to his chelas, those behind him raise a
furious din with their
instruments, the fire is fed with chips, and a
bit of the composition is
put on it from time to time, producing a volume
of thick greyish-blue
smoke; this is carefully fanned over, and
towards the bhagat, who, when
well wrapped in smoke, closes his eyes and
quietly swaying his body
begins a low chant. The chant gradually becomes louder and the
sway of
his body more pronounced, until he works himself
into a state of
complete frenzy.
Then with his body actually quivering, and his head
rapidly working about from side to side, he
sings in a loud voice how a
certain najo (whom he names) had asked money of
those people and was
refused, and how he stirred up certain spirits
(whom he also names) to
hurt them, how they killed so and so's bullocks,
some one else's sheep,
and caused another's child to fall ill. Then he begins to call on the
najo to come and answer for his doings, and in
doing so rises to his
feet--still commanding the najo to appear; meanwhile he reels about;
then falls on the ground and is quite still
except for an occasional
whine, and a muttered, "I see
him!" "He is coming!"
This state may last
for an hour or more till at last the bhagat sits
up and announces the
najo has come;
as he says so, a man, apparently mad with drink, rushes
in and falls with his head towards the bhagat
moaning and making a sort
of snorting as if half stifled. In this person the bewitched parties
often recognize a neighbour and sometimes even a
relation, but whoever
he may be they have bound themselves to punish
him. The bhagat then
speaks to him and tells him to confess, at the
same time threatening
him, in case of refusal, with his staff. He then confesses in a
half-stupefied manner, and his confession
tallies with what the bhagat
has told in his frenzy. The najo is then dismissed and runs out of
the
house in the same hurry as he came in. The delegates then hold a
council at which the najo usually is sentenced
to a fine--often heavy
enough to ruin him--and expelled from his
village. Before the British
rule the convicted najo seldom escaped with his
life, and during the
mutiny time, when no Englishmen were about, the
Singbhoom Hos paid off a
large number of old scores of this sort. For record of which, see
"Statistical Account of Bengal," vol.
xvii. p. 52.
In conclusion I have merely to add that I have
derived this information
from people who have been actually concerned in
these occurrences, and
among others a man belonging to a village of my
own, who was convicted
and expelled from the village with the loss of
all his movable property,
and one of his victims, a relation of his, sat
by me when the above was
being written.
--E.D. Ewen
Mahatmas and Chelas
A Mahatma is an individual who, by special
training and education, has
evolved those higher faculties, and has attained
that spiritual
knowledge, which ordinary humanity will acquire
after passing through
numberless series of re-incarnations during the
process of cosmic
evolution, provided, of course, that they do not
go, in the meanwhile,
against the purposes of Nature and thus bring on
their own annihilation.
This process of the self-evolution of the MAHATMA
extends over a number
of "incarnations," although,
comparatively speaking, they are very few.
Now, what is it that incarnates? The occult doctrine, so far as it is
given out, shows that the first three principles
die more or less with
what is called the physical death. The fourth principle, together with
the lower portions of the fifth, in which reside
the animal
propensities, has Kama Loka for its abode, where
it suffers the throes
of disintegration in proportion to the intensity
of those lower desires;
while it is the higher Manas, the pure man,
which is associated with the
sixth and seventh principles, that goes into
Devachan to enjoy there the
effects of its good Karma, and then to be
reincarnated as a higher
personality.
Now an entity that is passing through the occult training
in its successive births, gradually has less and
less (in each
incarnation) of that lower Manas until there
arrives a time when its
whole Manas, being of an entirely elevated
character, is centred in the
individuality, when such a person may be said to
have become a MAHATMA.
At the time of his physical death, all the lower
four principles perish
without any suffering, for these are, in fact,
to him like a piece of
wearing apparel which he puts on and off at
will. The real MAHATMA is
then not his physical body but that higher Manas
which is inseparably
linked to the Atma and its vehicle (the sixth
principle)--a union
effected by him in a comparatively very short
period by passing through
the process of self-evolution laid down by
Occult Philosophy. When
therefore, people express a desire to "see
a MAHATMA," they really do
not seem to understand what it is they ask
for. How can they, with
their physical eyes, hope to see that which
transcends that sight? Is
it the body--a mere shell or mask--they crave or
hunt after? And
supposing they see the body of a MAHATMA, how
can they know that behind
that mask is concealed an exalted entity? By what standard are they to
judge whether the Maya before them reflects the
image of a true MAHATMA
or not?
And who will say that the physical is not a Maya? Higher things
can be perceived only by a sense pertaining to
those higher things;
whoever therefore wants to see the real MAHATMA,
must use his
intellectual sight. He must so elevate his Manas that its
perception
will be clear and all mists created by Maya be
dispelled. His vision
will then be bright and he will see the MAHATMA
wherever he may be, for,
being merged into the sixth and the seventh
principles, which know no
distance, the MAHATMA may be said to be
everywhere. But, at the same
time, just as we may be standing on a mountain
top and have within our
sight the whole plain, and yet not be cognizant
of any particular tree
or spot, because from that elevated position all
below is nearly
identical, and as our attention may be drawn to
something which may be
dissimilar to its surroundings--in the same
manner, although the whole
of humanity is within the mental vision of the
MAHATMA, he cannot be
expected to take special note of every human
being, unless that being by
his special acts draws particular attention to
himself. The highest
interest of humanity, as a whole, is the
MAHATMA's special concern, for
he has identified himself with that Universal
Soul which runs through
Humanity;
and to draw his attention one must do so through that Soul.
This perception of the Manas may be called
"faith" which should not be
confounded with blind belief. "Blind faith" is an expression
sometimes
used to indicate belief without perception or
understanding; while the
true perception of the Manas is that enlightened
belief which is the
real meaning of the word "faith." This belief should at the same time
be accompanied by knowledge, i.e., experience,
for "true knowledge
brings with it faith." Faith is the perception of the Manas (the
fifth
principle), while knowledge, in the true sense
of the term, is the
capacity of the Intellect, i.e., it is spiritual
perception. In short,
the individuality of man, composed of his higher
Manas, the sixth and
the seventh principle, should work as a unity,
and then only can it
obtain "divine wisdom," for divine
things can be sensed only by divine
faculties.
Thus a chela should be actuated solely by a desire to
understand the operations of the Law of Cosmic
Evolution, so as to be
able to work in conscious and harmonious accord
with Nature.
--Anon.
The Brahmanical Thread
I. The
general term for the investiture of this thread is Upanayana;
and the invested is called Upanita, which
signifies brought or drawn
near (to one's Guru), i.e., the thread is the
symbol of the wearer's
condition.
II. One
of the names of this thread is Yajna-Sutra.
Yajna means
Brahma, or the Supreme Spirit, and Sutra the
thread, or tie.
Collectively, the compound word signifies that
which ties a man to his
spirit or god.
It consists of three yarns twisted into one thread, and
three of such threads formed and knotted into a
circle. Every
Theosophist knows what a circle signifies and it
need not be repeated
here. He
will easily understand the rest and the relation they have to
mystic initiation. The yarns signify the great principle of
"three in
one, and one in three," thus:--The first
trinity consists of Atma which
comprises the three attributes of Manas, Buddhi,
and Ahankara (the mind,
the intelligence, and the egotism). The Manas again, has the three
qualities of Satva, Raja, and Tama (goodness,
foulness, and darkness).
Buddhi has the three attributes of Pratyaksha,
Upamiti and Anumiti
(perception, analogy, and inference). Ahankara
also has three
attributes, viz., Jnata, Jneya, and Jnan (the
knower, the known, and the
knowledge).
III.
Another name of the sacred thread is Tri-dandi. Tri means three,
and Danda, chastisement, correction, or
conquest. This reminds the
holder of the three great
"corrections" or conquests he has to
accomplish.
These are:--(1) the Vakya Sanyama;*
(2) the Manas Sanyama;
and (3) the Indriya (or Deha) Sanyama. Vakya is
speech, Manas, mind, and
Deha (literally, body) or Indriya, is the
senses. The three conquests
therefore mean the control over one's speech,
thought, and action.
--------
* Danda and Sanyama are synonymous terms.--A.S.
---------
This thread is also the reminder to the man of his
secular duties,
and its material varies, in consequence,
according to the occupation
of the wearer.
Thus, while the thread of the Brahmans is made of
pure cotton, that of the Kshatriyas (the
warriors) is composed of
flax--the bow-string material; and that of Vaishyas (the traders and
cattle-breeders), of wool. From this it is not to be inferred that caste
was originally meant to be hereditary. In the
ancient times, it depended
on the qualities of the man. Irrespective of the
caste of his parents, a
man could, according to his merit or otherwise,
raise or lower himself
from one caste to another; and instances are not wanting in which a man
has elevated himself to the position of the
highest Brahman (such as
Vishvamitra Rishi, Parasara, Vyasa, Satyakam,
and others) from the very
lowest of the four castes. The sayings of Yudhishthira on this subject,
in reply to the questions of the great serpent,
in the Arannya Parva of
the Maha-Bharata, and of Manu, on the same
point, are well known and
need nothing more than bare reference. Both Manu and Maha-Bharata--the
fulcrums of Hinduism--distinctly affirm that a
man can translate
himself from one caste to another by his merit,
irrespective of his
parentage.
The day is fast approaching when the so-called
Brahmans will have to
show cause, before the tribunal of the Aryan
Rishis, why they should not
be divested of the thread which they do not at
all deserve, but are
degrading by misuse. Then alone will the people appreciate the
privilege of wearing it.
There are many examples of the highest
distinctive insignia being worn
by the unworthy.
The aristocracies of Europe and Asia teem with such.
--A. Sarman
Reading in a Sealed Envelope
Some years ago, a Brahman astrologer named
Vencata Narasimla Josi, a
native of the village of Periasamudram in the
Mysore Provinces, came to
the little town in the Bellary District where I
was then employed. He
was a good Sanskrit, Telugu and Canarese poet,
and an excellent master
of Vedic rituals; knew the Hindu system of astronomy, and
professed to
be an astrologer. Besides all this, he possessed the power of
reading
what was contained in any sealed envelope. The process adopted for this
purpose was simply this:--We wrote whatever we
chose on a piece of
paper; enclosed it in one, two or three
envelopes, each properly gummed
and sealed, and handed the cover to the
astrologer. He asked us to name
a figure between 1 and 9, and on its being
named, he retired with the
envelope to some secluded place for some time;
and then he returned with
a paper full of figures, and another paper
containing a copy of what was
on the sealed paper--exactly, letter for letter
and word for word. I
tried him often and many others did the
same; and we were all satisfied
that he was invariably accurate, and that there
was no deception
whatsoever in the matter.
About this time, one Mr. Theyagaraja Mudalyar, a
supervisor in the
Public Works Department, an English scholar and
a good Sanskrit and
Telugu poet, arrived at our place on his periodical
tour of inspection.
Having heard about the aforesaid astrologer, he
wanted to test him in a
manner, most satisfactory to himself. One
morning handing to the
astrologer a very indifferently gummed envelope,
he said, "Here, Sir,
take this letter home with you and come back to
me with your copy in the
afternoon."
This loose way of closing the envelope, and the permission
given to the astrologer to take it home for
several hours, surprised the
Brahman, who said, "I don't want to go
home. Seal the cover better, and
give me the use of some room here. I shall be ready with my copy very
soon."
"No," said the Mudalyar, "take it as it is, and come back
whenever you like. I have the means of finding out the
deception, if
any be practiced."
So then the astrologer went with the
envelope; and returned to the
Mudalyar's place in the afternoon. Myself and about twenty others were
present there by appointment. The astrologer then carefully handed the
cover to the Mudalyar, desiring him to see if it
was all right. "Don't
mind that," the Mudalyar answered; "I
can find out the trick, if there
be any.
Produce your copy." The astrologer thereupon presented to the
Mudalyar a paper on which four lines were
written and stated that this
was a copy of the paper enclosed in the
Mudalyar's envelope. Those four
lines formed a portion of an antiquated poem.
The Mudalyar read the paper once, then read it
over again. Extreme
satisfaction beamed over his countenance, and he
sat mute for some
seconds seemingly in utter astonishment. But soon after, the expression
of his face changing, he opened the envelope and
threw the enclosure
down, jocularly saying to the astrologer,
"Here, Sir, is the original of
which you have produced the copy."
The paper lay upon the carpet, and was quite
blank! not a word, nor a
letter on its clean surface.
This was a sad disappointment to all his
admirers; but to the
astrologer himself, it was a real
thunderbolt. He picked up the paper
pensively, examined it on both sides, then
dashed it on the ground in a
fury; and
suddenly arising, exclaimed, "My Vidya* is a delusion, and I
am a liar!"
---------
* Secret knowledge, magic.
---------
The subsequent behaviour of the poor man made us
fear lest this great
disappointment should drive him to commit some
desperate act. In fact
he seemed determined to drown himself in the
well, saying that he was
dishonoured.
While we were trying to console him, the Mudalyar came
forward, caught hold of his hands, and besought
him to sit down and
calmly listen to his explanation, assuring him
that he was not a liar,
and that his copy was perfectly accurate. But the astrologer would not
be satisfied; he supposed that all this was said
simply to console him;
and cursed himself and his fate most
horribly. However, in a few
minutes he became calmer and listened to the
Mudalyar's explanation,
which was in substance as follows The only way
for the sceptic to
account for this phenomenon, is to suppose that
the astrologer opened
the covers dexterously and read their
contents. "So," he said,
"I wrote
four lines of old poetry on the paper with
nitrate of silver, which
would be invisible until exposed to the
light; and this would have
disclosed the astrologer's fraud, if he had tried
to find out the
contents of the enclosed paper, by opening the
cover, however
ingeniously. For, if he opened it and looked at
the paper, he would have
seen that it was blank, resealed the cover, and
declared that the paper
enveloped therein bore no writing whatever; or if he had, by design or
accident, exposed the paper to light, the
writing would have become
black;
and he would have produced a copy of it as if it were the result
of his own Vidya; but in either case and the writing remaining,
his
deception would have been clear, and it would
have been patent to all
that he did open the envelope. But in the present case, the result
proved conclusively that the cover was not
opened at all."
--P. Sreeneevas Row
The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac
The division of the Zodiac into different signs
dates from immemorial
antiquity.
It has acquired a world-wide celebrity and is to be found in
the astrological systems of several nations. The
invention of the Zodiac
and its signs has been assigned to different
nations by different
antiquarians.
It is stated by some that, at first, there were only ten
signs, that one of these signs was subsequently
split up into two
separate signs, and that a new sign was added to
the number to render
the esoteric significance of the division more
profound, and at the same
time to conceal it more perfectly from the
uninitiated public. It is
very probable that the real philosophical
conception of the division
owes its origin to some particular nation, and the
names given to the
various signs might have been translated into
the languages of other
nations.
The principal object of this article, however, is not to
decide which nation had the honour of inventing
the signs in question,
but to indicate to some extent the real
philosophical meaning involved
therein, and the way to discover the rest of the
meaning which yet
remains undisclosed. But from what is herein
stated, an inference may
fairly be drawn that, like so many other
philosophical myths and
allegories, the invention of the Zodiac and its
signs owes its origin to
ancient India.
What then is its real origin, what is the
philosophical conception which
the Zodiac and its signs are intended to
represent? Do the various
signs merely indicate the shape or configuration
of the different
constellations included in the divisions, or,
are they simply masks
designed to veil some hidden meaning? The former supposition is
altogether untenable for two reasons, viz.:--
I. The
Hindus were acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, as
may he easily seen from their work on Astronomy,
and from the almanacs
published by Hindu astronomers. Consequently they were fully aware of
the fact that the constellations in the various
Zodiacal divisions were
not fixed.
They could not, therefore, have assigned particular shapes
to these shifting groups of fixed stars with
reference to the divisions
of the Zodiac.
But the names indicating the Zodiacal signs have all
along remained unaltered. It is to be inferred, therefore, that the
names given to the various signs have no
connection whatever with the
configurations of the constellations included in
them.
II. The names assigned to these signs by the
ancient Sanskrit writers
and their exoteric or literal meanings are as follows:--
The Names of the Signs ....... Their Exoteric or
Literal Meanings
1. Mesha ........................... Ram, or
Aries.
2. Rishabha .......................Bull, or
Taurus.
3. Mithunam ................... Twins, or Gemini
(male and female).
4. Karkataka ...................... Crab, or
Cancer.
5. Simha .............................. Lion, or
Leo.
6. Kanya ............................. Virgin or
Virgo.*
7. Tula .......................... Balance, or
Libra.
8. Vrischika ..................... Scorpion, or
Scorpio.
9. Dhanus ....................... Archer, or
Sagittarius.
10. Makara ........... The Goat, or Capricornus
(Crocodile, in Sanskrit).
11. Kumbha .................. Water-bearer, or
Aquarius.
12. Meenam ................. Fishes, or Pisces.
The figures of the constellations included in
the signs at the time the
division was first made do not at all resemble
the shapes of the
animals, reptiles and other objects denoted by
the names given them.
The truth of this assertion can be ascertained
by examining the
configurations of the various constellations.
Unless the shape of the
crocodile** or the crab is called up by the
observer's imagination,
there is very little chance of the stars
themselves suggesting to his
idea that figure, upon the blue canopy of the
starry firmament.
--------
* Virgo-Scorpio, when none but the initiates
knew there were twelve
signs.
Virgo-Scorpio was then followed for the profane by Sagittarius.
At the middle or junction-point where now stands
Libra and at the sign
now called Virgo, two mystical signs were
inserted which remained
unintelligible to the profane.--Ed. Theos.
** This constellation was never called Crocodile
by the ancient Western
astronomers, who described it as a horned goat
and called it so--
Capricornus.--Ed. Theos.
--------
If, then, the constellations have nothing to do
with the origin of the
names by which the Zodiacal divisions are
indicated, we have to seek for
some other source which might have given rise to
these appellations. It
becomes my object to unravel a portion of the
mystery connected with
these Zodiacal signs, as also to disclose a
portion of the sublime
conception of the ancient Hindu philosophy which
gave rise to them. The
signs of the Zodiac have more than one
meaning. From one point of view
they represent the different stages of evolution
up to the time the
present material universe with the five elements
came into phenomenal
existence. As the author of "Isis
Unveiled" has stated in the second
volume of her admirable work, "The key
should be turned seven times" to
understand the whole philosophy underlying these
signs. But I shall
wind it only once and give the contents of the
first chapter of the
History of Evolution. It is very fortunate that the Sanskrit names
assigned to the various divisions by Aryan
philosophers contain within
themselves the key to the solution of the
problem. Those of my readers
who have studied to some extent the ancient
"Mantra" and the "Tantra
Sastras" * of India, would have seen that very
often Sanskrit words are
made to convey a certain hidden meaning by means
of well-known
pre-arranged methods and a tacit convention,
while their literal
significance is something quite different from
the implied meaning.
---------
* Works on Incantation and Magic.
---------
The following are some of the rules which may
help an inquirer in
ferreting out the deep significance of ancient
Sanskrit nomenclature to
be found in the old Aryan myths and allegories:
1. Find out the synonyms of the word used which
have other meanings.
2. Find out the numerical value of the letters
composing the word
according to the methods given in ancient
Tantrika works.
3. Examine the ancient myths or allegories, if
there are any, which have
any special connection with the word in
question.
4. Permute the different syllables composing the
word and examine the
new combinations that will thus be formed and
their meanings, &c. &c.
I shall now apply some of the above given rules
to the names of the
twelve signs of the Zodiac.
I. Mesha.--One of the synonyms of this word is
Aja. Now, Aja literally
means that which has no birth, and is applied to
the Eternal Brahma in
certain portions of the Upanishads. So, the first sign is intended to
represent Parabrahma, the self-existent,
eternal, self-sufficient cause
of all.
II. Rishabham.--This word is used in several
places in the Upanishads
and the Veda to mean Pranava (Aum). Sankaracharya has so interpreted it
in several portions of his commentary.*
--------
* Example, "Rishabhasya--Chandasam
Rishabhasya Pradhanasya
Pranavasya."
--------
III. Mithuna.--As the word plainly indicates,
this sign is intended to
represent the first androgyne, the
Ardhanareeswara, the bisexual
Sephira--Adam Kadmon.
IV. Karkataka.--When the syllables are converted
into the corresponding
numbers, according to the general mode of
transmutation so often alluded
to in Mantra Shastra, the word in question will
be represented by ////.
This sign then is evidently intended to
represent the sacred Tetragram;
the Parabrahmadharaka; the Pranava resolved into four separate
entities
corresponding to its four Matras; the four Avasthas indicated by
Jagrata (waking) Avastha, Swapna (dreaming)
Avastha, Sushupti (deep
sleep) Avastha, and Turiya (the last stage,
i.e., Nirvana) Avastha (as
yet in potentiality); the four states of Brahma called Vaiswanara,
Taijasa (or Hiranyagarbha), Pragna, and Iswara,
and represented by
Brahma, Vishna, Maheswara, and Sadasiva; the four aspects of
Parabrahma, as Sthula (gross), Sukshma (subtle),
Vija (seed), and Sakshi
(witness);
the four stages or conditions of the Sacred Word, named
Para, Pasyanti, Madhyama and Vaikhari; Nadam, Bindu, Sakti and Kala.
This sign completes the first quaternary.
V. Simha.--This word contains a world of occult
meaning within itself;
and it may not be prudent on my part to disclose
the whole of its
meaning now.
It will be sufficient for the present purpose to give a
general indication of its significance.
Two of its synonymous terms are Panchasyam and
Hari, and its number in
the order of the Zodiacal divisions (being the
fifth sign) points
clearly to the former synonym. This synonym--Panchasyam--shows that
the sign is intended to represent the five
Brahmas--viz., Isanam,
Aghoram, Tatpurusham, Vamadevam, and
Sadyojatam:--the five Buddhas. The
second synonym shows it to be Narayana, the
Jivatma or Pratyagatma. The
Sukarahasy Upanishad will show that the ancient
Aryan philosophers
looked upon Narayana as the Jivatma.* The
Vaishnavites may not admit it.
But as an Advaiti, I look upon Jivatma as
identical with Paramatma in
its real essence when stripped of its illusory
attributes created by
Agnanam or Avidya--ignorance.
---------
* In its lowest or most material state, as the
life-principle which
animates the material bodies of the animal and
vegetable worlds, &c.
--Ed. Theos.
---------
The Jivatma is correctly placed in the fifth
sign counting from Mesham,
as the fifth sign is the putrasthanam or the
son's house according to
the rules of Hindu Astrology. The sign in question represents Jivatma--
the son of Paramatma as it were. (I may also add that it represents the
real Christ, the anointed pure spirit, though
many Christians may frown
at this interpretation.)* I will only add here that unless the nature
of this sign is fully comprehended it will be
impossible to understand
the real order of the next three signs and their
full significance. The
elements or entities that have merely a
potential existence in this sign
become distinct separate entities in the next
three signs. Their union
into a single entity leads to the destruction of
the phenomenal
universe, and the recognition of the pure Spirit
and their separation
has the contrary effect. It leads to material earth-bound existence
and
brings into view the picture gallery of Avidya
(Ignorance) or Maya
(Illusion).
If the real orthography of the name by which the sign in
question is indicated is properly understood, it
will readily be seen
that the next three signs are not what they
ought to be.
--------
* Nevertheless it is a true one. The Jiv-atma in the Microcosm (man) is
the same spiritual essence which animates the
Macrocosm (universe), the
differentiation, or specific difference between
the two Jivatmas
presenting itself but in the two states or
conditions of the same and
one Force.
Hence, "this son of Paramatma" is an eternal correlation of
the Father-Cause. Purusha manifesting himself as
Brahma of the "golden
egg" and becoming Viradja--the
universe. We are "all born of Aditi
from
the water" (Hymns of the Maruts, X. 63, 2),
and "Being was born from
not-being" (Rig-Veda, Mandala I, Sukta
166).--Ed. Theos.
-----------
Kanya or Virgo and Vrischika or Scorpio should
form one single sign, and
Thula must follow the said sign if it is at all
necessary to have a
separate sign of that name. But a separation between Kanya and
Vrischika was effected by interposing the sign
Tula between the two.
The object of this separation will be understood
on examining the
meaning of the three signs.
VI. Kanya.--Means a virgin and represents Sakti
or Mahamaya. The sign
in question is the sixth Rasi or division, and
indicates that there are
six primary forces in Nature. These forces have different sets of names
in Sanskrit philosophy. According to one system of nomenclature, they
are called by the following names*:--(1)
Parasakty; (2) Gnanasakti;
(3) Itchasakti (will-power); (4)
Kriytisakti; (5) Kundalinisakti; and
(6) Matrikasakti. The six forces are in their unity represented
by the
Astral Light.**
---------
* Parasakti:--Literally the great or supreme
force or power. It means
and includes the powers of light and heat.
Gnanasakti:--Literally the power of intellect or
the power of real
wisdom or knowledge. It has two aspects.
I. The following are some of its manifestations
when placed under the
influence or control of material conditions.
(a) The power of the mind in interpreting our
sensations; (b) Its power
in recalling past ideas (memory) and raising
future expectation; (c)
Its power as exhibited in what are called by
modern psychologists "the
laws of association," which enables it to
form persisting connections
between various groups of sensations and
possibilities of sensations,
and thus generate the notion or idea of an
external object; (d) Its
power in connecting our ideas together by the
mysterious link of memory,
and thus generating the notion of self or
individuality.
II. The following are some of its manifestations
when liberated from the
bonds of matter:--
(a) Clairvoyance. (b) Pyschometry.
Itchasakti:--Literally the power of the
will. Its most ordinary
manifestation is the generation of certain nerve
currents which set in
motion such muscles as are required for the accomplishment
of the
desired object.
Kriyasakti:--The mysterious power of thought
which enables it to produce
external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its
own inherent energy.
The ancients held that any idea will manifest
itself externally if one's
attention is deeply concentrated upon it. Similarly an intense volition
will be followed by the desired result.
A Yogi generally performs his wonders by means
of Itchasakti and
Kriyasakti.
Kundalinisakti:--Literally the power or force
which moves in a
serpentine or curved path. It is the universal life-principle which
everywhere manifests itself in Nature. This force includes in itself
the two great forces of attraction and
repulsion. Electricity and
magnetism are but manifestations of it. This is the power or force
which brings about that "continuous
adjustment of internal relations to
external relations" which is the essence of
life according to Herbert
Spencer, and that "continuous adjustment of
external relations to
internal relations" which is the basis of
transmigration of souls or
punarjanmam (re-birth) according to the
doctrines of the ancient Hindu
philosophers.
A Yogi must thoroughly subjugate this power or
force before he can
attain moksham.
This force is, in fact, the great serpent of the Bible.
Matrikasakti:--Literally the force or power of
letters or speech or
music.
The whole of the ancient Mantra Shastra has this force or power
in all its manifestations for its
subject-matter. The power of The Word
which Jesus Christ speaks of is a manifestation
of this Sakti. The
influence of its music is one of its ordinary
manifestations. The power
of the mirific ineffable name is the crown of
this Sakti.
Modern science has but partly investigated the
first, second and fifth
of the forces or powers above named, but it is
altogether in the dark as
regards the remaining powers.
** Even the very name of Kanya (Virgin) shows
how all the ancient
esoteric systems agreed in all their fundamental
doctrines. The
Kabalists and the Hermetic philosophers call the
Astral Light the
"heavenly or celestial Virgin." The Astral Light in its unity is the
7th.
Hence the seven principles diffused in every unity or the 6 and
one--two triangles and a crown.--Ed. Theos.
-----------
VII. Tula.--When represented by numbers
according to the method above
alluded to, this word will be converted into
36. This sign, therefore,
is evidently intended to represent the 36
Tatwams. (The number of
Tatwams is different according to the views of different
philosophers
but by Sakteyas generally and by several of the
ancient Rishis, such as
Agastya, Dvrasa and Parasurama, &c., the
number of Tatwams has been
stated to be 36). Jivatma differs from
Paramatma, or to state the same
thing in other words, "Baddha" differs
from "Mukta" * in being encased
as it were within these 36 Tatwams, while the
other is free. This sign
prepares the way to earthly Adam to Nara. As the emblem of Nara it is
properly placed as the seventh sign.
---------
* As the Infinite differs from the Finite and
the Unconditioned
from the Conditioned.--Ed. Theos.
---------
VIII. Vrischika.--It is stated by ancient
philosophers that the sun when
located in this Rasi or sign is called by the
name of Vishnu (see the
12th Skandha of Bhagavata). This sign is intended to represent Vishnu.
Vishnu literally means that which is
expanded--expanded as Viswam or
Universe.
Properly speaking, Viswam itself is Vishnu (see
Sankaracharya's commentary on
Vishnusahasranamam). I have already
intimated that Vishnu represents the
Swapnavastha or the Dreaming State.
The sign in question properly signifies the
universe in thought or the
universe in the divine conception.
It is properly placed as the sign opposite to
Rishabham or Pranava.
Analysis from Pranava downwards leads to the
Universe of Thought, and
synthesis from the latter upwards leads to
Pranava (Aum). We have now
arrived at the ideal state of the universe
previous to its coming into
material existence. The expansion of the Vija or primitive germ
into
the universe is only possible when the 36
"Tatwams" * are interposed
between the Maya and Jivatma. The dreaming state is induced through the
instrumentality of these
"Tatwams." It is the existence
of these
Tatwams that brings Hamsa into existence. The elimination of these
Tatwams marks the beginning of the synthesis
towards Pranava and Brahmam
and converts Hamsa into Soham. As it is intended to represent the
different stages of evolution from Brahmam
downwards to the material
universe, the three signs Kanya, Tula, and
Vrischika are placed in the
order in which they now stand as three separate
signs.
IX. Dhanus (Sagittarius).--When represented in
numbers the name is
equivalent to 9, and the division in question is
the 9th division
counting from Mesha. The sign, therefore, clearly indicates the 9
Brahmas--the 9 Parajapatis who assisted the
Demiurgus in constructing
the material universe.
X. Makara.--There is some difficulty in
interpreting this word;
nevertheless it contains within itself the clue
to its correct
interpretation.
The letter Ma is equivalent to number 5, and Kara means
hand. Now
in Sanskrit Thribhujam means a triangle, bhujam or karam
(both are synonymous) being understood to mean a
side. So, Makaram or
Panchakaram means a Pentagon.**
----------
* 36 is three times 12, or 9 Tetraktis, or 12
Triads, the most sacred
number in the Kabalistic and Pythagorean
numerals.--Ed. Theos.
** The five-pointed star or pentagram
represented the five limbs of
man.--Ed. Theos.
----------
Now, Makaram is the tenth sign, and the term
"Dasadisa" is generally
used by Sanskrit writers to denote the faces or
sides of the universe.
The sign in question is intended to represent
the faces of the universe,
and indicates that the figure of the universe is
bounded by Pentagons.
If we take the pentagons as regular pentagons
(on the presumption or
supposition that the universe is symmetrically
constructed) the figure
of the material universe will, of course, be a
Dodecahedron, the
geometrical model imitated by the Demiurgus in
constructing the material
universe.
If Tula was subsequently invented, and if instead of the
three signs "Kanya," "Tula,"
and "Vrischikam," there had existed
formerly only one sign combining in itself Kanya
and Vrischika, the sign
now under consideration was the eighth sign
under the old system, and it
is a significant fact that Sanskrit writers
generally speak also of
"Ashtadisa" or eight faces bounding
space. It is quite possible that
the number of disa might have been altered from
8 to 10 when the
formerly existing Virgo-Scorpio was split up
into three separate signs.
Again, Kara may be taken to represent the
projecting triangles of the
five-pointed star. This figure may also be called a kind of
regular
pentagon (see Todhunter's "Spherical
Trigonometry," p. 143). If this
interpretation is accepted, the Rasi or sign in
question represents the
"microcosm." But the "microcosm" or the world of
thought is really
represented by Vrischika. From an objective point of view the
"microcosm" is represented by the
human body. Makaram may be taken to
represent simultaneously both the microcosm and
the macrocosm, as
external objects of perception.
In connection with this sign I shall state a few
important facts which I
beg to submit for the consideration of those who
are interested in
examining the ancient occult sciences of
India. It is generally held by
the ancient philosophers that the macrocosm is
similar to the microcosm
in having a Sthula Sariram and a Suksma Sariram. The visible universe
is the Sthula Sariram of Viswam; the ancient philosophers held that as
a substratum for this visible universe, there is
another universe--
perhaps we may call it the universe of Astral
Light--the real universe
of Noumena, the soul as it were of this visible
universe. It is darkly
hinted in certain passages of the Veda and the
Upanishads that this
hidden universe of Astral Light is to be
represented by an Icosahedron.
The connection between an Icosahedron and a
Dodecahedron is something
very peculiar and interesting, though the
figures seem to be so very
dissimilar to each other. The connection may be understood by the
under-mentioned geometrical construction. Describe a Sphere about an
Icosahedron;
let perpendiculars be drawn from the centre of the Sphere
on its faces and produced to meet the surface of
the Sphere. Now, if
the points of intersection be joined, a
Dodecahedron is formed within
the Sphere.
By a similar process an Icosahedron may be constructed from
a Dodecahedron.
(See Todhunter's "Spherical Trigonometry," p. 141, art.
193). The
figure constructed as above described will represent the
universe of matter and the universe of Astral
Light as they actually
exist. I
shall not now, however, proceed to show how the universe of
Astral Light may be considered under the symbol
of an Icosahedron. I
shall only state that this conception of the
Aryan philosophers is not
to be looked upon as mere "theological
twaddle" or as the outcome of
wild fancy.
The real significance of the conception in question can, I
believe, be explained by reference to the
psychology and the physical
science of the ancients. But I must stop here and proceed to consider
the meaning of the remaining two signs.
XI. Kumbha (or Aquarius).--When represented by
numbers, the word is
equivalent to 14. It can be easily perceived then that the
division in
question is intended to represent the
"Chaturdasa Bhuvanam," or the 14
lokas spoken of in Sanskrit writings.
XII. Mina (or Pisces).--This word again is
represented by 5 when written
in numbers, and is evidently intended to convey
the idea of
Panchamahabhutams or the 5 elements. The sign also suggests that water
(not the ordinary water, but the universal
solvent of the ancient
alchemists) is the most important amongst the
said elements.
I have now finished the task which I have set to
myself in this article.
My purpose is not to explain the ancient theory
of evolution itself, but
to show the connection between that theory and
the Zodiacal divisions.
I have herein brought to light but a very small
portion of the
philosophy imbedded in these signs. The veil
that was dexterously thrown
over certain portions of the mystery connected
with these signs by the
ancient philosophers will never be lifted up for
the amusement or
edification of the uninitiated public.
Now to summarize the facts stated in this
article, the contents of the
first chapter of the history of this universe
are as follows:
1. The
self-existent, eternal Brahmam.
2. Pranava
(Aum).
3. The
androgyne Brahma, or the bisexual Sephira-Adam Kadmon.
4. The
Sacred Tetragram--the four matras of Pranava--the four
avasthas--the four states of Brahma--the Sacred Dharaka.
5. The
five Brahmas--the five Buddhas representing in their totality
the
Jivatma.
6. The
Astral Light--the holy Virgin--the six forces in Nature.
7. The
thirty-six Tatwams born of Avidya.
8. The
universe in thought--the Swapna Avastha--the microcosm looked at
from a
subjective point of view.
9. The
nine Prajapatis--the assistants of the Demiurgus.*
10. The
shape of the material universe in the mind of the Demiurgus--
the
DODECAHEDRON.
11. The
fourteen lokas.
12. The
five elements.
--------
* The nine Kabalistic Sephiroths emanated from
Sephira the 10th and the
head Sephiroth are identical. Three trinities or triads with their
emanative principle form the Pythagorean mystic
Decad, the sum of all
which represents the whole Kosmos.--Ed. Theos.
--------
The history of creation and of this world from
its beginning up to the
present time is composed of seven chapters. The seventh chapter is not
yet completed.
--T. Subba Row
Triplicane, Madras, September 14, 1881
The Sishal and Bhukailas Yogis
We are indebted to the kindness of the learned
President of the Adi
Brahmo Samaji for the following accounts of two
Yogis, of whom one
performed the extraordinary feats of raising his
body by will power, and
keeping it suspended in the air without visible
support. The Yoga
posture for meditation or concentration of the
mind upon spiritual
things is called Asana. There are various of these modes of sitting,
such as Padmasan, &c. &c. Babu Rajnarain Bose translated this narrative
from a very old number of the Tatwabodhini
Patrika, the Calcutta organ
of the Brahmo Samaj. The writer was Babu Akkhaya
Kumar Dalta, then
editor of the Patrika, of whom Babu Rajnarain
speaks in the following
high terms--"A very truth-loving and
painstaking man; very fond of
observing strict accuracy in the details of a
description."
Sishal Yogi
A few years ago, a Deccan Yogi, named Sishal,
was seen at Madras, by
many Hindus and Englishmen, to raise his Asana,
or seat, up into the
air. The
picture of the Yogi, showing his mode of seating, and other
particulars connected with him, may be found in
the Saturday Magazine on
page 28.
His whole body seated in air, only his right
hand lightly touched a deer
skin, rolled up in the form of a tube, and
attached to a brazen rod
which was firmly stuck into a wooden board
resting on four legs. In
this position the Yogi used to perform his japa
(mystical meditation),
with his eyes half shut. At the time of his ascending to his aerial
seat, and also when he descended from it, his
disciples used to cover
him with a blanket. The Tatwabodhini Patrika, Chaitra, 1768
Sakabda,
corresponding to March 1847.
The Bhukailas Yogi
The extraordinary character of the holy man who
was brought to
Bhukailas, in Kidderpore, about 14 years ago,
may still be remembered by
many. In
the month of Asar, 1754 Sakabda (1834 A.C.), he was brought to
Bhukailas from Shirpur, where he was under the
charge of Hari Singh, the
durwan (porter) of Mr. Jones. He kept his eyes
closed, and went without
food and drink, for three consecutive days,
after which a small quantity
of milk was forcibly poured down his
throat. He never took any food
that was not forced upon him. He seemed always without external
consciousness.
To remove this condition Dr. Graham applied ammonia to
his nostrils;
but it only produced tremblings in the body, and did not
break his Yoga state. Three days passed before he could be made to
speak. He
said that his name was Dulla Nabab, and when annoyed, he
uttered a single word, from which it was
inferred that he was a Punjabi.
When he was laid up with gout Dr. Graham
attended him, but he refused to
take medicine, either in the form of powder or
mixture. He was cured of
the disease only by the application of ointments
and liniments
prescribed by the doctor. He died in the month of Chaitra 1755 Sakabda,
of a choleric affection.*--The Tatwabodhini
Patrika, Chaitra, 1768
Sakabda, corresponding to March, 1847 A.C.
--------
* The above particulars of this holy man have
been obtained on
unexceptionable testimony.--Ed. T.B.P.
--------------------
PHILOSOPHICAL
True and False Personality
The title prefixed to the following observations
may well have suggested
a more metaphysical treatment of the subject
than can be attempted on
the present occasion. The doctrine of the trinity, or trichotomy of
man, which distinguishes soul from spirit, comes
to us with such
weighty, venerable, and even sacred authority,
that we may well be
content, for the moment, with confirmations that
should be intelligible
to all, forbearing the abstruser questions which
have divided minds of
the highest philosophical capacity. We will not now inquire whether the
difference is one of states or of entities; whether the phenomenal or
mind consciousness is merely the external
condition of one indivisible
Ego, or has its origin and nature in an
altogether different principle;
the Spirit, or immortal part of us, being of
Divine birth, while the
senses and understanding, with the
consciousness--Ahankara--thereto
appertaining, are from an Anima Mundi, or what
in the Sankhya philosophy
is called Prakriti. My utmost expectations will have been
exceeded if
it should happen that any considerations here
offered should throw even
a faint suggestive light upon the bearings of
this great problem. It
may be that the mere irreconcilability of all
that is characteristic of
the temporal Ego with the conditions of the
superior life--if that can
be made apparent--will incline you to regard the
latter rather as the
Redeemer, that has indeed to be born within us
for our salvation and our
immortality, than as the inmost, central, and
inseparable principle of
our phenomenal life. It may be that by the light of such
reflections
the sense of identity will present no
insuperable difficulty to the
conception of its contingency, or to the
recognition that the mere
consciousness which fails to attach itself to a
higher principle is no
guarantee of an eternal individuality.
It is only by a survey of individuality,
regarded as the source of all
our affections, thoughts, and actions, that we
can realize its intrinsic
worthlessness;
and only when we have brought ourselves to a real and
felt acknowledgment of that fact, can we accept
with full understanding
those "hard sayings" of sacred
authority which bid us "die to
ourselves," and which proclaim the
necessity of a veritable new birth.
This mystic death and birth is the key-note of
all profound religious
teaching;
and that which distinguishes the ordinary religious mind from
spiritual insight is just the tendency to
interpret these expressions as
merely figurative, or, indeed, to overlook them
altogether.
Of all the reproaches which modern Spiritualism,
with the prospect it is
thought to hold out of an individual temporal
immortality, has had to
encounter, there is none that we can less afford
to neglect than that
which represents it as an ideal essentially
egotistical and borne. True
it is that our critics do us injustice through
ignorance of the enlarged
views as to the progress of the soul in which
the speculations of
individual Spiritualists coincide with many
remarkable spirit teachings.
These are, undoubtedly, a great advance upon
popular theological
opinions, while some of them go far to satisfy
the claim of Spiritualism
to be regarded as a religion. Nevertheless, that slight estimate of
individuality, as we know it, which in one view
too easily allies itself
to materialism, is also the attitude of
spiritual idealism, and is
seemingly at variance with the excessive value
placed by Spiritualists
on the discovery of our mere psychic
survival. The idealist may
recognise this survival; but, whether he does so or not, he occupies a
post of vantage when he tells us that it is of
no ultimate importance.
For he, like the Spiritualist who proclaims his
"proof palpable of
immortality," is thinking of the mere
temporal, self-regarding
consciousness--its sensibilities, desires,
gratifications, and
affections--which are unimportant absolutely,
that is to say, their
importance is relative solely to the
individual. There is, indeed, no
more characteristic outbirth of materialism than
that which makes a
teleological centre of the individual. Ideas have become mere
abstractions;
the only reality is the infinitely little. Thus
utilitarianism can see in the State only a
collection of individuals
whose "greatest happiness," mutually
limited by nice adjustment to the
requirements of "the greatest
numbers," becomes the supreme end of
government and law. And it cannot, I think, be pretended that
Spiritualists in general have advanced beyond
this substitution of a
relative for an absolute standard. Their "glad tidings of great joy"
are not truly religious. They have regard to the perpetuation in time
of that lower consciousness whose
manifestations, delights, and activity
are in time, and of time alone. Their glorious message is not
essentially different from that which we can
conceive as brought to us
by some great alchemist, who had discovered the
secret of conferring
upon us and upon our friends a mundane
perpetuity of youth and health.
Its highest religious claim is that it enlarges
the horizon of our
opportunities.
As such, then, let us hail it with gratitude and relief;
but, on peril of our salvation, if I may not say
of our immortality, let
us not repose upon a prospect which is, at best,
one of renewed labours,
and trials, and efforts to be free even of that
very life whose only
value is opportunity.
To estimate the value of individuality, we
cannot do better than regard
man in his several mundane relations, supposing
that either of these
might become the central, actuating focus of his
being--his "ruling
love," as Swedenborg would call
it--displacing his mere egoism, or
self-love, thrusting that more to the
circumference, and identifying
him, so to speak, with that circle of interests
to which all his
energies and affections relate. Outside this
substituted Ego we are to
suppose that he has no conscience, no desire, no
will. Just as the
entirely selfish man views the whole of life, so
far as it can really
interest him solely in relation to his
individual well-being, so our
supposed man of a family, of a society, of a
Church, or a State, has no
eye for any truth or any interest more abstract
or more individual than
that of which he may be rightly termed the
incarnation. History shows
approximations to this ideal man. Such a one,
for instance, I conceive
to have been Loyola; such another, possibly, is Bismarck. Now these
men have ceased to be individuals in their own
eyes, so far as concerns
any value attaching to their own special
individualities. They are
devotees.
A certain "conversion" has been effected, by which from mere
individuals they have become
"representative" men. And
we--the
individuals--esteem them precisely in proportion
to the remoteness from
individualism of the spirit that actuates them.
As the circle of
interests to which they are "devoted"
enlarges--that is to say, as the
dross of individualism is purged away--we accord
them indulgence,
respect, admiration and love. From self to the
family, from the family
to the sect or society, from the sect or society
to the Church (in no
denominational sense) and State, there is the
ascending scale and
widening circle, the successive transitions
which make the worth of an
individual depend on the more or less complete
subversion of his
individuality by a more comprehensive soul or
spirit. The very modesty
which suppresses, as far as possible, the
personal pronoun in our
addresses to others, testifies to our sense that
we are hiding away some
utterly insignificant and unworthy thing; a
thing that has no business
even to be, except in that utter privacy which
is rather a sleep and a
rest than living. Well, but in the above instances, even those
most
remote from sordid individuality, we have fallen
far short of that ideal
in which the very conception of the partial, the
atomic, is lost in the
abstraction of universal being, transfigured in
the glory of a Divine
personality.
You are familiar with Swedenborg's distinction between
discrete and continuous degrees. Hitherto we
have seen how man--the
individual--may rise continuously by throwing
himself heart and soul
into the living interests of the world, and lose
his own limitations by
adoption of a larger mundane spirit. But still
he has but ascended
nearer to his own mundane source, that soul of
the world, or Prakriti,
to which, if I must not too literally insist on
it, I may still resort
as a convenient figure. To transcend it, he must advance by the
discrete degree.
No simple "bettering" of the ordinary self, which
leaves it alive, as the focus--the French word
"foyer" is the more
expressive--of his thoughts and actions; not even that identification
with higher interests in the world's plane just
spoken of, is, or can
progressively become, in the least adequate to
the realization of his
Divine ideal.
This "bettering" of our present nature, it alone being
recognized as essential, albeit capable of
"improvement," is a
commonplace, and to use a now familiar term a
"Philistine," conception.
It is the substitution of the continuous for the
discrete degree. It is
a compromise with our dear old familiar
selves. "And Saul and the
people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep,
and of the oxen, and of
the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was
good, and would not
utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that
they destroyed utterly." We know how little acceptable that compromise
was to the God of Israel; and no illustration can be more apt than this
narrative, which we may well, as we would fain,
believe to be rather
typical than historical. Typical of that indiscriminate and radical
sacrifice, or "vastation," of our
lower nature, which is insisted upon
as the one thing needful by all, or nearly all,*
the great religions of
the world.
No language could seem more purposely chosen to indicate
that it is the individual nature itself, and not
merely its accidental
evils, that has to be abandoned and
annihilated. It is not denied that
what was spared was good; there is no suggestion of a universal
infection of physical or moral evil; it is simply that what is good and
useful relatively to a lower state of being must
perish with it if the
latter is to make way for something better. And the illustration is the
more suitable in that the purpose of this paper
is not ethical, but
points to a metaphysical conclusion, though
without any attempt at
metaphysical exposition. There is no question here of moral
distinctions; they are neither denied nor
affirmed. According to the
highest moral standard, 'A' may be a most
virtuous and estimable person.
According to the lowest, 'B' may be exactly the
reverse. The moral
interval between the two is within what I have
called, following
Swedenborg, the "continuous
degree." And perhaps the
distinction can be
still better expressed by another reference to
that Book which we
theosophical students do not less regard,
because we are disposed to
protest against all exclusive pretensions of
religious systems.
--------
* Of the higher religious teachings of
Mohammedanism I know next to
nothing, and therefore cannot say if it should
be excepted from the
statement.
--------
The good man who has, however, not yet attained
his "son-ship of God" is
"under the law"--that moral law which
is educational and preparatory,
"the schoolmaster to bring us unto
Christ," our own Divine spirit, or
higher personality. To conceive the difference between these two
states
is to apprehend exactly what is here meant by
the false, temporal, and
the true, eternal personality, and the sense in
which the word
personality is here intended to be
understood. We do not know whether,
when that great change has come over us, when
that great work* of our
lives has been accomplished--here or
hereafter--we shall or shall not
retain a sense of identity with our past, and
forever discarded selves.
In philosophical parlance, the
"matter" will have gone, and the very
"form" will have been changed. Our transcendental identity with the 'A'
or 'B' that now is** must depend on that
question, already disclaimed in
this paper, whether the Divine spirit is our
originally central
essential being, or is an hypostasis. Now, being
"under the law" implies
that we do not act directly from our own will,
but indirectly, that is,
in willing obedience to another will.
--------
* The "great work," so often mentioned
by the hermetic philosophers, and
which is exactly typified by the operation of
alchemy, the conversion of
the base metals to gold, is now well understood
to refer to the
analogous spiritual conversion. There is also good reason to believe
that the material process was a real one.
** "A person may have won his immortal
life, and remained the same inner
self he was on earth, through eternity; but this does not imply
necessarily that he must either remain the Mr.
Smith or Brown he was on
earth, or lose his individuality."--Isis
Unveiled, vol. 1. p. 316.
----------
The will from which we should naturally act--our
own will--is of course
to be understood not as mere volition, but as
our nature--our "ruling
love," which makes such and such things
agreeable to us, and others the
reverse.
As "under the law," this nature is kept in suspension, and
because it is suspended only as to its activity
and manifestation, and
by no means abrogated, is the law--the substitution
of a foreign will--
necessary for us. Our own will or nature is still central; that which
we obey by effort and resistance to ourselves is
more circumferential or
hypostatic.
Constancy in this obedience and resistance tends to draw
the circumferential will more and more to the
centre, till there ensues
that "explosion," as St. Martin called
it, by which our natural will is
for ever dispersed and annihilated by contact
with the divine, and the
latter henceforth becomes our very own. Thus has
"the schoolmaster"
brought us unto "Christ," and if by
"Christ" we understand no
historically divine individual, but the logos,
word, or manifestation of
God in us--then we have, I believe, the
essential truth that was taught
in the Vedanta, by Kapila, by Buddha, by
Confucius, by Plato, and by
Jesus.
There is another presentation of possibly the same truth, for a
reference to which I am indebted to our brother
J.W. Farquhar. It is
from Swedenborg, in the "Apocalypse
Explained," No. 57:--"Every man has
an inferior or exterior mind, and a mind
superior or interior. These
two minds are altogether distinct. By the inferior mind man is in the
natural world together with men there; but by the superior mind he is
in the spiritual world with the angels
there. These two minds are so
distinct that man so long as he lives in the
world does not know what is
performing within himself in his superior
mind; but when he becomes a
spirit, which is immediately after death, he
does not know what is
performing in his mind." The consciousness of the "superior
mind," as
the result of mere separation from the earthly
body, certainly does not
suggest that sublime condition which implies
separation from so much
more than the outer garment of flesh, but
otherwise the distinction
between the two lives, or minds, seems to
correspond with that now under
consideration.
What is it that strikes us especially about this
substitution of the
divine-human for the human-natural
personality? Is it not the loss of
individualism?
(Individualism, pray observe, not individuality.) There
are certain sayings of Jesus which have probably
offended many in their
hearts, though they may not have dared to
acknowledge such a feeling to
themselves:
"Woman, what have I to do with thee?" and those other
disclaimers of special ties and relationships
which mar the perfect
sympathy of our reverence. There is something awful and
incomprehensible to us in this repudiation of
individualism, even in its
most amiable relations. But it is in the Aryan philosophies that we
see
this negation of all that we associate with
individual life most
emphatically and explicitly insisted on. It is, indeed, the
impossibility of otherwise than thus negatively
characterizing the soul
that has attained Moksha (deliverance from
bonds) which has caused the
Hindu consummation to be regarded as the loss of
individuality and
conscious existence. It is just because we cannot easily
dissociate
individuality from individualism that we turn
from the sublime
conception of primitive philosophy as from what
concerns us as little as
the ceaseless activity and germination in other
brains of thought once
thrown off and severed from the thinking source,
which is the
immortality promised by Mr. Frederick Harrison
to the select specimens
of humanity whose thoughts have any reproductive
power. It is not a
mere preference of nothingness, or unconscious
absorption, to limitation
that inspires the intense yearning of the Hindu
mind for Nirvana. Even
in the Upanishads there are many evidences of a
contrary belief, while
in the Sankhya the aphorisms of Kapila
unmistakably vindicate the
individuality of soul (spirit). Individual
consciousness is maintained,
perhaps infinitely intensified, but its
"matter" is no longer personal.
Only try to realize what "freedom from
desire," the favourite phrase in
which individualism is negated in these systems,
implies. Even in that
form of devotion which consists in action, the
soul is warned in the
Bhagavad-Gita that it must be indifferent to
results.
Modern Spiritualism itself testifies to
something of the same sort.
Thus we are told by one of its most gifted and
experienced champions,
"Sometimes the evidence will come from an
impersonal source, from some
instructor who has passed through the plane on
which individuality is
demonstrable." (M.A. (Oxon.), "Spirit
Identity," p. 7.) Again, "And
if
he" (the investigator) "penetrates far
enough, he will find himself in a
region for which his present embodied state
unfits him: a region in
which the very individuality is merged, and the
highest and subtlest
truths are not locked within one breast, but
emanate from representative
companies whose spheres of life are
interblended." (Id., p. 15.) By
this "interblending" is of course
meant only a perfect sympathy and
community of thought; and I should doubtless misrepresent the
author
quoted were I to claim an entire identity of the
idea he wishes to
convey, and that now under consideration. Yet what, after all, is
sympathy but the loosening of that hard
"astringent" quality (to use
Bohme's phrase) wherein individualism
consists? And just as in true
sympathy, the partial suppression of
individualism and of what is
distinctive, we experience a superior delight
and intensity of being, so
it may be that in parting with all that shuts us
up in the spiritual
penthouse of an Ego--all, without exception or
reserve--we may for the
first time know what true life is, and what are
its ineffable
privileges.
Yet it is not on this ground that acceptance can be hoped
for the conception of immortality here crudely
and vaguely presented ill
contrast to that bourgeois eternity of
individualism and the family
affections, which is probably the great charm of
Spiritualism to the
majority of its proselytes. It is doubtful whether the things that
"eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard," have ever
taken stronghold of the
imagination, or reconciled it to the loss of all
that is definitely
associated with the Joy and movement of
living. Not as consummate bliss
can the dweller on the lower plane presume to
command that transcendent
life. At
the utmost he can but echo the revelation that came to the
troubled mind in "Sartor Resartus,"
"A man may do without happiness, and
instead thereof find blessedness." It is no sublimation of hope, but
the necessities of thought that compel us to
seek the condition of true
being and immortality elsewhere than in the
satisfactions of
individualism.
True personality can only subsist in consciousness by
participation of that of which we can only say
that it is the very
negation of individuality in any sense in which
individuality can be
conceived by us.
What is the content or "matter" of consciousness we
cannot define, save by vaguely calling it
ideal. But we can say that in
that region individual interests and concerns
will find no place. Nay,
more, we can affirm that only then has the
influx of the new life a free
channel when the obstructions of individualism
are already removed.
Hence the necessity of the mystic death, which
is as truly a death as
that which restores our physical body to the
elements. "Neither I am,
nor is aught mine, nor do I exist," a
passage which has been well
explained by a Hindu Theosophist (Peary Chand
Mittra), as meaning "that
when the spiritual state is arrived at, I and
mine, which belong to the
finite mind, cease, and the soul, living in the
universum and
participating in infinity with God, manifests
its infinite state." I
cannot refrain from quoting the following
passage from the same
instructive writer:--
Every human being has a soul which, while not
separable from the brain
or nerves, is mind or jivatma, or sentient soul,
but when regenerated or
spiritualized by yoga, it is free from bondage
and manifests the divine
essence. It
rises above all phenomenal states--joy, sorrow, grief,
fear, hope, and in fact all states resulting in
pain or pleasure, and
becomes blissful, realizing immortality,
infinitude and felicity of
wisdom within itself. The sentient soul is
nervous, sensational,
emotional, phenomenal, and impressional. It constitutes the natural
life and is finite. The soul and the non-soul
are thus the two
landmarks.
What is non-soul is prakriti, or created. It is not the lot
of every one to know what soul is, and therefore
millions live and die
possessing minds cultivated in intellect and
feeling, but not raised to
the soul state.
In proportion as one's soul is emancipated from
prakriti or sensuous bondage, in that proportion
his approximation to
the soul state is attained; and it is this that constitutes disparities
in the intellectual, moral, and religious
culture of human beings and
their consequent approximation to
God.--Spiritual Stray Leaves,
Calcutta, 1879.
He also cites some words of Fichte, which prove
that the like conclusion
is reached in the philosophy of Western
idealism: "The real spirit which
comes to itself in human consciousness is to be
regarded as an
impersonal pneuma--universal reason, nay, as the
spirit of God Himself;
and the good of man's whole development,
therefore, can be no other than
to substitute the universal for the individual
consciousness."
That there may be, and are affirmed to be,
intermediate stages, states,
or discrete degrees, will, of course, be
understood. The aim of this
paper has been to call attention to the abstract
condition of the
immortalized consciousness; negatively it is true, but it is on this
very account more suggestive of practical
applications. The connection
of the Theosophical Society with the Spiritualist
movement is so
intimately sympathetic, that I hope one of these
may he pointed out
without offence.
It is that immortality cannot be phenomenally
demonstrated.
What I have called psychic survival can be, and probably
is. But
immortality is the attainment of a state, and that state the
very negation of phenomenal existence. Another consequence refers to
the direction our culture should take. We have to compose ourselves to
death.
Nothing less. We are each of us a
complex of desires, passions,
interests, modes of thinking and feeling,
opinions, prejudices, judgment
of others, likings and dislikings, affections,
aims public and private.
These things, and whatever else constitutes, the
recognizable content of
our present temporal individuality, are all in
derogation of our ideal
of impersonal being--saving consciousness, the
manifestation of being.
In some minute, imperfect, relative, and almost
worthless sense we may
do right in many of our judgments, and be
amiable in many of our
sympathies and affections. We cannot be sure even of this. Only people
unhabituated to introspection and self-analysis
are quite sure of it.
These are ever those who are loudest in their
censures, and most
dogmatic in their opinionative utterances. In some coarse, rude fashion
they are useful, it may be indispensable, to the
world's work, which is
not ours, save in a transcendental sense and
operation. We have to
strip ourselves of all that, and to seek perfect
passionless
tranquillity.
Then we may hope to die.
Meditation, if it be deep, and
long, and frequent enough, will teach even our
practical Western mind to
understand the Hindu mind in its yearning for
Nirvana. One
infinitesimal atom of the great conglomerate of
humanity, who enjoys the
temporal, sensual life, with its gratifications
and excitements, as much
as most, will testify with unaffected sincerity
that he would rather be
annihilated altogether than remain for ever what
he knows himself to be,
or even recognizably like it. And he is a very average moral specimen.
I have heard it said, "The world's life and
business would come to an
end, there would be an end to all its healthy
activity, an end of
commerce, arts, manufactures, social
intercourse, government, law, and
science, if we were all to devote ourselves to
the practice of Yoga,
which is pretty much what your ideal comes
to." And the criticism is
perfectly just and true. Only I believe it does not go quite far
enough.
Not only the activities of the world, but the phenomenal world
itself, which is upheld in consciousness, would
disappear or take new,
more interior, more living, and more significant
forms, at least for
humanity, if the consciousness of humanity was
itself raised to a
superior state.
Readers of St. Martin, and of that impressive book of
the late James Hinton, "Man and his
Dwelling-place," especially if they
have also by chance been students of the
idealistic philosophies, will
not think this suggestion extravagant. If all the world were Yogis, the
world would have no need of those special
activities, the ultimate end
and purpose of which, by-the-by, our critic
would find it not easy to
define. And if only a few withdraw, the world
can spare them. Enough of
that.
Only let us not talk of this ideal of impersonal,
universal being in
individual consciousness as an unverified
dream. Our sense and
impatience of limitations are the guarantees
that they are not final and
insuperable.
Whence is this power of standing outside myself, of
recognizing the worthlessness of the
pseudo--judgments, of the
prejudices with their lurid colouring of
passion, of the temporal
interests, of the ephemeral appetites, of all
the sensibilities of
egoism, to which I nevertheless surrender myself
so that they indeed
seem myself?
Through and above this troubled atmosphere I see a being,
pure, passionless, rightly measuring the
proportions and relations of
things, for whom there is, properly speaking, no
present, with its
phantasms, falsities, and half-truths; who has nothing personal in the
sense of being opposed to the whole of related
personalities: who sees
the truth rather than struggles logically
towards it, and truth of which
I can at present form no conception; whose activities are unimpeded by
intellectual doubt, un-perverted by moral
depravity, and who is
indifferent to results, because he has not to
guide his conduct by
calculation of them, or by any estimate of their
value. I look up to
him with awe, because in being passionless he
sometimes seems to me to
be without love. Yet I know that this is not
so; only that his love is
diffused by its range, and elevated in
abstraction beyond my gaze and
comprehension. And I see in this being my ideal,
my higher, my only
true, in a word, my immortal self.
--C.C. Massey
Chastity
Ideal woman is the most beautiful work of the
evolution of forms (in our
days she is very often only a beautiful work of
art). A beautiful woman
is the most attractive, charming, and lovely
being that a man can
imagine.
I never saw a male being who could lay any claims to manly
vigour, strength or courage, who was not an
admirer of woman. Only a
profligate, a coward or a sneak would hate
women; a hero and a man
admires woman, and is admired by her.
Women's love belongs to a complete man. Then she smiles on him his
human nature becomes aroused, his animal desires
like little children
begin to clamour for bread, they do not want to
be starved, they want to
satisfy their hunger. His whole soul flies towards the lovely being,
which attracts him with almost irresistible
force, and if his higher
principles, his divine spirit, is not powerful
enough to restrain him,
his soul follows the temptations of his physical
body. Once again the
animal nature has subdued the divine. Woman rejoices in her victory,
and man is ashamed of his weakness; and instead of being a
representation of strength, he becomes an object
of pity.
To be truly powerful a man must retain his power
and never for a moment
lose it.
To lose it is to surrender his divine nature to his animal
nature;
to restrain his desires and retain his power, is to assert his
divine right, and to become more than a man--a
god.
Eliphas Levi says: "To be an object of attraction for all
women, you
must desire none;" and every one who has had a little experience
of his
own must know that he is right. Woman wants what she cannot get, and
what she can get she does not want. Perhaps it
is to the man endowed
with spiritual power, that the Bible refers,
when it says: "To him who
has much, more shall be given, and from him who
has little, that little
shall be taken away."
To become perfect it is not required that we
should be born without any
animal desires.
Such a person would not be much above an idiot; he
would be rightly despised and laughed at by
every true man and woman;
but we must obtain the power to control our
desires, instead of being
controlled by them; and here lies the true philosophy of
temptation.
If a man has no higher aim in life than to eat
and drink and propagate
his species;
if all his aspirations and desires are centred in a wish
of living a happy life in the bosom of his
family; there can be no
wrong if he follows the dictates of his nature
and is satisfied with his
lot. When
he dies, his family will mourn, his friends will say he was a
good fellow;
they will give him a first-class funeral, and they will
perhaps write on his tombstone something like
what I once saw in a
certain churchyard:
Here
is the grave of John McBride,
He lived, got married, and died.
And that will be the end of Mr. John McBride,
until in another
incarnation he will wake up again perhaps as Mr.
John Smith, or
Ramchandra Row, or Patrick O'Flannegan, to find
himself on much the same
level as he was before.
But if a man has higher aims and objects in
life, if he wants to avoid
an endless cycle of re-incarnations, if he wants
to become a master of
his destiny, then must he first become a master
of himself. How can he
expect to be able to control the external forces
of Nature, if he cannot
control the few little natural forces that
reside within his own
insignificant body?
To do this, it is not necessary that a man
should run away from his wife
and family, and leave them uncared for. Such a man would commence his
spiritual career with an act of injustice,--an
act that like Banquo's
ghost would always haunt him and hinder him in
his further progress. If
a man has taken upon himself responsibilities,
he is bound to fulfill
them, and an act of cowardice would be a bad
beginning for a work that
requires courage.
A celibate, who has no temptation and who has no
one to care for but
himself, has undoubtedly superior advantages for
meditation and study.
Being away from all irritating influences, he
can lead what may be
called a selfish life; because he looks out only for his own
spiritual
interest;
but he has little opportunity to develop his will-power by
resisting temptations of every kind. But the man who is surrounded by
the latter, and is every day and every hour
under the necessity of
exercising his will-power to resist their
surging violence, will, if he
rightly uses these powers, become strong; he may not have as much
opportunity for study as the celibate, being
more engrossed in material
cares;
but when he rises up to a higher state in his next incarnation,
his will-power will be more developed, and he
will be in the possession
of the password, which is CONTINENCE.
A slave cannot become a commander, until after
he becomes free. A man
who is subject to his own animal desires, cannot
command the animal
nature of others. A muscle becomes developed by its use, an
instinct or
habit is strengthened in proportion as it is
permitted to rule, a mental
power becomes developed by practice, and the
principle of will grows
strong by exercise; and this is the use of temptations. To have strong
passions and to overcome them, makes man a
hero. The sexual instinct is
the strongest of all, and he who vanquishes it,
becomes a god.
The human soul admires a beautiful form, and is
therefore an idolater.
The human spirit adores a principle, and is the
true worshiper.
Marriage is the union of the male spirit with
the female soul for the
purpose of propagating the species; but if in its place there is only a
union of a male and a female body, then marriage
becomes merely a brutal
act, which lowers man and woman, not to the
level of animals but below
them;
because animals are restricted to certain seasons for the
exercise of their procreative powers; while man, being a reasonable
being, has it in his power to use or abuse them
at all times.
But how many marriages do we find that are
really spiritual and not
based on beauty of form or other
considerations? How soon after the
wedding-day do they become disgusted with each
other? What is the cause
of this?
A man and a woman may marry and their characters may differ
widely.
They may have different tastes, different opinions and
different inclinations. All those differences may disappear, and will
probably disappear; because by living together they become
accustomed
to each other, and become equalized in
time. Each influences the other,
and as a man may grow fond of a pet snake, whose
presence at first
horrified him, so a man may put up with a
disagreeable partner and
become fond of her in course of time.
But if the man allows full liberty to his animal
passions, and exercises
his "legal rights" without restraint,
these animal cravings which first
called so piteously for gratification, will soon
be gorged, and flying
away laugh at the poor fool who nursed them in
his breast. The wife
will come to know that her husband is a coward,
because she sees him
squirm under the lash of his animal
passions; and as woman loves
strength and power, so in proportion as he loses
his love, will she lose
her confidence. He will look upon her as a
burden, and she will look
upon him in disgust as a brute. Conjugal happiness will have departed,
and misery, divorce or death will be the end.
The remedy for all these evils is continence,
and it has been our object
to show its necessity, for it was the object of
this article.
--F. Hartmann
Zoroastrianism on the Septenary Constitution of
Man
Many of the esoteric doctrines given out through
the Theosophical
Society reveal a spirit akin to that of the
older religions of the East,
especially the Vedic and the Zendic. Leaving aside the former, I
propose to point out by a few instances the
close resemblance which the
doctrines of the old Zendic Scriptures, as far
as they are now
preserved, bear to these recent teachings.
Any ordinary Parsi, while reciting his daily
Niyashes, Gehs and Yashts,
provided he yields to the curiosity of looking
into the meanings of what
he recites, will, with a little exertion,
perceive how the same ideas,
only clothed in a more intelligible and
comprehensive garb, are
reflected in these teachings. The description of the septenary
constitution of man found in the 54th chapter of
the Yasna, one of the
most authoritative books of the Mazdiasnian
religion, shows the identity
of the doctrines of Avesta and the esoteric
philosophy. Indeed, as a
Mazdiasnian, I felt quite ashamed that, having
such undeniable and
unmistakable evidence before their eyes, the
Zoroastrians of the present
day should not avail themselves of the
opportunity offered of throwing
light upon their now entirely misunderstood and
misinterpreted
Scriptures by the assistance and under the
guidance of the Theosophical
Society. If Zend scholars and students of Avesta would
only care to
study and search for themselves, they would,
perhaps, find to assist
them, men who are in possession of the right and
only key to the true
esoteric wisdom;
men, who would be willing to guide and help them to
reach the true and hidden meaning, and to supply
them with the missing
links that have resulted in such painful gaps as
to leave the meaning
meaningless, and to create in the mind of the
perplexed student doubts
that finally culminate in a thorough unbelief in
his own religion. Who
knows but they may find some of their own
co-religionists, who, aloof
from the world, have to this day preserved the
glorious truths of their
once mighty religion, and who, hidden in the
recesses of solitary
mountains and unknown silent caves, are still in
possession of; and
exercising, mighty powers, the heirloom of the
ancient Magi. Our
Scriptures say that ancient Mobeds were Yogis,
who had the power of
making themselves simultaneously visible at
different places, even
though hundreds of miles apart, and also that
they could heal the sick
and work that which would now appear to us
miraculous. All this was
considered facts but two or three centuries
back, as no reader of old
books (mostly Persian) is unacquainted with, or
will disbelieve a priori
unless his mind is irretrievably biassed by
modern secular education.
The story about the Mobed and Emperor Akbar and
of the latter's
conversion, is a well-known historical fact,
requiring no proof.
I will first of all quote side by side the two
passages referring to the
septenary nature of man as I find them in our
Scriptures and the
THEOSOPHIST--
Sub-divisions of septenary Sub-divisions of septenary
man according to the man according to Yasna
Occultists. (chap.54, para. I).
1. The Physical body, com- 1. Tanwas-i.e., body(the
posed wholly of matter in its self ) that consists of bones
grossest and most tangible -grossest form of matter.
form.
2. The Vital principle-(or Jiva)- 2. Ushtanas-Vital heat
a form of force indestructible, (or force).
and when disconnected with
one set of atoms, becoming
attracted immediately by others.
3. The Astral body (Linga- 3. Keherpas Aerial form,
sharira) composed of highly the airy mould, (Per. Kaleb).
etherealized matter; in its
habitual passive state, the
perfect but very shadowy
duplicate of the body; its
activity, consolidation and
form depending entirely on
the Kama-rupa.
4. The Astral shape (Kama- 4. Tevishis-Will, or where
rupa or body of desire, a sentient consciousness is
principle defining the con- formed, also fore-knowledge.
figuration of--
5. The animal or Physical 5. Baodhas (in Sanskrit,
intelligence or Conscious- Buddhi)-Body of physical
ness or Ego, analogous to, consciousness, perception by
though proportionally higher the senses or animal soul.
in the senses or the animal
degree than the reason,
instinct, memory, imagination
&c., existing in the higher
animals.
6. The Higher or Spiritual 6. Urawanem (Per. Rawan)
intelligence or consciousness, -Soul, that which gets its
spiritual Ego, in which or reward or punishment
mainly resides the sense of after death.
consciousness in the perfect
man, though the lower dimmer
animal consciousness co-exists
in No. 5.
7. The Spirit-an emanation from 7. Frawashem or Farohar-
the ABSOLUTE uncreated; eternal; Spirit (the guiding energy
a state rather than a being. which is with every man,
is
absolutely independent,
and,
without mixing with
any
worldly object, leads
man to
good. The spark
of
divinity in every being).
The above is given in the Avesta as follows:--
"We declare and positively make known this
(that) we offer (our) entire
property (which is) the body (the self
consisting of) bones (tanwas),
vital heat (ushtanas), aerial form (keherpas),
knowledge (tevishis),
consciousness (baodhas), soul (urwanem), and
spirit (frawashem), to the
prosperous, truth-coherent (and) pure Gathas
(prayers)."
The ordinary Gujarathi translation differs from
Spiegel's, and this
latter differs very slightly from what is here
given. Yet in the
present translation there has been made no
addition to, or omission
from, the original wording of the Zend
text. The grammatical
construction also has been preserved
intact. The only difference,
therefore, between the current translations and
the one here given is
that ours is in accordance with the modern
corrections of philological
research which make it more intelligible, and
the idea perfectly clear
to the reader.
The word translated "aerial form" has
come down to us without undergoing
any change in the meaning. It is the modern Persian word kaleb, which
means a mould, a shape into which a thing is
cast, to take a certain
form and features. The next word is one about which there is a
great
difference of opinion. It is by some called strength, durability,
i.e.,
that power which gives tenacity to and sustains
the nerves. Others
explain it as that quality in a man of rank and
position which makes him
perceive the result of certain events (causes),
and thus helps him in
being prepared to meet them. This meaning is suggestive, though we
translate it as knowledge, or foreknowledge
rather, with the greatest
diffidence.
The eighth word is quite clear.
That inward feeling which
tells a man that he knows this or that, that he
has or can do certain
things--is perception and consciousness. It is
the inner conviction,
knowledge and its possession. The ninth word is again one which has
retained its meaning and has been in use up to
the present day. The
reader will at once recognize that it is the
origin of the modern word
Rawan. It
is (metaphorically) the king, the conscious motor or agent in
man. It is that something which depends upon and
is benefited or injured
by the foregoing attributes. We say depends upon, because its progress
entirely consists in the development of those
attributes. If they are
neglected, it becomes weak and degenerated, and
disappears. If they
ascend on the moral and spiritual scale, it
gains strength and vigour
and becomes more blended than ever to the Divine
essence--the seventh
principle. But how does it become attracted
toward its monad? The tenth
word answers the question. This is the Divine essence in man. But this
is only the irresponsible minister (this
completes the metaphor). The
real master is the king, the spiritual
soul. It must have the
willingness and power to see and follow the
course pointed out by the
pure spirit.
The vizir's business is only to represent a point of
attraction, towards which the king should
turn. It is for the king to
see and act accordingly for the glory of his own
self. The minister or
spirit can neither compel nor constrain. It inspires and electrifies
into action;
but to benefit by the inspiration, to take advantage of
it, is left to the option of the spiritual soul.
If, then, the Avesta contains such a passage, it
must fairly be admitted
that its writers knew the whole doctrine
concerning spiritual man. We
cannot suppose that the ancient Mazdiasnians,
the Magi, wrote this short
passage, without inferring from it, at the same
time, that they were
thoroughly conversant with the whole of the
occult theory about man.
And it looks very strange indeed, that modern
Theosophists should now
preach to us the very same doctrines that must
have been known and
taught thousands of years ago by the
Mazdiasnians,--the passage is
quoted from one of their oldest writings. And since they propound the
very same ideas, the meaning of which has
well-nigh been lost even to
our most learned Mobeds, they ought to be
credited at least with some
possession of a knowledge, the key to which has
been revealed to them,
and lost to us, and which opens the door to the
meaning of those
hitherto inexplicable sentences and doctrines in
our old writings, about
which we are still, and will go on, groping in
the dark, unless we
listen to what they have to tell us about them.
To show that the above is not a solitary
instance, but that the Avesta
contains this idea in many other places, I will
give another paragraph
which contains the same doctrine, though in a
more condensed form than
the one just given. Let the Parsi reader turn to Yasna, chapter
26, and
read the sixth paragraph, which runs as
follows:--
We praise the life (ahum), knowledge (daenam),
consciousness (baodhas),
soul (urwanem), and spirit (frawashem) of the
first in religion, the
first teachers and hearers (learners), the holy
men and holy women who
were the protectors of purity here (in this
world).
Here the whole man is spoken of as composed of
five parts, as under:--
1. The
Physical Body.
1. Ahum-Existence, Life. 2. The Vital Principle.
It includes: 3. The Astral Body.
2. Daenam-Knowledge. 4. The Astral shape or
body of
desire.
3. Baodhas-Consciousness. 5. The Animal or physical
intelligence or
consciousness or Ego.
4. Urwanem-Soul.
6. The Higher
or Spiritual
intelligence or
consciousness, or
Spiritual Ego.
5. Frawashem-Spirit. 7. The Spirit.
In this description the first triple
group--viz., the bones (or the
gross matter), the vital force which keeps them
together, and the
ethereal body, are included in one and called
Existence, Life. The
second part stands for the fourth principle of
the septenary man, as
denoting the configuration of his knowledge or
desires.* Then the
three, consciousness (or animal soul),
(spiritual) soul, and the pure
Spirit are the same as in the first quoted
passage. Why are these four
mentioned as distinct from each other and not
consolidated like the
first part?
The sacred writings explain this by saying that on death
the first of these five parts disappears and
perishes sooner or later in
the earth's atmosphere. The gross elementary matter (the shell) has
to
run within the earth's attraction; so the ahum separates from the
higher portions and is lost.
---------
* Modern science also teaches that certain
characteristics of features
indicate the possession of certain qualities in
a man. The whole science
of physiognomy is founded on it. One can predict the disposition of a
man from his features,--i.e., the features
develop in accordance with
the idiosyncrasies, qualities and vices,
knowledge or the ignorance of
man.
---------
The second (i.e., the fourth of the septenary
group) remains, but not
with the spiritual soul. It continues to hold its place in the vast
storehouse of the universe. And it is this second daenam which stands
before the (spiritual) soul in the form of a
beautiful maiden or an ugly
hag. That
which brings this daenam within the sight of the (spiritual)
soul is the third part (i.e., the fifth of the
septenary group), the
baodhas.
Or in other words, the (spiritual) soul has with it, or in it,
the true consciousness by which it can view the
experiences of its
physical career.
So this consciousness, this power or faculty which
brings the recollection, is always with, in
other words, is a part and
parcel of, the soul itself; hence, its not mixing with any other part,
and hence its existence after the physical death
of man.*
--A Parsi F.T.S.
---------
* Our Brother has but to look into the oldest
sacred hooks of China--
namely, the YI KING. or Book of Changes
(translated by James Legge)
written 1,200 B.C., to find that same Septenary
division of man
mentioned in that system of Divination. Zhing, which is translated
correctly enough "essence," is the
more subtle and pure part of matter--
the grosser form of the elementary ether; Khi, or "spirit," is the
breath, still material but purer than the zhing,
and is made of the
finer and more active form of ether. In the hwun, or soul (animus) the
Khi predominates and the zhing (or zing) in the
pho or animal soul. At
death the hwun (Or spiritual soul) wanders away,
ascending, and the pho
(the root of the Tibetan word Pho-hat) descends
and is changed into a
ghostly shade (the shell). Dr. Medhurst thinks that "the Kwei
Shans"
(see "Theology of the Chinese," pp.
10-12) are "the expanding and
contracting principles of human life!"
"The Kwei Shans" are brought
about by the dissolution of the human frame--and
consist of the
expanding and ascending Shan which rambles about
in space, and of the
contracted and shrivelled Kwei, which reverts to
earth and nonentity.
Therefore, the Kwei is the physical body; the Shan is the vital
principle the Kwei Shan the linga-sariram, or the vital soul; Zhing
the fourth principle or Kama Rupa, the essence
of will; pho, the animal
soul;
Khi, the spiritual soul; and Hwun
the pure spirit--the seven
principles of our occult doctrine!--Ed. Theos.
---------
Brahmanism on the Sevenfold Principle in Man
It is now very difficult to say what was the
real ancient Aryan
doctrine.
If an inquirer were to attempt to answer it by an analysis
and comparison of all the various systems of
esotericism prevailing in
India, he will soon be lost in a maze of
obscurity and uncertainty. No
comparison between our real Brahmanical and the
Tibetan esoteric
doctrines will be possible unless one ascertains
the teachings of that
so-called "Aryan doctrine," and fully
comprehends the whole range of the
ancient Aryan philosophy. Kapila's "Sankhya," Patanjali's
"Yog
philosophy," the different systems of
"Saktaya" philosophy, the various
Agamas and Tantras are but branches of it. There is a doctrine, though,
which is their real foundation, and which is
sufficient to explain the
secrets of these various systems of philosophy
and harmonize their
teachings.
It probably existed long before the Vedas were compiled, and
it was studied by our ancient Rishis in
connection with the Hindu
scriptures.
It is attributed to one mysterious personage called
Maha.*.....
----------
* The very title of the present chief of the
esoteric Himalayan
Brotherhood.--Ed. Theos.
----------
The Upanishads and such portions of the Vedas as
are not chiefly devoted
to the public ceremonials of the ancient Aryans
are hardly intelligible
without some knowledge of that doctrine. Even
the real significance of
the grand ceremonials referred to in the Vedas
will not be perfectly
apprehended without its light being throw upon them.
The Vedas were
perhaps compiled mainly for the use of the priests
assisting at public
ceremonies, but the grandest conclusions of our
real secret doctrine are
therein mentioned. I am informed by persons competent to judge
of the
matter, that the Vedas have a distinct dual
meaning--one expressed by
the literal sense of the words, the other
indicated by the metre and the
swara (intonation), which are, as it were the
life of the Vedas.
Learned Pundits and philologists of course deny
that swara has anything
to do with philosophy or ancient esoteric
doctrines; but the mysterious
connection between swara and light is one of its
most profound secrets.
Now, it is extremely difficult to show whether
the Tibetans derived
their doctrine from the ancient Rishis of India,
or the ancient
Brahrnans learned their occult science from the
adepts of Tibet; or,
again, whether the adepts of both countries
professed originally the
same doctrine and derived it from a common
source.* If you were to go
to the Sramana Balagula, and question some of
the Jain Pundits there
about the authorship of the Vedas and the origin
of the Brahmanical
esoteric doctrine, they would probably tell you
that the Vedas were
composed by Rakshasas** or Daityas, and that the
Brahmans had derived
their secret knowledge from them.***
---------
* See Appendix, Note I.
** A kind of demons-devil.
*** And so would the Christian padris. But they would never admit that
their "fallen angels" were borrowed
from the Rakshasas; that their
"devil" is the illegitimate son of
Dewel, the Sinhalese female demon;
or that the "war in heaven" of the
Apocalypse--the foundation of the
Christian dogma of the "Fallen Angels"
was copied from the Hindu story
about Siva hurling the Tarakasura who rebelled
against the gods into
Andhahkara, the abode of Darkness, according to
Brahmanical Shastras.
---------
Do these assertions mean that the Vedas and the
Brahmanical esoteric
teachings had their origin in the lost
Atlantis--the continent that once
occupied a considerable portion of the expanse
of the Southern and the
Pacific oceans?
The assertion in "Isis Unveiled," that Sanskrit was the
language of the inhabitants of the said
continent, may induce one to
suppose that the Vedas had probably their origin
there, wherever else
might be the birthplace of the Aryan
esotericism.* But the real
esoteric doctrine, as well as the mystic
allegorical philosophy of the
Vedas, were derived from another source again,
whatever that may be--
perchance from the divine inhabitants (gods) of
the sacred island which
once existed in the sea that covered in days of
old the sandy tract now
called Gobi Desert. However that may be, the knowledge of the
occult
powers of Nature possessed by the inhabitants of
the lost Atlantis was
learnt by the ancient adepts of India, and was
appended by them to the
esoteric doctrine taught by the residents of the
sacred island.** The
Tibetan adepts, however, have not accepted this
addition to their
esoteric doctrine; and it is in this respect that one should
expect to
find a difference between the two doctrines.***
----------
* Not necessarily. (See Appendix, Note II.) It
is generally held by
Occultists that Sanskrit has been spoken in Java
and adjacent islands
from remote antiquity.--Ed. Theos.
** A locality which is spoken of to this day by
the Tibetans, and called
by them "Scham-bha-la," the Happy
Land. (See Appendix, Note III.)
*** To comprehend this passage fully, the reader
must turn to vol. I.
pp. 589-594 of
"Isis Unveiled."
--------
The Brahmanical occult doctrine probably
contains everything that was
taught about the powers of Nature and their
laws, either in the
mysterious island of the North or in the equally
mysterious continent of
the South.
And if you mean to compare the Aryan and the Tibetan
doctrines as regards their teachings about the
occult powers of Nature,
you must beforehand examine all the
classifications of these powers,
their laws and manifestations, and the real
connotations of the various
names assigned to them in the Aryan
doctrine. Here are some of the
classifications contained in the Brahmanical
system:
I. As
appertaining to Parabrahmam and existing in the MACROCOSM.
II. As
appertaining to man and existing in the MICROCOSM.
III. For
the purposes of d Taraka Yog or Pranava Yog.
IV. For
the purposes of Sankhya Yog (where they are, as it were,
the
inherent attributes of Prakriti).
V. For
the purposes of Hata Yog.
VI. For
the purposes of Koula Agama.
VII. For
the purposes of Sakta Agama.
VIII. For the purposes of Siva Aqama.
IX. For
the purposes of Sreechakram (the Sreechakram referred
to
in "Isis Unveiled" is not the real esoteric Sreechakram
of
the ancient adepts of Aryavarta).*
--------
* Very true. But who would be allowed to give
out the "real" esoteric
one?--Ed. Theos.
--------
X. In
Atharvena Veda, &c.
In all these classifications subdivisions have
been multiplied
indefinitely by conceiving new combinations of
the Primary Powers in
different proportions. But I must now drop this subject, and proceed
to
consider the "Fragments of Occult
Truth" (since embodied in "Esoteric
Buddhism").
I have carefully examined it, and find that the
results arrived at (in
the Buddhist doctrine) do not differ much from
the conclusions of our
Aryan philosophy, though our mode of stating the
arguments may differ in
form. I
shall now discuss the question from my own standpoint, though,
following, for facility of comparison and
convenience of discussion, the
sequence of classification of the sevenfold
entities or principles
constituting man which is adopted in the
"Fragments." The questions
raised for discussion are (1) whether the
disembodied spirits of human
beings (as they are called by Spiritualists)
appear in the seance-rooms
and elsewhere; and (2) whether the manifestations taking
place are
produced wholly or partly through their agency.
It is hardly possible to answer these two
questions satisfactorily
unless the meaning intended to be conveyed by
the expression
"disembodied spirits of human beings"
be accurately defined. The words
spiritualism and spirit are very
misleading. Unless English writers in
general, and Spiritualists in particular, first
ascertain clearly the
connotation they mean to assign to the word
spirit, there will be no end
of confusion, and the real nature of these
so-called spiritualistic
phenomena and their modus occurrendi can never
be clearly defined.
Christian writers generally speak of only two
entities in man--the body,
and the soul or spirit (both seeming to mean the
same thing to them).
European philosophers generally speak of body
and mind, and argue that
soul or spirit cannot be anything else than
mind. They are of opinion
that any belief in lingasariram* is entirely
unphilosophical. These
views are certainly incorrect, and are based on
unwarranted assumptions
as to the possibilities of Nature, and on an
imperfect understanding of
its laws.
I shall now examine (from the standpoint of the Brahmanical
esoteric doctrine) the spiritual constitution of
man, the various
entities or principles existing in him, and
ascertain whether either of
those entities entering into his composition can
appear on earth after
his death, and if so, what it is that so
appears.
--------
* The astral body, so called.
--------
Professor Tyndall in his excellent papers on
what he calls the "Germ
Theory," comes to the following conclusions
as the result of a series of
well-planned experiments:--Even in a very small
volume of space there
are myriads of protoplasmic germs floating in
ether. If, for instance,
say water (clear water) is exposed to them, and
if they fall into it,
some form of life or other will be evolved out
of them. Now, what are
the agencies for the bringing of this life into
existence? Evidently--
I. The water, which is the field, so to say, for
the growth
of life.
II. The protoplasmic germ, out of which life or
a living organism
is to be evolved or developed. And lastly--
III. The power, energy, force, or tendency which
springs into activity
at the touch or combination of the protoplasmic
germ and the water, and
which evolves or develops life and its natural
attributes.
Similarly, there are three primary causes which
bring the human being
into existence.
I shall call them, for the purpose of discussion, by
the following names
(1) Parabrahmam, the Universal Spirit.
(2) Sakti, the crown of the astral light,
combining in itself all the
powers of Nature.
(3) Prakriti, which in its original or primary
shape is represented by
Akasa.
(Really every form of matter is finally reducible to Akasa.)*
It is ordinarily stated that Prakriti or Akasa
is the Kshetram, or the
basis which corresponds to water in the example
we have taken Brahmam
the germ, and Sakti, the power or energy that
comes into existence at
their union or contact.**
--------
* The Tibetan esoteric Buddhist doctrine teaches
that Prakriti is cosmic
matter, out of which all visible forms are
produced; and Akasa, that
same cosmic matter, but still more
subjective--its spirit, as it were.
Prakriti being the body or substance, and Akasa
Sakti its soul or
energy.
** Or, in other words, "Prakriti,
Swabhavat, or Akasa, is SPACE, as the
Tibetans have it; Space filled with whatsoever substance or no
substance at all--i.e., with substance so
imperceptible as to be only
metaphysically conceivable. Brahman, then, would be the germ thrown
into the soil of that field, and Sakti, that
mysterious energy or force
which develops it, and which is called by the
Buddhist Arahat of Tibet,
FOHAT.
That which we call form (rupa) is not different from that which
we call space (sunyata).... Space is not different from form. Form is
the same as space; space is the same as form. And so with the other
skandhas, whether vedana, or sanjna, or
sanskara, or vijnana, they are
each the same as their opposite." ....
(Book of Sin-king, or the "Heart
Sutra." Chinese translation of the
"Maha-Prajna-Paramita-Hridaya-Sutra,"
chapter on the "Avalokiteshwara," or
the manifested Buddha.) So that
the Aryan and Tibetan or Arhat doctrines agree
perfectly in substance,
differing but in names given and the way of
putting it.
---------
But this is not the view which the Upanishads
take of the question.
According to them, Brahamam* is the Kshetram or
basis, Akasa or
Prakriti, the germ or seed, and Sakti, the power
evolved by their union
or contact.
And this is the real scientific, philosophical mode of
stating the case.
--------
* See Appendix, Note IV.
--------
Now, according to the adepts of ancient
Aryavarta, seven principles are
evolved out of these three primary entities.
Algebra teaches us that the
number of combinations of n things, taken one at
a time, two at a time,
three at a time, and so forth = 2(n)-1.
Applying this formula to the present case, the
number of entities
evolved from different combinations of these
three primary causes
amounts to 2(3)-1 = 8-1 = 7.
As a general rule, whenever seven entities are
mentioned in the ancient
occult science of India, in any connection
whatsoever, you must suppose
that those seven entities came into existence
from three primary
entities;
and that these three entities, again, are evolved out of a
single entity or MONAD. To take a familiar example, the seven
coloured
rays in the solar ray are evolved out of three
primary coloured rays;
and the three primary colours coexist with the
four secondary colours in
the solar rays.
Similarly, the three primary entities which brought man
into existence co-exist in him with the four
secondary entities which
arose from different combinations of the three
primary entities.
Now these seven entities, which in their
totality constitute man, are as
follows.
I shall enumerate them in the order adopted in the
"Fragments," as far as the two orders
(the Brahmanical and the Tibetan)
coincide:--
Corresponding
names in
Esoteric
Buddhism.
I. Prakriti. Sthulasariram
(Physical Body).
II. The entity evolved
out of the combination Sukshmasariram or Lingasariram
of Prakriti and Sakti. (Astral Body).
III. Sakti. Kamarupa (the
Perispirit).
IV. The entity evolved out
of the combination of Jiva (Life-Soul).
Brahmam, Sakti and
Prakriti.
V. The entity evolved out
of the combination of Physical Intelligence (or
Brahmam and Prakriti. animal soul).
VI. The entity evolved
out of the combination of Spiritual Intelligence (or Soul).
Brahmam and Sakti.
VII. Brahmam. The emanation from the
ABSOLUTE,
&c. (or
pure spirit.)
Before proceeding to examine these nature of
these seven entities, a few
general explanations are indispensably
necessary.
I. The secondary principles arising out of the
combination of primary
principles are quite different in their nature
from the entities out of
whose combination they came into existence. The combinations in
question are not of the nature of mere
mechanical juxtapositions, as it
were.
They do not even correspond to chemical combinations.
Consequently no valid inferences as regards the
nature of the
combinations in question can be drawn by analogy
from the nature
[variety?] of these combinations.
II. The general proposition, that when once a
cause is removed its
effect vanishes, is not universally
applicable. Take, for instance, the
following example:--If you once communicate a
certain amount of momentum
to a ball, velocity of a particular degree in a
particular direction is
the result.
Now, the cause of this motion ceases to exist when the
instantaneous sudden impact or blow which
conveyed the momentum is
completed;
but according to Newton's first law of motion, the ball will
continue to move on for ever and ever, with
undiminished velocity in the
same direction, unless the said motion is
altered, diminished,
neutralized, or counteracted by extraneous
causes. Thus, if the ball
stop, it will not be on account of the absence
of the cause of its
motion, but in consequence of the existence of
extraneous causes which
produce the said result.
Again, take the instance of subjective
phenomena.
Now the presence of this ink-bottle before me is
producing in me, or in
my mind, a mental representation of its form,
volume, colour and so
forth.
The bottle in question may be removed, but still
its mental picture may
continue to exist. Here, again, you see, the effect survives the
cause.
Moreover, the effect may at any subsequent time
be called into conscious
existence, whether the original cause be present
or not.
Now, in the ease of the filth principle above
mentioned-the entity that
came into existence by the combination of
Brahmam and Prakriti--if the
general proposition (in the "Fragments of
Occult Truth") is correct,
this principle, which corresponds to the
physical intelligence, must
cease to exist whenever the Brahmam or the
seventh Principle should
cease to exist for the particular
individual; but the fact is certainly
otherwise.
The general proposition under consideration is adduced in
the "Fragments" in support of the
assertion that whenever the seventh
principle ceases to exist for any particular
individual, the sixth
principle also ceases to exist for him. The assertion is undoubtedly
true, though the mode of stating it and the
reasons assigned for it, are
to my mind objectionable.
It is said that in cases where tendencies of a
man's mind are entirely
material, and all spiritual aspirations and
thoughts were altogether
absent from his mind, the seventh principle
leaves him either before or
at the time of death, and the sixth principle
disappears with it. Here,
the very proposition that the tendencies of the
particular individual's
mind are entirely material, involves the assertion
that there is no
spiritual intelligence or spiritual Ego in him,
it should then have been
said that, whenever spiritual intelligence
ceases to exist in any
particular individual, the seventh principle
ceases to exist for that
particular individual for all purposes. Of course, it does not fly off
anywhere.
There can never be any thing like a change of position in the
case of Brahmam.* The assertion merely means that when there is
no
recognition whatever of Brahmam, or spirit, or
spiritual life, or
spiritual consciousness, the seventh principle
has ceased to exercise
any influence or control over the individual's
destinies.
--------
* True--from the standpoint of Aryan Exotericism
and the Upanishads, not
quite so in the case of the Arahat or Tibetan esoteric
doctrine; and it
is only on this one solitary point that the two
teachings disagree, as
far as we know.
The difference is very trifling, though, resting as it
does solely upon the two various methods of
viewing the one and the same
thing from two different aspects. (See Appendix, Note IV.)
--------
I shall now state what is meant (in the Aryan
doctrine) by the seven
principles above enumerated.
I. Prakriti.
This is the basis of Sthulasariram, and represents it in
the above-mentioned classification.
II. Prakriti and Sakti. This is the Lingasariram, or astral body.
III. Sukti.
This principle corresponds to your Kamarupa. This power or
force is placed by ancient occultists in the
Nabhichakram. This power
can gather akasa or prakriti, and mould it into
any desired shape. It
has very great sympathy with the fifth
principle, and can be made to act
by its influence or control.
IV. Brahmam and Sakti, and Prakriti. This again corresponds to your
second principle, Jiva.
This power represents the universal
life-principle which exists in
Nature.
Its seat is the Anahatachakram (heart).
It is a force or power
which constitutes what is called Jiva, or life.
It is, as you say,
indestructible, and its activity is merely
transferred at the time of
death to another set of atoms, to form another
organism.
V. Brahma and Prakriti. This, in our Aryan philosophy, corresponds to
your fifth principle, called the physical
intelligence. According to
our philosophers, this is the entity in which what
is called mind has
its seat or basis. This is the most difficult principle of all
to
explain, and the present discussion entirely
turns upon the view we take
of it.
Now, what is mind? It is a mysterious something, which is
considered to
be the seat of consciousness--of sensations,
emotions, volitions, and
thoughts.
Psychological analysis shows it to be apparently a congeries
of mental states, and possibilities of mental
states, connected by what
is called memory, and considered to have a
distinct existence apart from
any of its particular states or ideas. Now in what entity has this
mysterious something its potential or actual
existence? Memory and
expectation, which form, as it were, the real
foundation of what is
called individuality, or Ahankaram, must have
their seat of existence
somewhere.
Modern psychologists of Europe generally say that the
material substance of brain is the seat of
mind; and that past
subjective experiences, which can he recalled by
memory, and which in
their totality constitute what is called
individuality, exist therein in
the shape of certain unintelligible mysterious
impressions and changes
in the nerves and nerve-centres of the cerebral
hemispheres.
Consequently, they say, the mind--the individual
mind--is destroyed when
the body is destroyed; so there is no possible existence after
death.
But there are a few facts among those admitted
by these philosophers
which are sufficient for us to demolish their
theory. In every portion
of the human body a constant change goes on
without intermission. Every
tissue, every muscular fibre and nerve-tube, and
every ganglionic centre
in the brain, is undergoing an incessant
change. In the course of a
man's lifetime there may be a series of complete
tranformations of the
substance of his brain. Nevertheless, the memory of his past mental
states remains unaltered. There may be additions of new subjective
experiences and some mental states may be
altogether forgotten, but no
individual mental state is altered. The person's sense of personal
identity remains the same throughout these
constant alterations in the
brain substance.* It is able to survive all these changes, and
it can
survive also the complete destruction of the
material substance of the
brain.
--------
* This is also sound Buddhist philosophy, the
transformation in
question being known as the change of the
skandhas.--Ed. Theos.
--------
This individuality arising from mental
consciousness has its seat of
existence, according to our philosophers, in an
occult power or force,
which keeps a registry, as it were, of all our
mental impressions. The
power itself is indestructible, though by the
operation of certain
antagonistic causes its impressions may in
course of time be effaced, in
part or wholly.
I may mention in this connection that our
philosophers have
associated seven occult powers with the seven
principles or entities
above-mentioned.
These seven occult powers in the microcosm correspond
with, or are the counterparts of, the occult
powers in the macrocosm.
The mental and spiritual consciousness of the
individual becomes the
general consciousness of Brahmam, when the
barrier of individuality is
wholly removed, and when the seven powers in the
microcosm are placed
en rapport with the seven powers in the
macrocosm.
There is nothing very strange in a power, or
force, or sakti, carrying
with it impressions of sensations, ideas,
thoughts, or other subjective
experiences.
It is now a well-known fact, that an electric or magnetic
current can convey in some mysterious manner
impressions of sound or
speech, with all their individual
peculiarities; similarly, I can
convey my thoughts to you by a transmission of
energy or power.
Now, this fifth principle represents in our
philosophy the mind, or, to
speak more correctly, the power or force above
described, the
impressions of the mental states therein, and
the notion of
self-identity or Ahankaram generated by their
collective operation.
This principle is called merely physical
intelligence in the
"Fragments." I do not know what is really meant by this
expression. It
may be taken to mean that intelligence which
exists in a very low state
of development in the lower animals. Mind may
exist in different stages
of development, from the very lowest forms of
organic life, where the
signs of its existence or operation can hardly
be distinctly realized,
up to man, in whom it reaches its highest state
of development.
In fact, from the first appearance of life* up
to Tureeya Avastha, or
the state of Nirvana, the progress is, as it
were, continuous.
--------
* In the Aryan doctrine, which blends Brahmam,
Sakti, and Prakriti in
one, it is the fourth principle then, in the
Buddhist esotericisms the
second in combination with the first.
--------
We ascend from that principle up to the seventh
by almost imperceptible
gradations.
But four stages are recognized in the progress where the
change is of a peculiar kind, and is such as to
arrest an observer's
attention.
These four stages are as follows:--
(1) Where life (fourth principle) makes its
appearance.
(2) Where the existence of mind becomes
perceptible in conjunction with
life.
(3) Where the highest state of mental
abstraction ends, and spiritual
consciousness commences.
(4) Where spiritual consciousness disappears,
leaving the seventh
principle in a complete state of Nirvana, or
nakedness.
According to our philosophers, the fifth
principle under consideration
is intended to represent the mind in every
possible state of
development, from the second stage up to the
third stage.
IV. Brahmam and Sakti. This principle corresponds to your
"spiritual
intelligence." It is, in fact, Buddhi (I use the word Buddhi
not in the
ordinary sense, but in the sense in which it is
used by our ancient
philosophers);
in other words, it is the seat of Bodha or Atmabodha.
One who has Atmabodha in its completeness is a
Buddha. Buddhists know
very well what this term signifies. This principle is described in the
"Fragments" as an entity coming into existence by the
combination of
Brahmam and Prakriti. I do not again know in what particular sense
the
word Prakriti is used in this connection. According to our philosophers
it is an entity arising from the union of
Brahmam and Sakti. I have
already explained the connotation attached by
our philosophers to the
words Prakriti and Sakti.
I stated that Prakriti in its primary state is
Akasa.*
If Akasa be considered to be Sakti or power**
then my statement as
regards the ultimate state of Prakriti is likely
to give rise to
confusion and misapprehension unless I explain
the distinction between
Akasa and Sakti.
Akasa is not, properly speaking, the crown of the
astral light, nor does it by itself constitute
any of the six primary
forces.
But, generally speaking, whenever any phenomenal result is
produced, Sakti acts in conjunction with
Akasa. And, moreover, Akasa
serves as a basis or Adhishthanum for the
transmission of force currents
and for the formation or generation of force or
power correlations.***
--------
* According to the Buddhists, in Akasa lies that
eternal, potential
energy whose function it is to evolve all
visible things out of
itself.--Ed. Theos.
** It was never so considered, as we have shown
it. But as the
"Fragments" are written in English, a
language lacking such an abundance
of metaphysical terms to express ever minute
change of form, substance
and state as are found in the Sanskrit, it was
deemed useless to confuse
the Western reader, untrained in the methods of
Eastern expression, more
than is necessary, with a too nice distinctions
of proper technical
terms. As
"Prakriti in its primary state is Akasa," and Sakti "is an
attribute AKASA," it becomes evident that
for the uninitiated it is all
one.
Indeed, to speak of the "union of Brahmam and Prakriti"
instead of
"Brahmam and Sakti" is no worse than
for a theist to write that "That
man has come into existence by the combination
of spirit and matter,"
whereas, his word, framed in an orthodox shape,
ought to read "man is a
living soul was created by the power (or breath)
of God over matter."
*** That is to say, the Aryan Akasa is another
word for Buddhist SPACE
(in its metaphysical meaning).--Ed. Theos.
---------
In Mantrasastra the letter Ha represents Akasa,
and you will find that
this syllable enters into most of the sacred
formula intended to be used
in producing phenomenal results. But by itself it does not represent
any Sakti.
You may, if you please, call Sakti an attribute of Akasa.
I do not think that, as regards the nature of
this principle, there can
in reality exist any difference of opinion
between the Buddhist and
Brahmanical philosophers.
Buddhist and Brahmanical initiates know very
well that mysterious
circular mirror composed of two hemispheres
which reflects as it were
the rays emanating from the "burning
bush" and the blazing star--the
spiritual sun Shining in CHIDAKASAM.
The spiritual impressions constituting this
principle have their
existence in an occult power associated with the
entity in question.
The successive incarnations of Buddha, in fact,
mean the successive
transfers of this mysterious power, or the
impressions thereof. The
transfer is only possible when the Mahatma* who
transfers it has
completely identified himself with his seventh
principle, has
annihilated his Ahankaram, and reduced it to
ashes in CHIDAGNIKUNDUM,
and has succeeded in making his thoughts
correspond with the eternal
laws of Nature and in becoming a co-worker with
Nature. Or, to put the
same thing in other words, when he has attained
the state of Nirvana,
the condition of final negation, negation of
individual, or separate
existence.**
---------
* The highest adept.
* In the words of Agatha in the
"Maha-pari-Nirvana Sutra,"
"We reach a condition of rest
Beyond the limit of any human knowledge"
--Ed. Theos.
---------
VII. Atma.--The emanation from the absolute,
corresponding to the
seventh principle. As regards this entity there exists
positively no
real difference of opinion between the Tibetan
Buddhist adepts and our
ancient Rishis.
We must now consider which of these entities can
appear after the
individual's death in seance-rooms and produce
the so-called
spiritualistic phenomena.
Now, the assertion of the Spiritualists, that
the "disembodied spirits"
of particular human beings appear in
seance-rooms, necessarily implies
that the entity that so appears bears the stamp
of some particular
personality.
So, we have to ascertain beforehand in what entity
or entities
personality has its seat of existence. Apparently it exists in the
person's particular formation of body, and in
his subjective experiences
(called his mind in their totality). On the death of the individual his
body is destroyed; his lingasariram being decomposed, the power
associated with it becomes mingled in the
current of the corresponding
power in the macrocosm. Similarly, the third and
fourth principles are
mingled with their corresponding powers. These entities may again enter
into the composition of other organisms. As these entities bear no
impression of personality, the Spiritualists
have no right to say that
the disembodied spirit of the human being has
appeared in the
seance-room whenever any of these entities may
appear there. In fact,
they have no means of ascertaining that they
belonged to any particular
individual.
Therefore, we must only consider whether any of
the last three entities
appear in seance-rooms to amuse or to instruct
Spiritualists. Let us
take three particular examples of individuals,
and see what becomes of
these three principles after death.
I. One in whom spiritual attachments have
greater force than terrestrial
attachments.
II. One in whom spiritual aspirations do exist,
but are merely of
secondary importance to him, his terrestrial
interests occupying the
greater share of his attention.
III. One in whom there exists no spiritual
aspirations whatsoever, one
whose spiritual Ego is dead or non-existent to
his apprehension.
We need not consider the case of a complete
adept in this connection.
In the first two cases, according to our
supposition, spiritual and
mental experiences exist together; when spiritual consciousness exists,
the existence of the seventh principle being recognized,
it maintains
its connection with the fifth and sixth
principles. But the existence
of terrestrial attachments creates the necessity
of Punarjanmam
(re-birth), the latter signifying the evolution
of a new set of
objective and subjective experiences,
constituting a new combination of
surrounding circumstances, or, in other words, a
new world. The period
between death and the next subsequent birth is
occupied with the
preparation required for the evolution of these
new experiences. During
the period of incubation, as you call it, the
spirit will never of its
own accord appear in this world, nor can it so
appear.
There is a great law in this universe which
consists in the reduction of
subjective experiences to objective phenomena,
and the evolution of the
former from the latter. This is otherwise called "cyclic
necessity."
Man is subjected to this law if he do not check
and counterbalance the
usual destiny or fate, and he can only escape
its control by subduing
all his terrestrial attachments completely. The new combination of
circumstances under which he will then be placed
may be better or worse
than the terrestrial conditions under which he
lived; but in his
progress to a new world, you may be sure he will
never turn around to
have a look at his spiritualistic friends.
In the third of the above three cases there is,
by our supposition, no
recognition of spiritual consciousness or of
spirits; so they are
non-existing so far as he is concerned. The case is similar to that of
an organ or faculty which remains unused for a
long time. It then
practically ceases to exist.
These entities, as it were, remain his, or in
his possession, when they
are stamped with the stamp of recognition. When such is not the case,
the whole of his individuality is centred in his
fifth principle. And
after death this fifth principle is the only
representative of the
individual in question.
By itself it cannot evolve for itself a new set
of objective
experiences, or, to say the same thing in other words,
it has no
punarjanmam.
It is such an entity that can appear in seance-rooms; but
it is absurd to call it a disembodied spirit.*
It is merely a power or
force retaining the impressions of the thoughts
or ideas of the
individual into whose composition it originally
entered. It sometimes
summons to its aid the Kamarupa power, and
creates for itself some
particular ethereal form (not necessarily
human).
--------
* It is especially on this point that the Aryan
and Arahat doctrines
quite agree.
The teaching and argument that follow are in every respect
those of the Buddhist Himalayan
Brotherhood.--Ed. Theos.
--------
Its tendencies of action will be similar to
those of the individual's
mind when he was living. This entity maintains its existence so long
as
the impressions on the power associated with the
fifth principle remain
intact.
In course of time they are effaced, and the power in question
is then mixed up in the current of its
corresponding power in the
MACROCOSM, as the river loses itself in the
sea. Entities like these
may afford signs of there having been
considerable intellectual power in
the individuals to which they belonged; because very high intellectual
power may co-exist with utter absence of spiritual
consciousness. But
from this circumstance it cannot be argued that
either the spirits or
the spiritual Egos of deceased individuals
appear in seance-rooms.
There are some people in India who have
thoroughly studied the nature of
such entities (called Pisacham). I do not know much about them
experimentally, as I have never meddled with
this disgusting,
profitless, and dangerous branch of
investigation.
The Spiritualists do not know what they are
really doing. Their
investigations are likely to result in course of
time either in wicked
sorcery or in the utter spiritual ruin of
thousands of men and women.*
--------
* We share entirely in this idea.--Ed. Theos.
--------
The views I have herein expressed have been
often illustrated by our
ancient writers by comparing the course of a
man's life or existence to
the orbital motion of a planet round the sun.
Centripetal force is
spiritual attraction, and centrifugal
terrestrial attraction. As the
centripetal force increases in magnitude in
comparison with the
centrifugal force, the planet approaches the
sun--the individual reaches
a higher plane of existence. If, on the other hand, the centrifugal
force becomes greater than the centripetal
force, the planet is removed
to a greater distance from the sun, and moves in
a new orbit at that
distance--the individual comes to a lower level
of existence. These are
illustrated in the first two instances I have
noticed above.
We have only to consider the two extreme cases.
When the planet in its approach to the sun
passes over the line where
the centripetal and centrifugal force completely
neutralize each other,
and is only acted on by the centripetal force,
it rushes towards the sun
with a gradually increasing velocity, and is finally
mixed up with the
mass of the sun's body. This is the case of a
complete adept.
Again, when the planet in its retreat from the
sun reaches a point where
the centrifugal force becomes all-powerful, it
flies off in a tangential
direction from its orbit, and goes into the
depths of void space. When
it ceases to be under the control of the sun, it
gradually gives up its
generative heat, and the creative energy that it
originally derived from
the sun, and remains a cold mass of material
particles wandering through
space until the mass is completely decomposed
into atoms. This cold
mass is compared to the fifth principle under
the conditions above
noticed, and the heat, light, and energy that
left it are compared to
the sixth and seventh principles.
Either after assuming a new orbit or in its
course of deviation from the
old orbit to the new, the planet can never go
back to any point in its
old orbit, as the various orbits lying in
different planes never
intersect each other.
This figurative representation correctly
explains the ancient