THEOSOPHY
Annie
Besant
Theosophy
By
Annie Besant
Contents
Introduction
Theosophy as a Science
Theosophy as morality and art
Theosophy as Philosophy
Theosophy as Religion
Theosophy applied to Social Problems
A few details about Systems and Worlds
The Theosophical Society
Theosophy
is derived from two Greek words –Theos , God; Sophia,
Wisdom –and is therefore God-Wisdom, Divine Wisdom. Any dictionary will
give its meaning : “A claim to a direct knowledge of God and of Spirits”, a
definition which is not inaccurate, though it is scanty and affords but a small
idea of all that is covered by the word, either historically or practically.
The
obtaining of “a direct knowledge of God” is –as we shall see in dealing with the
religious aspect of Theosophy –the ultimate object of all Theosophy, as it is
the very heart and life of all true Religion; this is “the highest knowledge,
the knowledge of Him by whom all else is known”; but the lower knowledge, that
of the knowable "all else”, and the methods of knowing it, bulk largely in
Theosophical study.
This is
natural enough, for the supreme knowledge must be gained by each for himself,
and little can be done by another, save by pointing to the way, by inspiring to
the effort, by setting the example; whereas the lower knowledge may be taught
in books, in lectures, in conversation, is transmissible from mouth to ear.
THE MYSTERIES
This
inner, or esoteric, side of religion is found in all the great faiths of the
world, more or less explicitly declared, but always existing as the heart of
the religion, beyond all dogmas which form the exoteric side. Where the
exoteric side propounds a dogma to the intellect, the esoteric offers a truth
to the Spirit; the one is seen and defended by reason, the other is grasped by
intuition –that faculty “beyond the reason” after which the philosophy of the
West is now groping. In the religions that have passed away it was taught in
the “Mysteries”, in the only way in which it can be taught –by giving
instruction how to pursue the methods which unfold the life of the Spirit more
rapidly than that life unfolds in natural and unassisted evolution; we learn
from classical writers that in the Mysteries the fear of death was removed, and
that the object aimed at was not the making of a good man –only the man who was
already good was admissible –but the transforming of the good man into a God.
Such
Mysteries existed as the heart of the religions of antiquity, and only
gradually disappeared from Europe from the 4th to the 8th
centuries, when they ceased –for want of pupils.
We may
find many traces of the Christian Mysteries in the early Christian writers,
especially in the works of S. Clement of Alexandria and of Origen,
under the name of “The Mysteries of Jesus”.
The
condition of high morality was made here, as in the Greek Mysteries: “Those who
for a long time have been conscious of no transgression … let them draw near”.
Indications of their origin and existence are found in the New Testament, in
which the Christ is said to have taught His disciples secretly –“Unto you it is
given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to others in parables”
–and these teachings, Origen maintains, were handed
down in the Mysteries of Jesus; S. Paul also declares that “we speak ‘wisdom’
among them that are ‘perfect’ –two terms used in the Mysteries.
Islam
has its secret teachings –said to have been derived from Ali, the son-in-law of
the Prophet Mohammed –to be found by meditation and a discipline of life,
methods taught among the Sufis.
Buddhism
has its Sangha, within which again by meditation and
a discipline of life, the inner truth is to be found.
Hinduism,
both in its scriptures and its current beliefs, asserts the existence of the
supreme and the lower knowledge, the latter to be gained by instruction, the
former, once more, by meditation and a discipline of life. It is this which
makes the supreme knowledge “esoteric”; it is not deliberately veiled and
hidden away, but it cannot be imparted; it can only be gained by the unfolding
of a faculty, of a power to know, of a mode of consciousness, latent in all
men, but not yet developed in the course of normal evolution.
This
shows itself sporadically in the Mystic, often in erratic fashion, often
accompanied with hysteria, but even then, is none the less an indication –for
the clear-sighted and unprejudiced –of a new departure in the long evolution of
human consciousness. It is brought to the surface sometimes by exceptional
purity: “the pure in heart …shall see God”.
Startling
eruptions of it into ordinary life are seen in such cases of “sudden
conversion” as are recorded by Prof. James. [Varieties of Religious
Experience]. The spiritual consciousness is a reality; its witness is found
in all religions, and it is stirring in many today, as it has stirred in all
ages. Its evolution in the individual can only be gently and deliberately
forced, ahead of normal evolution, by the meditation and the discipline of life
alluded to above. For esotericism in religion is not a teaching, but a stage of
consciousness; it is not an instruction, but a life. Hence the complaint
made by many, that it is elusive, indefinite; it is so to those who have not
experienced it, for only that which has been experienced in
consciousness can be known to consciousness.
Esoteric
methods can be taught, but the esoteric knowledge to which they lead, when
successfully followed and lived, must be won by each for himself. We may help
to remove obstacles to vision, but a man can only see with his own eyes.
THE PRIMARY MEANING
Theosophy
is this direct knowledge of God; the search after this is the Mysticism, or
Esotericism, common to all religions, thrown by Theosophy into a scientific
form, as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman Catholic Christianity, and Sufism.
Like these, it teaches in a quite clear and definite way the methods of
reaching firsthand knowledge by unfolding the spiritual consciousness,
and by evolving the organs through which that consciousness can
function on our earth –once more, the methods of meditation and of a discipline
of life.
Hence
it is the same as the Science of the Self [Atma-vidyä],
the Science of the Eternal [Brahma-vidyä] which is
the core of Hinduism; it is “the Knowledge of God which is Eternal Life” which
is the essence of Christianity. It is not a new thing, but is in all religions,
and hence we find the late eminent Orientalist, Max Müller, writing his well known work on Theosophy, or
Psychological Religion.
THE SECONDARY MEANING
Theosophy,
in a secondary sense –the above being the primary –is the body of doctrine,
obtained by separating the beliefs common to all religions from the
peculiarities, specialities, rites, ceremonies and
customs which mark off one religion from another; it presents these common
truths as a consensus of world-beliefs, forming, in their entirety, the
Wisdom-religion, or the Universal Religion, the source from which all separate
religions spring, the trunk of the Tree of Life from which they all branch
forth.
The
name Theosophy, which as we have said, is Greek, was first used by Ammonius Saccas, in the third
century after Christ, and has remained ever since in the history of religion in
the West, denoting not only Mysticism, but also an eclectic system, which
accepts truth wherever it is to be found, and cares little for its outer
trappings.
It
appeared in its present form in America and Europe in 1875, at the time when
Comparative Mythology was being used as an effective weapon against
Christianity, and, by transforming it into Comparative Religion, it built the
researches and discoveries of archaeologists and antiquarians into bulwarks of defence for the friends of religion, instead of leaving
them as missiles of attack for its enemies.
COMPARATIVE
MYTHOLOGY
The unburying of
ancient cities, the opening of old tombs, the translation of archaic
manuscripts of both dead and living religions, proved to demonstration the fact
that all the great religions which existed and had existed resembled each other
in their most salient features. Their chief doctrines, the outlines of their
morality, the stories which clustered round their founders, their symbols,
their ceremonies, closely resembled each other. The facts were undeniable, for
they were carved on ancient temples, written down in ancient books; the further
research was carried, the bulkier grew the evidence.
Even among the
most degraded tribes of savages, traces were found of similar teachings,
traditions of sacred truths overlaid by the crudities of animism and fetishism.
How to explain such similarities? What their bearing on Christianity?
“Evolution” was
then the “open sesame” of Science, and the answer to these questions was not
long delayed. Religion had evolved; from the dark ignorance of
primal savages, who personified the powers of the Nature they feared, had
evolved the inspiring religions and the splendid philosophies which had
enthralled and civilised mankind.
The medicine-men
of savages had been glorified into Founders of religions; the teachings of the
Saints and Prophets were the refining of the hysterical babblings of
half-epileptic visionaries; the synthesis of natural forces –a synthesis
wrought out by man’s splendid intellect –had been emotionalised
into God. Such was the answer to Comparative Mythology to the alarmed
questionings of men and women who found their houses of faith crumbling into
pieces around them, leaving them exposed to the icy winds of doubt.
At the same time
Immortality was threatened, and though intuition whispered: “Not all of me
shall die”, physiology had captured psychology, and was showing the brain
as the creator of thought –thought, which was born with the brain, grew with
it, was diseased with it, decayed with it; did it not finally die with it?
Agnosticism grew
and flourished; what could man know, beyond what his senses could discover,
beyond what his intellect could grasp? Such was the condition of educated
thought in the last quarter of the 19th century. The younger
generation can scarcely realise that veritable
“eclipse of faith”.
COMPARATIVE
RELIGION
Into that Europe
Theosophy suddenly came, asserting the Gnosis as against Agnosticism,
Comparative Religion against Comparative Mythology. It declared that man had
not exhausted his powers in using his senses and his intellect, for that beyond
these there were the intuition and the sure witness of the Spirit; that the
existence of these powers was a demonstrable fact; that the testimony of the
spiritual consciousness was as indubitable as that of the intellectual and the
sensuous.
It admitted all
the facts discovered by archaeologists and antiquarians, but asserted that they
were susceptible of quite other explanation than that given by the enemies of
religion, and that while the facts were facts the explanation was only a
hypothesis.
It set over
against this hypothesis another, equally explanatory of the facts –that the
community of religious teachings, ethics, stories, symbols, ceremonies, and
even the traces of these among savages, arose from the derivation of all
religions from a common centre, from a Brotherhood of Divine Men, which sent
out one of its members into the world from time to time to found a new
religion, containing the same essential verities as its predecessors, but
varying in form with the needs of the time, and with the capacities of the
people to whom the Messenger was sent.
It was obvious
that either hypothesis would explain the admitted facts. How should a decision
between them be reached? Theosophy appealed to history: it pointed out that the
palmy days of each religion were its early days, and
that the teachings of the Messenger were never improved on by the later
adherents of the faith, whereas the contrary must have been the case if the
religion had been produced by evolution; the Hindūs
founded themselves on their Upanishads—[their most ancient literature, a part
of the Vedas ], the Zoroastrians on the teachings of the Prophet, the
Buddhists on the sayings of the Lord Buddha, the Hebrews on Moses and the
Prophets, the Christians, the Mohammedans on those of their great Prophet.
Later religious
literature consisted of commentaries, dissertations, arguments, not of new
departures, more inspiring than the original. Inspiration is ever sought in
later days in the sayings of the Founder, and in the teachings of His immediate
disciples.
Manu, Vyäsa, Zarathushtra, the Buddha,
the Christ –these Figures tower above humanity, and command the love and
reverence of mankind, generation after generation.
There are many
Messengers, the religions are their messages. Theosophy points to all of these
as proofs that its hypothesis is the true explanation of the facts, is no
longer a hypothesis, indeed, but is a truth affirmed by history. Against this
splendid array of Messengers with their messages, Comparative Mythology cannot
bring one single proof from history of a religion that has evolved from
savagery into spirituality and philosophy; its hypothesis is disproved by
history.
The Theosophical
view is now so widely accepted that people do not realise
how triumphant was the opposing theory. When Theosophy again rode into the
arena of the world’s thought in 1875, mounted on its new steed the
Theosophical Society. But any who would realise the
conditions then existing should turn to the literature of Comparative
Mythology, published during the preceding century, form the voluminous works of
Dulaure and Dupuis [On phallic and sun worships.],
through Higgins’ Anacalypsis, to the books of Hargrave Jennings, Forlong, and a
dozen others, speaking with a positiveness that led
the reader to believe that the statements made were based on facts, which no
educated person could deny.
Those
who plunged into that labyrinth of discussions in their youth, who lost
themselves in its endless and intricate windings, who saw their faith devoured
by the Minotaur of Comparative Mythology, they know –and only they can know in
its fullness –the intensity of the relief when the modern Ariadne
–the much misunderstood and much maligned Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky –gave
them a clue which guided them through the mazes of the labyrinth, and armed
them with the sword of “The Secret Doctrine” [Mme. Blavatsky’s monumental work,
published in 1889.] with which to slay the monster.
It may
be interesting to note, in passing, that old-fashioned Christianity –which
believed that all mankind had descended from Adam, created 4004 B.C. –had
preserved a tradition of a primeval revelation, given to Adam and carried by
his posterity to all parts of the world; man, inheriting original sin from his ancestor,
had corrupted this, but traces of it were to be found in the grains of truth
hidden by the husks of “heathen” religions. This view, however, despite the
germ of truth it contained, was quite out of court with educated people, who
knew that the human race had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, at
least, instead of for a span of six thousand.
UNITY OF RELIGIONS
The
outcome of the whole position is that the fact of the community of religious
belief is destructive to any religion which claims for itself a unique and
isolated position; in such a position it is exposed to attack from all sides,
and its claim is easily disproved. But this same fact is a defence,
when all religions stand together, when they present themselves as a
Brotherhood, children of one ancestor, the Divine Wisdom.
This
view becomes the more satisfactory as we notice that each religion has its own
special note, makes its own special contribution to the forces working for the
evolution of man. As we notice their differences, in addition to their
similarities, we feel that they reveal a plan of human education, just as when
we hear a splendid chord we feel that a master-musician has combined the notes,
with a full knowledge of the value of each.
Hinduism
proclaims the One Immanent Life in everything , and hence the solidarity of
all, the duty of each to each, enshrined in the untranslatable word Dharma—
[translated
as religion, duty, obligation, is more than these. It indicates the sum of
man’s past evolution –all that has made him what he is –and the next
steps which he must take in order to ensure his further evolution with the
least possible delay and difficulty.]
Zoroastrianism
strikes the note of purity –purity of surroundings, of body, of mind. Hebraism
sounds out Righteousness. Egypt makes Science its word of power. Buddhism
asserts Right Knowledge. Greece breathes of Beauty. Rome tells of Law.
Christianity teaches the value of the Individual and exalts Self-sacrifice.
Islam peals out the Unity of God. Surely the world is the richer for each, and
we cannot spare one jewel from our chaplet of the world’s religions.
Out of
the fair spectacle of their varied beauty and the spiritual value of the
variety, grows in our minds the sense of the reality of the great Brotherhood,
and its work in the guidance of spiritual evolution. So deep a unity, so
exquisite and fruitful a diversity, cannot be mere chance, mere coincidence,
but must be the result of a plan deliberately adopted and strongly carried out.
METHOD OF STUDY
As the
Theosophical system of thought is an immense, an all inclusive, synthesis of
truths, as it deals with God, the Universe, and Man, and their relations to
each other, it will be best to divide its presentation under four heads,
corresponding to a very obvious and rational view of Man. Man may be regarded
as having a physical body, an emotional nature and intellect; and through these
he, an eternal Spirit, manifests himself in this mortal world. These three
departments of human nature, as we may call them, correspond to his great
activities: Science, Ethics and Æsthetics,
Philosophy.
1]
Through his senses Man observes the phenomena around him, and verifies his
observations by experiments; through his brain he records and arranges
his observations, makes inductions, frames hypotheses, tests his hypotheses by
devising crucial experiments, and arrives at knowledge of Nature and
understanding of her laws: thus he constructs sciences, the splendid results of
intelligent use of the organs of the physical body on the physical world. We
must study Theosophy as SCIENCE.
2]
Man’s emotional nature shows feelings and desires –feelings caused by contacts
with the outside, contacts which give pleasure or pain; these arouse in him
desires –cravings to re-experience the pleasure, to avoid the recurrence of
pain. W e shall see, when we come to deal with these, that the deep-rooted
yearning for Happiness, planted in every sentient creature, spurs him to place
himself at last in harmony with law, that is, to do the Right, to refuse to do
the Wrong. The expression of this harmony in life, in our relations with others
and in the building of ourselves, is Right Conduct. The expression of this same
harmony in matter is Right Form, or Beauty. We must study Theosophy as
MORALITY-ART.
3]
Man’s intellect demands that his surroundings, both as regards life and matter,
shall be intelligible to him; it demands order, rationality, logical
explanation. It cannot live in a chaos without suffering; it must know and
understand, if it is to exist in peace. We must study Theosophy as PHILOSOPHY.
4]
But these three, Science, Morality-Art, Philosophy, do not perfectly satisfy
our nature. The religious consciousness persistently obtrudes itself in all
nations, all climes, all ages. It refuses to be silenced, and will feed on the
husks of superstition if denied the bread of Truth. The Spirit who is Man will
not cease his search for the Universal Spirit who is God, and God’s answers
–partial but with the promise of more –are religions. We must study Theosophy as
RELIGION.
Under
these four heads all the Theosophical teachings most important to human life
and conduct may be presented. There remain: a few indications of the practical
application of these to social problems, and a mere statement –for within the
brief compass of this little book no more is possible –of the larger vistas of
the past and the future opened up to us by Theosophy.
All
divisions which seek to divide the really indivisible Spirit –the spark from
the universal Fire –are unsatisfactory, and tend to veil from us the unity of
the consciousness which is our Self. Senses, emotions, intellect, are but
facets of the one diamond, aspects of the one Spirit. Spiritual life, Religion,
should be a synthesis of Science, Morality –Art and Philosophy –they are
but facets of religion. Religion should permeate all studies, as Spirit
permeates all forms.
Our
Self is one, not multiple, albeit his overflowing life expresses itself in
multitudinous ways. So although, for the sake of clarity, I divide my subject
into parts, I would pray my reader to remember that classification is a means
and not an end; that classifications are many, while consciousness is one; and
that while, for lucid explanation, we may avoid confusing the persons, we
should ever bear in mind that we must also avoid dividing the substance.
SECTION I
THEOSOPHY
AS SCIENCE
The old
ways of study was to state universals, and to descend from them to particulars,
and it remains the best way for serious and philosophic students. The modern
way is to begin with particulars, and to ascend from them to universals; for
the modern reader, who has not yet made up his mind to a serious study of a
subject, this is the easier road, for it keeps the most difficult part
for the last. As this little book is meant for the general reader, I follow
this way.
Theosophy
accepts the –method—of Science –observation, experiment, arrangement of
ascertained facts, induction, hypothesis, deduction, verification, assertion of
the discovered truth but immensely increases its area. It sees the sum
of existence as containing but two factors, Life and Form, or, as some call
them, Spirit and Matter, others Time and Space, for Spirit is God’s motion,
while Matter is His stillness; both find their union in Him. Since the Root of
Spirit is His Life, and the Root of Matter is the universal ether, the two
aspects of the One Eternal, out of Space and Time. [See section III].
While
ordinary science confines Matter to the tangible, Theosophical science extends
it through many grades, intangible to the physical, but tangible to the superphysical senses. It has observed that the condition of
knowing the physical universe is the possession of a physical body, of which
certain parts have been evolved into organs of sense, eyes, ears, etc., thought
which perception of outside objects is possible, and other parts have been
evolved into organs of action, hands, feet, and the rest, through which contact
with outside objects can be obtained.
It
sees that, in the past, physical evolution has been brought about by the
efforts of life to use its nascent powers, and that the struggle to exercise an
inborn faculty has slowly shaped matter into an organ through which that
faculty can be more fully exercised.
To
reverse Büchner’s statement: We do not walk because
we have legs; we have legs because we wanted to move. We can trace the growth
of legs from the temporary pseudopodia of the amœba,
through the development of permanent protrusions from bodies, up to the legs of
man, and they were all gradually formed by the efforts of the living creature
to move. As W.K. Clifford said of the huge saurians
of a past age: ‘Some wanted to fly, and they became birds”. The “Will to
live” –that is, to desire , to think, to act –lies behind all evolution.
The
Theosophist carries on the same principle into higher realms, if such exist;
and if consciousness is to know any other sphere [ I use the word “sphere”
to indicate the whole extent of matter belonging to a definite type, i.e..,
built of atoms of one sort. See under “Atoms” in Section VI. There may be
several worlds in a sphere; thus the heaven-world is in the mental sphere. The
word plane has been used in this sense, but it is found that people do not
readily grasp its meaning.] than the physical, it must have a body of matter
belonging to the sphere it wants to investigate, and the body must have senses,
developed by the same want of the Life to see, to hear, etc. That there should
be other spheres, and other bodies through which those spheres can be known, is
no more inherently incredible than that there is a physical sphere, and that
there are physical bodies through which we know it. The Occultist –the student
of the workings of the divine Mind in Nature –asserts that there are such
spheres, and that he has and uses such bodies.
The
following statements –with one exception which will be noted in its place –are
made as results of investigations carried on in such spheres by the use of such
bodies by the writer and other Occultists; we all received the outline from
highly developed members of our humanity, and have proved it true, step by
step, and have filled in many gaps, by our own researches. We , therefore, feel
that we have a right to affirm, on our own firsthand experience –stretching
over a period of twenty-three years in one case, and twenty five in another
–that superphysical research is practicable, and is
as trustworthy as physical research, and should be carried on in similar ways;
that investigators are subject to errors, both in physical and superphysical spheres, and for similar reasons, and that
these errors should lead to closer research and not to its discontinuance.
A TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES
The following
table presents a view of the spheres related to and including our earth, of the
bodies used in investigating them, and of the states of consciousness
manifested through them by their owner, the Man. The Eternal Man, a fragment of
the Life of God, is called the Monad, a “oneness”; [ This is the statement,
including what is said farther on about the Monad, noted above, as not having
been verified by the writer’s own observation. This highest Self is only made
manifest to such as we are on rare occasions in a great down flow of dazzling
light: in his own nature, in his own world, he is beyond the reach of any
vision yet attained by any of us. Yet what we call our life is his, since he is
the highest Self in each of us, “the hidden God” –as the Egyptians used to
say.] he is verily a Son of God, made in His image, and expressing his life in
three ways: by the aspect of Will, the aspect of Wisdom, the aspect of Creative
Activity. He lives in his own sphere, a spark in the divine Fire, and
sends down a ray, a current of his life, which embodies itself in the five
spheres of manifestation.
This
ray, appropriating an atom of matter from each of the three higher of these
spheres, appears as the human Spirit, reproducing the three aspects of the
Monad, of will, Wisdom, and Creative Activity, and reveals himself, at a
certain stage of evolution, as the human ego, the individualised
Self ; he begins his long journey as a mere seed of life, and, never losing his
identity, moves through that long journey, unfolding all the powers of the
Monad, that lie hidden within him, as the tree within the seed.
As he
conquers his kingdom of matter, his Parent-Monad pours down into him more and
more life, and draws from him more and more knowledge of the worlds in which he
lives. But the passing into the three highest manifested spheres is not enough
for gaining full knowledge and full power in our Solar System; two yet remain,
and the process of dipping down into matter goes on.
The
Spirit strengthens himself for his work by appropriating a molecule of the
coarser matter of the lowest sphere he has so far entered, and links on to
this, an atom from the fourth manifested sphere of denser matter, and one from
the fifth, the lowest our physical sphere. He is to obtain bodies, formed round
these permanently appropriated particles of matter, by which he may be able to
know and act upon the five manifested spheres.
We
shall see that his lower bodies, forming what is called his Personality, are
cast off at and after what we call death, and are renewed for each successive
birth, while the higher, forming his Individuality, remain through this long
pilgrimage –an important fact as bearing on the possibility of remembering the
past. The above facts are tabulated hereafter.
|
SPHERES |
BEINGS |
|
STATES OF
CONSCIOUSNESS |
BODIES |
|||
|
Unmanifested |
1 |
Divine |
Adi |
Logos |
|
Divine Triplicity (1) |
.................. |
|
2 |
Monadic |
Anupädaka |
Human Monad |
|
Monadic Triplicity (2) |
.................. |
|
|
Manifested |
3 |
Spiritual |
Atma |
Man who is |
[A] |
Spirit,
individualized as Will |
Atom |
|
4 |
Intuitional |
Buddhi |
Spirit,
individualized as Intuition |
Intuitional |
|||
|
5 |
Mental (higher) |
Manas |
spirit,
individualized as Intellect |
Causal |
|||
|
5 |
Mental (lower) |
Manas |
Man who has |
[B] |
Mind |
Mental |
|
|
6 |
Astral (or
Emotional) |
Käma |
Desires and
Emotions |
Astral |
|||
|
7 |
Physical |
Sthula |
Vitality (3) |
Physical |
|||
|
[A]- An immortal Individuality [B] -A mortal
Personality |
|||||||
|
[The Student
may find the Sanskrit terms useful, as they have been much employed in
Theosophical literature, and the above are my own English equivalents: 1. Adi; 2-Anupâdaka; 3-Atmâ or Nirvâna; 4.Buddhi; 5. Manas
(adjective, mânasic); 6. Kâma; 7. Sthula. The Buddhists use for Adi,
Mahäparinirväna, and for Anupädaka,
Parinirväna.] |
|||||||
|
(1) The Trinities of religions, the Three
Persons of Christianity. As manifested in a Solar System. They appear three
by difference of function, seen from below. The whole Solar System may be
called the Body of the Logos, and the Sun His physical Body, but they only
embody a fragment of Him. |
|||||||
|
(2) Man"made
in the Image of God". His aspects, Will, Wisdom, and Activity, or Power,
Knowledge-Love, and Creativeness are shown in the embodied reproduction of
himself, as Will, Intuition, and Intellect. |
|||||||
|
(3) The seven are named from below
upwards: solid, liquid, gaseous, etheric, super-etheric, sub-abtomic, atomic |
|||||||
As
vitality shows itself in two main forms in the Physical Body, the latter is
functionally divided into two : Energising Vitality
works through the finer part, called the etheric Double, composed of the four
physical ethers, and Automatic Vitality uses the denser part, composed of
solids, liquids and gases. These seven subdivisions of physical matter make up
the physical sphere.
It may
be asked: “What is the object of this descent into matter? What does the Monad
gain by it? “ Omniscient in his own sphere, he is blinded by matter
in the spheres of manifestation, being unable to respond to their vibrations.
As a man who cannot swim, flung into deep water, is drowned, but can learn to
move freely in it, so with the Monad. At the end of his pilgrimage, he will be
free of the Solar System, able to function in any part of it, to create at
will, to move at pleasure. Every power that he unfolds through denser matter,
he retains forever under all conditions; the implicit has become explicit, the
potential the actual. It is his own Will to live in all spheres, and not only
in one, that draws him into manifestation.
THE PHYSICAL BODY
The
actual unfolding of consciousness is best traced from below, for the physical
body is the one which is first organised as its
instrument for knowledge, and it unfolds itself by this in the physical world
we know. The emotional nature stimulates the glands and ganglia of the physical
body, and the mental enthrones itself over the cerebrospinal system, and these
proceed with their evolution in the invisible spheres through the stimulus
obtained from the physical.
We
need not dwell on the evolution of the dense physical body, as they may be
studied as physical science. Human consciousness is here automatic, the Man
having no longer need to direct physical processes; they go on by habit, the
result of long pressure from consciousness.
The
finer part of the physical body, the etheric double, permeates the dense, and
extends a little beyond it over the whole surface; its proper sense-organs are
vortices on its own surface, situated opposite 1] the top of the head, 2] the
point between the eyebrows, 3] the throat, 4] the heart, 5] the spleen, 6] the
solar plexus, 7] the base of the spine, [8,9,10] in the lower part of the
pelvic basin; these last are not used, except in Black Magic.
These
vortices–technically called chakrams, wheels, from
their appearance –are aroused into activity in the course of occult training,
and form a bridge between the physical and astral spheres, so that the latter
comes to be included within the activity of the waking consciousness. The
health of its dense partner depends on the Vitality in the etheric double,
which draws its energy directly from the Sun, and, in the part in contact with
the spleen, divides this energy into streams, which it conveys to the different
organs of the dense body; the surplusage radiates
outwards and energises all living creatures within
its range.
The
very neighbourhood of a vigorously healthy person vitalises, while a weak body draws on all around it for
Vitality, often seriously depleting those near to it. Physical magnetism, the
power of healing, etc., are ways in which this surplus Vitality may be usefully
expended.
Etheric
vision –physical vision keener than the normal –may be used for examining
minute objects, such as chemical atoms, or for studying such of the
nature-spirits as use etheric matter for their lowest bodies –fairies, gnomes,
brownies, and creatures of that ilk. Very slightly increased tenseness of the
nerves, caused by excitement, ill-health, alcohol, may bring these within
sight.
The
etheric part of the brain plays an active part in dreams, especially in those
caused by impressions from outside, or from any internal pressure from the
cerebral vessels. Its dreams are usually dramatic, and may embroider any memory
of past events, objects, or persons. [See the many cases given in Du Prel’s Philosophy of
Mysticism.]
In
normal healthy persons the etheric part of the physical body does not separate
from the dense, but the greater part of it may be driven out by anæsthetics, and slips out easily in the case of persons
who are mediumistic, often serving as the basis for materialisations.
Death
is the complete withdrawal from its dense counterpart, in conjunction with the
consciousness in the higher bodies; it remains with these fro a varying
interval –usually about 36 hours after death –and then is thrown off by the Man
as of no further use; it decays away pari passu with the dense corpse.
THE EMOTIONAL OR ASTRAL SPHERE,
ITS WORLDS AND ITS INHABITANTS
The
astral sphere connected with our earth contains two globes with which we need
not here concern ourselves, also the astral world and its inhabitants, and the
intermediate or desire world, a part of the astral, the inhabitants of which
are normally under special conditions.
The
whole sphere belongs to the state of consciousness which shows itself as
feelings, desires, and emotions; these changes in consciousness are accompanied
with vibrations in astral matter, and as astral matter is fine and very rapid
in its vibratory motions, the vibrations are visible to astral sight as
colours.
The
passion of anger causes vibrations that yield a flash of scarlet, while a
feeling of devotion or love suffuses the astral body with a blue or rosy hue.
Each feeling has its appropriate colour, because each is accompanied by its own
invariable set of vibrations.
The
human astral body is, of course, composed of astral matter, and, when
accompanying the physical body, which it permeates and beyond which it extends,
it appears as a cloud, or as a defined oval, according as its owner is little
or much developed.
Clearness
and brightness of the more delicate colours, increased definiteness of form and
increase of size mark the higher evolution. When the Man in his higher bodies
draws away from the physical –as he does every night in sleep –then the astral
body assumes the likeness of the physical.
Astral
matter being very plastic under the influence of thought, a man appears in the
astral world in the likeness of himself, as he sees himself, wearing the
clothes of which he thinks. A soldier, slain in battle, and appearing in his
astral body to a distant friend, will bear his wounds; a drowned man will
appear in dripping clothes.
While
human beings in the astral world normally wear human forms, the inhabitants of
that world who have not had physical bodies –higher fairies, nature-spirits
connected with the evolution of plant and animal life, and the like –wear
bodies that are constantly changing their outlines and sizes.
Sportive
elementals –as nature-spirits are often called –will sometimes take advantage
of this plasticity of astral matter to swell themselves up into huge and
terrible shapes for the sake of terrifying untrained intruders into their
world. Some drugs, such as hashish, bhang, opium, and extreme alcoholic
poisoning, so affect the physical nerves as to render them susceptible to
astral vibrations, and then the patients catch a glimpse of some inhabitants of
the astral world.
The
horrors which torment a man suffering from delirium tremens are largely due to
the sight of the loathsome elementals that gather round places where liquor is
sold, and feed on its exhalations, and are attracted round him by the effluvia
of his own drink-sodden body.
All
feelings of pleasure and pain in the physical body are due to the presence of
the interpenetrating astral, and, if this be driven out by anæsthetics
or mesmerism, feeling disappears from the physical body.
In
sleep –during which the etheric double does not leave its dense counterpart
–the astral can be very quickly recalled by any disturbance of the physical
body; but where much of the etheric matter has also been driven out, the bridge
of communication is broken, and trance is produced; under these conditions the
dense body can be seriously mutilated without pain supervening. Pain will,
however, show itself as soon as the astral body slips again into the physical,
and “consciousness returns”.
It may
be said, in passing, that the normal centre of human consciousness at the
present stage of evolution is in the astral body, from which it works on the
physical. “Physical consciousness” is now subconscious –if such a bull may be
permitted to an Irishwoman.
The
condition of a person during sleep varies with his stage of evolution.
The
undeveloped man, in his higher bodies, leaving the physical body, hovers round
the places with which he is familiar; the average man drifts towards persons to
whom he is attracted, but his attention is turned inwards, and he communes with
his friends mentally only; at a stage a little higher, his mind is very active
and receptive, and can work out problems presented to it more easily than in
the physical body, as witness the common sayings: “sleep brings counsel”,
“better sleep on it”, and the like.
A
problem quietly placed in the mind on going to sleep will generally be found
answered in the morning. All these people do not work consciously in the astral
world; for this it is necessary that the attention should be turned outwards,
not inwards. Where a man is pure and self-controlled, and shows
helpfulness in the physical world, he is often “awakened” in the astral world
by a more advanced person.
The
process consists merely in inducing him to attend to what is going on around
him, instead of remaining immersed in thought ; his astral body has evolved and
has become organised by his mental and moral
activities, and he has only to wake up to his astral surroundings.
His
helper explains matters to him, and for a time keeps him near him ; he shows
him that astral matter obeys his thought, that he can move at will and at
whatever speed he wishes, that he can walk through rocks, dive into seas, pass
through raging fires, step over a precipice and hover in air, always provided
that he is fearless and confident ; if he loses courage, and only then, he is
in danger, and the imagined injury may “repercuss”,
i.e.., show itself on the physical body as a bruise, a scratch, a wound, etc.
When he
has learned these preliminary lessons, and can see and hear correctly in the
astral world, he is set to work to help the “living” and the “dead” ; he is
then what we call “an invisible helper”, and spends his night in succouring those in trouble, teaching the ignorant, guiding
those who have newly arrived in the astral world through the gateway of death.
To these last we must now turn.
THE DESIRE WORLD, OR PURGATORY
This is
the part of the astral world in which conditions are specialised
for discarnate human beings, who, unless they have knowledge, are not free in
the astral world, but are “the spirits in prison” spoken of by St. Peter. They
are held prisoners by their desires, and hence the name of desire world is
given to their abode.
We have
seen that, at death, the Man, clothed in his finer bodies, draws himself out of
the physical garment worn during earth-life, the “coat of skin” with which “the
first man” was clothed after is “fall” into matter, caused by his seizure of
“knowledge”. “Which things are an allegory”, as St. Paul says of the
story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.
Having
cast off his coat of skin, the Man is himself, just as he was while clothed
with it, and he “goes to his own place” in the astral world, the place for
which he has fitted himself. A rearrangement of the matter of his astral body
takes place automatically, unless he has knowledge enough to present it.
During
the life of the physical body, the astral particles from all the seven astral
subdivisions of matter move freely about among themselves, and some of all
kinds are always on the surface of the astral body ; sight of the whole astral
world depends on the presence on the surface of the astral body of particles
drawn from all the seven subdivisions, which answer to our solids, liquids,
gases, and the four states of ether.
These
particles are not gathered together and fashioned into an organ of vision, like
the physical eye ; when the Man turns his attention outwards he sees “all over
him”, through all these particles, or through such of them as are in the
direction of the object towards which his attention is turned. [ New
comers in the astral world always look through the astral simulacra of eyes,
because accustomed to turn their attention outwards in that way, just as they
move their legs for walking. Both are unnecessary.] If the rearrangement of the
matter of the astral body takes place, the matter of each subdivision is
gathered together, and a series of concentric shells is formed, the densest
being outside.
Hence
the Man can only see the subdivision of the astral world to which the outermost
shell belongs ; the amount of each kind of matter depends on the kind of
desires and emotions he has cultivated on earth.
If
these have been of a low order, the densest astral matter will be very strongly
vitalised, and this outermost shell, placing him in
touch with the lowest subdivision of the astral world only, will last for a
long time; it disintegrates by slow starvation, i.e.., by the deprivation of
its accustomed satisfactions. Hence a drunkard, a glutton, a sensualist, a man
of violent and brutal passions, having strongly vitalised
by physical indulgence the densest and coarsest combinations of astral matter,
can only be conscious of his surroundings through these, and sees only people
like himself, and the worst qualities of those who are of a better types ; his
raging passions can find no satisfaction, because he has lost the physical
organs by which he erstwhile gratified them ; moreover, these passions are much
more violent than before, for during his physical life most of the force of the
astral vibrations was used up in merely setting in motion the heavy physical
particles of matter, and only what was left over was felt as pleasure or pain ;
hence all passions are pale and weak on earth compared with their
violence in the astral world, where, after easily setting in motion the light
astral particles, they show the whole remainder of their force as pleasure or
pain, as a rapture or an agony inconceivable on earth.
This
last is what religions call “hell” –and a veritable hell, as to suffering, it
is, created by the man for his own dwelling place. But it is only temporary,
and might more fitly therefore, for orthodox Christians and Muslims, be called
“purgatory”.[ Both these religions, while ordinarily speaking of
hell as everlasting, have passages in their Scriptures which contradict the
idea. The New testament speaks of a time when “God shall be all in all”, and Al
Qurān declares: “All things shall perish save
His Face”. ]
The thick layer
of densest matter wears away, and the man loses sight of this sphere of astral
life and begins to perceive the next, having learned, by the sad lesson of
bitter suffering, that the pleasures he valued on earth are verily “wombs of
pain”.
The average man
does not experience this unfortunate after-death condition, not having drawn
into his astral body while on earth much of the densest matter, and such of it
as he is not strongly vitalised, and it cannot hold
him. If his interests on earth have all been trivial – round of office or
household drudgery or manual labour, alternating with low, though not vicious,
forms of amusement –and he has cared nothing for larger interests, those of the
community and the nation, he will find himself shelled in by matter of the
sixth subdivision of the astral world, and will be surrounded by the astral
counterparts of physical objects, without the power to affect them or to take
part in the earth-life led among them ; he will, therefore, to use a
colloquialism, find himself very much bored, and be a prey to an intolerable
sense of ennui.
It may be said
that this is hard, as most people have to spend their lives in drudgery of some
kind; are they to be bored after death, having drudged before? True; but a
little knowledge will prevent this, and for this very reason Theosophy is being
spread far and wide.
The work which
carries on the world need not be drudgery, and to deeply religious people is
not drudgery even now; for all useful work is part of the Divine activity, and
all workers are organs of that Activity, the Hands wherewith the divine Worker
accomplishes His work. Production and distribution –agriculture, mining,
manufactures, commerce, the pettiest trade –are God’s ways of nourishing
humanity, and are the means of evolution.
When a man, a
woman, see their little daily tasks as integral portions of the one great work,
they are no longer drudges but co-workers with God. [See Application of
Theosophy to Social Problems, Section V., p. 77]
As George
Herbert sang:
“A servant in this cause
Makes drudgery divine
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th’action fine”.
Those who thus work will find no
boredom after death, but fresh and joyous activity. For the rest, they
gradually adapt themselves to the new conditions, and are helped to do so, and
they find that they are rid of many of the discomforts of earth, and may lead a
quite pleasant life; they are in touch with their friends on earth, and find
that these are quite companionable during earth’s nights, though provokingly
indifferent during its days ; as Mr. Leadbeater pithily says :”The dead are
never for a moment under the impression that they have lost the living”,
however much the latter lament the loss of the dead they loved.
The man passes
on through the sixth, fifth, and fourth subdivisions, enjoying more and more
association with those he loves, until he passes into the higher subdivisions
–the material heavens of the less instructed religionists of all faiths, the
region for art, literature, science, philanthropy, and the large interests of
life, followed on earth with some selfishness, and here pursued along the
habitual lines and with the use of astral reproductions of physical means and
apparatus. These same pursuits, carried on for unselfish motives, lift the Man
into the heaven-world, their proper home, and thither also those who followed
them more selfishly pass, for when they are weary of them in the astral world
they fall asleep, to wake in heaven.
The astral body
has been cast off, shell after shell, and in due time goes back to its
elements, like the physical. Some pure and lofty souls pass through the astral
world without attending to it, their minds set upon higher things. Others,
fully awake, do not allow the matter of their astral bodies to be rearranged,
but retain their freedom and perform useful service. Omitting this last class,
whose stay in the astral world will depend on other causes, the general rule is
that the astral after-death life is long for the undeveloped and short for the
well-developed, while the heavenly is long for the latter and short for the
former.
THE MENTAL
SPHERE, ITS WORLDS AND INHABITANTS
The mental
sphere connected with our earth contains two globes with which we are not now
concerned. It contains also two worlds, the higher and lower, each with its
inhabitants, and a part of the lower is placed under special conditions, for
the use of discarnate human beings; this is the heaven-world. The whole sphere
belongs to the state of consciousness denominated thought, or mental activity,
and its matter answers to the changes in consciousness that are caused by
thinking; it seven subdivisions, though so much finer, again correspond to
those of the physical and astral worlds.
And the mental
world is, like the physical, divided into two, a lower and an upper, the former
consisting of the four denser subdivisions and the latter of the three subtler;
two bodies belong to it: the mental, composed of combinations of the denser,
and the causal, composed of those of the finer. This world is of peculiar
interest, not only because Man spends here nearly all his time, after the
mind is fairly developed, only dipping down into the physical world for brief
snatches of mortal life as a bird dives into the sea after a fish, but because
it is the meeting place of the higher and the lower consiousnesses.
The immortal
Individuality, descending from above –after the Monad has formed the Spirit by
sending out his ray –waits in high heaven, while the lower bodies are being
formed round atoms attached to him, brooding over then through long ages of
slow evolution; when they are sufficiently evolved, he flashes down and takes
possession of them, to use them for his own evolution. The habitat of the
Spirit as Intellect –of him “whose nature is knowledge” –is the causal world,
the three higher levels of the mental sphere; these give him his body, the
causal, the body which remains, ever evolving, throughout his long series of
incarnations in denser matter. This world and body are so named because all the
causes, the effects of which are seen in the lower worlds, reside in them. The
causal body begins, with the above-named flashing down, as a mere film of
matter, egg-shaped, like a shell round the lower bodies, formed within it, as
the chick in the egg.
The delicate
network radiates from the permanent atom of the causal body to all parts of
this egg-like film, the atom glowing like a brilliant nucleus; with it are
associated the permanent atoms of the physical and astral bodies and the
permanent molecule-unit of the mental.
During life, it
encloses the whole bodies, and at the death of each it preserves this permanent
germ of each, with all the vibratory powers enshrined within it, the “seed of
life” for each successive body. For ages it is little more than this subtle
network and surface, for it can only grow by the higher human activities, by
such as arouse in its subtle matter a faint vibratory response; as the
personality grows more thoughtful, more unselfish, more engaged in right
activities, its harvest for its owner grows richer and richer.
The
personalities are like the leaves put forth by a tree; they draw in material
from outside, transform it into useful substances, send it down the tree as
crude sap, drop off and wither; the sap is changed into tree-food, and
nourishes the tree, which sends out new leaves, to repeat the same cycle.
The
consciousness, in the mental, astral, and physical bodies, gathers experience;
casting off the physical and astral bodies as dead leaves, it transmutes these
experiences into qualities in the mental body, during its heavenly life; it is
in drawn into the causal body with its harvest, casting away the mental body,
like the others, and is blended with the Spirit, who puts it forth, enriching
him with its harvest; it has served the Spirit as a hand, put forth to take
food.
The enriched
Spirit, the Man, forms round the old permanent atoms, another mental and astral
body, capable of manifesting his enhanced qualities; the physical permanent
atom is planted through the father in the body of the mother who is to provide
the physical body required by the changeless law of cause and effect, and these
three lower bodies are nourished and coloured by her
corresponding bodies; the new personality is thus launched into the mortal
world.
While Intellect
has, as its vehicle, the causal body, its copy in denser matter, the Mind, has
the mental body as its instrument; the one has abstract thinking as its
activity, the other concrete. The Mind acquires knowledge by utilising the sense for observations, its precepts, and by
working on these and building them into concepts ; its powers are attention,
memory, reasoning by induction and deduction, imagination, and the like.
The Intellect knows,
by the assonance of the outside world with its own nature, and its power is
Creation, the arrangement of matter into bodies for its own natural products,
Ideas. When it sends a flash into the lower Mind, illuminating its concepts and
inspiring its imagination, we call the flash Genius.
Both the causal
and mental bodies expand enormously in the later stages of evolution, and
manifest the most gorgeous radiance of many-coloured
lights, glowing with intense splendour when
comparatively at rest, and sending forth the most dazzling coruscations when in
high activity. Both interpenetrate the lower bodies and extend beyond their
surface, as has already been stated with regard to the etheric double and the
astral body. The parts of all these bodies of finer matter which are outside
the dense physical body form collectively the “aura” of the human being,
the luminous coloured cloud surrounding his dense
body.
The etheric
portion of the aura can be seen by Dr. Kilner’s
[note-the reader is advised to refer to the table]—apparatus; an ordinary
clairvoyant usually sees this and the astral portion; a clairvoyant more highly
developed sees the etheric, astral, and mental portions. Few are able to see
the portion consisting of the causal body, and fewer still the rare beauty of
the intuitional, and the dazzling light of the spiritual vehicles.
The clarity and
delicacy, and brilliance of the auric colours, or
their opacity, coarseness, and dullness, show the general stage of advancement
of the owner. Changes of emotion suffuse the astral portion with transitory
colours, as with the rose of love, the blue of devotion, the grey of fear, the
brown of brutality, the sickly green of jealousy. The pure yellow of intelligence,
the orange of pride, the brilliant green of mental sympathy and alertness, are
equally familiar. Striations, bands, streaks, flashes, etc., give a
multiplicity of forms for study, all expressive of certain qualities in the
mental and moral character. The child’s aura, again, differs much from that of
the adult. But we must pass on, as space is limited.
The Mind,
working in the mental body, produces results –thoughts –in the astral and
physical bodies, in the latter by using as its instrument the cerebrospinal
system. In its own world it sends out definite “thought-forms”, thoughts
embodied in mental matter, which go forth into the mental world and may
incorporate themselves in other mental bodies; its own vibrations, also, send
out undulations in all directions, that cause similar vibrations in others.
Comparatively few people, at the present stage of evolution, can function
freely in the mental world, clothed only in the higher and the mental bodies,
separated from the physical and astral.
But those who
can do so can tell about its phenomena –an important matter, since heaven --[
Called in the older Theosophical books—Devachan, or Sukhävati]
-----is part of the mental world, guarded from all unpleasant intrusions. The
inhabitants of the world are the higher ranks of the nature-spirits, called in
the East, Devas, or Shining Ones, and by the
Christians, Hebrews, and Muslims , --Angels the lowest Order of angelic
Intelligences. They are glowing forms with changing shades of exquisite
colours, whose language is colour, whose motion is melody.
THE HEAVEN
WORLD
The heaven
portion of the mental world is filled with discarnate human beings, who work
out into mental and moral powers the good experiences they have garnered in
their earthly lives.
Here the religious
devotee is seen, rapt in adoring contemplation of the Divine Form he loved on
earth, for God reveals Himself in any form dear to the human heart; here the
musician fills the air with melodious sounds, cultivating his capacity into
higher power; here all that love are in close touch with their beloved, and
love gains new strength and depth by fullest expression; here the artists of
form and colour work out splendid conceptions in plastic material, responsive
to their thought; here philanthropists shape great schemes for human helping,
architects of plans to be wrought out when they return to earth.
Every high
activity followed on earth, every noble thought and aspiration, here grow into
flowers, flowers which contain within themselves the seeds which shall later be
sown on earth. Knowing this, men may in this world prepare the seeds of
experience which shall flower in heaven.
The cultivation
of every literary and artistic faculty, of patient and steadfast love, of
unselfish service to man, of devotion to God, make full and rich and fruitful
heaven. Those who sow sparingly reap sparingly; while everyone’s cup of
happiness will be filled to overflowing, we make our cups large or small here.
The length of our heaven depends on the materials we can carry through death,
and these materials are good thoughts and pure emotions. It may stretch to
fifteen hundred or two thousand years; it may be but a few centuries; in the
very little developed even less.
When the whole
of the experience has been worked up into faculty, the Man casts off his mental
body, and is then truly himself, living in the causal and the two higher
bodies. If highly developed, he may live awhile in the higher levels of the
mental worlds; generally his stay there is very brief, only sufficient to
allow him to see his whole past and to glance over his coming life, and he
quickly begins to put himself down again, driven by hunger for more experience.
The germs of the developed mental faculties are planted in mental matter, to
form a new mental body; those of the developed emotional and moral faculties in
astral matter, to form a new astral body, and these are the “innate faculties”,
the “character”, which the child brings with him into the world.
THE HIGHER
SPHERES
The two higher
spheres, the intuitional, in which the Christ-nature unfolds in Man, and the
spiritual, cannot be here fully described. The Intuition, the clear insight
into the nature of things –that sees the one Self in all and destroys the sense
of separateness –is the faculty of the Wisdom-nature, the supreme spiritual vision,
for which :Nature has no veil in all her kingdoms”. The spiritual sphere, in
which the unity of the human will, with the divine, is realised,
is the last and highest in the at present manifested system –the monadic and
the divine spheres being, as yet, unmanifested.
The wheel of
normal human evolution revolves in the three worlds –the physical, the
intermediate, and the heavenly ; in the first we gather experience; in the
second we suffer and enjoy according to our life in the first; in the third, we
enjoy unalloyed happiness, and transmute experience into faculty, past
suffering into power. These we bring back, and thus we grow and evolve, age
after age.
Each stage of
this æonian evolution may be studied by quickening
the unfolding of the consciousness, and the growth of the bodies belonging to
the different worlds. No statement made in this Section need be taken on trust
–save that about the Monad –but the study which enables verification to be
fully made is as arduous as that of the highest mathematics or astronomy. A
slight development beyond the normal will, however, enable etheric and astral
facts to be examined , and such experience may encourage the student to pursue
the further task.
RELIGIOUS
CEREMONIES AND RITES
A great service
rendered by Theosophy as Science to the various religions is the explanation it
offers of their several ceremonies and rites. These were originally planned out
by great Occultists in order to convey to the devoted and the good the
influences of the higher spheres. A “sacrament” is well defined in the
Catechism of the Church of England as “the outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual grace”, and it is not only a sign that the grace is
present, but a means whereby it may be conveyed to the worshipper. By the old
rules there must be for a sacrament an outer physical Object, a Sign of Power,
and a Word of Power, and there must also be an Officiant
duly qualified according to the laws of religion.
Thus in
Christian Baptism, Water is the physical Object, the Sign of Power is the
Cross, the Word of Power is the baptismal formula: “I baptise
thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”; the Officiant is the duly ordained minister. The inward
spiritual grace is the blessing poured out on the child by the surrounding
Angels, his admission to the community of Christians in this and other worlds,
and the welcome extended to him by the invisible and visible Christian Church.
In the Holy Communion the same principle is followed, and any clairvoyant,
watching the ceremony, will see a blazing out of light, following the words of
consecration, the light flashing out through the church and bathing the
worshipper, and being appropriated and drawn in by the really devoted; it is
because of the tradition of this “real Presence” that the Host is preserved in
Roman Catholic churches, and from it, as a matter of fact, radiates a constant
blessing.
Ceremonies
performed to help those who have passed on, the so-called “dead” are all based
on a knowledge of the facts of the intermediate world, though the persons who
take part in them today know very little of their real bearing on the one whom
they are done. The daily prayer and meditation, incumbent on every pious Hindū, are intended to draw down and spread abroad
gracious spiritual influences, attracting the Devas
–“the ministry of Angels” –to shed their blessings on the neighbourhood,
on its human, animal, and vegetable lives.
All these things
are looked upon as “superstitions” by the ordinary, modern man of the world.
Yet, since the visible world is interpenetrated and surrounded by the
invisible, it is not irrational that the influence of the latter should play on
the former. It was regarded as a superstition at the close of the eighteenth
century to believe that there was a force which made frog’s legs move when
hanging on a wire; Galvani was much laughed at for
watching them dance as they waited the frying pan, and was called “the frogs’
dancing master”. None the less has the galvanic current linked continents
together. Many a “superstition” points the way to the discovery of forces
unknown to the ordinary man. The wise will observe and investigate, and will
study before they reject.
Section II
Morality has
been well defined as “the science of harmonious relations” [Sanätana
Dharma Textbook, Part III, : Ethics.]—between all living things. Moral laws
are as much laws of Nature as are any laws affecting physical phenomena, are to
be sought in the same laborious way, and established by the same methods. As
physical hygiene was laid down by ancient legislators as part of religion, [ As
in the laws of Manu and of Moses], so did they lay down moral hygiene; both have
been accepted as part of “revelation” by their followers, but both are based on
the facts of Nature known to these highly developed men, though not to their
people.
THE
LIFE-SIDE –MORALITY
We have seen
that the teaching of one omnipresent Life is part of Theosophy; on this
Morality is based. To injure another is to injure yourself, for each is part of
a single whole. The body as a whole is poisoned, if poison be introduced into
any part of it, and all living things are harmed by harm which is done to one.
This one Life expresses itself in everything by seeking for happiness;
everywhere and always, without exception, Life seeks happiness; and no
suffering is ever voluntarily borne except as a road to a deeper and more
lasting joy.
None seeks
aimless suffering, for the mere sake of suffering; it is endured only as a
means to an end. All religions recognise God as
infinite Bliss, and union with God, i.e.., with perfect Bliss, is sought by all
of them. Man’s nature, since he is divine, is also fundamentally blissful, and
he therefore accepts all happiness as natural, and its coming to him is taken
as needing no justification; he never asks: “Why do I enjoy?” But his nature
revolts against pain as unnatural, and as needing justification, and he
instinctively demands: “Why do I suffer?” Deep unalloyed, enduring Bliss is the
goal of life; the perfect satisfaction of every part of the being. The fleeting
will-o'’-the-wisp of earthly pleasure is often mistaken for the glow of the Sun
of Bliss, and then man suffers –and learns.
“For
God has a plan, and that plan is evolution. [ At
The Feet of the Master, by J. Krishnamurti [Alcyone]
p. 7] If the part sets itself against the whole, it must
suffer, and all the sufferings of men are due to their ignorance of their own
nature, and to disregard, also due to ignorance, of the laws of Nature in the
midst of which they live.
RIGHT AND WRONG
If
evolution is God’s plan, then we can gain a definite criterion of Right and
Wrong. The Scientist will say: That which helps forward evolution is
Right; that which hinders it is Wrong. The religionist will say: That which is
according to the divine Will is right; that which is against it is Wrong. Both
are expressing exactly the same idea, for the divine Will is evolution.
By
studying evolution we find that its first half has been developing an ever
greater and greater separation –the aim has been the production of the
Individual; we find that now, beginning the second half, we are moving towards
the integration of individuals into a Unity. The Hindūs
call these processes the Path of Forthgoing and the Path of Return, and there
are no more expressive names. Man’s deepest instincts, showing themselves in
the foremost of his race –and instinct is the Voice of Life –are now seeking
for Brotherhood, beyond which lies Unity, the building of many parts into a
perfect whole. Hence all that makes for unity is Right; all that makes against
it is Wrong.
EMOTIONS AND VIRTUES
The next
step is that Happiness is essentially a feeling; it is due to a sense of
the increase of life in us; we are happy when our life expands, when it becomes
more; we suffer when our life diminishes, when it becomes less.
[
On the whole of this subject there is no better book than The Science of the
Emotions, by Bhagavän Däs,
a well known Theosophical writer.]
Love
brings about union, and thus moreness; hate causes
separation, and hence lessness. We have here the two
Root Emotions, Love and Hate, both expressions of Desire –the manifestation of
the aspect of Will –which is seen throughout the worlds as Attraction and
Repulsion, the Builder and the destroyer of universes, systems, and worlds, as
well as of states, families and individuals. Out of these two Root Emotions
spring all the Virtues and Vices; every Virtue is an expression of Love, universalised, and established by right reason as a
permanent mode of consciousness; every Vice is an expression of Hate, universalised, and established by wrong reason as a
permanent mode of consciousness; “right” and “wrong” have already been defined.
This
will at once be understood by an illustration drawn from the family, and we may
premise that each of us, in Society as in the family, is surrounded by three,
and only three classes –his superiors, his equals, his inferiors, with each of
which he has relations. In a happy family, Love unites all the members; Love,
looking upwards to the heads of the household, is the emotion of reverence;
Love, looking round the circle of brothers and sisters, is the emotion of
affection; Love looking downwards on the group of dependants, is the emotion of
beneficence.
These
emotions spring up spontaneously in the “good” family, the family where “right”
feeling rules, and “love” is the fulfilling of the law”. Where Love rules, laws
are not needed. Outside the family, when men enter into relations with the
general public, the attitude taken spontaneously in the family by Love must be
reproduced outside deliberately , by Virtue. Looking upwards –as to God, the
King the Aged –the emotion of Love as reverence becomes the Virtues of
Reverence.
Obedience,
Loyalty, Respect, and the like, all fixed attitudes of mind, or permanent modes
of consciousness, towards the persons, whoever they may be, who are recognised as superiors, spiritually, intellectually,
morally, socially, physically. Looking around on our equals, the emotion of
Love as affection becomes the Virtues of Honour, Courtesy, Fairness,
Friendliness, Helpfulness and the like, fixed attitudes of mind towards all, as
before. To our inferiors, the emotion of Love as beneficence becomes the
Virtues of Protection, Kindness, Courtesy, Readiness to assist, to share with,
and the like. The principle once grasped, the student can work out its myriad
applications; Hate, with its three main divisions of fear, Pride, and Scorn,
may be similarly treated.
Every
human being, living in Society, is related inevitably, by the mere fact of his
being there, to all around him, and this makes him the centre of a web of
obligations and duties, to give each related person his due is to be a “good”
man, and a source of social unity; to refuse to any his due is to be a “bad”
man, and a source of social disunity. Hence to know Duty and to do it is
goodness; to know it intuitively and to do it spontaneously is perfection.
While
Life showing itself emotionally is Love, seen intellectually it is Truth. For
lack of understanding this, controversies have arisen as to whether Love or
truth should be the foundation of Morality. But they one essentially, as Life
is one. Bhisma, a Master of Duty, said that
virtues are “forms of Truth” and that is indubitably so; Truth is the very
basis of intellectual character, as is Love of moral character; as Love demands
the presence of others for its expression while Truth does not, it naturally
rules the science of our harmonious relations with others, and thus flowers
into virtues. “God is Love”, says the Christian; “Brahman is Truth” says the Hindū. Both speak the fact; seen from below, Love and
Truth may look different; seen from above, they are one.
THE RATIONALE OF MORAL PRECEPTS
The great
Teachers of humanity have formulated certain universal ethical precepts, such
as: “T do good to another is right; to injure another is wrong”. “Do to others
as you would that they should do to you; do not do to others as you would not
that they should do to you”. “Love one another”. “What doth the Lord thy God
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?”[A large number of extracts from the Scriptures of great religions may
be found in the Universal Textbook of Religion and Morals, Part II.] All
moral teachings inspired by this spirit are parts of the Divine Wisdom, of
Theosophy. They need no justification to the mind, for they obviously tend to
promote happiness.
But
much light is thrown on the rationale of less obvious precepts by Theosophy;
thus to return good for evil is not, at first glance, reasonable. “How then
will you recompense good?” asked Confucius. But it is right. We have seen
that changes in consciousness are accompanied by vibrations of matter, and that
such vibrations are sympathetically reproduced by neighbouring
bodies. If a man is feeling angry, or depressed, or revengeful, his astral body
will vibrate in assonance with his mood. The astral body of anyone coming near
him will be impinged on by these vibrations, and will begin to vibrate in
unison with them, these vibrations then producing in the second person a
feeling of anger, or depression, or revenge, as the case may be. He will thus
strengthen the vibrations produced in his astral body and will return them
reinforced, strengthening those of the first, and this fatal interchange will
go on, increasing in evil.
But if
the second person, understanding the law, grips his astral body with his will,
prevents it from reproducing the vibrations which strike on it, and imposes on
it a contrary set of vibrations, those which accompany a feeling of gentleness,
cheerfulness, or forgiveness, he will quiet down the vibrations caused by the
evil emotion, and presently change them to their opposite. Therefore the Lord
Buddha taught: “Hatred ceaseth not by hatred at any
time; hatred ceaseth by love”. This is a certain as
that a red ray of light will quench a green ray, and leave stillness –absence
of light vibrations. It is a law of Nature, and one that can readily be
verified by experiment. To follow this law is to substitute a harmonious
relation for an inharmonious, i.e.., to be moral.
Theosophy
asserts as an code the universal precepts of the great Teachers, and studies
their rationale scientifically, as above, and historically, in their effects,
on human evolution and human happiness. It sees their verification in the
disasters that follow the neglect of these precepts, as much as in the security
and comfort which follow their observance, even though that observance has
never been more than partial, expect in the example set by the great Teachers
Themselves. Its morality is therefore eclectic; in the garden of the world it
culls the fairest and most fragrant flowers, planted by the great Teachers, and
binding these into one exquisite bouquet, it names it “Theosophy as Morality”.
IDEALS
In
order to inspire moral conduct in Theosophists, it points to the great Teachers
as Examples, and inculcates the forming of a moral Ideal and the practice of
meditation thereon. An ideal is a synthesis of true fixed ideas, intended to be
an object of attentive and sustained thought, and thus to influence conduct. By
the laws of thought –to be treated in Section III –the effect of such thought
is to transform the thinker into the likeness of his ideal, and thus to build
up a noble character. Along this line of moral evolution Theosophists seek to
guide all aspirants, trusting “not to the law of a carnal commandment, but to
the power of an endless life”. We fix our gaze on the World-Teachers, and seek
so to live that some ray of Their moral splendour may
take embodiment in us, and that
we also may, in our humble measure, lighten the darkness of the world.
THE FORM-SIDE –ART
In the older
world the Beautiful was placed on a level with the Good and true, and the cult
of Beauty made fair the common lives of men. Pythagoras spoke of the Arts as
making “the difference between the barbarian and the man”, and Art and pure
Literature are the means of culture; they polish the stone, after Science and
Philosophy have hewn the rough product from the quarry into shape. Further East
than Greece, Beauty held a similar place in civilisation,
as it did also in Egypt and in the great Atlantean civilisations
in the Americas.
In fact
no civilisation that the world has ever known, until
that of the nineteenth century, has set the Beautiful aside as a luxury for the
wealthy, instead of spreading it far and wide over the whole mass of the
population as one of the ordinary necessities for decent human life. In nearly
every European country the arts and crafts of the peasantry are almost killed
out; their old dress, suitable and comely, is being disused, and replaced by
miserable copies of grotesque fashions set in Paris and London.
The
result is that the manual labouring class has been
entirely vulgarised, has lost its inborn sense of
beauty –to which its crafts taken up for pastime in leisure hours in the past
so eloquently testify –and , in the losing, has become piteously coarse and
ill-mannered. The spread of civilised ugliness is
threatening the Beauty which still remains to the world in the common life of
the further East, and the destructive change may be summed up in a single fact,
that the disused kerosene oil-tin is taking the place of the admirably wrought
brass or clay vessel for bringing water from the well to the house.
When
the village girl, who now carries this tin atrocity on her head, drops her
graceful säri with its exquisite vegetable dye, and
puts on the ugly aniline-dyed skirt and blouse of the West, she will have
completed her own vulgarisation, and the triumph of
western civilisation.
BEAUTY AS THE LAW OF
MANIFESTATION
From
the standpoint of Theosophy, the sense of the Beautiful is a priceless part of
the emotional nature, and is to it what Truth is to the Intellect and Goodness
to the Intuition. It sees Beauty as the Law of Manifestation, to which all
objects conform. Ugliness is against Nature, unnatural, intolerable. Nature is
ever striving to hide it away in order to transform it. She covers all that is
ugly with her wealth of Beauty ; over a disused slag-heap she trails her
creepers; a broken wall she festoons with her honeysuckle vines, and tosses
over it a wreath of pink-faced roses; she plants the wayside ditch with
fragrant violets, and draws a sheet of anemones and wild hyacinths over the
neglected spaces of the woods. With her myriad voices she preaches that Beauty
is the essential condition of divine, and therefore of all perfect work.
Religion has ever been the foster-mother of art; the Egyptian faith gave Philæ to the world; [Modern civilisation has drowned it.]; Hinduism gave the mighty fanes of Madura and Chidambaran; Greece gave the Parthenon and many another gem; Islam gave the Alhambra, the Pearl Mosque, and the Täj Mahal; Christianity the noble Gothic cathedrals –to say nothing of the music, painting, sculpture, oratory, that have glorified the